Hopefully this will be a quick on, unlike the others recently.
I'm surprised how books I have read for this brief. Short Filming Making By Clifford Thurlow, This is a great introduction book to film making. It breaks each part of production down into easy reading chunks. It is a book I got out from the college library and one I shall be going back to on future productions. I may even purchase a copy.
Digital Film Making By Mike Figgis. This is a book that was recommended online. Its a small book at a cheap price. Again it is an introduction to film making. Figgis comes up with some interesting ways to shoot good looking films on a small budget. He also builds your confidence.
Rebel Without a Crew By Robert Rodriguez. Big Rodriguez fan, and I enjoy his film school features on his DVDs. Thought this would be similar, it is, but it is also his journal for the entire production of El Mariatchi. Very interesting to read, like a true fairy tale.
I have just started to read Shot by shot, by Steven D Katz, can't comment on that yet.
Thursday 28 May 2009
Monday 25 May 2009
Patrick Bolvin is a bit special.
I love creative work like this...
It so much more fresh than your standard music video. I recently blogged about two videos I saw on vimeo, those were excellant creative videos. I think its heavily influenced by the success of Michel Gondry.
Patrick Bolvin is a stop motion genius, check out his youtube page >>> LINK!
There is a making of video on his youtube page which is mind blowingly good.
Check this shit out. Iron Man VS Bruce Lee
He get his lighting extremely well and he makes them all on green screen, which helps him create that cinematic look. Please, please, please check out the rest of his videos because he deserves the recognition for his hard work.
This sort of art and crafts video making is something i'm really interested in and maybe I should think about a career in that direction.
It so much more fresh than your standard music video. I recently blogged about two videos I saw on vimeo, those were excellant creative videos. I think its heavily influenced by the success of Michel Gondry.
Patrick Bolvin is a stop motion genius, check out his youtube page >>> LINK!
There is a making of video on his youtube page which is mind blowingly good.
Check this shit out. Iron Man VS Bruce Lee
He get his lighting extremely well and he makes them all on green screen, which helps him create that cinematic look. Please, please, please check out the rest of his videos because he deserves the recognition for his hard work.
This sort of art and crafts video making is something i'm really interested in and maybe I should think about a career in that direction.
Saturday 23 May 2009
Major Project...part 2
So the saga continues...
I left off on the Casino shoot, but i'll move on from that.
Editing is something I really enjoy, but before we could start chopping we had to get on with filing. Well, Mark did the filing, i'm personally a bit of a messy worker, but i'm learning. Once we named and filed all the footage Mark started the editing process. Editing is a area i'm really keen on, but I decided to stand back and let Mark use me when he needed. What I mean is, if Mark is stuck on a edit he can ask me for advice and I might be able to suggest something, a bit like a editors assistant. Or maybe thats what a director would do, i'm not too sure. In future productions I'd like to edit the film, not because I think I can do better, I enjoy doing it.
Throughout this production I have been looking at what I may want to do as a career. I enjoy all the areas which makes it hard to decide. For a longtime i've always fancied myself as a director, but I don't think I did that much of a great job on this production. People wasn't sure what they were doing, pressure got to other crew members because the shoot was under planned.
Don't get me wrong I am unbelievably pleased with what we have achieved, the script, the locations, the cast, the extras, the equipment, the lot. But, i'm not pleased with my contribution on set. I feel I am more of a film maker than a director. I don't want to just direct, I want to make the whole thing... that isn't good, because there is too much work for one man, as i've learnt.
Anyway, on with the edit,
What we thought was a good work flow has now shot us down. The file sizes, due to the export setting are too big. Which means final cut keeps crashing and this is not good for colour correcting/editing. We may need to go back to a earlier version and leave the cropping and animating till last. Luckily we scheduled well enough that we have time to do some back tracking. We wanted everything done by Mon/ Tue so that we could start collecting the work together to hand in... never mind...
This set back does mean we'll have to jeopardise something for the hand in date. I imagine this will be the sound. The dialogue needs a lot of treatment, It may even need re-doing. This can be done by getting the actors to dub their voices. It sound silly, but most film do it.
The sound recording is a area I cannot get my head round, I have recently bought a book that covers all areas of sound design from set, to foley, to ambiance, everything. Hopefully this will help me understand the best ways of recording on set sound. The special feature on the blu ray of Australia have a really good, but short insightful documentary on sound, which taught me a lot.
There is still more to come.
TO BE CONTINUED...
I left off on the Casino shoot, but i'll move on from that.
Editing is something I really enjoy, but before we could start chopping we had to get on with filing. Well, Mark did the filing, i'm personally a bit of a messy worker, but i'm learning. Once we named and filed all the footage Mark started the editing process. Editing is a area i'm really keen on, but I decided to stand back and let Mark use me when he needed. What I mean is, if Mark is stuck on a edit he can ask me for advice and I might be able to suggest something, a bit like a editors assistant. Or maybe thats what a director would do, i'm not too sure. In future productions I'd like to edit the film, not because I think I can do better, I enjoy doing it.
Throughout this production I have been looking at what I may want to do as a career. I enjoy all the areas which makes it hard to decide. For a longtime i've always fancied myself as a director, but I don't think I did that much of a great job on this production. People wasn't sure what they were doing, pressure got to other crew members because the shoot was under planned.
Don't get me wrong I am unbelievably pleased with what we have achieved, the script, the locations, the cast, the extras, the equipment, the lot. But, i'm not pleased with my contribution on set. I feel I am more of a film maker than a director. I don't want to just direct, I want to make the whole thing... that isn't good, because there is too much work for one man, as i've learnt.
Anyway, on with the edit,
What we thought was a good work flow has now shot us down. The file sizes, due to the export setting are too big. Which means final cut keeps crashing and this is not good for colour correcting/editing. We may need to go back to a earlier version and leave the cropping and animating till last. Luckily we scheduled well enough that we have time to do some back tracking. We wanted everything done by Mon/ Tue so that we could start collecting the work together to hand in... never mind...
This set back does mean we'll have to jeopardise something for the hand in date. I imagine this will be the sound. The dialogue needs a lot of treatment, It may even need re-doing. This can be done by getting the actors to dub their voices. It sound silly, but most film do it.
The sound recording is a area I cannot get my head round, I have recently bought a book that covers all areas of sound design from set, to foley, to ambiance, everything. Hopefully this will help me understand the best ways of recording on set sound. The special feature on the blu ray of Australia have a really good, but short insightful documentary on sound, which taught me a lot.
There is still more to come.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Friday 22 May 2009
Every passing minute is a chance to turn it all around
I'LL SEE YOU IN ANOTHER LIFE WERE WE"LL BOTH BE CATS.
I've just re-watched Vanilla Sky on TV, it is really underrated. Tom Cruise is sensational.Its clever, emotional, a little scary, funny, its everything. And I thought the choice of music was great. It had a commercial soundtrack, but utilised well and placed perfectly.
The music played a big part in the story. The lyrics could tell you more about a characters feeling than the visuals. The songs weren't always the obvious choice, but made the film more interesting.
It's well worth a re-visit if you haven't seen it in awhile.
COLIN... Strange name for a Zombie film.
This morning I heard about a film called COLIN, its a zombie film, but with a difference. This film is from the side of a zombie called...wait for it...yeah, Colin!
The idea sounds really good and original, but its the idea that I think most of us have had but never thought it would work...
Anyhoo...
Marc Price the director made Colin for a mere £45 and went to Cannes film festival! He even picked up a distribution deal.
It sounds crazy and before this Robert Rodriguez's $7,000 El Mariachi sounded like a miracle. Put that to shame, although Marc Price said he shot on mini DV so it could look poor.
Still £45! Excellant... keeps the dream alive.
The idea sounds really good and original, but its the idea that I think most of us have had but never thought it would work...
Anyhoo...
Marc Price the director made Colin for a mere £45 and went to Cannes film festival! He even picked up a distribution deal.
It sounds crazy and before this Robert Rodriguez's $7,000 El Mariachi sounded like a miracle. Put that to shame, although Marc Price said he shot on mini DV so it could look poor.
Still £45! Excellant... keeps the dream alive.
Surfing Vimeo!
Over the past month or so I've found some interesting videos on Vimeo, So I thought I'd be kind and share them with you.
They are my two favs.
Hope enjoyed them.
Oi Va Voi "Everytime" from Katarzyna Kijek on Vimeo.
Mountain Goats - Woke Up New (Directed by Rian Johnson) from rcjohnso on Vimeo.
They are my two favs.
Hope enjoyed them.
Sunday 17 May 2009
Major Project...part 1
This maybe one hell of a blog! I've been pretty tardy (slow/delayed, not slang for retard) with blogs for the major project. I started off well with my videos blogs, but once the project got more intense I began forgetting to blog. Has a group we have been working really hard starting at 10 am and not finishing till 8 pm, by the time I've got the bus home it's usually near 9 pm and I'm too tired to stare at a screen.
So, this is kind of back blogging... I'll probably forget something, thats the problem with not documenting that same day, your brain starts to drop the less important parts.
Anyway i'll try picking up where I left off. I think we'd just finished doing the rehearsals. Since then it's been hectic.
After the rehearsals we did some location scouting. We have been lucky enough to get the ALEA casino to agree to let us film the majority of the short there. The Alea is a bit too glam for what we originally wanted, but at the same time we would be fools to turn it down. For the sake of changing the script to fit casino it's worth doing.
Luck hasn't been on our side with casting the character of Kath. Graeme convinced his friend to play the part, although she wasn't what we originally wanted (much like the Alea) we had to adapt the script to fit. She also didn't want to do the naughty parts. However, a couple of days before shoot she caught flu, or something. We had to set the Kath schedule back, which we really didn't want to do, but instead of rushing it I said to the other two "let's get throught the shoot, get some order to the footage, start editing, break for the weekend and pick up on monday when we're refreshed" Also because Leeds Utd we're playing in the playoffs at the weekend, I was nervous about that never mind thinking about the project. I put the project to one side, but Graeme hadn't. We met on the Saturday to watch Leeds and he had re-written the scene with a man (Kev) instead of Kath. We have had too much trouble trying to cast a women in this role, so we decided it maybe better to make it a man. Again this didn't fit the story we originally wanted to tell, but we had to adapt for the situation we were in. We we're already behind half a week to the original schedule and couldn't wait. We thought it would be much quicker and easier to cast a menacing male. When Graeme put the call out he Advertised it as Kev/Kath and to our surprise we got a lot of interest from both male and female. A fellow student Jim Dunford recommended Helen from one of his previous shoots and before we could contact her she had already applied for the part. FADE. She was happy enough to come in the same day for a chat and a quick read through. We weren't really prepared for it, but what the hell we got her in anyway. Helen turned out great and was up for a quick shoot and was free on the day we wanted to film.
I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. Back a bit.
I'll miss out all the Kath problems and go straight on with the shoot.
On the morning of the shoot I surprisingly got up on time, which was becoming an issue, but I pulled my act together. However, our first problem came straight away when we got to college the equipment we had booked was not there, which turned our faces red! We had been planning the shoot for weeks, spent our whole easter break practicing with the equipment to make sure we could set up quick and get on with the shoot. Graeme had booked the equipment a week in advance and kept on asking and emailing to the day. We eventually got our equipment, but we were 45 minutes behind. When we got to the Alea and there were most of the actors there and some of the extras. That added some pressure to the start of the day and we all had to chill out quickly and get on with the job. Then we couldn't figure out the sound device, which took a good 20 minutes to get working.
Loads of extras turned up, about 15, which were great, felt amazing. After around an hour and half of fannying about we finally got the first shot set up. You could see that people were already beginning to get bored, so Graeme was doing his best to get around and talk to the extras he had brought and I was doing the same with mine, whilst we set up the shot. I left the camera stuff to Mark, which I think added to his pressure and possibly pissed him off. But that couldn't be helped. I quickly realised that doing a shoot of that size with that many people and lots of equipment needed more than three of us. We recruited friends to help with the boom mic and monitering the sound, but that didn't mean I hasn't thinking about it. I probably thought about it more because I wasn't directly doing it.
I ended up setting the lights up for the first shot, and I can honestly say lighting is not my strong point. This started it get to me when I couldn't get it right. I think the amount of time we were taking added pressure to Mark, because we hadn't filmed anything yet and you could see the actors getting bored and unsettled. I think he just wanted to start filming, but I wasn't going to start anything till I got it looking right, Once I stressed this to Mark, he and my step dad started helping me with the lights. We were massively behind and this was the busy day, with the most to do.
I don't think people will believe me when I say that was the hardest days work in my life. The next day our fatigue was low. We could barely walk. The second day shoot was nowhere near has intense. However, only 5-7 extras turned up. This made the shots extremely hard to get. We had to reuse people over and over again. It'll be funny watching it back, you'll be able to see the same extra lots of times in different places in the same sequence. Hopefully no-one will see.
More to come...
TO BE CONTINUED...
So, this is kind of back blogging... I'll probably forget something, thats the problem with not documenting that same day, your brain starts to drop the less important parts.
Anyway i'll try picking up where I left off. I think we'd just finished doing the rehearsals. Since then it's been hectic.
After the rehearsals we did some location scouting. We have been lucky enough to get the ALEA casino to agree to let us film the majority of the short there. The Alea is a bit too glam for what we originally wanted, but at the same time we would be fools to turn it down. For the sake of changing the script to fit casino it's worth doing.
Luck hasn't been on our side with casting the character of Kath. Graeme convinced his friend to play the part, although she wasn't what we originally wanted (much like the Alea) we had to adapt the script to fit. She also didn't want to do the naughty parts. However, a couple of days before shoot she caught flu, or something. We had to set the Kath schedule back, which we really didn't want to do, but instead of rushing it I said to the other two "let's get throught the shoot, get some order to the footage, start editing, break for the weekend and pick up on monday when we're refreshed" Also because Leeds Utd we're playing in the playoffs at the weekend, I was nervous about that never mind thinking about the project. I put the project to one side, but Graeme hadn't. We met on the Saturday to watch Leeds and he had re-written the scene with a man (Kev) instead of Kath. We have had too much trouble trying to cast a women in this role, so we decided it maybe better to make it a man. Again this didn't fit the story we originally wanted to tell, but we had to adapt for the situation we were in. We we're already behind half a week to the original schedule and couldn't wait. We thought it would be much quicker and easier to cast a menacing male. When Graeme put the call out he Advertised it as Kev/Kath and to our surprise we got a lot of interest from both male and female. A fellow student Jim Dunford recommended Helen from one of his previous shoots and before we could contact her she had already applied for the part. FADE. She was happy enough to come in the same day for a chat and a quick read through. We weren't really prepared for it, but what the hell we got her in anyway. Helen turned out great and was up for a quick shoot and was free on the day we wanted to film.
I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. Back a bit.
I'll miss out all the Kath problems and go straight on with the shoot.
On the morning of the shoot I surprisingly got up on time, which was becoming an issue, but I pulled my act together. However, our first problem came straight away when we got to college the equipment we had booked was not there, which turned our faces red! We had been planning the shoot for weeks, spent our whole easter break practicing with the equipment to make sure we could set up quick and get on with the shoot. Graeme had booked the equipment a week in advance and kept on asking and emailing to the day. We eventually got our equipment, but we were 45 minutes behind. When we got to the Alea and there were most of the actors there and some of the extras. That added some pressure to the start of the day and we all had to chill out quickly and get on with the job. Then we couldn't figure out the sound device, which took a good 20 minutes to get working.
Loads of extras turned up, about 15, which were great, felt amazing. After around an hour and half of fannying about we finally got the first shot set up. You could see that people were already beginning to get bored, so Graeme was doing his best to get around and talk to the extras he had brought and I was doing the same with mine, whilst we set up the shot. I left the camera stuff to Mark, which I think added to his pressure and possibly pissed him off. But that couldn't be helped. I quickly realised that doing a shoot of that size with that many people and lots of equipment needed more than three of us. We recruited friends to help with the boom mic and monitering the sound, but that didn't mean I hasn't thinking about it. I probably thought about it more because I wasn't directly doing it.
I ended up setting the lights up for the first shot, and I can honestly say lighting is not my strong point. This started it get to me when I couldn't get it right. I think the amount of time we were taking added pressure to Mark, because we hadn't filmed anything yet and you could see the actors getting bored and unsettled. I think he just wanted to start filming, but I wasn't going to start anything till I got it looking right, Once I stressed this to Mark, he and my step dad started helping me with the lights. We were massively behind and this was the busy day, with the most to do.
I don't think people will believe me when I say that was the hardest days work in my life. The next day our fatigue was low. We could barely walk. The second day shoot was nowhere near has intense. However, only 5-7 extras turned up. This made the shots extremely hard to get. We had to reuse people over and over again. It'll be funny watching it back, you'll be able to see the same extra lots of times in different places in the same sequence. Hopefully no-one will see.
More to come...
TO BE CONTINUED...
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