The Future of Movies: Machinima

It seems like whatever happens in the music industry (MP3's starting to make CDs obsolete) always affects the movie industry a few years later (iTunes starting to make DVDs obsolete), so I always pay very close attention to the music scene as a crystal ball in which I can peer into the near future of the movie biz.

A friend of mine forwarded me this article about Peter Gabriel and how he's been on the cutting edge as an entrepreneur of his own music. Gabriel has been known to do some cool stuff over the years, especially his brief foray into computer games with Eve, which wasn't a "hit" game but had such striking imagery and sounds that it still resonates with me today.

Anyway, in the article, this part in particular grabbed my attention:"[Gabriel] foresaw the time when the public would be able to take music and mix it the way they wanted to hear it."

As I gaze into the crystal ball, I see the future of filmmaking as something quite similar to this, startlingly interactive compared to today's films, where users will have more freedom to sculpt their own film, including even the way stories unfold. Google Wave is already hinting to us how filmmakers could be collaborating in the future. In the same way musicians are shifting towards creating and offering multiple overlaying tracks for users to mix and match their own tracks, computer software will simplify the process for users—either solitarily or collaboratively—to create machinima-like films with total control over every filmmaking aspect: music, actors, story, dialog, setting, etc. This will result in an explosion of shoestring budget home-made videos entertaining in themselves, the most popular of which might even be made into conventional films since these cheaply made machinima would essentially be a feature-length polished pre-vis storyboard. We'll start to see this in the mainstream in the next 5-10 years, but in 20 it will dominate global culture, even to the extent of having a cable/internet channel of nothing but machinima films. I'd bet money on it. The programmer or software company who devlops a machinima producing program that's intuitive, capable, and fun will make money hand over fist.

The animated film Renaissance was an eye-opener for me. Its motion capture technology let the actors record a scene... and then, afterwards, the director chose whichever angles he wanted the camera to render for his final cut. That's 100% the opposite of how films have been made in the last century—first plan the scene, then shoot the actors. This new, inverted workflow is highly adaptive and will become very popular because users can create infinite variations of scenes and generate fantastical settings constrained only by the user's technical mastery of the software. At some point in the development of these new "mo-cap" films, even the actors will become obsolete, or effectively so since computerized actors will become realistic enough for mass consumption. We can already see the beginnings of this with Afterworld, a 100 part series of 3 minute animated storyboards.

Low budget projects allow for wider experimentation and the most creative of those experiments can sometimes become the most popular... so the question at hand is how to monetize this emerging industry. It could be through ads, it could be through donations, or it could be through investment. The advantage machinima has over all other forms of cinema is that it's so cheap to make that it won't need much to break even. And, if it's a labor of love, any extra profit is just gravy. In the Brave New World of free, homemade high-quality machinima will dominate.

Here's a professionally made machinima short to promote Team Fortress 2. Funny stuff. We'll be seeing a lot more of these in the coming years.

In Dutch in Lake Tahoe

Wednesday was a small milestone for me. In Dutch, a film I directed last year for Meaghan Sinclair, was shown to a group of strangers in Lake Tahoe. I've premiered films I've written myself, but when you work on a film which isn't your own passion project, it's natural to feel a little differently about it. Still, I'd be lying if I said I didn't get a thrill when I saw a In Dutch's onesheet magically appear on the Valhalla At Tahoe web site. (You can read all my posts about In Dutch here.)

Tahoe's gorgeous and I loved the drive in this time. I snapped this pic from my iPhone as soon as Tahoe appeared around the bend:



The Valhalla Boathouse is located right on Lake Tahoe (maybe you caught the bit about it being a boathouse?) and reminiscent of a smaller version of Yosemite's Ahwahnee Hotel:


The inside has a nice cozy feel, too:



Because it was a last minute thing, the Producers really didn't have a chance to do much publicity for it. We had a small gathering, but I was thankful. Had there been 100+ people, I think I might have been in the back vomiting uncontrollably. A small crowd feels less like a festival screening and more like a party. Rob and Meaghan and I had a lot of fun introducing the film and doing a Q&A afterwards.

The reactions were favorable. One can never be absolutely certain how an audience feels about a movie, but any unsolicited praise goes a long way to show at least one person enjoyed themselves. One older gentleman commented how great the sound was, which was extremely gratifying—I had lobbied hard to hire the Emmy award-winning Dave Losko as our Sound Mixer. Another audience member lauded the acting, which I also worked extra hard to achieve. Of course, there's no way I could take credit for the acting itself, but the coaching I gave the actors—in fact, they're the first ones to say this—had a substantial difference on their final performance. For me, acting and sound are usually the two weakest links in the chain for any short film, so I chalked up the evening as Mission: Accomplished.

Regrettably, due to scheduling and geographic constraints during post-production (I had a newborn at home last year, and lived 50 miles away from the editor), this cut of the film was not my edit. So I was delighted the producers offered me a chance to recut In Dutch into a version we'd all be happy with. Though the current cut is already quite good, the sound design still needs a little tweaking and some insert shots weren't done because we ran out of time on the day of the shoot. Realistically, I'd estimate the final cut needs another 20-40 hours of work to really make it shine. Why is it always the last 5% the bit which takes 90% of the effort?

The PACBF

I missed this blog the first time around, but my Google Alerts just let me know that—apparently—I invented something called "PACBF":

Meaghan and I casted ourselves as the leads opposite each other [for short film In Dutch] and we were coached in numerous rehearsals by Ross. Ross was fantastic with both of us and was a true actor's dream. Both Meaghan and I started our rehearsals according to Ross at a number 2 in the scale of "Pruden's Acting Compass Believability Factor", otherwise known as "PACBF". Meaghan and I had to get past our humerous friendship and dig deep within each other to induce the PACBF. We rehearsed normally twice a week for two months. At the same time Meaghan and I funded our movie together and Co-Produced it. At the end of the rehearsals, we had passed the PACBF and Ross gave his stamp of approval with a number 10.... Our crew was assembled in the two months that we rehearsed and we were very fortunate to find very hard working and knowledgeable, outrageously, friendly, caring, and considerate people to help us.

PACBF t-shirts will be sold via Cafe Press.

Your film needs color correction

Common indie filmmaker mistakes #43—not doing a color correction!

If you want your footage to have that extra edge—especially if you're shooting on video, and doubly so if you're shooting on miniDV—you must color correct. With today's editing software and a little book learning, anyone can do a simple color correction (anyone except the colorblind!).

Alternatively, you can get your editor to color correct—they're probably already familiar with their editing program's color correction tools and if they have a design background, they'll be well attuned to how contrast and RGB levels harmoniously interact. But be warned! Color correction can be a nasty time sponge, so if someone else is coaxing out your baby's best color tones, make sure that person is really committed to getting the best results. That means you either pay them handsomely, barter with a work exchange, or give them a credit like Executive Producer so they take ownership over the project... or perhaps all three. The results of a good color correction, especially on video, can be like someone peeled off a foggy grey layer from your footage—in some cases, the results are so impressive that you'll be in awe that it's actually your footage. Seriously consider color correction as a factor when choosing an editor and/or color correction service.

Here are some good color correction samples I found online.

Before color correction:


After color correction:


Before:


After:



And here's a short video with a description of each color correction pass used, and a slow wipe to show the before and after. Judging from the film's uncorrected footage, it must have been filmed on miniDV although the three color passes make it look like its budget was $5,000, rather than $100:

If you want to see a jaw-dropper of color correction, watch the bonus features on Wolf Creek.

Title Credits, Part 2

In yesterday's post on movie titles, I outlined the importance of having good movie credits, a trick often overlooked by most indie filmmakers, and listed some examples by way of illustration. Most of the examples I gave were from big budget films, which probably used glossy programs like After Effects. Great, but what if you're just a simple filmmaker with a shoestring budget?

Today, I'm going to show you title credits I've done on my own short films and how, with a little creative thought and good planning, you can create title credits not only ideal and unique for your film, but which can make your film sparkle no matter how small your budget.

You will need a few resources, but none of them are really too far beyond your reach:

1. A computer with Microsoft Word and/or Photoshop
   
2. A selection of fonts (the more, the better)
   
3. A printer, preferably a laser printer
   
4. A willingness to think waaaaay outside the box.

Metronome
I directed Metronome in 2000. It's about a man vying for the love of a woman involved with a Bad Guy. Because the story is about pursuing and retreating, about being in love and being crushed by it, the story resembles the sway of a metronome ticker. So I wanted the credits to mimic that oscillating motion.

After storyboarding photos of a metronome taken from different angles, I pitched the idea to a professional photographer who shot the metronome, at cost (yes, in 2000, digital cameras weren't the norm, so I paid for the rolls of film). Next I scanned in the photos and laid type over the images with QuarkXPress (though you can do the same now in Photoshop); in theory, the ping-pong positions of the type would invoke a metronome's swishing. The results made Metronome's three minute film look extremely professional.

(NB: You will see hairlines on the photos, which was to remind me where I wanted the video's frame. In future, I won't do this again since you can see that hairline on some TVs.)




A Fairy Story
Joshua Mehler directed this 12 minute short and, since he tacked on some simple credits made in Adobe Premiere (which looked pixelated, and video-y), I insisted on doing the film's end credits. I found the font he used in the opening title credit and laid it next to another font which had fairies in it. Josh loved the final designs for the credits. When I was finished laying out the white credits on a black background, I emailed him the credits in a PDF, which he printed, taped to a wall, and shot. Voila!



My Shortest Apposition
This is a film about my newborn daughter so I wanted to capture the feeling of something fun and child-like. When I think of children, I think of crayons and coloring books. I also think of kindergarten and learning how to write. At left is the font I eventually chose as the template for my credits. I printed it on a US Letter page, almost as large as I could. Next, I taped it to the back of another piece of paper; I used an Artist's Sketching Pad (which is huge), but you could use another US Letter page, too. The advantage to a Sketching Pad is that you don't have to worry about the edge of the paper showing in the frame.

Then I bought a box of crayons. Total cost: 99¢. Using my new colored crayons, I simply traced the font until I felt I had the right mix of colors. Some colors were too light and might not show up on film. (Click on the picture at left to enlarge.)

And below is the "comp" (click to enlarge)—a "comp" is an intermediary to get an idea of what the final will look like. The lines in the final credits are going to be straighter and the type will be drawn more neatly, but it already looks pretty swanky!

Now here come a couple of twists.

I could tape these title credits against the wall and simply shoot them, but that's too boring. Instead, I'm going to print out and trace each credit at different sizes—one at 8" x 10", another at 4" x 5", another at 1" x 1.5", etc.—but film each title credit with the camera zoomed in or pulled out so each credit looks the same size on camera. Why? Because I can put my daughter in front of each title and play with the audience's orientation: in one credit, my daughter's whole body will lay next to the credit, while in another, her hand will be the same size as the credit. Finally, I can film the credits taped to the wall, or laying on the ground... which allows me to sit my daughter upright in one credit, and have her lay flat on another credit, which looks "upside down" in the frame.

I'm also toying with the idea of printing out photographs of these final credits (traced credits + daughter) with an old-fashioned white border and then mounting them in an old photo scrapbook book—the final credit sequence would be me flipping through these fake family photographs.

See how a little creative energy can turn title credits, often seen as a cumbersome appendage, into something new and fun which leaves a lasting impression in the minds of viewers? Title credits create a crucial first impression, and leave a lasting final impression as well. You can cut corners and slap on simple title credits, but why would you want to?

Here are some more ideas to create title credits without ever knowing a super-slick computer program like After Effects:

• Take your crisply printed page of credits... and crumple it up into a messy wad of paper. Then open it up again, flatten it out. If it's crumpled enough, the paper's text will look marbleized from the creases. If you don't want the other white paper to look crumpled, flatten the paper back out and photocopy it with a light photocopy setting.
  
• Mount the credits on a lazy susan and swivel it slowly to subtlely animate the credits.
  
• Zoom in to the credits, but ever so slightly, not so much that it's distracting.
  
• Tilt the credits to give them a perspective, as slight or as severe as suits your story.
  
• Paint/draw/stencil/trace the credits.
  
• Film the tracing of the credits from backlit tracing paper.
  
• Photocopy the credits... 20 times or more.
  
• Make a collage of text from newspapers, magazines, books... whatever.
  
• Take photographs of the credits and film the photographs being handled.
  
• Add the credits on a car's windshield wiper "promotional flyer".
  
• Play with your food (care of Napoleon Dynamite).
  
• Other places to display credits: billboards, computer screens, fogged up mirrors, snow, sand, product boxes, fridge magnets, birthday cakes... in short, anywhere in the real world where type already exists or can be written.
  

One final word of caution: avoid all overused fonts like Courier, Times New Roman, Monaco, New Century Schoolbook and Palatino. You might get away with Courier because it's a classic font, but all the other fonts have been done to death. I'm tempted to add Helvetica to the naughty list, but some font family of Helvetica still look amazing.

Paris at dawn

This is one of my favorite short films of all time and should be required viewing for all film pros and aficionados. It was shot in 1976, already astonishing for its time, and the title of the film is at the end. The caption at the beginning reads: "The film you are about to see was shot without any editing or speeding up".

I could say much much more, but I'll let the film speak for itself:

When you're done watching it—and not before—go visit the imdb trivia page here. And if you understand a little French, you can see the making of it here.

Oh My God

Ha! I finally found an embed link to John Bryant's macabre short Oh My God, which I mentioned over a year ago. Some people don't find it funny at all, which has always puzzled me... anyone should be able to pick up from the film's silly credits that it's not meant to be taken seriously.

Remember, this is extremely dark humor. You have been warned!

AtomFilms.com: Funny Videos | Funny Cartoons | Comedy Central

Kick Back

I've heard the complaint for years, and have often iterated it myself: letting everyone and their parrot have access to filmmaking equipment and software will only foster a wave of mediocre filmmaking. While true, there's also a pleasant upside—some people can actually make very entertaining films with almost no resources at all... a reminder to all filmmakers that cleverness often comes from the most unexpected places.

Apparently, this short started out as a simple film way to display a new haircut, but at some point, it became something else:

Thanks, Sara!

...stand by...

News about my weekend film shoot for My Shortest Apposition, is coming: stay tuned.

In the meantime, you can read our scripty's blog.

For Want of an XLR Adapter, The Movie Was Lost

Your entire movie could be out of focus, but you can't have bad sound.—Thierry Pathé, NYU Film Instructor

Many of you know how much I value good sound on a low budget film, but if not, here's a refresher.

Right behind getting great acting, you need great sound. Beg, borrow, or steal... but get the best sound you can. Sound is half the movie experience, but because it's not as visible as cinematography, most low budget filmmakers assign it a lower priority, which is a catastrophic misstep: when audiences hear bad sound, they instantly think, "Oh, this is a student/low-budget/amateur movie," but if they hear great sound, they think nothing more about it and get drawn into the story. Sound is usually the first thing you experience about a film, whether it be music or sound effects or dialog, so you present the audience with a spotless first impression.

For the shoot this Saturday, I got my hands on a $500 wireless mic, a Sennheiser Evolution G2 100. Great, right? No, not great—it's completely worthless unless I could find a cable adapter to plug it into my camera. The XLR adapter isn't just a cable, it's a unit which suppresses noise from the adapter; a simple adapter cable doesn't work with my particular camcorder because the cable emits a faint "hum" which is not acceptable.

Here's how I played damage control, in a stream of consciousness:

Crap, that's right, I need a cable for this camera like we used on Metronome... oh, I can get one at Radio Shack or something, maybe Fry's... hey Jena, what's that thing called that I need? BeachTek XLR Adapter? Cool, I'm walking into Radio Shack now... what do you mean, they won't have it? Well, Fry's must have it. Only a pro camera store? Hmm, I think there's one in midtown, but come on, this is Sacramento. Maybe Adolf Gasser's in SF would have an adapter. How much??? $200??? Christ! Surely, Gasser's must rent those out. Still, that's a 2 hour drive one way. Bring the camera, you say? Actually, I don't have the camera. Hans has it. He's in L.A. Oh yeah, he could rent one for the weekend! No, he really couldn't cuz he has no time for extra stuff before the shoot. But yeah, they could messenger it to his concierge and he could pick it up before his flight. Let me look into that. Still, I'm not really fond of renting equipment because it's like flushing money down the drain. Robert Rodriguez doesn't rent equipment for that reason. So maybe there's a story nearby where I can buy an adaptor. Maybe I can get a refurbished one or something. Okay, I'm looking at a list of BeachTek stores online... hey, there's one in Oakland. That's only 80 minute drive one way. I can do that. Plus, I can visit with Dave and Nancy for a bit. Okay, I'll call this Oakland store tomorrow, but in the meantime, I'll do more research so I know what the hell I want to buy. BeachTek sells numerous models but none of them are guaranteed to work with my camera model. Wow, did they discontinue that cable adaptor? Seems so. What happens if I Google it? No shit, some dude is selling the exact model I need for only $100 and he's in L.A.! I'll email him to see if it's still free. In the meantime, it looks like I need a DXA-4S, which is definitely discontinued, but a DXA-6 might also work. Refurbished, a DXA-6 is $165 and the place in Oakland is selling it for $279 retail. Ouch. They're also selling a DXA-4 for $199, but that's not the same as the DXA-4S, or is it? It's not 100% sure it will work for my camera. Shit. Now what? A-ha, here's another model that will work and I can order it online—the XLR-Pro and a smaller, XLR-JR. If I overnight the Junior model, it will cost me a total of $143 and even save me gas and the time it takes for a trip into the bay, with baby. Yeah, can you guys have this unit overnighted to me by Friday? You can??? Great!

And there you have it—20 hours of frantic web surfing and phone calls to ensure I'd have the crucial sound equipment we needed to get acceptable sound. As principal photography approaches, a producer's job can often get hectic like this. But this nonsense won't happen again—because I bought this silly piece of metal!

In researching this piece, I learned that Thierry Pathé died in 2002. Thierry was a great guy, laid back and extremely knowledgeable.

A Clean Slate

Hans and I need a slate for this weekend's shoot, so I went shopping. I thought for a moment about getting a blackboard-type chalk slate, as has been used for movies as long as I can remember... that would be very cool. But blackboards aren't functional, not really. Whenever I've slated with chalk, it's messy, it's not always easy to draw on, and there's that awful risk of scratching the chalk just the wrong way.... aaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!—

Yeah, not good. So I decided on an acrylic white board slate. Unlike a lot of the amateur slates—some of which are literally emblazoned with huge block letters: "HOLLYWOOD PRODUCTION"—the slate I bought assumes that anybody looking at the slate knows where all the relevant data belongs and leaves you as much white board real estate to draw it in (which might drive some people batty, but—hard as it may be to believe—I'm actually a minimalist in many respects). And the true mark of a pro slate—it even has a box for the FPS.

Best of all, the clappers themselves are made out of oak, and include a magnet to ensure a nice resounding SMACK! when you need to synch up the sound track [sic] to your film:



Total cost, including shipping: $88.39

Here are its juicy specs:

The acrylic accepts dry-erase markers and can be back-lit for low light shots. The acrylic is rounded on all edges so it won't cut your hands.

The 1" thick sticks has laminate stripes (not paint that wears) in the basic Kodak colors or classic black and white. The bracket is tension-adjustable. There are magnets in the tips of the sticks to ensure a definite close and good sound. The layout is engraved so it will last no matter what and is far superior over screen printed method.

These slates measure 11" wide by 9 1/4" tall, and fit, of course, in all frontboxes.

No Imitations
Directly as supplied to many studio and film sets. This is the industry standard for a long-lasting, hard working slate. Made in the USA.

Dry Erase Marker
We recommend Marks-A-Lot brand dry erase markers. These markers are readily available at most office supply stores. (Some other markers, such as the evil Sanford EXPO, will STAIN the board.)

My Shortest Apposition, Part 2

This is a continuation of Friday's post, My Shortest Apposition, Part 1.

The film we'll be shooting is called My Shortest Apposition, a delightfully unmarketable title—were I shooting something with more mass appeal, like a feature where I had to guarantee my investor would make back his money, my title would be a little more accessible, not something that makes you go, huh?

An apposition is an interjected dependent phrase qualifying a larger statement, e.g., my car's engine, newly replaced, is sounding odd; or, Ross Pruden, a blogger who often pops up on Google searches, also directs movies.

SPOILER ALERT—this paragraph is in white text to protect those who'd rather wait until the project is finished; select it to read. In the case of this film, the title is a play on words—the entire film is one really long run-on sentence, a never-ending apposition; it is fact, my longest apposition... But the film leads up to my 6 month old daughter, who is actually my shortest apposition, an interjected dependent who qualifies everything in my life. (See "Inspirations" below to understand where this idea originated.)

Back to my problem. How do I integrate 16mm film format with miniDV?

The solution came from looking at the script, which is simply me listing things I'm certain of, things that make me cry, and thinks I love. So why not shoot all the MOS insert shots in film? My narration, then, would be entirely in miniDV and all the inserts would be 16mm. The leaves us with no problems with miniDV & synch sound, and we can shoot all the 16mm we want without worrying about the 16mm camera's noise. Grafting some of the new Digital Intermediate techniques, we'd telecine all the 16mm footage into miniDV and edit the movie on Final Cut Pro... with no intention of ever burning a copy back onto film as a true DI workflow dictates. We would be turning our weakness into a strength by integrating our format differences into a cool narrative motif... and learning a lot about both formats along the way.

Another reason I like shooting a short film is to become fluent in every aspect of filmmaking. I shot my 3 minute miniDV Metronome this way and learned about 1,001 lessons in the process. Consequently, whenever I produce/direct a film, no matter its length, budget, or number of crew, I like to produce it as if I have a million dollars in the bank. That means doing rehearsals, scouting locations, hammering down schedules for cast & crew, drawing up a detailed budget, negotiating the scheduling of shots (typically done with physical production strips, but also now done with Movie Magic Scheduling or Gorilla, or even Excel if you need to go on the cheap), creating and issuing call sheets (including directions), working out shot lists, doing storyboards, deciding costumes, preparing make-up... essentially, I like to treat a short film as if it were a Hollywood production. There are several advantages to this approach, but two big ones stand out:

1. You learn each aspect of filmmaking when working with the small toys so that you're ready and confident when you're working with the bigger toys.


2. How you present yourself to others says a lot about you. If you dress like a student, people treat you like a student, but if you dress like a pro, people treat you like a pro. (Furthermore, if you dress like a pro, your mind switches gears and you also start to think and act like a pro.) This is as true about filmmakers as it is for screenwriters. As John August says, "screenplays are read by people, not cameras." Don't write with grammar and spelling mistakes. And don't make films without call sheets!

Hans is flying in Saturday morning and back to L.A. on Sunday evening. Currently, we're firming up the shot list and storyboards and troubleshooting the really technical shots all this week. As they say in the biz, preparation prevents piss poor performance. With any luck, we'll have a film we're proud enough to submit to festivals.

INSPIRATIONS
The inspiration for this short comes from a bunch of places. I've put stuff that would spoil the film in white text; select it to read.

First, this brilliant short film from the makers of Delicatessen:


Another inspiration was a French short film called Routine. While I've never been able to find it on DVD, it's true genius: the entire film consists of lighting fast closeups of things we do every day: alarm gets turned off, peeing in the toilet, toilet is flushed, coffee gets ground, shower is started, soap is lathered, body is dried, coffee is poured, door locked, engine starts, etc. The whole day is covered and each day of the week follows it, except that the cuts are quicker for each day until Friday's cuts are a blur. Saturday slows down, and ends with a romantic visit from someone out of town. When Sunday's alarm clock goes off, the female visitor lazily turns it off and the film ends. Great film.

And then my dad read this quote to me years ago and I transcribed it because I loved it so much:

Haldeman-Julius, a man of Rabelaisian appetites, once replied to a priest when asked what he got out of life: "I told him I found life worth living because I enjoyed good music, fine pictures, great books, beautiful thoughts of truth and freedom, sane living, warm showers each morning, pleasant home life, charming people, lively talk, exchange of ideas, plays of sharp wit and worldly humor, beautiful women, tall glasses of orange juice, fresh trout, black bread smeared with home-made butter, crisp bacon, roast duck, thick steaks, lofty poetry, plays, magnificent orchestras, letters dictated by my grandchild, newly plowed land, dogs that eat well and then sleep quietly near the fireplace, oak and walnut logs that burn for hours and make the house smell sweet, milk that was grass five hours before, the long yawn that says it's time to turn in."
—The World of Haldeman Julius, Selected Writings of Emanuel Haldeman-Julius. Compiled by Albert Mordell. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1960.

Finally, a throw-away comment from Tom Clancy's Patriot Games. Jack Ryan is being pressed to make a judgement call that could result in an American covert action to neutralize terrorists. Admiral Greer asks him, "Tell me one thing you're certain of, Jack." And Ryan responds: "My daughter's love."

Later this week, I'll post a few pages of the script, its budget, call sheets, shooting location map, shot list, and storyboards. I always find it entertaining to follow an active case study, so hopefully others are out there just like me... like Stefano, Tyler, Ray, Meaghan, Rob, Susan -- you guys are the reason I keep writing!

Latina Lauds

It's not often I get a public "thank you"—when I do, I'm not bashful about saying so, especially when my advice appears to have made a qualitative difference. About two months ago, I did a story consultation on Pull, a short written by Gabriella Garcia, my Cuban sister. She's shooting Pull now and nestled this friendly quip in her blog today:

My main actor, Jane Vereen, plays the lead, Angela. She is amazing and I really should give props here to my good friend & film maker, Ross (www.myspace.com/rosspruden). After he read my script and tore it apart (out of love of course), Ross told me "Get the best fuckin actress you can find". I took my time finding her and I'm glad I did. Jane is very talented, professional, and has been beyond prepared.

Good call, Gabs. Your film should rock!

My Shortest Apposition, Part 1

If you want to spend more time with your friends, do a project with them. —Josh Mehler

I've been quiet about this next film project I'm working on because there hasn't really been a need to talk about it, but I'm in the final stages of preparation for a short I'm directing a week from today. My old friend Hans, a highly talented still photographer, was finding himself spending an alarmingly disproportionate amount of time listening to DVD director commentaries. Finally, earlier this year, he emailed me with this singular resolute sentence: "Dude, we've got to make a film together."

Of all the people I know, Hans is certainly the most meticulous and I know he'd take the studying of, and the craft of, cinematography very seriously. Naturally, I was stoked he wanted to shoot something for real. The plan is one day to do features, and hopefully many of them.

Instead of horsing around with random shooting experiments, we decided to do a short film and learn about each stage of the filmmaking process. I strongly believe in the power of experiential learning: you can read a million books, take hundreds of lectures, even do correspondence clsses, whatever—in the end, the only way to gather and retain life lessons is to go out and make actual mistakes. Some schools embrace this philosophy by offering hands-on experience before you make expensive mistakes in the real world, but too often schools teach children to avoid making mistakes. Thus, Hans and I decided to use an experimental short film to make a bunch of mistakes and not feel too guilty about them. (NB: Depending on the goal of a short film, i.e., whether it's a souped up home movie vs. striving to win an Academy Award or some other prestigious award, I have firm opinions about how much money should be invested on short films.)

Initially, we were going to do this whole short in miniDV to let our hair down and really experiment, but then Hans bought a 16mm camera and we starting thinking of ways to experiment shooting with film, too. The problem is, film is expensive. It's expensive to develop, it's expensive to transfer to a digital format, and—if you go that route—it's expensive to transfer an edited digital version back onto film. Plus, adding sound into the equation is another financial headache. Video is an infinitely better medium to get your feet wet in filmmaking without completely jumping in. Nevertheless, Hans and I were moving in the direction of shooting a feature on celluloid, so why not learn sooner rather than later?

Great! I thought. This short will look beautiful if we shoot it on film. After all, shooting a film with celluloid is how Vin Deisel made his superb breakthrough short Multi-Facial (which Steven Spielberg saw and instantly hired him for Saving Private Ryan). But shooting in film would also skyrocket our budget... could we combine the financial advantages of video with the sublime beauty of film? More importantly, how could we shoot in 16mm without blowing so much money that we'd start to get gunshy? If our goal were to be experimental, we couldn't constantly be worried about burning film; it would kill any desire to embrace our mistakes and thus stifle our ability to learn.

As many of you know, I'm a huge fan of integration—if something doesn't belong in the story, it's gratuitous. If the bulk of your film is shot in video, you don't just shoot film because you can. It's weird and distracting and isn't true to the nature of weaving a compelling narrative spell. If you put something in, it needs to serve a purpose.

My next thought: shooting in film is expensive. That's its weakness. Film is also troublesome when doing synch sound, especially since the 16mm camera Hans bought was quite noisy. So if we shot anything in 16mm, it would have to be MOS (silent), or the camera would have to be so far away that the mic wouldn't pick any of the noisy reel clatter. How could we turn this weakness into a strength? And how could we integrate these two formats seamlessly?

Tune in tomorrow to find out...

Behind the Scenes: IN DOUBLE DUTCH

Last night, I saw the first cut of In Double Dutch, the 10 minute short I directed back in May. So far, the edited footage looks, and sounds, amazing—so I'm going to be ecstatic when the whole thing is completely finished. You know you've got a good film when you watch the raw footage without any of the bells and whistles—the black & white filter, the widescreen aspect ratio, the musical score, the beginning and end credits—and you still get drawn into the story. When the core of the story and the acting is strong, all the extras that "frame" it just make the chewy center taste even better. For any cast or crew reading this who worked on the film—a job bloody well done! (Pictured at left is Jim Munch, the best Key Grip/1st A.C./Gaffer/P.A. in the whole world in the history of time.)

Of course, it doesn't hurt to have a smokin' hot actress like Meaghan Sinclair. I mean, just look at her! As Letterman woud say, she's "easy on the eye":


As founder and co-owner of Sweet Embry, Meaghan did a lot to make In Double Dutch come together and I know she's going to be really happy with the results.

That's me with Sweet Embry co-owner and Firearms Supervisor Rob Thomas (at left) and Emmy-winner sound mixer Dave Losko from Audio Oasis.


Dave Losko is the best guy in town for production and post-production sound mixing and I make a point of saying so because not only is he the consummate pro with the best equipment to get the job done, he's also a really nice guy with a good sense of humor. If you're going to spend 50 shooting days with anyone, this is one guy you wouldn't mind spending it with.

We did have some fun on set. I made sure we did. Otherwise, why make a film at all?



Pictured here are Cesar Huitron, Ray Dussault, me, P.A. Krystal Kashuba, and Sean Boncoto. Cesar and Sean are partners in VOH Entertainment and did the DP work (check out those swanky cameras, yo!). Sean's also cutting the film. Ray, the founder/owner of Lai Khe films, was my 1st A.D. and is pictured here showing off his new manicure. I'm the guy in the blue shirt with the beige baseball cap with my name embroidered on it. (It was a gift from my ma. Promise.)



Stay tuned to find out when and where In Double Dutch's premiere will be. We're planning a sneak preview, too, so let me know if you want to come to it... Or you could stay in the know by adding In Double Dutch to your Myspace friends!

Detective Warren has a few questions

Below is a short clip from Sweet Embry's short noir film In Double Dutch, which is currently being edited now. Don't you just love black & white? (If you listen, you can hear me calling cut at the end.)

And here is In Double Dutch's Myspace profile where we've posted a few screenshots...

In Double Dutch

The last six to seven weeks have been preoccupied with pre-production prep for a short I'm directing tomorrow—In Double Dutch, by Meaghan Sinclair. In Double Dutch is a modern noir about a woman being questioned by a nosy cop and the nasty consequences that follow. We're shooting it in 2.85:1 anamorphic, which means it's going to look like Star Wars or The Matrix. With Audio Oasis' Dave Losko doing sound, the final product will look and sound about as pro as you can get without shooting in a studio and spending 40K. Did I forget to mention the actors have been rehearsing since late March? We're graaaaaaavy.

Honestly, I wasn't expecting our short film to get its crew so heavily populated but we've been fortunate to crew up some pretty great people with pre-production lasting so many weeks. I mean, just look at our roll call—

Rob Granados, Lead / Executive Producer / Producer
Meaghan Sinclair, Lead / Executive Producer / Producer
Charlie Holiday, Supporting
Ross Pruden, Director
Raymond Dussault, 1st A.D.
Sean Boncoto, D.P.
Dave Losko, Sound Production Mixer
Jim Munch, 1st A.C. / Key Grip
Cesar Huitron, 2nd Camera
Aimee Mann, Script Supervisor (Actually, that's Aimee CARR, not the singer from Till Tuesday.)
Rob Thomas, Firearms Supervisor
Michelle B., Makeup & Hair (Sadly, she was called away due to a family emergency).
Leslie Goodman, Makeup & Hair Asssitant
Steve Papineau, Behind the Scenes Videographer
Russell Young, Set Photographer
Everett Blix, Associate Producer
Krystal Kashuba, P.A.

I'm not even including our post-production crew, which will be another two or three people. Orson Welles was right—it is easier to be a writer or a painter!

Pictures of the shoot to be posted later this week.

Remember "Cog"?

About a year ago, I talked about Honda's famous viral commercial, Cog. When I showed Cog to my filmmaking friend Max, and told him that its complicated Rube-Goldberg-like chain reaction had not been done with CGI but had been shot as live action in 606 takes with a price tag of $6 million, his reaction was firm and unshakable: "I don't believe it. No way. Uh-uh." Not that I can blame him—that was exactly how Honda execs reacted, too!

And today, I'm glad to say I can show Max that Cog was a live action shoot. I found a four minute documentary showing how Cog was made, and it still blows my mind. As I've said before, Cog isn't simply a great commercial—it's great filmmaking, and on every level. Its initial concept, the ingenuity of the chain reaction's design, the perfect execution of its filming, and the sound... my god, the sound... just listen to the hum of that rotating metal piece! Amazing. Really, when people go to this much effort to film something, they deserve to have their work shown as far and as wide as possible.

Here's the four minute documentary on the making of Cog:

And, again, here's Cog:

Oh My God

Okay, not for the squeamish on this one, but I wanted to share a short film I found a couple of years ago by John Bryant called Oh My God. I can't link to it, but you can watch it on Atomfilms here.

WARNING: Oh My God is extremely dark humor... so dark that some people don't find it funny at all, but they're missing the point. A must see for anyone who enjoys parodies of movie cliches.

Amateur (short film)

I know enough about editing to know that this is practically a masterpiece: