The 24 Diary

GuitarRy said:
Cheers,
thanks for your comment. In case people want me to contribute i will do.

What did you mean by telling me that you watched my trailer?

And "yes"; i was honest for sure. Still this is my opinion.
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Hey Garry! I think we all got off on the wrong foot! And by going out to your website and seeing your trailer and also seeing something significant about your posts. I now "think" I see where you're coming from.

I think you're in Germany? Your website definately wasn't in English or Spanish so I'm sure you're not in America. So let's stop arguing a minute and I'll help you to understand a few things. You said something about $50K ($50,000) making you rich. And that confused me, because in the United States $50K isn't much money at all. It's a lot in the fact that you can buy a car, but you can't buy a house, and you can barely make a movie off of it.

American Distributors pay $20K to $50K for small budget movies all the time. This is normal for the US. We have one of the strongest domestic film markets. So a distributor giving somebody $50K is small potatoes - it's like an insult. But a smart filmmaker can use this insult to their advantage. While many filmmakers - many on this site will focus on making $80K to $250K movies, this is dangerous because small distributors may not pay them back. And if those filmmakers make a lot of mistakes (because they don't have the experience) guess what happens they could loose $250K on a movie that they can't sell. But if you know going in that movies like:

"The Devil's Diamond", "Motorhome Masacre" all sold for approx $35K to $70K then you can budget accordingly. The hard part is that most people will not tell you want their distribution deal was, so as a filmmaker you have to "guess", but most of us tend to "guess" wrong. Luckly for me, I followed RRs advice and made my movie cheap. The same year I sold my first movie a lady in Atlanta made a movie that was much worse than mine - in quality and story - and cost almost 5 times as much $75K! When she went to sell, she only got $5K more than me. She took a huge loss, I didn't.

It is also normal for Banks in the US to extend credit to those over the age of 19 as long as they don't have a criminal record and especially if they went to college or are in college. This again is normal. US Banks want to get Citizens into Debt early so they can recoup interest off of them for the rest of their lives (or at least until they pay off the debt). Most Americans are in debt. Most are in debt over $50K - many over $250K. This again is normal for us. So what I was saying is that before a young filmmaker goes and buys the new car, or new stereo and Plasma TV - make your movies. When you get money from the final 3rd movie - use that to buy your car, stereo and TV. Right now I'm 32 and I drive a car my dad bought me when I left college. All my friends shake their heads at me (thinking - buy a car that one's a disgrace) but my money is put to movies - not to cars or other things that come and go. I could have a new Lexus right now or BMW if I traded in all my equipment. You have to want it.
 
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jls4....
Hey how's it going?
still need to hook up in Atlanta

When they mentioned whores they were talking about equipment whores or people who buy and hold onto equipment.
I do think there is some three bears syndrome going on
some people reading your post do not even have enough of a background to grasp what you are saying. They do not understand the minimum standard needed to make a sellable product. they say things like "i'll get a $300 dollar camera and point and shoot." They are also famous for "it's the story that matters not the equipment" true once you've met that minimum standard...
We will call these guys..... to cold

Next you have these guys that are shooting on much larger budgets than you are talking about.
They rent high end gear to make a sellable product. Production value much higher than minimum standard mentioned earlier. In your business model they sell final product fro same money they pay rental bill you pay of cc end with same profit but..... now you own equipment for picture two
Granted if they become an expert with high end gear they have a very marketable skill but thats not what this is about its about making one or two features a year and living off the small to medium profits....
We will call these guys.... to hot

But you are reaching some guys we will call..... just right that have enough basic knowledge to really learn from your model.
You are doing much more than giving an opinion when you have already done what you are teaching. Guys that just want to make a movie and then another and another.
I know many guys who have put everything money, heart, time, effort into making one movie that didn't get the response they wanted. and that was it they left the best movie inside themselves because they didn't take time to grow into being great.
Even Big Dogs are born small
Keep living the dream Big Dog
 
I guess that makes me too hott. Which I don't mind. haha

It works both ways. The beauty of options eh?

I think the whore comment was made elsewhere, I have a terrible tendency of using 'you' to refer to someone reading the post - no necessarily 'you' as in OP.
 
legend of the steelstring said:
jls4....
Hey how's it going?
still need to hook up in Atlanta

When they mentioned whores they were talking about equipment whores or people who buy and hold onto equipment.
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Let me know when. I should be finishing up this next movie in like a few weeks, so I'll have plenty of time (at least for a while) Funny about the equip-wh0res, cause I would think the exact opposite. I won't explain why in an open forum that could come back on me later... But I'll say this, I only hold on to equipment that can work well forever. Arri lights have been in vogue for what 30 years? 40? good audio equipment lasts a lifetime? Onyl cameras need to be switched out and even then it's cheaper to Buy - Use then Sell, than to Rent (unless you get a great deal). But those reading need to remember people looking into this thread don't have the budgets that they do.

But I believe if people follow this model, one day they will have the budget and they will have an added advantage of knowing all aspects of filmmaking and not be dependent on every single crew member. I heard a story about a guy making a movie, 2 weeks in his money started to run out. He had a camera guy, audio guy and lighting guy that he was paying. Well he ran out of money, so the Audio guy walked on him and took the audio equipment with him, this stopped the shoot until he found more money. If this happened to me, I'd simply pull out my audio equipment which is as good or better and keep shooting. No one can stop you - under my plan - your invincible.

legend of the steelstring said:
Next you have these guys that are shooting on much larger budgets than you are talking about.
...
We will call these guys.... to hot

...
Even Big Dogs are born small
Keep living the dream Big Dog
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Yeah, that's why I'm constanly reminding people of who "should" be reading my thread.
 
Mattykins said:
I guess that makes me too hott. Which I don't mind. haha

It works both ways. The beauty of options eh?

I think the whore comment was made elsewhere, I have a terrible tendency of using 'you' to refer to someone reading the post - no necessarily 'you' as in OP.
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If you have the money - I say go for it. I unfortunately don't. And with cameras like the Ex1 having the ability to be cut with the RED, makes the Ex1 at $6500 very tempting. I mean truly most of us wil never see the big screen, and if by chance you get a shot, the EX1 should be able to go there without too much headache. Heck "The Signal" was shot on a X1-H1 at 1440 x 1080 50i 25Mb/s, so 1920x1080 24p 35Mb/s should have no problems.
 
Chapter 4: My Story and Your Story

I decided to pick up here because I think some readers by now would think that I don’t care that much about Story, after all I started off talking about 3 movies and production gear, not having a compelling story. I basically assume you know everything you need to know about Story – why talk more about it. I mean I would think half of the people reading are storytellers or at least are seeking out people that are writers. Story is subjective so you can skip this Chapter or you can read and start to flame the fire.

If I haven’t already drawn flames with a few comments, I’m sure to draw plenty with what I have to say here. But before I start I’ll give you some more background on me and why I have this plan versus other plans.

4-1 My Story
After watching "Star Wars" on HBO when I was 10 (it was the first movie I saw on HBO) I was amazed and captivated by it. By the time I was 13, I was writing little stories and drawing comic books with my friends usually as my characters. So I knew I always wanted to tell stories.

My parents like others (and even the advice many times from this board) gave me the push to go into something that I could get a job in. So I did, but I had a longing for movies. My parents were "middle class" but not so much so that we had a Video Camera. I didn’t own a video camera until I was 23. I hadn’t done anything with any type of story until I was 19, when I directed a play in College. I shot my first feature at 21 with a VHS Camcorder. In 2002, after being married for 1 year, I decided to start doing something serious.

With the advent of the DVX and 24p I was ready to move. In fact, I’m sure I was one of the first people to ever use the DVX camera to make a movie. I got mine around Oct 15, 2002 and by Oct 30 I was already in principle photography. Remember, by this time, I had only really read about movies. I shot one, but we didn’t know what we were doing, we just emulated what we saw in the behind the scenes and what I had read in books. I knew nothing of lighting, audio or true camera work. I hadn’t been on a "real set" or been around "real equipment". I didn’t really know how to do much and I had just moved to Atlanta. I spent time on boards like this one, and people kept giving me the impression that very few people would be willing to help me out on my movie, especially someone with no track record that knew absolutely no one. And with RR Rebel without a Crew – I was like "Who needs them?!"
So off I go to make a cheap movie and not knowing how to make a movie. But guess what? I made one.

I’ll some up the comments I got:
"Horrible, Terrible, Unwatchable, Definitely not Quentin Tarantino."
But then a ray of light

"Out of all the movies I’ve seen with this Distributor, [] is one of the better ones. I’m interested to see what he does next." And guess what? I WON A FILM FESTIVAL – Took Home the Jury Prize!

So no great reviews for me, but some encouragement. And then I recognized why I was a "financial" success and why so many other people weren’t. I could make a movie – cheap. And as long as I could do that, I could practice all I want and sell the movie. True, I didn’t want to make crappy movies. I didn’t want critics to hate my movie. It wasn’t until a few weeks ago that I read that when "Star Wars (A New Hope)" was first released, the critics hated the movie. But it’s not about who likes or hates your movie. It’s not about if you’re good or not, what it’s about is making money. So welcome to the movie – BUSINESS.

Over the next few years I did a lot of work behind the scenes of several productions. I won’t go into it all, because you’ll are reading enough already. This is how I learned to get better – so much so that people have asked me to do all sorts of things for them, from lighting to audio to producing and stage managing. Did I mention I stage managed 3 TV shows that were shown all over the country?


4-2 Your Story
That wasn’t the Flame WAR starting point. That was just background, here is where it gets messy.

There are a few ways to look at this movie thing. From the one hand you can be the most awe-inspiring writer/director/producer ever to walk the earth OR you can simply be somebody that likes making movies and wants to make a career out of it OR you can do a mixture of both.

What I’ve learned, is it doesn’t take a good movie to make money. In fact, like I said my movie had bad everything – although I do think the script was good despite the critics’ comments (This is how I think I won the Jury Prize). Those bad movies that you pick up when you get caught up by great cover art in the Video Store, but have never heard of the people, that could be your movie. But no one wants to be the next Ed Wood, I know I don’t aspire to be that way. But you have to make a choice – make the dang blasted movie or wait for the perfect story. At this point in my life, I’m making the blasted movie.
A good and bad story is based on opinion, not on fact. I know people who love "Gladiator" and I know people that hate it. I’ve seen people talk so bad about "Star Wars" it would make you want to cry, yet I’ve read about people who study "The Force" and say they are true Jedi. I know people who swear by "Lord of the Rings" and others who fall asleep after 30 minutes of it.

Most would say a good story is something with developed characters and a moving storyline. But even I learned in nineth grade that there are only a few basic storylines:

Man Vs. Man, Man Vs. Nature, Man Vs. Self, Man Vs. Supernatural, Man Vs. Society, Man Vs. Technology ( Wikapedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_(narrative) )

We live in a society that enjoys happy endings "The Break Up" with Jennifer Anison got a whopping 34% likable rating from Rotten Tomatoes (at the time of this writing) http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/break_up/ . While it was comedy (at points) the end was depressing because the protagonists couldn’t resolve their differences so they "Broke up". The movie grossed over $118 Million, Budget $52 Million, so if you use a 2 to 1 for profit margin saying the movie needs 2 times the amount made to be considered successful then at $104 million the movie was a success. Most people I know don’t like this movie, despite the great performances, great prod quality, great storyline?
So what I now believe is that there are nothing new under the sun. Sure we can switch up ideas instead of the Matrix maybe people get their power from Gamma Rays or from a Robot Suit. And it’s always cool to watch a new character go through the same thing we’ve seen a million times.

I say all of this to bring up that Story is a subjective, opinionated thing. You can make your story better by understanding the way people receive story ideas. I like the "Screenwriters Bible" http://www.amazon.com/Screenwriters-Bible-Complete-Writing-Formatting/dp/1879505444 It talks about telling your story and it can do it much better than I can.

So yes take time and create the best story that you can possibly create. Learn about plotting, and characterizations, and all that good stuff; but don’t forget about the business side and don’t let anyone stop you or slow you down. Even bad movies can make money.

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I'm adding this Quote from Justin Evans/Prodigi Pictures - "Lonely Place For Dying" because he gets "it."

"If we had no movie stars, people would be telling us that we don't have a chance in hell for that reason. Then, we got Michael Wincott and James Cromwell...and some people insist that without reading our script or knowing how much screen time the actors will have we've already failed because they won't be the stars of the movie. If they were the stars of the film someone would say we should have held out for even bigger stars...

"...honestly, if we listened to those people we'd be convinced that we shouldn't make a feature film until we have 8 million in financing and a major A-list "opener" who is working within a genre they've already demonstrated is easy for them to open.

"I'm making the best movie I can right now. And that's that. I'm not waiting. I'm making my movie now. If anyone disagrees, they can make movies any way they please...but don't throw road blocks up in front of me and pretend it is positive feedback.

"I'm a director. And I'm not waiting any longer. I got a Red to shoot my movie, I have movie stars to act in it, I have great (unknown) actors in all the other roles, a fantastic location, union members helping out with every department...and if someone thinks thats jumping the gun screw 'em."

I had to add this quote when I saw it because it embodies everything that is a filmmaker. While I'm sure, Justin's film is going to be awesome, even those with $5K budgets need to have a mindset to desire bigger and better things with nothing holding you back.
 
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Chapter 5: Rebels without a Crew – Basics of a Small Set

As many of you know this is the name of RRs book “Rebel Without A Crew”. This helped him in so many ways from the beginning until now, however it has hurt him in other ways as well – but again this is subjective. RR is one of the most successful movies directors in history, very few people have put out as many movies as he has and each usually making a good profit.

As I’ve said already, learn all 5 aspects of crew work. You need these fundamental items to help your movie achieve the absolute minimal look of a feature. The better you get at these things, the better your movie production will be. Your group or you alone, can make a movie. Your best bet is while you’re finishing up your screenplay to work on shorts and other people’s features. If someone puts up a post in your area and asks about shooting a short or whatever, go to their set. If you feel comfortable, bring some of your equipment. This way you can practice in a real world setting and make mistakes on somebody else’s dollar.

Practicing on another set is a great way to learn without sacrificing your movie. You can do this throughout the whole 2 years of this plan. But don’t let those people on your set, unless you know they are good at what they do.

Tip 7: Work on other’s sets, but carefully watch who you allow on your set.

It sounds bad, but hey they gave an open invitation. So they are saying to the world – “Hey I need help and I don’t care what kind of help I get!” But don’t you have that attitude. It’s better for you to do almost everything yourself than to have 3 people on set that have no idea of what they are doing, and simply are there trying to learn and eating up all of your Pizza. You do however need at least 1 person. I’ve learned this the hard way.

In the first movie when you don’t have Depth of Field, you still use a boom. Now if you have a Hypercardiod – which is probably the best first mic to buy, not the shotgun, you still need to have the mic close to the Actor’s mouths. You can either get somebody to help you, and let them “boom” the mic over to the actors, this will allow you to follow them in a scene. OR there is a way to do it alone.

To work alone, you’ll need to buy a Boom Pole, Hypercardiod, and a Movable Telescoping Microphone stand (Audio store approx $100). Set up the stand, Gaff Tape (Gaffers Tape – your best friend – buy lots of it) the boom pole to the stand and put the mic at the end. Your actors will be almost total “Talking Heads” as people call them because they can’t do action. For instance, an actor can’t walk and talk. They have to walk to a spot, you shot dialog at that spot, then they can walk again, then they stop again to talk. The reason for this, is because the mic always needs to be maximum 12 inches away from their mouth. And because of that, you can't move both the camera and boom stand at the same time. So they can't "walk and talk". Trust me you can do it. I did it. This method also works well when you have problems with Depth of Field as well. Just have actors to hit a “focus” place and you can make it through the film and not have to worry about an AC (Assistant Camera) following them in focus. But to "walk and talk" you need 2 people. To be in Depth of Field, Walk and Talk" you need at least 2 but it's best at 3. Also side note: If you do the walking DOF thing, then review your daillies (your shots) after each scene - before you shoot the next one.

DOF is a pain in the butt, so you'll learn why ACs get the big bucks. Also for those not knowing where you fit in on a movie set, an AC is an extremely importaint job. It's easier to find a good camera man than a good AC, so as an AC especialy with indies, you can really make your mark. I mean how many people on this board want to be directors? cinematographers? audio? lighting? Does anyone want to be an AC? anybody? anybody?

You as a group or you alone, must be diligent in this craft. The first 2 movies will have to be done with extremely small to no crew. The reason why is because crew eats money. And you need that money to buy more equipment and grow. Remember this is not the “glamorous way” it’s the nitty gritty hard knock life way. Also a quick audio tip, in case I forget it later. You need to be come sensitive to noise. Stop and listen to the air, if you can hear anything - a fan in the distance, the refrigerator, the air conditioner, people talking outside. The microphone can and will pick those things up. You need to turn off what you can and minimize what you can. For the refrigerator – unplug it and put somebody’s keys who doesn’t live at that address into the Fridge. Trust me do this!!! It'll force somebody (whomever's keys are in the fridge - to come back and make sure the fridge is on - saved me a zillion times when I'm running around saying "where the H3ll are my keys!) Also don’t forget your 1 minute of room tone. To get this have everyone stand completely still and record audio from the area. If you move in the scene more than 6 feet, you’ll probably need another minute from that location as well. Air sounds different in different places because of the obstacles in its path. Air close to a wall sounds different that air close to the middle of the room. I could go more into this, but why? Just trust that this is the truth; I’ve heard it from many audio techs.

Once you get past audio the other two are easy. Place the camera where you want. Your actors have to “stand in” for themselves.

A stand-in in film and television is a person who substitutes for the actor before filming, for technical purposes such as lighting. – wikapedia

Use them to set your lighting. Go back and forth to the camera to make sure the lighting looks good. If you are on the first movie and don’t have a monitor yet, hopefully your camera has a histogram. “Cycle” (turn off and on) the Backlight and Side light to see if the histogram shows the skin of your actor close to the top 40%. With the other lights cycled on, you should see a full histogram. The LCD is inferior to what is really there, but right now you have no choice, so try to fill up the histogram as much as possible. If you don’t have a histogram and can’t afford a monitor yet, then turn on your Zebra pattern and set it at 80% or 85%. When the scene is lit, open the iris to see what stop it takes for your actor to start getting stripes in the “Key Light” area of their face. You want that “Key Light” area to be about 1 to .5 stops away. It’s also good to know what the “real stops” are 1.4, 2.0, 2.8, 4.0, 5.6, 8, 11, 16. I’ll explain more on this later, right now just put it in the back of your mind. As long as you don’t burn them, it’s better to be a little bright, than a little dark.

Now that you’ve lit the scene, move the boom in and make sure you don’t see shadows. Call “Action” and shoot. You don’t need to shoot the whole scene all the time. I find it best to have the actor shoot the full scene 2 or 3 times, then change the shot slightly zoom in or move over and have them to say a few lines that they messed up on, or maybe you want a little more “umph”. For every scene you’ll need the following:

A Close Up of EACH of the Principle Actors
A Medium of EACH of the Principle Actors
A Wide of the full Scene
3 Shots of something the Principle Actors are interested in.

CLOSE: Mainly Head and Shoulders
MEDIUM: Head and Torso
WIDE: Everything in the Scene, almost like watching a play

You’ll always need this. You can get more, but if you get this, you’ll have plenty of footage to play around with later. Don’t try to put everybody in one shot. Lazy filmmakers do that – those and people shooting on film that don’t have enough money to shoot on film. Video is cheap, so you can get all of your shots. If the scene lasts longer than 90 seconds, you'll need 2 CLOSE AND 2 MEDIUM SHOTS Of Each Principle. This is so the viewers won't get bored with the same shot.

The average movie changes shots about every 4-8 seconds or so, so we want lots of shots to switch up and edit later. (Also if you want to give me a technical director nod in the credits of your film – that’d be great – I promise I won’t ask for any residuals. :-) )

A typical 2 person, 90 second scene will take 2 hours to shoot. Every time you add another actor or minute it can add about 30 to 45 minutes to that shoot. Take your time, get good performances, don’t rush your production. This is the time you should be having fun. This is what you want to do right?
 
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This is an entertaining and educational read, this thread is a nice counterpart to the Corrado and Lonely Place for Dying threads.

I am a believer that there are many different routes that lead to both success and failure in the film business, and everyone has to choose their own path and there own way of doing things, but it is sooo very helpful to read how others have done it.

Thanks for taking the time to post this.
 
two thumbs up for an awesome thread. I am about to embark on my "second" short film (i shot an education short before) i'll be AD for a feature length film but only for a day but it'll give me imdb credit. With the Imdb credit i'll be able to convince certain persons to GRANT me a decent sum of money to make my first feature. with teh short, i'll be able to get more money as long as it turns out good.


Anyway, thank you very much for your thread. I really like your idea and plan and really believe it will work for indie filmmakers such as myself.
 
YaBoyTopher said:
This is an entertaining and educational read, this thread is a nice counterpart to the Corrado and Lonely Place for Dying threads.
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Thanks for taking the time to post this.
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Thanks, I hope it can help somebody.

Ted Spencer said:
Thanks jls4. Lots of good points of view here.
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I hope they work out, thanks a bunch for reading.


egyptianboxer104 said:
two thumbs up for an awesome thread.
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Anyway, thank you very much for your thread. I really like your idea and plan and really believe it will work for indie filmmakers such as myself.
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You guys are going to make me blush... I guess turn magenta. :)

pixelated said:
A nice compendium of points I found very worthy of my time. Thank you !
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thanks for reading. I'll try to get another Chapter up soon.
 
Chapter 6: The Film Look : Myths, Lies, and Videotape

This is a chapter I’ve been wanting to do for a while, it just didn’t make since until basic production values were talked about. Otherwise, one can’t even begin to talk about the almighty – Film Look. “One Look” to Rule Them All.

Let’s start with a definition. Based on what I’ve read and seen, Film Look could be described as: 24 fps with Hue, Saturation and Luminosity Values within an image that simulate the look of current film stocks and current film practices based on the average Hollywood Multi-Million Dollar Major Studio Movie.

The reason, I describe it in this way, is that “we” as indies simply copy what Hollywood does or have done. Many of us are afraid to step out with a “new look” because we want our movie to be received in the same manner as one of the major big-budget films are. How ironic that many of the cross over movies, from “Pulp Fiction” to “Run Lola Run” to “Blair Witch Project” never followed the self imposed rules that we as indie’s follow. Even on DVXuser the beauty of Sabi’s “I F*cking Hate You” comes from a new “tungsten” based look that he decided to go with.

When it comes to Film Look, we imitate what we see or have seen. “I want the movie to look like ‘Black Hawk Down’” instead of “I want a fast passed gritty look, one that works with a military theme.” The fear of throwing thousands of dollars into a movie that will be received as “video” frightens us. And every blue moon a person who actually does work in Hollywood on major sets will come by and write an article talking about Film Look almost to thumb their noses at the poor indies that don’t have the latitude or can’t handle as many “stops” in the image or don’t have enough grain or too much grain or the blacks are crushed or the whites are blown out or color is too saturated or not saturated enough. Jeepers!

So what’s right and wrong? Where can the indie go to find help? To quote a famous movie “There is one place you have not looked, and there only there, will you find the Master.” (“The Last Dragon”)

Movies are an artform. There are pros and cons to direct definitions, but if I were to describe what I believe is the “Film Look” I would describe it as: 24 fps where Hue, Saturation, Luminosity, Color Palate, and Grain values are set in a way that echoes the mood and feel of a movie’s storyline. The reason for this definition, is that your look can and will change based on the type of movie you are creating. Don’t allow Hollywood’s elitism to beat you down. Many of the points that they make maybe true or at least in popular opinion, but you have to ask yourself is lack of grain a good or bad thing? Didn’t Hollywood spend years trying to remove grain from images? They just couldn’t and now they are stuck with a small amount. Haven’t they tried to master color for the last 30 years? Watch a movie from the 1970s then 1980s the 1990s then 2000. See the huge color difference? I guess what I’m saying is that many of the problems that they have faced, video has already fixed them. So don’t spend your time trying to add problems back to your movie stream. Instead, take the time to figure out the most powerful way to tell your story.

I haven’t brought up Depth-Of-Field Adapters yet, because they are a tool to filmmaking – not a film look. Don’t believe me, ever look at a wide shot in a movie. Almost everything is in focus (unless objects are really close to the screen or something) but generally a 28mm lens or equivalent is used and pretty much everything is in focus. Heck “Cloverfield” was shot with the desire of everything to be IN-focus. The director wanted that “look”. DOFs are about controlling what your audience sees and putting their eyes where you want them in the frame. So if you want people to focus on the actor and not on the wall, the DOF Adapter allows you to focus only on the actor and not the wall. It allows you to change focus, make focus deeper or smaller.

DOFs can also be used in an “out of the box” mindset as well. For instance, I know with me, my 50mm was used for most basic medium shots and we used the 105mm (we didn’t have a 85mm) for the close ups. But you can use the 105mm for mediums. What? What do you mean? The larger the mm the more the “out of focus area” so say for some reason, maybe the character feels disconnected in the world, you could move the camera way back, put a 105mm on it and kill pretty much everything but 3 inches of focus. The background would be super out of focus. But this is because you WANT to do it. “It’s just another system of control.” (Matrix) Control of the story that you are telling and control of what you want the audience to see.

The only thing you can’t control is the 24fps. And truly I’m happy about the 24fps. This is my personal opinion. I hate the new 120Hz HD TVs because they remove all patterns of frame rates – everything is the same. So watching “Spiderman” feels the same as watching the Super Bowl. If you haven’t figured it out, the reason the programs feel different is that your brain is really smart and it knows the difference in patterns of light. So it can feel a difference in every frame rate from 24 to 25 to 30 to 60! By the way 60 and 80 fps are used in IMAX Theaters so that you will truly “feel” like you are moving.

So what have you learned? Recap: The answer to the film look question is that there are an infinite amount of film “looks”. As a film MAKER you should DEFINE or MAKE your film looks as you go and use the tools of filmmaking to aid you in this journey. Light, Audio, Grain, Depth of Field, Saturation, Hue, Luminosity, Special Effects, Shutter Speed, Aperture, and Color Matrix are all at your disposal the only thing you can’t change is 24fps. The rest are up to you. Use them to tell your story the way that you want to tell it. Play around with colors, use Magic Bullet to adjust your colors, lum, sat, etc, but remember as you’re doing this that there is no “One Look” to Rule Them all. There is only your imagination, creativity, and art as a limitation to what you can create.

Side Note: -----------------------------------------------
High Definition Cameras even HDV ones respond to light slightly different than film. No matter how they respond it is up to you to make sure that you’re getting the most out of your camera. Don’t be lazy. Read the manual. Test the light. Test the resolution, test colors under Tungsten, under the Sun, under mixed light, in bright light, in low light. I read on this board (I think) not sure what thread. About an AC (Assistant Camera) Guy who knew he was going to be shooting with an HVX200. So because he didn’t know the camera, he spent 3 days testing what it could do. He wanted to know its strengths and weaknesses.

If you want to know the difference between Hollywood and Indie, there is your answer. Hollywood takes the time to research their products and know what the products are capable of. The people take their jobs seriously and don’t laugh off mistakes because those mistakes directly effect their careers and reputations. Not to say you have to start of perfect, but what you must do is create a system that will push yourself harder with each passing project.

In 10 years, after 10 projects, someone who knows anything about movies should be able to watch your movies and tell what order they were made in and tell how you as a person felt when you made them. Basically like any art form movies reflect the authors. I can always tell a Michael Bay movie, a Spike Lee Joint, a Steven Spielberg Film, and Jerry Bruckheimer Production. So when you get bold, go and rent 5 movies by the same director/producer and try to look for clues to show you to order that they may have been filmed in. Certain technologies or techniques that they adopted then stop using altogether. Have Fun!
 
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jls4--Very good chapter! I once watched the movie "November" to see how the DVX could perform and a few minutes into the movie I forgot about the camera and just got caught up in the story.

Good that you touched on DOF. It wasn't until after I got my Letus that I started to notice how often DOF wasn't used in many shots. And so many shots with a deeper DOF.

Keep up the good work!
 
metro2307 said:
jls4--Very good chapter! I once watched the movie "November" to see how the DVX could perform and a few minutes into the movie I forgot about the camera and just got caught up in the story.

Good that you touched on DOF. It wasn't until after I got my Letus that I started to notice how often DOF wasn't used in many shots. And so many shots with a deeper DOF.

Keep up the good work!
Click to expand...

if i remember correctly, they shot november sans adapter, just the naked camera. since you bring it up. and yeah, good flick.
 
metro2307 said:
jls4--Very good chapter! I once watched the movie "November" to see how the DVX could perform and a few minutes into the movie I forgot about the camera and just got caught up in the story.

Good that you touched on DOF. It wasn't until after I got my Letus that I started to notice how often DOF wasn't used in many shots. And so many shots with a deeper DOF.

Keep up the good work!
Click to expand...

Thanks again... Yeah the DOF thing is a huge HUGE benefit, but only for those who understand how to use it. I'll admit that I'm just learning. But I'm sure it takes years upon years to master. i'll have to check out November. Who was it made by? I've seen Broken which advertises sometimes on this board. I actually own it.
 
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