Quintessential Studios' Weblog

First Signs of Problems

If you’ve ever been on a film shoot, you know one thing for sure. There is a lot of waiting
around!

One of the first “two-hour film projects” we did was called “Berlin Metro“, not at first but it came to be known as that eventually.

This practice shot was mostly arranged by our Production Manager. Our Production Manager was very good at finding locations and support for our crew as he was “connected”, being a lawyer and all. The first shot was at an empty warehouse that one of his friend/clients had just rented and was currently empty.

The goal of this meeting was to go through the whole process, from random genre, character, prop and line of dialogue selection to writing to shooting to editing.

The basic idea we had was that everyone would be included in the brain-storming process and then after a basic story idea was formulated, the writers would spend time by themselves writing the story. This basically is a good idea and as long as you keep your roles heavily defined, this works.

“Defined roles” are the key words in this case. Who does what and who listens to whom? During the first few meetings leading up to this “dress rehearsal”, we talked about who wanted to do what. I felt it was best to try to let people do what they were most interested in doing, first, then add to that as needed.

What hats were given out? Well there was the “Production manager-writer”, the Producer, the “Director-writer”, the “Assistant Director-writer”, a “Grip”, some “Sound Guys”, an “Editor”, a couple of “Actors (who ended up wanting to be writers)” and a couple of just “Actors”. Oh! And, my two “Writers”. It was all a little up in the air at this point, ’cause you never know who’s going to be with you at the end and I was a little unsure how it would all settle down and sort itself out.

The “pre-production” meeting is still a little fuzzy to me, as it was while it was going on (just because it was a bit chaotic) but I do remember some details and the production and the post pretty vividly! There was some talk about a character and a prop and an escaped killer and the writers started to put it all together. During that time, we started setting up lights in the warehouse and stuff and our production manager kept “writing” with “the girls” (the writers). (more on this later)

While setting up, one of the crew says, “this looks like a subway” and thus the subway shot came into being.

While the girls were writing, our director-writer was doing some writing of his own. He kept popping out and telling the writers, “Okay, this is the story!” He would add, “Oh, but don’t let me mess you up.”

I recall one of the writers saying, “Oh but I like that idea” and eventually they just went with his idea.

INT. WAREHOUSE - NIGHT

Camera blocking, lighting and actions were being set. The first signs of problems weren’t even apparent to me but they were occurring. The 1^st AD had set up a way that the lights and fan should be run (for a subway effect) and had someone set up to run them. Then our “creative” production manager, who was running the b-camera decided that he could run the lights instead, to solve a problem of our director wanting more people in the shot. (This would cause effects problems, more about later, but was just another example of his not being able to think outside the box.)

During the setup of the lights, I had my first personal indication of future problems. One of the actors (that really wanted to write too) came up to me and said, “Who’s in charge? I mean who should I be listening to?” She went on to tell me that we were doing a lot of standing around doing nothing and that this was all taking too long. Basically, she was right in her observations but to me it was her attitude and delivery of said communication that rubbed me the wrong way. I felt like, “You know, you just don’t go up to your producer and say those things!” I suppose it was my lack of initiation in “running things” that led to these attitudes but inside, I also felt I should let these things shake themselves out at this stage of the game.

As we shot, and shot and shot, the night became longer and longer and attitudes were starting to show themselves. The production manager kept stewing and saying loudly under his breath that we had to wrap things up. The feisty “actor” kept mentioning how late it was. Our director just had to get another take of that shot. And, I eventually had to say, “Okay, THIS will be the last shot.”

We wrapped and everyone was pretty beat. I thanked everyone for their time and work and the “post-production team”: director, production manager and I went off to “edit”.

Later, I would discover that my 1^st AD was very happy with “his experiment” of seeing how people would react under the continued stress of an unorganized situation. That, I would immediately decide was a good idea and continue on with. The 1^st AD, the director and I would have many meetings as to what worked and what didn’t and, believe it or not, these personnel “problems” would eventually sort themselves out.

What I learned: Defined roles are defined for a reason. Stick to them!

To be continued…

(Next 48 Hour Installment: The Assassination at India Palace)

Conflict!

Boy that seems to be the driving force behind a lot of businesses, telecommunications or otherwise. Heck, in most people’s lives too! Would life be better without it? I think we’ll never know.

There are at least three sets of competing technologies in the telecommunications industry that I am aware of at present time, trying to control their market shares. One is editing programs. Avid, Apple and Adobe are the bouting companies there. Then there’s the famous “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” fight. And then finally there is digital movies versus film movies. There are many more, like digital radio vs. standard radio or Internet TV vs. HD TV but I’m going to talk about the one I’m most connected to recently, film format vs. digital format.

I’m an up and coming indie “digital” filmmaker. I haven’t even cut one frame of film. I started my new journey a year and a half ago.

There are people on both sides of the fence on this controversy. Old-timers and newbies alike sit on either side of this debate. My uncle works for a major studio as a projectionist. He has worked there for quite a long time. He plans to retire in ten years. According to him he’ll still be playing movies on film projectors when he does.

He is among the group of people that embrace both technologies but prefer the older film technology. Another is Director of Photography, James Mathers. James spoke at a recent Orange County new media event on the future of digital cameras, specifically on what’s called 4K, meaning 4,000 lines of resolution (vs. 1080 which is HD). He loves to shoot on the new 4K cameras but states that he prefers to shoot film. I’ve noticed that most people, who have experience shooting film, prefer it. I think it’s more of an art thing. They feel more control and artistic when working with light in an analog manner, rather than dealing with it in an impersonal digital format on an impersonal computer, to boot.

Theatres are slowly changing to digital projection but according to my uncle, “They cost more to fix and are being replaced by film projectors when they do break down.”

I was at a recent HD Expo, March 5th, 2009. There, another old-timer, Rodney Charters, ASC, talked about his experiences shooting on new 4K technology cameras and that the show he works on 24, has made the switch to all digital, “no more film”. It was also during this seminar that I learned a stunning fact. One of the two top producers of digital projection technology was the very company my uncle, the die-hard film man, works for. It’s going to make for an interesting conversation the next time I see him!

To put things in perspective, film is closer to 6K in its resolution but it is expensive and film is delicate. I’m sure you notice the scratches in the film when you’re at the theater. The RED company is working on cameras now that will shoot digitally at 10K. There are lots of people very anxious for them to come out with them. Digital projection is much clearer, no scratches. Not to mention, the world is being trained to like HD and accept no less.

There have been many Kodak plant closures. Film processing is only done in a few places these days, when it used to be all over. Film also uses a lot of chemicals to process and there are arguments as to whether or not film isn’t destructive to our environment. There is even some that argue back that maybe the creation of digital media is destructive too. But I think the trend will always go towards the new. I don’t know anyone working on new film technology.

I work in the computer industry and watched the old dogs fight to keep main-frame computers and THEIR jobs from going away. But schools don’t teach main frame computing anymore and companies are moving away from them too. That’s just the way it goes. Out with the old and in with the new.

There are many similar stories in all types of technologies.

The next point of contention is archiving. Film lasts a lot longer than digital data. But they are coming to terms with that too. Just as punch cards moved to tape and then to digital storage in the computing industry, so will go film. They are already agreeing to terms of such storage.

Very few people learn to shoot and edit on film anymore. (I hope I get to here at RCC before it goes away but merely for historical study, really.)

Universities, like USC, are going all digital. Theaters are moving in that direction. Kids growing up probably won’t even know what “film” is. When they are grown, I suspect, film will be gone.

I don’t think the feud is as rough as the one between David Sarnoff and Edwin Howard Armstrong but I’m sure there are some people with stakes in the film industry that are fighting just as hard to stay around.

For my uncle’s sake, I hope it does take ten years to resolve. But in the end, I know I’ll be there working in digital as will many others, until the next new thing comes around!

What Worked and What Didn’t
There were a lot of things that worked. There were a lot of plans that we were able to make ahead of time to make things easier. There were things we should have done but didn’t. There were a lot of things that could have been improved. And, actually doing the things we planned to do, would have helped out a lot!

I think we learned what to do next time and everyone seemed excited about doing it again.

Pre-event Meetings
As I mentioned before, I started having meetings in June. I think we had 8 – 10 meetings total, including meetups and one field trip. The field trip was a seminar on DIY micro-budget filmmaking by John Putch. That was part of the Pizza & Post series given by Video Symphony, a post production school in Burbank. From those meetings we did three “two-hour film projects”. These weren’t completed in their totality in two hours but some portion of the process was completed in two hours (or so!)

This worked because it gave us a view into what our weak points were. We were able to plan more accurately the schedule that would be the 48 hours. It also worked to flush out “bad” attitudes or people or views that I didn’t want to work with on this project. It was good to see what were at first suspicions, grow into actuality and prove to me that if I ever detect those things in the future, that I am right and to just get them off the team right then and there and don’t waste time dealing with them.

People intimate with the team and its progress will know who I’m referring to but I just want to talk about the particulars so that others reading this can form their own opinions. I’m not saying that those “bad” attitudes are necessarily bad, I’m just saying they didn’t agree with my desires and as such were better off doing their own thing and not butting heads with me.

So this is how that all went down:

First person I met (other than people I already knew, who would work on the project) was a lawyer who had experience creating his own pilot home improvement show. Great guy. Very motivated. But, when first exchanging emails with him, I thought to myself, “I don’t think this is going to work out.” As any successful business person is, he was very passionate and very “right” in his opinion of how things should run. He was also a very creative guy and wanted very much to contribute to the creative side of things, writing and shooting, etc. We met the day before my official first meeting and face to face we had a lot of similar interests and creative contacts even.

Being a bit pushy and slightly over-bearing, I immediately thought of him as a good production manager, someone who could get people motivated or “pushed” to complete their intended project, on time. This I figured I was weak in, so I thought he’d fit the bill for that part.

The next day, I had my first meeting. He attended and brought his secretary, an actress. She couldn’t stay the whole meeting but I figured that since her boss was going to be running the show, I didn’t have to worry about whether or not she’d flake out on me.

Also at this meeting was one person from the 20 projects project (a filmmaking group I co-founded), whom I wanted for my 1st assistant director. He of course stayed until the end of the project.

The couple that would eventually quit to start their own team where there. They were very motivated and seemed willing to take on any role. They were also musicians and it’s always good to have a stall of musicians around. More on why they quit later.

Also, there was one classmate from my Intro to Telecommunication class at RCC and one classmate from an Intro to Pro HD class I took at Citrus College. Two more classmates from my Intro to Pro HD class would eventually be on my team but the first one had to quit because of health reasons.

We had a few general meetings; organizing, talking about genres, trying to figure out who wanted to do what, getting to know each other, going to the 48 Hour Film Project meet-ups, etc. These meetings really just served the purpose of “we’re a group, let’s see if we can stick together.”

Of the 10 actors and 9 crew/actors that ended up staying on the team, they came from these areas:
5, myself included, from my side filmmaking group, the 20 projects project – Roles: Producer/Actor, Director, Assistant Director/Actor, Actor and Actor.
5 from local bands (friends and family of ours) or friend of one of the bands (All actors)
4 from classmates of mine (Two soundmen/actors, one Writer and one Cameraman/Editor)
1 from Twitter friend of mine (Editor)
4 from craigslist ads or as a result of someone they knew reading the craigslist ad (Writer, Actor, Grip/Actor and Actor.)

Not everyone made the meetings on a regular basis, especially the band members and friends thereof but we had a core 6-7 that did. This built a solid foundation of “the group”.

To be continued…

Borrowing from the title of one of the shows I like to watch, I’m going to talk about doing my first 48 Hour Film Project. I’m going to break this down into installments as there is a lot that I have to write on this. So here’s the first.

June 22, held my first 48 HFP meeting. This is where I asked people who responded to my Craigslist ad to attend. From that first meeting, I believe I got three new people who stuck all the way to the end of the project. Two other attendees went on to start their own group for the 48 HFP and one more quit near the end and I opted not to bring them back on. The rest just disappeared.

There were more meetings and practice “two-hour film projects” and in the end there were a little over 20 people involved in the project, in one way or another.

The reason I wanted to do this 48 Hour Film Project in the first place is that I have spent the last year and a half studying about editing, video and film making and while reading and doing little practicals here and there, I knew that nothing would compare to actually getting out there and getting my hands dirty with some project with a hard deadline.

At first the group that I co-founded, The 20 Projects Project, seemed lackadaisical about doing the project but as we spent more time preparing for the show, they got more and more excited and active in relation to it.

Around the same time, we got interested in finishing an old project (with a new re-vamped ending) and starting using the practice sessions as “20 projects” projects.

I have studied a few film contests and the 48 Hour Film Project, overall, seemed not so professional that we couldn’t compete and also professional enough that we didn’t feel silly entering it.

I became interested in the Inland Empire 48 Hour Film Project last year but we heard about it too late to really enter and so I put myself on their mailing list to hear about the next year’s competition. Thus I got early emails about it and also had time to get things together in time to enter.

I really consider this more of an experiment in human nature and accomplishment than a film contest. This is a test to see if people working together in stressful situations can actually get a completed product and if they fail, where are the out-points so that they can be improved upon. It was an exercise in management.

I learned a lot of things about myself and different personality types and a whole lot about what not to do. I learned areas that needed improvement and I think we all learned new skills. After all, practice makes perfect and this was really good practice.

There were a reported 25 teams that competed this last weekend and of those, I watched about half. Everyone did a great job completing the task that they set out to complete. I gather that some had the end product that they wanted to achieve. We didn’t.

Stay tuned for more….

Video Symphony Presents
“Pizza & Post”

With Special Guest, Russian Film Editor

Lala Zabolotskaya-Carter 

   
A 20-year industry veteran, Lala Zabolotskaya-Carter is recognized as one of Russia’s best film editors and is the choice for several internationally recognized film directors including Oscar-Winner Nikita Mikhalkov, Andrey Konchalovsky, Vasiliy Pichul, Maxamillian Schell and many others.

                      

When: Tuesday, June 30th 7-9PM                

Where: Video Symphony 266 E. Magnolia Blvd. Burbank                                                                          

 

She has been recognized around the world for her talent, winning the Television Professional of the Year award in 1995 (Los Angeles), The Nika Award from The Russian Academy Motion Picture Arts, and The Russian Arts Award (The Russian “Oscar”) for Best Editing on “Little Vera.” She also has won The Fipressi Award at The Venice International Film Festival, as well as The Grand Prizes at The Montreal International Film Festival, The Chicago Film Festival, and The Paris Film Festival.

“Pizza & Post” is a great opportunity to gain new insights, ask a few questions, network with your post-production peers and as always, eat a lot of pizza.

Visual Effects for Directors
by Hollywood Camera Work.

Literally years of work went into creating this class and it shows because there is a massive amount of content in this course.  In fact, it’s a 7-DVD course!

The purpose of this course is to learn what is possible and what is not, to give you the ability to predict and make good decisions on the set.

The Visual Effects for Directors course covers digital effects and their principles, so you have a better idea of what can be done.

This is great reference material for Directors or DPs.

It’s not really a how-to, it’s more of a who-does-what and what-exactly-do-they-do.  Knowledge is power and you want the power to know what is required for your film.

Visual Effects for Directors is a complete course that covers:
modeling and texturing, modeling, character animation, 3d, compositing, VFX Cinematography, matchmoving, tracking, how to make 3d more real, lighting, interacting with virtual elements, motion capture, object removal and crowd replication.  All of this in an easy to understand presentation that puts you in command of the terms and concepts needed to fully understand digital VFX.

There are two dvds that are devoted entirely to “Green Screen Intensive”. This is an area that can cost a production tons in post if not set up properly. With this course, you learn the details of all steps of the green screening process, even down to building and painting a green screen set.

Another benefit is that this course is presented from the viewpoint of how to accomplish all for as little money as possible.

How DO you direct and block on a virtual set? Would you like to know how to get your actor to interact within the set? This course takes you through actual demos and gives you the overall big picture.

It is an invaluable resource and will save you untold hours and dollars on all of your productions.

This course is a must for anyone who plans on having any amount of digital effects work on their project.

I’m one who emphasizes understanding the whole process so that you can make smart decisions in your work.   This course embodies that idea and uses real-life examples thus making you a “virtual” expert!

I recommend this course for Directors, DPs or for anyone wanting to get into digital VFX.

Go to http://www.hollywoodcamerawork.us/vfx_index.html for clips, chapter summaries and order information.

This year I attended my first NAB show.  I set aside three days to attend this event and to go to related events.

A lot of people were saying that this year’s show was smaller than it has been but to me it was gigantic!  Attendance was also down and both of these this I think are rightly attributed to the economy.  While I was there for three days, it definitely wasn’t enough to take it all in.

The NAB show is so large that they have a daily magazine covering all of the goings on.   In addition to this they had (more than) daily podcasts covering different interesting aspects of the show.

There were big names there, Mary Tyler Moore for one.  And lots of book signings.  One of the big draws to this trade show is all of the technology, mostly new, that is on display, showing the future of broadcasting.

While NAB stand for National Association of Broadcasting, the show covers all aspects of film and digital video as well as internet and even gaming.  They understand that merging technologies have made all of these telecommunications areas a part of “broadcasting”.

I am currently taking a telecommunications class and recently learned the following things about NAB: “The first professional code for broadcasters was developed by the National Association of Broadcasters in 1929″ and “On the industry side, lobbyists represent the interests of those involved in the business of telecommunications.  One of the most influential of these is the National Association of Broadcasters.  Organizations such as NAB can influence the decisions of legislators by providing them with information about how certain issues or pending legislation will affect the industry”.

I certainly got sore feet walking the thousands of square feet of the exhibition floors, yes I said floors.  I should also mention that this expo covered multiple buildings.  I saw so much and honestly, there were whole floors that were just beyond me.  I could only imagine that these exhibits were for some very elite public.

The shear massiveness was completely overwhelming to me.  So much so that it has taken me month to gather my thoughts enough to even begin to write about the event.  I know that I’m not alone in this, as there are other publications and writers that have stalled this long as well.

There were a lot of “cool” things to see, even for an independent digital editor and filmmaker like myself.  I spent a lot of time watching demonstrations at the FCPUG (Final Cut Pro Users Groups) “Superbooth” as well as at some other locations.

I attended some classes and seminars and other external events.  More on these later.

Before I went, I heard one of the executives of NAB talk about why going to NAB was important.  He echoed why the LAFCPUG leader says people should attend events, to get in touch with people and meet them face to face.  I have to thoroughly agree with them.  The most valuable experience for me was meeting and talking to so many people, especially the people that I have meet on line and even done business with bt had never, until NAB, met face to face.

Being active in attending events, especially in the post production arena, I have met some great people and it is always so cool to run into familiar faces.  The more I am active in meeting people, the  more opportunities open up for me.  In fact, it is because I attended NAB this year, that I had a common point to share with an interviewer and got an upcoming assistant editing job.

My original purpose for going to Las Vegas that week was to attend one external event, the FCPUG SuperMeet.  This is an annual event where Final Cut Pro user groups from around the country get together and it’s a fantastic event.  With all of my new social networking ties, through Twitter, etc.  I learned of a few other external events that I attended as well.  Then NAB gave out free exhibit passes, so I, of course wanted to “check it out”.

I learned so much and made so many great contacts at NAB this year, that I have decided already to set aside a whole week for next year’s event!

Stay tuned for more reviews on other industry events and I’m sure, more from NAB.