And we’re back…Sorta

One of the most interesting things about film is how much time you spend planning vs the time you actually spend filming. Now maybe it’s just cause I’m still so new at this but most of my days are actually spent thinking and prepping for our shoots than are actual shoots. It’s all this buildup that all comes down to one really busy, really blurry day.
It seems to always start a little late, we have the best intentions to get up early and start our day at seven or eight. Buuuuuuut we really don’t get the show rolling until nine, and that’s with skipping breakfast. Then the day becomes one if flurry of ‘Ok where do you want this light? Will it blow the breaker if we plug it in here? No we can’t put the camera there cause the set needs to actually move to there.’ and of course, without fail, there’s always the ‘How did we do it last time?’.
But alas somehow, maybe with the help of magic film fairies, we always seem to pull off the shoot, somehow. I really wish I could say for sure it’s because of Olytron’s steely resolve and clear vision he had in his head (even though most of the time it’s semi translucent at best in my head) or if it was cause of my ability to adapt and just make it work.

Doesn’t matter I guess. One of those “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth” kinda deals. But finally getting back to the state where we are both behind a camera is something I can tell we both love, and I’m so looking forward to this project we have coming on the horizon. But I’m sure more of that will come later. 😉

Resources in my back pocket

Luckily learning about the technical and artistic side of video is a passion of mine. Over the years I have built up a collection of books and online resources I use to learn the art and science of shooting. I sometimes have to push myself to shoot though cause I find learning and reading to be very safe. It is too easy to hide behind  the excuse of I need to read up on  one more technique before I shoot. Getting your feet wet is both awesome and scary but man do you learn a ton, especially when everybody is staring at you expecting answers, like “Where is the pizza? You promised pizza!”

Books on Screen Writing

• Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need
• Save the Cat! Goes to the Movies
• Save the Cat! Strikes Back
• Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting
• The Writers Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers

Books when Shooting

• The DV Rebel’s Guide: An All-Digital Approach to Making Killer Action Movies on the Cheap
• Cinematic Storytelling: The 100 Most Powerful Film Conventions Every Filmmaker Must Know
• Directing Actors: Creating Memorable Performances for Film & Television
• Lighting for Film and Digital Cinematography
• The Five C’s of Cinematography: Motion Picture Filming Techniques

Books on Video Editing

• In the Blink of an Eye Revised 2nd Edition
• Technique of Film Editing

Books after Shooting

• Adobe After Effects CS5 Visual Effects and Compositing Studio Techniques
• Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects
• The Art and Science of Digital Compositing, Second Edition: Techniques for Visual Effects, Animation and Motion Graphics
• The After Effects Illusionist: All the Effects in One Complete Guide

Other Useful Books

• Design Basics Index
• Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

Sweet zombie puppies this list is longer then I realized. I will post Resources in my Back Pocket: Part Deux covering videos, online resources and iPhone apps.

Lean Green Screen Machine

Oh! Idea! How about a bunch of business people racing down a city street in office chairs? How on earth do I pull that off? Towing my friends in office chairs behind a truck down the street may not be a greatest idea. Time to pull out the green screen

Home made green screen

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Now to use after effects to pull out the key.

Great tutorial on how to do this can be found here at http://www.videocopilot.net

http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorial/3d_ledge/

and here

http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorial/basic_color_keying/

Film Riot also has some great tutorials

http://revision3.com/filmriot/greenscreen

and even here

http://revision3.com/filmriot/chromakey#seek=19

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I messed up while shooting this as I left the gain on hence creating non-sexy grain. Took me forever to try and fix it using a combination of colour correction, size reduction and de-graining. Still not thrilled with the final result but passable for what I need.

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Before Grain Clean Up

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After Grain Clean Up

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Now it was time to go out and grab pictures of buildings and streets for the scrolling background. Don’t worry I was safe.  Thane was in photographer mode here not devastator mode, besides I always carry the emergency shutdown remote and those ALWAYS work on rampaging cyborgs right?

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Assets gained it was a matter of stitching the pavement and buildings together to create a city block. I also removed copyrighted material since the goal of this project was to use it for micro stock.

With my assets ready to go I layered and animated them in After Effects, added camera shake, colour corrected and added a lens flare and presto my friends are racing down a city block with all limbs intact.

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Here is a link to the final animation

http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-video-12713449-office-chair-street-race.php

Fear of Talking Heads

Fear of talking heads, not quite a psychosis but I find many low budget science fiction shorts are two or more heads blathering ad nauseum. An issue I’ve  tried to avoid with the model employee script. By the way writing dialogue is freaking tough but that is for another day.

How am I avoiding the talking heads? Well I’ve thrown in a bunch of action, special effects and lots of camera cuts. I’ve kept the content as lean as possible to keep the story moving forward. L-Cat has been a huge help with story pacing since I try to make the story blaze forward damn the torpedoes and she reminds me to give the audience time to breathe.

Will it work?  Will my phobia of talking heads nurture a well-paced short or some barrage of spasmodic farrago? Whatever the result I’ll comment that was totally what I meant to do, flick my fancy scarf over my shoulder and exit right with dramatic flare.



Friends, Actors, and Crew are GOLD!

The cast and crew, many who are one and the same, are awesome. The dedication and talent is inspiring. We deep into production now and none of it would be possible without the help of my friends. I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank everybody. Did I mention you guys are awesome?

Jackie Chan….I’m on my way

Stunts are tricky things.  When you first come up with the idea you figure “Yeah that’ll look awesome on film”, and then reality sets in.  You gotta start thinking about location, camera angles, pacing, and most importantly safety.  Then you talk to the actor and pitch in a way that it’ll make them look awesome, get them excited about it.  All about the vanity.  The next step is how to pull it off without breaking your actor.  And when you work on a low-budget film, that part gets a little tricky.

So the setup is great.  All right we’re gonna setup the camera here, you’re gonna come in here, you need to spin and hit the wall, collapse to the ground.  Easy right?  Ha.  The actor/stunt guy goes in, “Whatever I got this” and then is usually goes something like this.

Take 1 – BANG! Actor thinks “Yeah I got this. I felt strong in that one.  Maybe I should sell it more. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do. Sweet.”

Take 2 – BANG! Actor thinks “That’s better.  Shook me a little but I got this.  I bet it looked awesome! *Look to director for thumbs up* Sweet.”

Take 3 – BANG! Actor thinks “Ok, that one smarted. I think I’ll back this next one off.  There can’t be much more left. Sweet.”

Take 15 – BANG! Actor thinks “Why is my vision blurry? I just gotta hold it together. *Looks to director for sign of the end*  Ok, ow.”

All things aside, we take it easy and have a fun time.  Everyone is actually all on the stunt guy, make sure he’s got enough water, he’s not hurt, etc etc.

Bottom line. Doing stunts is fun.  A little soreness can go a long way when you look back at the dailies and all you can think is “Wow that looks like it hurt”.  Especially if you’re the guy bouncing off the wall.

Time to bloody some people up…

Doing an indy movie gives you a chance to do plenty of things, expand your knowledge and sometimes dive into areas you never thought you would.  Point and case, makeup.

I knew nothing of makeup before.  I could tell the difference between lipstick and mascara, but come on, any kid raised in a mostly female household can pick that part up when the ‘Wild Cherry’ lipstick is being thrown at your head.  So it was with the support, guidance and a whole lot of sideways glances from sales ladies, that I ventured into the HUGE world of movie makeup.

First thing I learnt, it can be expensive so definitely use your imagination and plan ahead.  Such great products out there that it’s easy to get lost in all of it.  Thanks to the folks at Don’s Hobby Shop for taking me by the hand and showing me a few tricks.  They helped me find the basics for what we needed and we were able get just what we needed, and it worked out.

Took a couple tries but with help from McHawtie and a little bit of my arts background we were able to get some wicked makeup going.  We’ve almost got it down to a science now, so to speak.  Enjoy the photos and stay tuned for more.

Making Props!

Let me say Toys “R” Us is a great place to get cheap sci-fi props. We grabbed a bunch of spy toys on sale took them apart and with Azrayll’s magic repainting we had props for our short. We paid around $20 for the toys and paint.  Here are some pictures of the props and the props in action.

Avro Gauss Pistol in the making

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Avro Gauss Pistol Unfolded

Avro Gauss Pistol Folded

Avro Gauss Pistol in action

No turning back now

So this is where it all starts…one of us looking at the other and saying “Hey, you know what’d be cool?”.  And bang, so begins the gruelling process of film-making.

Now I have to admit, I didn’t exactly want to do films to start with.  I mean yeah they were interesting and fun to make (and act in) but I was just there to help out Olytron.  I hate to say, the bug has kinda hit me.  Depending on when you ask me I either love or hate making films.  During filming, I love it.  When we’re looking at dailies, I love it.  The week before when we’re scrambling to get all the things done last minute, I hate it.

Once you’re bitten though, it’s hard to stop.  Especially when making indie films and you have to take care of everything yourself.  I have learnt so much about makeup, regular and film, from friends and sales ladies I’m starting to wonder if I should be buying a full-on kit.  Then there’s the prop making.  “What’s that Olytron?  We need two dozen different props?  All original concepts and specific for scenes?  And we have no budget?  Sure thing buddy!”  I swear by the end of it my reply to everything was “okay, I’ll take care of it”.  It was however a good chance to get my hands dirty and take up painting again, leaving a mess of paints, cardboard and tape behind me everywhere I went in the house.

All in all it was a great way to dust off my artistic side and get right back into it.  Only 4, maybe 5, more days of shooting left to squeeze in within this next month.  So far so good but I still can’t help but dread the words that might come out of Olytron’s mouth….”Hey, you know what’d be cool?”

As Indie as it Gets

Right now we are working on a zany sci-fi romp with cyborgs, action scenes and a malicious artificial intelligence. It’s great fun and so far we’ve pulled off some very entertaining footage.  We’ll have behind the scene production photos as soon as they are processed.