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.

...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.

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!

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...

RECOMMENDATION: Voyage to the Planets

I can't remember now how I first heard about Voyage to the Planets, a two part documentary about space travel, but it's one of the most educational and compelling I've ever seen. Made by the BBC—the best documentary filmmakers in the world—they pose the question, What would happen if mankind were ready to make its next great venture to the stars? The result is a 2 episode faux documentary, a future history of astronauts on one long "grand tour" of our solar system: Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Io, Europa, Saturn... in real life, such a voyage would never be attempted, but it is a clever construct to hook the audience, and it works.

Five astronauts embark on a six year voyage collecting samples from planets, facing hazards at every turn. It's crazy. It's the kind of shit you dreamt about when you were a kid. It is, in fact, the real Star Trek.

What also makes it really appealing to me is that Zoë, my 5 month old daughter, is among the generation who will explore the stars as described in this program. If the earliest launch for an unmanned probe to Europa is 2015 (when Zoë will be 8), then a manned launch to Europa is sure to follow 20-25 years later, which puts her at 28-32, exactly the right age range. It's not that I even want Zoë to be an astronaut, but it's exciting to feel how tangible that possibility is. What mysteries will they uncover in the last great adventure in human history?

The program employs another tactic very effectively: they take pains to get you to care about the astronauts from the very beginning. Like any documentary, you are documenting the explorers as much as you are what the explorers are exploring. You want to know who they are, how they get along, what their whimsies and foibles are. Once you care about these people, you care what happens to them. My wife didn't think she'd like this documentary, but every time the astronauts suited up, she was stressed out for them. Given the range of hazards they face on their voyage, there's no shortage of entertainment watching them insinuate their way to safety.

And did I forget to mention that one of the astronauts was named Zoë?

Zoë's dream animal? The Bunny.

Part of the fun of being a parent is dressing up helpless newborns in outfits they're embarrassed about for the next 20 years. Here's our favorite pic of Zoë, although there are 48 more pictures here:

Zoë meets world

Well, the Z girl isn't even two days old and everyone's suddenly after me to post pictures of her. Here are a few to tide you over, but over here, I've posted 23 more.

Zoë's here!

Zoë Elianna Pruden (or Harris Pruden) was born Thursday morning at 9:20 AM, after a 50 minute labor (meaning Tracie pushing in earnest). Zoë, weighing in at 6 pounds 3 ounces and 18 inches long, is perfectly healthy and has already pooped something resembling part algae, part toxic waste and part velcro. That's my girl!!

Tracie is fine, though recovering from a slight tear. She's exhausted but did an amazing job.

We've been told we'll be in this room until Friday sometime. Vistors welcome -- Room 3772. Direct Line: 916/703-8366 (My cell phone is dying)

I no longer have email at the hospital, so best to call the room directly.

Pictures to come...

Almost there...

Tracie is (finally) 100% dialated and effaced. We're in the home stretch now. Baby is ready to come out any time now...

3:16 AM

"Epidurals are the greatest thing ever."

Stupid Flat Pillow

She's smiling, but she's still struggling to get comfortable!



Things are going very well here. Tracie was admitted at four and is talking now to an anesthesiologist about whether to get an epidural. Baby expected to arrive by 8AM tomorrow, but could be sooner...

Early labor?

My wife called me at 2:03 today saying she thinks her water broke... which could mean I'll be meeting my baby daughter very very soon.

Off to the hospital... will post as soon as I know something!