From The Heart

Since AnimiVirtus literally means courage of the heart in latin, and since it’s stuck with me so deeply for a few years now, things that follow along that line of demonstrating real human emotion and courage of the heart always stand out to me. So, naturally, when I first found this video of Craig Ferguson on YouTube almost a year ago now, I began to think of adding one more person so my little list of heroes. Starting just this February, I’ve begun to watch almost every single one of this Late Late Show episodes, every weeknight, fom 12:30 to 1:30 AM, no matter the next day’s occurence. (I was sick for a weekend recently, so sadly I missed out on a few episodes, but I think that’s justified).

Today I was thinking about keeping up the blog here and happened to be glancing at my YouTube login page when I noticed they’d updated the whole front page after you log in. It’s absolutely full of recommendations and what is essentially Google’s trademark of “smart suggestions,” or stuff they think you’ll like based on your previous use of the site you’re currently viewing. Among them were a bunch of Craig Ferguson videos, since I like to show friends his antics while at school or wherever.

I came across this video duo of him eulogizing his father, and it struck home not only as a really deeply brave thing to do – on TV or elsewhere publicly give a lost loved one a wake – but that it’s what I think is the most important thing about a lot of the movies I love. I’m not going to list off a bunch of movies to see, though I might make a list of the Top AnimiVirtus-Themed films of the year” or something at some later date, but I just wanted to take a moment to mention how important the backbone of your film is. Pure and simply, if there’s no key element driving the thing, it’s probably not worth making.

I know a lot of the time fun is the key element, whether it’s making a movie to goof off or making a serious film to showcase your efforts and talents, but I think what is the most important is what you’re saying in the film you’re making. My friends know I loved Grindhouse and can’t get enough vampire or zombie or postapocalyptic movies with less plot than spiky mohawks and souped up cars, but really, when it comes down to it, if you’re not saying anything – if you’re not pushing through to the audience to say something important to you – then it’s just another flick.

Ferguson always speaks from the heart. He always says what he means, what he believes, and leaves it at that. But occasioanly, he goes out on a pretty serious limb – be it about some other celebrity’s issues or his own – and says something that’s really important to him, that really means something to him, and that he can stand behind and defend with strength. That’s what AnimiVirtus means to me, that’s what filmmaking means to me, and that’s what I think film and all forms of expression of ourselves are supposed to accomplish. Say something that’s important, say something you believe. Always be open to suggestion and discussion, but be who you are, and think what you believe. That’s what I think makes good films, and in the end, a good life.

From Here To Awesome

I stumbled upon this video today while surfing the Google blog, and decided it was worth showing to you guys.  It’s a great testament to the fact that indie filmmakers indeed have power, and possibility in the socially-confined world we’re living in today.  It also links to a few good videos with filmmaking tips, a video from Head Trauma and director Lance Weiler, both useful and interesting shot videos to really get your head around the fact that you have power, you can go out and make a short film and get the audience and make a splash.

The key here in my mind now, though, is that it’s a short film.  Of course the length doesn’t actually matter, if the trailer looks good enough, someone will buy it, but if it’s a short film that looks thoroughly professional, well done and generally entertaining, it’s a good step in the right direction.  The most important thing, though, is that it’s important to the filmmaker, and that they care about it and love it enough to carry it on despite the difficulties.  Personally, LATENT(CY) wasn’t that project for me.  But I’m hoping that after school ends (or even before) I’ll have scraped together some film-loving friends with enough interest and passion and drive to make another short film, and hopefully this time, we’ll be proud enough to make a campaign out of the thing.

It also occurred to me that if you’ve already got a short film made that can be shown on YouTube and other video sharing sites, then show it.  And not only that, post bulletins about it, send messages about it to all of your friends, make a website, sell DVDs, get the name out in the public’s eye because it’s your project, and it’s your responsibility to showcase your own work.  After all, if you’re not proud enough to show it off, what kind of impression does that give?  Best of luck and happy filmmaking!

A Note on Shaky Camera Work

Earlier today I got an email from StudioDaily, a pretty fascinating online industry magazine and resource website about filmmaking, visual effects and editing.  In the letter,one of the headlines was this:

Over at Film & Video, Bryant Frazer talks with director George A. Romero about his return to low-budget filmmaking with Diary of the Dead using Panasonic HDX900 and HVX200 camcorders.

So naturally I emailed that quote off to the first friend I thought of when I think of zombie movies, and he responded pretty quickly saying that he didn’t like the new “Blair Witch sort of style that’s coming back.”  That I can completely understand, so I responded with the following passage, which is the basis for this post:

I kind of like the shaky cam style that’s on the rise, it’s more viral and amateurish, and it blurs the lines between amateur films and professional ones, making it so that it doesn’t matter as much anymore to the audience if it’s a “real movie” because they can’t always tell, so it’s not worth bothering about.  If it’s good, it’s good, and it deserves praise, if it’s bad, well, they leave it alone (or flame it, the bastards).  Sometimes it’s hard to see or hard to handle (I got mildly nauseous watching Cloverfield), but I think it’s a cool way to kind of get the super-hype of paying high attention to lighting, costumes, and even set design a little bit out of the way, and letting amateurs get more into the field, simply because the cheapest way to film (handheld and shaky) is often the most real feeling, because it’s not completely stable like a statue, nor is it to the extent that Cloverfield was (though that was pretty wonderfully done).  Basically, it give me even more of a chance to go out and shoot random stuff, put it all together in some sort of cohesive, understandable and entertaining story, and then market it and get attention because it looks real, it could be real, and if it’s good, people will appreciate either the documentary-ness of it or the realistic acting and detail of the thing.  So basically I don’t put anywhere near as much effort into the preparation of the film that Hollywood does, and I can still come out with a viable film to show at festivals and gain a reputation among the biggies of the business.  So that’s why I like it.  As a style, though, you’re right, it’s hard to take sometimes.

Now, that being said, I haven’t seen the trailer for this, but I’m going to look it up and see what I can find, heh.

NOTE: You can see the trailer here.  And I actually was a little disappointed with it when I watched it.

DIY Reflector – Wear a White T-Shirt

This was quite a useful little tidbit of information that I’m sure applies to videography just as much as it does to photography.  The idea is to wear a white t-shirt and position yourself at an angle from your light source and subject, so that the light bounces off your shirt and onto the subject, giving it a softly lit look on the opposite side of the light source.  This isn’t going to be super powerful, but sometimes all you need is that extra glow.  I did the same with a little piece of tinfoil I taped to a window opposite a work light in my last shoot about a week ago.  Have any experience with DIY reflectors or any other ides for on-the-fly methods of lighting?  Yap on about them in the comments.

Fund-Raising

Again, while perusing the articles on Microfilmmaker Magazine’s website, I discovered this article on fund-raising.  It was less creative than the other articles I’d found, being more a business aspect of filmmaking than a creative one, but I think that was a little bit the point of it.  Most people I know don’t realize the fund-raising part of filmmaking even exists.  It’s very glazed over or even just avoided completely in amateur projects especially.  I watched an interview once with Bruce Campbell where he said “You’ve gotta put on your businessman’s hat for just a few minutes and work out how your business is gonna work,” basically that the investors get a certain amount of money back, if you had investors to start with.  Essentially, the point was that money is used and hopefully made at the end of a project, and what happens with that money needs to be clear from the beginning and you, as the head of your project, need to be careful to abide by those rules you set out for yourself from the get-go.  It’s a very important part of filmmaking that I’ve barely even touched.  We did have to raise quite a bit of money for LATENT(CY), the feature I directed last year, but before that I’d not fund-raised for any project I’d worked on.  It was surprising how much effort went into just raising money and how much more work was added to the whole project when we began thinking about raising money.  Not only through donations and helpful family members and stuff bringing food or offering gas money and what have you, but screenings of our older films with non-free tickets and such.  Other things to do would be things like DVD pre-sales, or other merchandise you can easily make or acquire that’s related to your film and is legal for resale (T-shirts, coffee mugs, the memorabilia stuff that’s easy to get made in bulk or make yourself).

One thing I always wonder is why Hollywood movies cost so much money.  It’s obvious that lots of it goes toward transportation costs, as well as paying the actors ridiculous amounts of money, and the directors and producers as well.  They also have tons of people working on projects from the writer(s) all the way to the marketing department, comprised of most likely more than just a few people.  I would also think that some of it goes toward locations, lots toward costuming, props and sets, if there’s much of that in the film, depending on when the film takes place and what it’s about.

The interesting thing now to me, mostly, is that when more and more effects are involved in a movie, it seems like more and more money is called for, only us low-budget guys often prefer films with digital effects (simple ones, for the most part) that can enhance the film because they’re easy, cheap and accessible.  There are tons of people these days wanting to go into visual effects, 3D animation, graphic design, and all those fields, and often, filmmakers either double as effects artists or know enough about the technology and have friends or favors owed to them by people who work in the field that it’s often either free or super cheap to get some good effects on a low-budget film.  For example, I’m a filmmaker, much more of a storyteller and writer/director type, but I’m going to visual effects college starting in February to learn the Hollywood techniques using big-budget tolls and resources for basically learning how to work in a studio right out of the program.  All of that knowledge is mainly universal, in concept form, so it’ll be easy to go home and on my much lower budget machine figure out how to do what I’d learned that day in classes on my own stuff.  Not only will I have the capability to shoot, edit and finish a film all with my own equipment, I’ll have deep, professional-level post-production visual effects background and know-how for my projects as well.  It’s an incredibly useful “double-major,” as it were, to have in this day and age where digital is becoming so much cheaper, easier and more accessible to the average Joe.

The saddest things to me, really, is the fact not that the sets get torn down at the end of every movie, but oftentimes they just get thrown away, all the pieces and equipment and stuff that’s not going to get used by the crew anymore, since the film’s done, often just gets thrown away.  That’s like taking half the budget and flushing it down the toilet!  It’s incredible!  If I ever made a big-budget movie I’d at least sell as much as possible, if not to make back the money then to at least know that the stuff wasn’t just going to waste.  It’d be a wonderful way to make back the money that was used in the making of the film, and since ebay’s here, we can pretty much sell anything we have to anybody around the world.  If you’ve got something like a candlestick that was in a movie selling for 5 bucks, somebody would take it.  The huge wastefulness of Hollywood is just one more thing about the industry today that bugs the crap out of me.  It’s so illogical, so immoral and irrational that I don’t understand how they continue to get away with it, especially with the climate, social, economical and other crises we have in the world right now.  That money, if for some incredible reason the production company decided they didn’t want it, could be used for charities, could be used to help someone else make a movie, could be sent somewhere and put to good use.  Actors don’t need to get paid millions of dollars, that’s ridiculous.  Actors in low-budget movies are often just as good and don’t even get paid a quarter that much, and they’re probably plenty happy with their jobs.  If you could cut the salaries in a film’s production in half, use it all either for other stuff for the project just to sell the idea better (make it more believable) or even just cut the budget in half that way, there would be a lot of money to go around for other things, not to mention a ton of talk about the film cutting costs way, way down and still coming out great.  Because who ever heard of a film that’s super cheap making it into the Hollywood distribution circuit?  Oh wait… Rodriguez did it and it made his career.  Oh, right.  So why doesn’t anybody else?  I would love to see someone take a real, full budget for a big-time Hollywood movie, rework it and get it as cheap as it could go without sacrificing the quality of the project, and see what the ending difference would be.  I think it would be an incredible eye-opener into the wastefulness of Hollywood, the talent and creativity that needs to be in movies (yes, even in the business aspects of them, like fund-raising), and the fact that you can make something great from nothing and still be OK by the end.  I think it would be a wonderful realization, if somebody would actually do it.

Link: http://www.microfilmmaker.com/tipstrick/Issue17/FundRai1.html

Self Distribution

It’s been quite a while since my last post and I apologize, things have gotten quite busy around here from school and work to doing my best to keep up with some smaller-scale films coming out in the video store I work at now (I will briefly recommend The Insatiable, Still Life, The Postcard Bandit, Stephanie Daley and The Big Bad Swim as good ones to start with).  I was told for my English independent study to find some articles on the school library’s site related to film and read and react to them.  However, since I wasn’t allowed access to the articles themselves for some reason, I turned to the next best thing – Microfilmmaker Magazine’s articles.  These are usually great articles filled with useful tips from people who typically use a budget of next-to-nothing for their films, and the write of this article just happens to have been on the crew for Still Life, a low-budget indie film I watched just the other night.

This article caught my eye a long time ago and has been taking up browser tab space for a while, as do lots of things I catch interest in and save for later.  This morning I sat down and read through it, though, and am very glad I did.  I’ve been trying to get into the film festival circuit with my short feature LATENT(CY).  It’s for rent at the local video store now, but I wanted an even wider audience.  I’ve sent it in to a festival and have been looking into even more, and if you know about Withoutabox then you’ll know it’s pretty easy to find festivals that will accept your project.  This article addresses not only the often misguided optimism of low-budget filmmakers when they enter festivals but the solution to such a problem: self-distribution.  There was one recommendation that was to order in bulk copies of your own film, authored with labels and cover art and packaged nicely and the whole thing being very professional, in order to sell yourself through a website or booth or whatever.  That’s handy, but it’s expensive, and right now, I can’t do expensive.  The next suggestion was to find a website like IndieFlix or CustomFlix that will help sell your DVDs at little cost to you, and both of you gets cuts of the revenue from the product.  These sound like much more solid options, since I’m not losing any money I currently have, I’m only gaining, and my films can be listen on Amazon.com.  The only catch here is promotion and advertising.  Of course, when you’re on a nothing-budget, you don’t have an advertising or marketing department and you don’t have any sales reps laying around wanting work.  However, you do have the internet, word of mouth and film festivals.  Festivals get a wide audience; being listed on Amazon and big distributors like that give that audience easy access to your film; and finally, being partnered with a company like IndieFlix or CustomFlix (though not contractually – you’re completely free to pursue other distribution deals) provides easy actual distribution of your film to your wide audience acquired through festivals.  It’s a great start-up guide for self-distribution, and even for those who’ve been having trouble getting their projects out there for a while, I’d recommend reading it.

It made me think a bit about the “new” technology of the internet and the ease of getting a name and a work out in the world for people to see.  Everything’s just so easily accessible now that it seems we’re over-cluttering the net and sites like YouTube with stuff that’s really not important.  Chick fights and nasty sports crashes get old real fast, and yet they’re probably the most widely watched videos online.  I was thinking about the ease of distribution and how simple it seems now, especially after finding these sites and ones like OurStage, to get a film out to the public.  The clutter of video on the web now prevents us from being able to sell our films, from effectively using the technology we have at our disposal for any and every use possible.

All in all, this was a very useful and interesting article about a guy who’s been around the loop for a while and found some ways to get around the problems often faced with trying to get a name out in the world.  He’s got a nice sense of humor and even though he points himself out as cynical or a “Simon Cowell of the group,” he has a very valid point.  You can’t depend on film festivals to get your name out, and you really can’t depend on those like Cannes or Sundance who once hosted Indie flicks and now invite Hollywood and huge-budget films to show at their venues to get your name out there either.  Optimism isn’t bad, is his point, it’s the placement and use of it that can be the downfall of an indie filmmaker.  Get out there and do your homework, make your product sell, and use the resources available, but be careful and active about it.  Best of luck.

Link: http://www.microfilmmaker.com/tipstrick/Issue18/selfdist.html

Complete 4K Workflow Video

Well, Studio Daily delivers again with this really cool short video about 4K, the new technology that’s been taking the place of 2K, HD’s cinematic rival.  Essentially, they say that they don’t want digital to be a compromise for filmmakers who want as crisp an image as films that were shot in the 30s on film, because we always have the capability to go softer on the film, but not sharper, unless we then compromise the image.  For me, it’s not a big deal, since I’m still a super low-budget MiniDV filmmaker in part-time college and soon to be starting at VFX school.  However, for the big-hitters and even the local theaters in your area, the emergence of 4K (ant not only that but cheap 4K workflow solutions – including projectors) means that the theater experience could very well be livened up a bit from its current state and that the quality of a cinematic, big-budget motion picture could very well build up some strength with enhanced quality of image.  The new format is still pretty much unknown to me, and I do know that I love the digital format of filmmaking, simply because when you know what you or others can do, you can make so many quick decisions on set that you don’t waste time and money (if you’re paying people on set hehe) by wondering what to do or reshooting multiple versions of the same take so you can experiment with it afterwards.  Robert Rodriguez does a great short video on this on the DVD for Once Upon A Time In Mexico, where he talks about the necessity of knowing technology and special/visual effects so that you can be quick and efficient and in control on set at all times.  This is the huge gift of digital for me, because if a shot is slightly shaky but it works otherwise, I don’t have to worry about reshooting it because it can be stabilized later on.  I don’t have to go overboard with makeup because I can add some creepy color correction and a bit more distortion to people’s faces if needed in post.  I can do background explosions, liven up whole sequences that may have been shot in a short hour with someone running around by putting all sorts of crazy action behind them just to sell the shot.  There are some good examples in the extra features of the newly-released Planet Terror DVD that talk about Rodriguez’s shooting quickly on a low budget and then enhancing the experience with digital tehcnology and visual effects guys who just know what they’re doing.  This is the gift of digital, and it’s nice to know that not only do we now as filmmakers have this ultimate flexibility to utilize on our productions, but that the quality of image and the undeniable progress in the quality of the technology is coming along for the ride as well, giving us basically the best possible stuff to use while making a big budget film so that it can be the ultimate entertainment experience.  The only problem now is that it’s still way beyond the price range of any low- or no-budget filmmaker, and probably lots of indies out there too.  However, if there’s a good story, lots can be forgiven.  Oh, and sound, that’s pretty crucial too.

Just a note for readers, sorry I haven’t been posting that often, things have gotten quite busy around here, and I know I mentioned that page for my films a while back and.. where is it?  Well no fear, there’s a film in the edit bay right now and another being worked on in the writing and casting stage at the moment, so those two hopefully will be done by January and online and sent out to festivals, but right now I’ve got school, work and some of my own things I’m dealing with and working on.  However, you can look forward to updates on the progress of those films as well as a stabilization device that I’ve been planning and working out the details of so I can have a vest-mounted rig that’s easily detatchable but used springs and whatnot to stabilize a camera with the weight of an XL-1.  More info on that once it’s in the works, but for now, keep your heads on and bear with me.  Enjoy the video below and go check out some low-profile movies at your local video store.  I watched The Insatiable the other night and loved it.  It’s a cross between a Vampire drama and The Office.  Yea, pretty brilliant, huh?  Best of luck, and happy filmmaking.

Link: http://www.studiodaily.com/main/videosplash

RED ONE in use!

I don’t know who else has been interested in this but I was hot on the trail a while ago and now that I’ve heard it’s going into use I’m super excited to see what happens next with this camera and its companion technology.  It may mean huge upgrades worldwide for producers and their studios, but it might just mean hugely increased content quality at a price that, when you think about it, really isn’t all that huge.  Now, this article, found on IndyMogul’s blog, mentions that filmmaker Roger Avery is going to be making an indie project using RED’s ONE camera.  For those of you who don’t know, this is an ultra-high-quality camera that is leagues better than the current video we shoot and even better, from my understanding, than HD.  Not to mention the frame sizes are enormous.  Check out more about RED here, and check out the original article from the link below.  This is awesome, I’m looking forward, as the author said, to what happens when this stuff starts hitting theaters and the global market.  Maybe us lower-budget filmmakers will even get a lower cost, possibly lower quality (but still higher than what most of us are used to right now) camera at prices we can afford.  This could be great.

Link: http://www.indymogul.com/post/2537/roger-avery-to-use-red-camera

What’s Your Flow? – StudioDaily Article

 

Here’s an interesting workflow idea for you guys out there juggling multiple programs for your video production needs.  I found it on the very interesting site StudioDaily, whose email newsletter I receive and always find something interesting, and it talks about combining Final Cut Pro and After Effects as well as Automatic Duck, “the leader in timeline transition between the worlds most powerful NLE and compositing systems.” Basically, it translates with more detail than a regular EDL (edit decision list) the information in your timeline, creating an After Effects composition based on your timeline in your editing system (FCP, Avid, etc.). Essentially, it does what the integration of Adobe’s Production Suite does on it’s own, since it’s an Adobe package. But this is for those of you who have different programs, like FCP and AE, for example, and don’t have that tight integration built in. So, what Ivan Miller says he does is lets the editors make the cut in Avid, then he uses Automatic Duck to import the entire cut into After Effects where he noodles around with it and comes out with, say, a McDonald’s commercial, as he did recently. It’s an interesting method to read about, and even though it would apply to me since I have Adobe’s full video suite, it’s interesting to read about what other people are doing and how they adapt their own workstations to fit their needs, especially when it’s on a lower budget than what some would assume (using Flame instead of After Effects, for example, which would be the industry standard). For those of you looking for a lower-budget way to do things and maintain a high-quality end result, this may be a key thing to think about when setting up or upgrading your system.

Link: http://www.studiodaily.com/studiomonthly/currentissue/7741.html