I know I promised a blog on content versus style - but it is very complex, and only in the first draft. So as I render out some video to ,mp4 (making the cores hit 95% and the fan scream, I thought I'd comment. About 15 years ago, I got into "Video" editing - a MAC clone (Ahhhh, Power Computing), a Miro DC 20 card and a 9 Gig hard drive. The 9 gig hard drive cost over $900 dollars. Now I see a Terabyte hard drive for $40 bucks, I'm not even interested, it's USB 2, too slow for my purposes (back up), but the reality is insane at how cheap storage has become. How much storage we need, I have some 500 gig drives that are just annoying because everything is spread over so many drives, it is inconvenient. I've got Gigabit, I want a NAS raid, that will go to sleep and spin down the drives when not in use.
On a side note, I've boxes and boxes of OCN (16mm and 35mm) and no place to store them - Not really sure I want to get rid of them, but I can't afford to transfer them either.
One Terabyte for $40, I can't wrap my head around it.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Friday, April 8, 2011
So there it is
I'm just convinced that I'm on the low end of the business. I mean the business is huge. Ranging from someone shooting M.O.S. - Translated that is Man on Street for those of us who came up through film, and not video - to the Ultra High budget shoots. Now, I've put in the time, and spent the years, and the effort, and yet, why is it that I am on the low end. Lack of talent, lack of vision perhaps? No it is a cautionary tale, that has taken years to unravel.
I was young once, and burned myself through and through. Productions that had no budget, I brought everything, and worked hard. So hard, I would lose ten pounds in a day. I hear tell Bruce Springsteen loses ten pounds during a concert, well he doesn't stop to eat two meals. So with all that, it becomes the norm to accept less from production, which is silly. You don't think it is a compromise, because you end up working harder, but that is where the compromise is. Now not every shoot needs a full crew, a 5 ton grip truck, etc. etc. but it takes a commitment to not compromise - to turn compromise into collaboration.
Case in point, last year I came on board a short film, very late, the other D.P. had left for - well I don't know - anyway We shoot on Saturday, and our production meeting is Tuesday, looking at the locations I had enough. The shoot takes me away from my wife and family, and although the kids - who are wonderful and amazing - are a bundle of joy, man oh man are they work. It isn't right to abandon my wife with them, and if I have to give up time away from my family, I really have to enjoy my work. Well, I look the director, who is self financing the shoot, and say - if we are shooting here, that room needs to be painted. There is no way with the limited crew and gear we have that we can make that room work. I can't paint it, you need an art director, which he had not realized he needed to hire.
Now it is Wednesday, and time for the next production meeting. There is an Art Director - Not the one I recommended, but a young and hungry art director, who got it. Need I mention the images were good - I'm never really satisfied with my work - but it made all the difference. SO instead of hating the project, I ended up enjoying it, and not killing myself, and in the end it was better.
The director in this project was green, but the producer he hired and I, guided him through. I give much credit to the producer - Claudine - for her part, I think she'd be great to work with again. The Director and I are already planning our next collaboration - he's moving on from shorts to feature length films and I agree with him.
Still I've got to wonder why it is that this seems to be such a secret to producers who really ought to KNOW better. They've produced decent shoots, but take on smaller projects and just give up and accept getting less than what is necessary. Yeah sure it happens sometimes, budget issues, location, etc. You can tell, and see it on the screen. Accepting what is acceptable because you can see it on a monitor. Amazing, but the images, the end product fall short. Why, because it's the cost. It's get it done for the least possible, for what it can get "done" for not spend what has to be spent - money or effort. There is a company that I don't want to work for anymore, because it has become to frustrating and it affects my working relationship with the director. Which of course will bring me back to the respect for the medium. There is only so much intention I can bring to a project. If a PA is lacking in intention, that hurts, but it is far easier to overcome than if the Producer is lacking. With no crew, and no time, equipment is useless. When the higher ups lose the respect for the project because it is small, or their is no budget, or the distribution is for the web, then the entire project suffers.
Now I don't want you to think that I'm only about image - so next blog post - Content versus image, and they really are the same thing.
I was young once, and burned myself through and through. Productions that had no budget, I brought everything, and worked hard. So hard, I would lose ten pounds in a day. I hear tell Bruce Springsteen loses ten pounds during a concert, well he doesn't stop to eat two meals. So with all that, it becomes the norm to accept less from production, which is silly. You don't think it is a compromise, because you end up working harder, but that is where the compromise is. Now not every shoot needs a full crew, a 5 ton grip truck, etc. etc. but it takes a commitment to not compromise - to turn compromise into collaboration.
Case in point, last year I came on board a short film, very late, the other D.P. had left for - well I don't know - anyway We shoot on Saturday, and our production meeting is Tuesday, looking at the locations I had enough. The shoot takes me away from my wife and family, and although the kids - who are wonderful and amazing - are a bundle of joy, man oh man are they work. It isn't right to abandon my wife with them, and if I have to give up time away from my family, I really have to enjoy my work. Well, I look the director, who is self financing the shoot, and say - if we are shooting here, that room needs to be painted. There is no way with the limited crew and gear we have that we can make that room work. I can't paint it, you need an art director, which he had not realized he needed to hire.
Now it is Wednesday, and time for the next production meeting. There is an Art Director - Not the one I recommended, but a young and hungry art director, who got it. Need I mention the images were good - I'm never really satisfied with my work - but it made all the difference. SO instead of hating the project, I ended up enjoying it, and not killing myself, and in the end it was better.
The director in this project was green, but the producer he hired and I, guided him through. I give much credit to the producer - Claudine - for her part, I think she'd be great to work with again. The Director and I are already planning our next collaboration - he's moving on from shorts to feature length films and I agree with him.
Still I've got to wonder why it is that this seems to be such a secret to producers who really ought to KNOW better. They've produced decent shoots, but take on smaller projects and just give up and accept getting less than what is necessary. Yeah sure it happens sometimes, budget issues, location, etc. You can tell, and see it on the screen. Accepting what is acceptable because you can see it on a monitor. Amazing, but the images, the end product fall short. Why, because it's the cost. It's get it done for the least possible, for what it can get "done" for not spend what has to be spent - money or effort. There is a company that I don't want to work for anymore, because it has become to frustrating and it affects my working relationship with the director. Which of course will bring me back to the respect for the medium. There is only so much intention I can bring to a project. If a PA is lacking in intention, that hurts, but it is far easier to overcome than if the Producer is lacking. With no crew, and no time, equipment is useless. When the higher ups lose the respect for the project because it is small, or their is no budget, or the distribution is for the web, then the entire project suffers.
Now I don't want you to think that I'm only about image - so next blog post - Content versus image, and they really are the same thing.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Its Cinema - not Realism.
We aren't going to movies for realism, we go to escape, to travel to new worlds, or see this one differently, but to create the "Cinema Reality" the filmmaker is asking the audience to join, it is a tough line to tread. The more outrageous the world in which the audience is being asked to join, the more it mus follow the rules that we know. So it becomes much more difficult when creating a "Reality of Cinema" when dealing with the world we all know and experience, and are only asking the audience to make a small jump. I can accept ghosts, although I've never seen one, but the rest of the film that isn't "ghostly" has to be consistent with the real world I know, or I just won't accept this "Cinema Reality"
So I'm getting into horror films, hey I'm working on the screenplay for one, and I'm noticing a few things as I watch them on Netflix on demand. Many Many Many of them aren't good (suck is actually the word I was going to use.) Some aren't bad, but they fail for various reasons.
Seance - watched it, and problem, problem, problem. Really it looked like some film school students had a set for a few weeks. It was completely lacking in "realism." I'm not a fan of "realism" in the Cinema - but this wasn't an attempt at realism, it was just immature inexperienced filmmaking. Now if it was a bunch of neo, my hat is off to them. The script needed more work, editing was not innovative, and shot selection to heighten drama, emotion, or to add the necessary info to convey the story wasn't there. The lighting, the art direction - not even close. Some things to note - if your film is set in a building with 20 stories or more and the hallways have concrete floors - then all the rooms have concrete floors, and there is no way that a little kid who died would be able to put a cookie tin filled with under a linoleum floor in the bathroom. Unless the little kid got a jackhammer out and dug out some cement, then laid linoleum back over it - let me tell you, if you have a spec of dust under linoleum, it will bubble and you will get a hole in about a month. Plus when our heroin cuts through the linoleum, there is a light shinning on the cookie tin. So okay, it isn't realistic, but the thing is - as a filmmaker, you and your team have to create a reality - it is like a dream you are crafting and asking others to join in. But it has to be established and consistent within itself and what people know - because people watching your film aren't asleep - or at least you hope not. It is like Fellini said in the making of "Satyricon" when the characters pull a dead cow from the water and the cow twitches. The doctor that anesthetized the cow said in real life dead cows twitch and Fellini says "It's a movie - if the cow twitches it's alive" or something like that. You are creating a sharable dream - Cinema not Realism. It must contain the building blocks of reality, it must look "real" while being fake. When the realism - or the fact that what is being represented as real intrudes as fake, the audience is lost.
We all see it, we all know when it happens, and we are snapped out of the reverie of our shared dream. Even "Bicycle Thief" created it's own cinematic feel and sense of realism (watching a black and white film helps here.)
So down this road think of "Death of a Ghost Hunter." Not a bad idea, but then we bring in a -video cameraman- to document the paranormal examination. Now this was handled really badly, because we are watching the movie 10 minutes before the video guy makes an appearance, and when he does, it was without his camera, and the "ghost hunter" continues her endless self dictation, but m instant question was - to whom exactly is she rambling? It isn't voice over, it is the character talking to herself, as if to someone else. SO does she have her own personal cameraman that no one is paying attention to? It breaks the cinema - and does it really badly. It's a style, the camera persons point of view, and it works, but it works when it is consistent within its own rules. Failing to establish rules, a clear understanding of how the film will be shot and presented ends up with a mishmash of techniques that miss the mark and don't stimulate, or move your audience. You can break the rules, of course, but first you have to establish them.
It's a craft, it takes time, and attention, and some innately do it better than others. That's a gift, or their talent.
So I'm getting into horror films, hey I'm working on the screenplay for one, and I'm noticing a few things as I watch them on Netflix on demand. Many Many Many of them aren't good (suck is actually the word I was going to use.) Some aren't bad, but they fail for various reasons.
Seance - watched it, and problem, problem, problem. Really it looked like some film school students had a set for a few weeks. It was completely lacking in "realism." I'm not a fan of "realism" in the Cinema - but this wasn't an attempt at realism, it was just immature inexperienced filmmaking. Now if it was a bunch of neo, my hat is off to them. The script needed more work, editing was not innovative, and shot selection to heighten drama, emotion, or to add the necessary info to convey the story wasn't there. The lighting, the art direction - not even close. Some things to note - if your film is set in a building with 20 stories or more and the hallways have concrete floors - then all the rooms have concrete floors, and there is no way that a little kid who died would be able to put a cookie tin filled with under a linoleum floor in the bathroom. Unless the little kid got a jackhammer out and dug out some cement, then laid linoleum back over it - let me tell you, if you have a spec of dust under linoleum, it will bubble and you will get a hole in about a month. Plus when our heroin cuts through the linoleum, there is a light shinning on the cookie tin. So okay, it isn't realistic, but the thing is - as a filmmaker, you and your team have to create a reality - it is like a dream you are crafting and asking others to join in. But it has to be established and consistent within itself and what people know - because people watching your film aren't asleep - or at least you hope not. It is like Fellini said in the making of "Satyricon" when the characters pull a dead cow from the water and the cow twitches. The doctor that anesthetized the cow said in real life dead cows twitch and Fellini says "It's a movie - if the cow twitches it's alive" or something like that. You are creating a sharable dream - Cinema not Realism. It must contain the building blocks of reality, it must look "real" while being fake. When the realism - or the fact that what is being represented as real intrudes as fake, the audience is lost.
We all see it, we all know when it happens, and we are snapped out of the reverie of our shared dream. Even "Bicycle Thief" created it's own cinematic feel and sense of realism (watching a black and white film helps here.)
So down this road think of "Death of a Ghost Hunter." Not a bad idea, but then we bring in a -video cameraman- to document the paranormal examination. Now this was handled really badly, because we are watching the movie 10 minutes before the video guy makes an appearance, and when he does, it was without his camera, and the "ghost hunter" continues her endless self dictation, but m instant question was - to whom exactly is she rambling? It isn't voice over, it is the character talking to herself, as if to someone else. SO does she have her own personal cameraman that no one is paying attention to? It breaks the cinema - and does it really badly. It's a style, the camera persons point of view, and it works, but it works when it is consistent within its own rules. Failing to establish rules, a clear understanding of how the film will be shot and presented ends up with a mishmash of techniques that miss the mark and don't stimulate, or move your audience. You can break the rules, of course, but first you have to establish them.
It's a craft, it takes time, and attention, and some innately do it better than others. That's a gift, or their talent.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Welcome to the New
Lets get into it. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Plain and simple. Do you remember a time when a producer ACTUALLY produced a shoot? I do. Your shooting film, so it has an inherent cost, discipline, responsibility. The stock costs, and has to be handled, dropped off at the lab, developed, transferred (or G-d forbid work printed.) So you have to keep hiring people (and paying them) to protect your investment in the media itself.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)