Corrado Part II

a point to remember since we are hovering around it visa vi the american obsession with theatrical, a theatrical release however small, will increase the value to the ancillaries, and companies particularly releasing in the US will take a loss on P&A knowing they will make it up later.
 
Right. Even a small theatrical run can (evidently) generate much greater interest in the DVD rental than it otherwise might, particularly if it does well on the "tomatometer" (and AFAIK DTV titles aren't generally covered there at all). There are any number of 'small' films whose DVD sales grossed many multiples of what their limited theatrical runs did. In some cases massively so...
 
Often distributors who are on the fence about whether the film can have "legs" theatrically they'll do a NRG SCREENING and rely on the result to help them decide.

-M
 
Rippie said:
Adam, I'm curious when looking at the budget for a DTV style film where do you think the top end figure lands
where distributors start to think its too risky to make their money back and they'll pass on your film?

If a filmmaker wants to sell a film they made for $100 grand with a decent name in it I would think a product like that would be a pretty easy sale.
Put a 10 million dollar figure even with a bigger name(s) and I would think thats a much easier deal for a distribution company to pass on.

In your experience do you think there is a sweet spot money wise where you can get enough production value in the film
but also not price yourself out of easier distro? (assuming raising the funds isn't an issue)

I'm sure when building the budget for H14 even if you had access to more funds I'm sure there is a point
where you say to yourself its just not worth putting more money into the project.

I realize this question isn't cut and dry, just interested in your opinion.
Click to expand...



I think you've touched on a good point. Most filmmakers see the fact that they can make a watchable movie for $20K as a selling feature. The problem is it's a bell curve type model and people won't buy anything real cheap or anything real expensive.

With few exceptions (The district 9 dude comes to mind as one of them....Neil whatsisname), Studios will bet dollars to donuts that your little movie WILL NOT contain sufficient "production value" for what they are paying, no matter WHO is in it.

You get a big name on too small of a budget and they are expecting a one room type movie. A decent budget level in DTV is $1 to 3.5M, where they know you will have:

1. Good name talent
2. Adequate production value

Too cheap and too expensive raises eyebrows in just about every part of life.
 
Adam - a more general question for you if I may:

Are there any stories/insights you could share with us from your more recent experience with Hangar 14 in particular? Perhaps it should be in a new thread, but I'm sure this one could suffice as well. So much about it is so different from your maiden voyage with "Corrado" in almost every way that it seems it would present a great opportunity (for many of us anyway, to be perfectly selfish) to benefit from some of your experiences there. When you have a chance, if there are some nuggets you could roll our way I think we'd all enjoy hearing them.

Thanks in advance, as always.
 
I suppose I could, Ted, but nothing about Hangar 14 is really exemplary - and not much of it is as applicable as making your first feature. H14 is business as usual following a model that will be difficult or impossible to most people as large distributors and studios are involved so it's not relevant to this target audience.

It's a little like me hearing how Jon Favreau got Iron Man mad. Cool story, bro, but I can't use not one little piece of it. He's up there in the ether where I can't get to so his stories entertain, but do not instruct.

My next project is even more abstract.
 
So anyways here is a copy of the trailer for Hangar 14 that the distributor made (Vivendi). I kinda like it. It's the low res version. Oh, and they changed the name of the movie to TACTICAL FORCE, which i absolutely loathe. Such is filmmaking though.

Anyways, here's the LOW RES (before anyone starts bitching about quality) version....

 
Well. That's how it goes. I'm still getting flack from them changing our title from Battle to Step Off. Congratulations. Trailer looks pretty cool.


-M
 
I dig the trailer Adam.

I don't know if I loathe the new title, but Hangar 14 sounds more intriguing. Tactical Force sounds a bit generic like a video game, but I think the trailer will make up for that.

Question for anybody who watched this with decent speakers -- was the audio sounding funny or hollow? I was listening to this through some cheap headphones and a pretty wack PC laptop from a client. Might just be on my end.

Good luck with this, I'll be checking this out too whenever it's released so keep us posted.
 
Nice Adam!

Question, did your DP use 360deg shutter on the slomo parts?

So what's the process for you now on H14/Tactical Force? Are you at all involved in the post or are you done and onto the next?
 
Yeah, compressed audio for sure. It is fine in the full size version, obviously.

Shawn: I don't recall. Some of the super slomo (like the cop getting shot) was Weisscam at 400+ frames. Don't recall the sttings on that one.

The film is done, post is done, and it has been delivered to the domestic distributor. It's basically sold worldwide already.
 
The audio sounds more like a comb-filtering problem to me - not compression. It can happen when two audio signals are combined that are the same, which would not normally be a problem. It is though, if one is going through a different level of digitization than the other, causing a very slight delay. When the two signals are combined, they cancel out certain frequencies in one another - aka "comb filtering". It happens quite often in video post situations especially, where the operator's *audio* expertise may...um...not be at its highest. I notice it on TV shows, especially live ones, from time to time.

The giveaways are that the tone-shifted artifacty-ness is perfectly consistent - most audio compression algorithms don't do that; and also the telltale 'hollow' tone - the hallmark of comb-filtering.

Comb filtering (when varied with a low-frequency oscillator) is the main ingredient in the "flanging" effect that is popular on guitars and other electric instruments. It does exactly what I described above - combine two copies of a signal, one of which is very slightly delayed in relation to the other - usually by about 7 milliseconds or so, which is not long enough to be perceived as a delay. But it shifts the tone, then slightly varies the delay time (which also varies the tone) through the oscillator. Delay throughput times of a few milliseconds are also very common in audio digitizing devices, which lends itself to this exact problem...

If you've read this far either you probably already knew this...

Otherwise, you probably now know more about comb-filtering and flanging than you ever wanted to : )
 
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Honestly, it just sounds like ultra low audio compression. The video itself isn't even HD in the vimeo embed.

I know what you're talking about, Ted, but I think this is just a case of bad compression.
 
Yeah, the technical explanation is it's a crappy low res left/right mixed temp temp temporary. It's all i will see until release. Studio paid for that trailer, cost $25k, so it will all be superb, promise. I don't have any input at this phase.

just showing you guys so you can get a feel for what the show looks like
 
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