How smart would it be to make my own film?

Re: How smart would it be to make my own film?

There's no difference between acting for a film shot on film and acting for that same film shot digitally. There just isn't.
 
Re: How smart would it be to make my own film?

[quote author=David Jimerson link=board=Offtopic;num=1097207828;start=30#40 date=10/10/04 at 19:50:29]There's no difference between acting for a film shot on film and acting for that same film shot digitally.  There just isn't.[/quote]

From genre to genre to medium to medium, I believe each has its specialities (for lack of a better word. insomnia has been getting the better of me). The way a person acts on a tv show may not translate as well to a feature length movie based on the show. You can call them stereotypes if you will.

Being extremely unexperienced, this is all I can believe until I experience what the majority of you have experienced and maybe then I will come to the same conclusions you have.
 
Re: How smart would it be to make my own film?

I am not disputing the many techniques applied to the various genres within the medium. I am merely saying that a bad actor is a bad actor.
 
Re: How smart would it be to make my own film?

Even a bad actor can serve a purpose though. Imagine wanting to remake an Ed Wood movie while staying true to the spirit of the original.
 
Re: How smart would it be to make my own film?

[quote author=ahmedmalik link=board=Offtopic;num=1097207828;start=30#41 date=10/10/04 at 20:35:08]
From genre to genre to medium to medium, I believe each has its specialities (for lack of a better word. insomnia has been getting the better of me). The way a person acts on a tv show may not translate as well to a feature length movie based on the show. You can call them stereotypes if you will.
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I'm not talking about different genres. I'm talking about the exact same film being shot on film or on digital. The acting should be exactly the same for both.

Example -- 28 Days Later. Some of it was shot on digital. Some of it was shot on 35mm. The acting is exactly the same in both parts.
 
Re: How smart would it be to make my own film?

[quote author=David Jimerson link=board=Offtopic;num=1097207828;start=30#44 date=10/10/04 at 21:07:41]

I'm not talking about different genres.  I'm talking about the exact same film being shot on film or on digital.  The acting should be exactly the same for both.

Example -- 28 Days Later.  Some of it was shot on digital.  Some of it was shot on 35mm.  The acting is exactly the same in both parts.
[/quote]

But the feel of how the acting is communicated to the audience will have been changed,
 
Re: How smart would it be to make my own film?

Bad acting is bad acting, there's no reason that you should change your acting based on the medium it's shot with. The reason stage acting and theatre acting is different is because in theatre acting the audience member remains stationary and views the entire story from the same perspective. Film is far more dynamic and the audience's perspective changes constantly from being extremely close to the actor where very subtle acting is required, to long shots where an over exaggerated performance is more acceptable. In Moulin Rouge for example, a great deal of the over the top acting isn't done in close-ups. The actors change their acting style based on where the audience's perspective is from.

Digital vs Film follows the same principals, so having film or digital wouldn't make the difference in your performances but how you film it would change your performances.

The reason why you most likely think that digital regularly contains wooden acting is because many of these digital films you have mentioned have all been extremely low budget. Low budget means you can't hire talented enough actors, which means your acting simply won't be as good. Watch collateral and you'll understand acting is acting and has nothing to do with digital or not.

Another thing you're probably taking into consideration is the 60i vs 24p of a great deal of digital vs film and television vs film. This changes the way you perceive the motion in the film. Film has been 24 fps since the 1920s so all films you've seen growing up have been in that format. Also, 60 interlaced fields has been the standard in home video format for the last 30 years... this has also tainted the way you look at both. If you take the DVX100 for example in 24p mode, it will look much closer to film than to home video simply because of the motion rendering.

This being said, it doesn't matter if you shoot in 60i or 24p other than the medium style. You can still create fiction that is in a standard film format that will hold up against any other film as long as your story, acting, and production value are high. People will see past the technical stuff and see the story. What makes a good film a good film is that your audience will be brought into the story and into the character's lives without being distracted by the format of the film.

Wanting to make films that are foreign in style when you are in fact not foreign is futile. The reason those films have the stories and styles they have is based on the culture they come from. Nothing you can do to imitate it will make it as good as the genuine thing. You can say Tarantino did it with Kill Bill, but he really didn't. He made very much a regular hollywood film, it just had the so called "foreign" flavour.

House of Flying Daggers and Hero both have a very specific style to the films that comes from the director. No North American would be able to create a film that matched that style properly. The culture the director grew up in is very different than the one you've grown up in. The films you make are foreign to someone else, don't forget that. I came to this conclusion while watching Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. I thought how cool it would be to make a film the same with the accents and the location and everything, but then I realized the only reason it was so cool was because it was foreign to me. I'm sure it was only a regularly taught story to those from the area the film was created. Everyone thought Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was some marvel of ingenuity and was a film the likes of which have never been seen before. The film's style is in fact very established in the region it comes from. The reason it was so good was because it was the Unforgiven of it's genre.

Foreign films seem particularly appealing because they're something fresh and new that is different from what we're used to experiencing.

Bad acting can never serve a purpose. A good actor will be able to give a bad performance if you so desire. Same as the Fauve artists who painted pictures that children could paint, but if you asked any of them to paint a still life, they could paint your socks off. They chose a specific style for a specific reason, doesn't mean they were bad or needed to be bad to make it. It's better to have a good actor give a bad performance because they'll still have all the good qualities...
 
Re: How smart would it be to make my own film?

[quote author=ahmedmalik link=board=Offtopic;num=1097207828;start=30#43 date=10/10/04 at 20:52:11]Even a bad actor can serve a purpose though. Imagine wanting to remake an Ed Wood movie while staying true to the spirit of the original.[/quote]

A bad actor will never serve any purpose other than to scream "This film is ****!". In regards to Ed wood maybe you should rent ED WOOD. The actors in that film do nothing but 'remake' Ed Wood films: Johnny Depp, Martin Landau, Patricia Arquette, Vincent D'Onofrio and Bill Murray are not Good actors they are great actors!

But the feel of how the acting is communicated to the audience will have been changed,
Click to expand...

Will it? The audience in general is in no way as attentative in scrutinizing a film as we are (we being the film enthhusiast, purest, filmmakers, junkies). I think that is pure speculation. Every person I know other than fellow 'film junkies' had no idea 28 Days Later was shot on DV and I assure you, not only is the acting first rate, it is no different in the methodology of the actor nor is it communicated to the audience any differently.

By the way, Thinspirit? That was one hell of a solid take on this subject. Bravo!
 
Re: How smart would it be to make my own film?

The acting -- nor the "communication" of it -- does not change at all in 28DL. I wonder if you'd even be able to tell where it switches between film and DV . . .
 
Re: How smart would it be to make my own film?

Well, okay, here's the deal. First of all, anything can be used to prove anything. Compare digital (SW: AOTC) against film (SW: A New Hope) and you could clearly say that digital filmmaking causes bad acting, right? ;)

Obviously there should be no difference; ALL OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL.

But of course all other things are rarely equal. Especially when a film is shot digitally, as defined by a prosumer video camera. Very few people would make a movie on a miniDV camera if they could afford film, and very few financiers would let them do so. Very few directors would choose to work with that medium.

It's like I said a few months back, Hemingway would have written just as well with a word processor as he would with a pencil, right? And after thinking about it, I came to the idea that no... not necessarily... because the medium itself changes the process of writing. Writing with a word processor allows your brain to run at full speed (depending on your typing speed): I type at about 85wpm, so I can put out pages and pages and pages on the word processor in the same amount of time it'd take to do one page with pencil. So with pencil or pen, the writing is much slower, and you spend a lot more time thinking about the words, versus the amount of time committing the words to paper. And word processing makes editing/revisions so much easier, so you may not be as committed to the words when you put them down, vs. pencil. So just by selecting a different medium, you will likely change the work that is created.

I don't know if that happens in big-budget hollywood productions, where they have all the benefit of crews and support and script doctors and production designers etc, and the action is filmed on large sound stages and the actors are waiting in their trailers while the crew of 60 readies the next shot. In circumstances like that, whether the actual camera was a digital video camera or a film camera, it would seem to probably make *no difference* to the final product, which is what I believe the other posters here have been saying.

But that's assuming all other things are equal. When using a digital camera, all other things are frequently not equal: you're frequently talking about a crew of maybe four, working in someone's apartment, etc. A very different feeling, and so very different results.

And shooting on film, the crew and cast and especially the producer and director are *very conscious* of the amount of film flowing through the camera, and so they likely approach each shot, each take, with a different mindset (more like Hemingway's pencil). On the free-flowing digital tape set, people think "tape is cheap" and so there may be less of a feeling of gravity and seriousness, less of a feeling of "we absolutely must get this right" -- because they can always run another take, always shoot again. More like the word processor.

Bad acting is bad acting, and you get bad acting no matter what medium you're shooting on. Bad directing is bad directing, which can make even wonderful actors look like bad actors (witness Samuel L. Jackson in SW:TPM and SW:AOTC). You're probably more likely to see bad acting and bad directing in digital productions, because there's a lot more hoops to jump through before you get to shoot on the big 35mm productions. But obviously you can encounter bad acting anywhere.

In short, I don't think the actual medium has anything to do with it; I think the medium is chosen as a result of the circumstances the filmmakers find themselves in, and a bigger proportion of digital filmmakers are more inexperienced than film filmmakers, which may lead to inadequate direction; also a bigger proportion of actors in digital films are likely friends & family of the filmmaker, which is not usually a path to finding great actors.
 
Re: How smart would it be to make my own film?

"It's like I said a few months back, Hemingway would have written just as well with a word processor as he would with a pencil, right?  And after thinking about it, I came to the idea that no... not necessarily... because the medium itself changes the process of writing.  Writing with a word processor allows your brain to run at full speed (depending on your typing speed): I type at about 85wpm, so I can put out pages and pages and pages on the word processor in the same amount of time it'd take to do one page with pencil.  So with pencil or pen, the writing is much slower, and you spend a lot more time thinking about the words, versus the amount of time committing the words to paper.  And word processing makes editing/revisions so much easier, so you may not be as committed to the words when you put them down, vs. pencil.  So just by selecting a different medium, you will likely change the work that is created."

That is what I was trying to say. I never meant to say or have it come across that all acting on digital is "wooden" because I've seen some quite wonderful acting recorded digitally overseas. It's just in this country, from the films I've seen, actors seem to come across better on film.

I know when I'm seeing bad acting because I've seen enough asian cinema to know when a movie has good acting or not. If you watch it rarely, then you will have a hard time knowing what you're seeing.

By the way, the mention of Ed Wood was a jab at humor.  :P
 
Re: How smart would it be to make my own film?

I think the digital vs film acting phenemona people are seeing is that very few studios, investors, production companies and filmmakers who happen to shoot a feature on film are going to try to save money on the actor payroll and take that element at all lightly.

One strange problem with the DV revolution is that it has made filmmaking tools accessible to WAY more people who are unskilled and unexperienced in their craft. Twenty years ago when films had to be shot on film it was a more expensive proposition across the board. I work a lot in creative editorial that uses strickly AVID. There are some concerns with Final Cut Pro because it makes all the tools easily accessible to unexperienced, unskilled and ultimately untalented people. It really comes down to the people, not the tools, and DV has made the market way more saturated.

I think with DV it is way more easy to put bad actors out there because its cheaper to get them out there.

I am in no means criticizing or putting down DV. I think its wonderful. But unfortunately I think its opened the floodgates to some people who's true talents are found elsewhere.
 
Re: How smart would it be to make my own film?

How do I go about getting allowed to use music from a rock band? What happens to people if they use it without asking? Are they told to replace the music and if they don't, they'll get sued?
 
Re: How smart would it be to make my own film?

Depends on the level of sucess and popularity of that rock band. Is this a local band? A college popular band or a Top 40 megaband?
 
Re: How smart would it be to make my own film?

It's a pretty popular band. A couple of their records have gone multi-platinum. The tracks I want to use haven't been on any of their albums.
 
Re: How smart would it be to make my own film?

(I went through this from the band side before, it ended up being cool but I was totally pissed at first)

Can you imagine if someone took clips of your film and made a music video without asking you? And what if the songs content was something that was offensive or completely opposed to your views or against the spirit of your films vision?

You would have lost complete control and would forever be associated with it to some degree. Bands at that level, or at least their management, are very concerned with image and perception and it’s their job to be. If you aggressively market your film using artwork without permission they will aggressively seek to sue you. I guarantee that, they get more press and story legs out of pursuing lawsuits than they’ll get from your film. And at the end of it, they’ll probably say “if you had only asked”.

On the other hand, if handled properly, it’s mutually beneficial. They get extra marketing and you’re able to use something you feel fits your film. That’s the case more times than not. Just ask them. At this level, the multi-platform artist is more beneficial to you than you are to them unless the film breaks open. It’s business, theft (there’s no other way to put that, it’s theft) and image integrity. Again, please just ask them.
 
Re: How smart would it be to make my own film?

[quote author=nullphonic link=board=Offtopic;num=1097207828;start=45#57 date=10/11/04 at 13:42:12](I went through this from the band side before, it ended up being cool but I was totally pissed at first)

Can you imagine if someone took clips of your film and made a music video without asking you? And what if the songs content was something that was offensive or completely opposed to your views or against the spirit of your films vision?

You would have lost complete control and would forever be associated with it to some degree. Bands at that level, or at least their management, are very concerned with image and perception and it’s their job to be. If you aggressively market your film using artwork without permission they will aggressively seek to sue you. I guarantee that, they get more press and story legs out of pursuing lawsuits than they’ll get from your film. And at the end of it, they’ll probably say “if you had only asked”.

On the other hand, if handled properly, it’s mutually beneficial. They get extra marketing and you’re able to use something you feel fits your film. That’s the case more times than not. Just ask them. At this level, the multi-platform artist is more beneficial to you than you are to them unless the film breaks open. It’s business, theft (there’s no other way to put that, it’s theft) and image integrity. Again, please just ask them.
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Thanks. What I'm going to do is put the songs in the movie and send it to the band before I enter it into any contests. If they say no, I'll take their songs out.

These are practice photos I took. What do you think?

http://im1.shutterfly.com/procserv/47b4ce27b3127ccea85ab7f322700000001610

http://im1.shutterfly.com/procserv/47b4ce29b3127ccea87e530735d60000007610
 
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