Mark Harris
Pain in the ass
Nothing yet for the viral links, cause we have not launched them yet. Right now, we are making all of the content with the hope of launching that stuff in Jan.
I can organize the articles later on tonight.
FEATURE: THE LOST CHILDREN - A FEATURE FILM by Mark Harris
- Thread starter Mark Harris
- Start date
Nothing yet for the viral links, cause we have not launched them yet. Right now, we are making all of the content with the hope of launching that stuff in Jan.
I can organize the articles later on tonight.
Thanks for expounding upon that. I had no idea that Comic books, video games etc are considered transmedia.
Looks like I'm doing some good ol' transmedia m'self. Great.
Mark Harris
Pain in the ass
Right, and that's what's kind of stupid about the whole buzz around that definition of it; people have been doing this forever. I think what's different now, is that property owners are approaching it as a unified whole from the start. In the past, you had, Star Wars or Trek, or Batman or whatever and they would do a spin-off to a cartoon. But there was no oversight really, so you sometimes wound up with some weird offshoot storylines that people were later embarrassed by.
Now, companies see the benefit of unifying this stuff, front-loading it and using it to promote a brand across platforms out of the gate. Also, I think audiences are more sophisticated about it, and will appreciate a unified world where all properties follow the right rules about the characters and the story.
Also, the big distinction now is that you are using this other media to extend he story, not just tell the same story as the movie in a comic book.
This is the definition that kind of leaves me cold. I mean it's fine, but I've never been into comics of a movie I liked, or video games, or whatever.
What I love, as I said, is the intersection of reality and entertainment.
We are now making a mobile app game for this film, to run on your phone. And in that game, you will get some clues from characters actually texting or calling you on your phone. Or, we will plant certain elements in real physical locations and use the phone's ability to geolocate, so that you actually have to go to that spot to continue the story. Then use Augmented Reality to show you something from the film's world, there on the street in front of you. We will use QR or Qyoo codes ( like we did at SXSW ) as clues all over the country. You photograph one with your phone and get a certain video or audio from characters in the film, etc.
This location-stuff has some really good potential around live events too.
Or a website that looks like a normal site, but if you click on the wrong link, it reveals some weird secret.
That's more the stuff I like and will be working with.
But what it's really driven home to me is the benefit of fleshing out the world of your film and keeping all of that story bible stuff. Because if your film takes off, or sells, you now have a ton more potential content, characters, etc ready to use. Or to leverage in a sale, I think.
Mark Harris
Pain in the ass
Here's the new things from Abrams:
http://www.scariestthingieversaw.com
http://www.hooklineandminker.com
I haven't gotten into it yet, but these are varied websites that all will eventually tie into the world of the film(supposedly).
Also, here is a new thing from Neal Stephenson...pretty interesting business model. They planned out a year's story. You get some content for free, some is made by users, and then some you get by subscription. Accessible via web, app, etc. Interesting business model if they can keep the subscription fee low enough...
http://mongoliad.com/
http://www.scariestthingieversaw.com
http://www.hooklineandminker.com
I haven't gotten into it yet, but these are varied websites that all will eventually tie into the world of the film(supposedly).
Also, here is a new thing from Neal Stephenson...pretty interesting business model. They planned out a year's story. You get some content for free, some is made by users, and then some you get by subscription. Accessible via web, app, etc. Interesting business model if they can keep the subscription fee low enough...
http://mongoliad.com/
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Mark Harris
Pain in the ass
Scott over at Filmmaker gave us another little shout-out:
http://networkedblogs.com/7xFu4
Thanks Scott!!!
Also, working on a couple more articles about our process, including one about the massacre shoot.
But those are a little delayed because I spent yesterday getting ACT III roughed in. So now the movie is just about complete in the timeline, and I can start really working it for pacing, etc.
http://networkedblogs.com/7xFu4
Thanks Scott!!!
Also, working on a couple more articles about our process, including one about the massacre shoot.
But those are a little delayed because I spent yesterday getting ACT III roughed in. So now the movie is just about complete in the timeline, and I can start really working it for pacing, etc.
Mark Harris
Pain in the ass
Another post on Managing Our Storyworld:
http://workbookproject.com/newbreed/2010/09/12/managing-our-storyworld-with-wordpress-part-2/
http://workbookproject.com/newbreed/2010/09/12/managing-our-storyworld-with-wordpress-part-2/
Mark Harris
Pain in the ass
New NEW BREED post: part 3 of our series on using WordPress to manage your storyworld:
http://workbookproject.com/newbreed...st-children-storyworld-with-wordpress-part-3/
http://workbookproject.com/newbreed...st-children-storyworld-with-wordpress-part-3/
Mark Harris
Pain in the ass
This is a repost of something I wrote for NEW BREED. But given that it's about some post techniques we're working with, I thought it would be interesting to people here.
As always I am constantly experimenting, and would love to hear thoughts on this. I've written other posts on technique, such as Working with Actors.
I've always been conscious of developing the right look for a film. In my film R.P.D.M., I worked hard to show visually the effect of a drug which slows down time in your mind. In EVIE, I came up with different color schemes to represent visually what was happening in the story. All of the main character's climactic moments in that film are told without words, purely through images and very specific color choices. Even as far back as my horror short BLOODY MARY, the look of each scene was consciously designed along with the DP, Timur Civan. I am bringing the same attitude to THE LOST CHILDREN.
I was in Austin for SXSW, going out for dinner with another filmmaker and a camera guru. The subject of DSLRs came up because the camera guru was speaking about them in a SXSW panel. I told him that I was using the Canon 7D on my feature, and he asked how we got away with that, was it our primary camera. I told him we used it for interviews, and for generating some footage that will later be degraded. The low-light capabilities make it possible to get 1080 HD footage even at night under street lights. And if your goal is to dirty that footage up later, and make it look like "found footage," then you get quite a bit to work with.
But the point was this. I said I was no longer in the business of trying to make little cameras look like big cameras. Now, I prefer to embrace whichever camera for what it is and exploit it for that. If I want to shoot something broad and cinematic, I will likely go with a big cinematic camera. When I am shooting on handy-cams, it's because I am seeking something the handy-cam can give me. For instance, I wanted some scenes shot as if on the night vision you get from some older Sony cameras. So that's what we shot that scene on. I don't know how we would have gotten this look in post. I mean, I'm sure there's some way to get part of it with enough time and skill, but I don't know if you'll ever get the eyes right in post without serious efx work. And it's the eyes I wanted in this shot. I wanted the eerie, otherworldly look night vision gives the eyes. And this supports the meaning of this scene.
This goes hand in hand with the post I wrote about why we chose the non-fiction format for this film. It allowed us to choose cameras for certain looks. It released us from the burden of having to keep up with the joneses in terms cinematography. And hopefully, it's going to help us stand out some.
I started this journey last year with this post called "Cameras and Camera Tests." So now I want to give some more on the results of this after shooting this way throughout 2010.
What are our goals?
First off, to create convincing "found footage." Very often, you will see something in a film that's supposed to be from a video camera, and it's quite obviously some cheap plugin. There's nothing wrong with this in and of itself, if it simply indicates to the audience that this section is "video." It serves the story. But along with the Non-Fiction format, we wanted footage that might actually pass muster on the web. As in, if you came across a bit of footage on the web, you would have to look at it twice before you realized it wasn't real.
Secondly, our goals were to create some unique and beautiful looks. Many filmmakers these days seems to define beautiful as one thing; does it look like the movie I saw in the theater last week. I think beauty in images can mean a lot of things. On the other hand, I see many independent films shot on camcorders, where it seems like the filmmakers simply gave up thinking about the look they wanted at all.
This image serves two purposes. First, it's about what I want as a "surveillance video" image. I am still doing a lot of experimentation with this, but this image is coming pretty close. Secondly, I think there's a lot of beauty in it. It's "realistic" in the sense that it's a "video image," yet it's a bit impressionistic too. The cross-hatch pattern and the saturated colors combine to make it almost like a painted image. To my eye, it lends a bit of a surreal quality to the shot. Which again, supports the meaning of this particular scene.
What is your opinion of this shot regarding those two purposes?
This image was created by shooting the actual scene on a 7D mounted high in the room as if a surveillance camera. I zoomed in on that image in FCP. Then played back and shot my HDTV monitor with the 7D again. I could have shot this on a lower res monitor to get a little more accurate as "surveillance" footage, but I like this look and think it's a good compromise between style and "realism."
Playing with static
There are certain points in THE LOST CHILDREN when cameras mess up, the image goes in and out, and sometimes go to pure static. There are plugins that do this, but to my eye none of them comes close to the real thing - at least on the budget we're working at.
That's beautiful.
Look at the random "bolts" shooting through that image. Both of the above were created by first running off the original footage as NTSC to a deck. Then plugging that deck into a very old TV. Fortunately, my ever-resourceful art director has everything, including this old TV hanging around, for me to experiment with. ( Next to the TV, that's the 3 TB of RAID 1 storage where THE LOST CHILDREN lives.)
This TV is so old, that its only input is a coaxial cable. Look it up, youngin's. That little black box you see on top of the TV has a coaxial input and RCA inputs, so it's able to connect both to the camcorder and the old TV. In the end, we replay the footage from the NTSC camcorder, to the old TV, and then re-shoot the old TV screen it with the 7D, while jiggling the loose coaxial cable to get the randomized static we want.
This image is not played back as is. But we cut up the static in FCP and add it to the timeline with our "surveillance image." So that in the timeline, it looks like this:
We don't play the footage back as is, because, for the parts of the scene you actually want to see, I think this little TV puts out too low resolution, so I'm worried about how it would look on an HDTV or projected.
I'm not exceptionally concerned about how this film looks on the big screen because I think in the end, the big screen will be a minimal part of our distribution. But it never hurts to do the best you can to make sure your movie will look good wherever. We gave ourselves the added challenge by shooting on many cameras, in many codecs, in many frame rates.
But using these little bits of static along with our regular footage does a pretty good job for us. The static comes and goes quickly enough that it gives us the illusion that the static is actually in the footage we're seeing. Combine that with some nice static noise and the illusion is complete. If you want to play with this yourself, FCP Studio comes with some static noises. Also, this site has a lot of sound effects. I don't think they are really professional quality, so I may not rely on them for final output. But for working with your rough, and for learning, it's a great resource.
That brings me to the final point about the look. One more reason I avoid plugins is that they are only going to make your movie look like other movies. At least at the level most of us are working now. I'm sure in Hollywood, they have all kinds of insane software for creating these effects. And I'm sure that with enough money, you could do it all in post. But at the low budget level we work, we're usually limited to retail tools. So I feel like if we depend on those tools, it's only going to work against us. I've seen sooooo many indie movies using the effects you get in Video Copilot. I appreciate what Video Copilot does, but I also think it encourages laziness, and I'm often able to spot it within seconds. Low budget filmmakers like it because they think it makes their films looks like Hollywood movies. But I believe that in the end, you just end up looking like everyone else.
And as I've said in a number of my posts, we are working hard to stand out, not blend in. So creating our static the way we did, and using the techniques of shooting and re-shooting on our specific screens and our specific gear will give us a look no one else will be able to easily replicate. And hopefully make us stand out.
The camera guru I mentioned at the top often says something on our filmmaker message board, DVXUser: To paraphrase: "Hollywood is already good at a lot of things. Why not make something they can't do? That's the way you can stand out." Whenever I'm making decisions on how to proceed, I use this as a guiding principal.
As always I am constantly experimenting, and would love to hear thoughts on this. I've written other posts on technique, such as Working with Actors.
I've always been conscious of developing the right look for a film. In my film R.P.D.M., I worked hard to show visually the effect of a drug which slows down time in your mind. In EVIE, I came up with different color schemes to represent visually what was happening in the story. All of the main character's climactic moments in that film are told without words, purely through images and very specific color choices. Even as far back as my horror short BLOODY MARY, the look of each scene was consciously designed along with the DP, Timur Civan. I am bringing the same attitude to THE LOST CHILDREN.
I was in Austin for SXSW, going out for dinner with another filmmaker and a camera guru. The subject of DSLRs came up because the camera guru was speaking about them in a SXSW panel. I told him that I was using the Canon 7D on my feature, and he asked how we got away with that, was it our primary camera. I told him we used it for interviews, and for generating some footage that will later be degraded. The low-light capabilities make it possible to get 1080 HD footage even at night under street lights. And if your goal is to dirty that footage up later, and make it look like "found footage," then you get quite a bit to work with.
But the point was this. I said I was no longer in the business of trying to make little cameras look like big cameras. Now, I prefer to embrace whichever camera for what it is and exploit it for that. If I want to shoot something broad and cinematic, I will likely go with a big cinematic camera. When I am shooting on handy-cams, it's because I am seeking something the handy-cam can give me. For instance, I wanted some scenes shot as if on the night vision you get from some older Sony cameras. So that's what we shot that scene on. I don't know how we would have gotten this look in post. I mean, I'm sure there's some way to get part of it with enough time and skill, but I don't know if you'll ever get the eyes right in post without serious efx work. And it's the eyes I wanted in this shot. I wanted the eerie, otherworldly look night vision gives the eyes. And this supports the meaning of this scene.
This goes hand in hand with the post I wrote about why we chose the non-fiction format for this film. It allowed us to choose cameras for certain looks. It released us from the burden of having to keep up with the joneses in terms cinematography. And hopefully, it's going to help us stand out some.
I started this journey last year with this post called "Cameras and Camera Tests." So now I want to give some more on the results of this after shooting this way throughout 2010.
What are our goals?
First off, to create convincing "found footage." Very often, you will see something in a film that's supposed to be from a video camera, and it's quite obviously some cheap plugin. There's nothing wrong with this in and of itself, if it simply indicates to the audience that this section is "video." It serves the story. But along with the Non-Fiction format, we wanted footage that might actually pass muster on the web. As in, if you came across a bit of footage on the web, you would have to look at it twice before you realized it wasn't real.
Secondly, our goals were to create some unique and beautiful looks. Many filmmakers these days seems to define beautiful as one thing; does it look like the movie I saw in the theater last week. I think beauty in images can mean a lot of things. On the other hand, I see many independent films shot on camcorders, where it seems like the filmmakers simply gave up thinking about the look they wanted at all.
This image serves two purposes. First, it's about what I want as a "surveillance video" image. I am still doing a lot of experimentation with this, but this image is coming pretty close. Secondly, I think there's a lot of beauty in it. It's "realistic" in the sense that it's a "video image," yet it's a bit impressionistic too. The cross-hatch pattern and the saturated colors combine to make it almost like a painted image. To my eye, it lends a bit of a surreal quality to the shot. Which again, supports the meaning of this particular scene.
What is your opinion of this shot regarding those two purposes?
This image was created by shooting the actual scene on a 7D mounted high in the room as if a surveillance camera. I zoomed in on that image in FCP. Then played back and shot my HDTV monitor with the 7D again. I could have shot this on a lower res monitor to get a little more accurate as "surveillance" footage, but I like this look and think it's a good compromise between style and "realism."
Playing with static
There are certain points in THE LOST CHILDREN when cameras mess up, the image goes in and out, and sometimes go to pure static. There are plugins that do this, but to my eye none of them comes close to the real thing - at least on the budget we're working at.
That's beautiful.
Look at the random "bolts" shooting through that image. Both of the above were created by first running off the original footage as NTSC to a deck. Then plugging that deck into a very old TV. Fortunately, my ever-resourceful art director has everything, including this old TV hanging around, for me to experiment with. ( Next to the TV, that's the 3 TB of RAID 1 storage where THE LOST CHILDREN lives.)
This TV is so old, that its only input is a coaxial cable. Look it up, youngin's. That little black box you see on top of the TV has a coaxial input and RCA inputs, so it's able to connect both to the camcorder and the old TV. In the end, we replay the footage from the NTSC camcorder, to the old TV, and then re-shoot the old TV screen it with the 7D, while jiggling the loose coaxial cable to get the randomized static we want.
This image is not played back as is. But we cut up the static in FCP and add it to the timeline with our "surveillance image." So that in the timeline, it looks like this:
We don't play the footage back as is, because, for the parts of the scene you actually want to see, I think this little TV puts out too low resolution, so I'm worried about how it would look on an HDTV or projected.
I'm not exceptionally concerned about how this film looks on the big screen because I think in the end, the big screen will be a minimal part of our distribution. But it never hurts to do the best you can to make sure your movie will look good wherever. We gave ourselves the added challenge by shooting on many cameras, in many codecs, in many frame rates.
But using these little bits of static along with our regular footage does a pretty good job for us. The static comes and goes quickly enough that it gives us the illusion that the static is actually in the footage we're seeing. Combine that with some nice static noise and the illusion is complete. If you want to play with this yourself, FCP Studio comes with some static noises. Also, this site has a lot of sound effects. I don't think they are really professional quality, so I may not rely on them for final output. But for working with your rough, and for learning, it's a great resource.
That brings me to the final point about the look. One more reason I avoid plugins is that they are only going to make your movie look like other movies. At least at the level most of us are working now. I'm sure in Hollywood, they have all kinds of insane software for creating these effects. And I'm sure that with enough money, you could do it all in post. But at the low budget level we work, we're usually limited to retail tools. So I feel like if we depend on those tools, it's only going to work against us. I've seen sooooo many indie movies using the effects you get in Video Copilot. I appreciate what Video Copilot does, but I also think it encourages laziness, and I'm often able to spot it within seconds. Low budget filmmakers like it because they think it makes their films looks like Hollywood movies. But I believe that in the end, you just end up looking like everyone else.
And as I've said in a number of my posts, we are working hard to stand out, not blend in. So creating our static the way we did, and using the techniques of shooting and re-shooting on our specific screens and our specific gear will give us a look no one else will be able to easily replicate. And hopefully make us stand out.
The camera guru I mentioned at the top often says something on our filmmaker message board, DVXUser: To paraphrase: "Hollywood is already good at a lot of things. Why not make something they can't do? That's the way you can stand out." Whenever I'm making decisions on how to proceed, I use this as a guiding principal.
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Good post, Mark Harris.
Although it's a technical one, what I actually wanted to comment on is the idea that you "do what Hollywood Can't do."
What is that defined as? Or is it more so what Hollywood "won't risk doing"? I've heard people say that before, but what can't any large money machine do? The only thing that really separates the classes is cash and/or credit in our business. Where Credit might be a lot of favors stacked or actual plastic.
So, is he saying do something the big league gate keepers can't do or won't risk trying? And, if it's the latter, there are typically very valid reasons for not risking it, typically very small chance for return on investment?
Good thoughts for the no name, no money filmmaker.
Although it's a technical one, what I actually wanted to comment on is the idea that you "do what Hollywood Can't do."
What is that defined as? Or is it more so what Hollywood "won't risk doing"? I've heard people say that before, but what can't any large money machine do? The only thing that really separates the classes is cash and/or credit in our business. Where Credit might be a lot of favors stacked or actual plastic.
So, is he saying do something the big league gate keepers can't do or won't risk trying? And, if it's the latter, there are typically very valid reasons for not risking it, typically very small chance for return on investment?
Good thoughts for the no name, no money filmmaker.
Googlyelmo
Member
Why do you have legal clauses in your post?
Mark Harris
Pain in the ass
Legal clauses?
Mark Harris
Pain in the ass
In response to Kholi, good question. To me, it mens a couple of things:
1) Risk-taking. Yes, there might be small chance of ROI, but that's kind of the point, I think. Often it seems like studios will make a movie cost gazillions more than it has to. So then their only choice is making back gazillions of dollars. I can see Avatar costing gazillions of dollars, due to new tech, and pushing the envelope(and actually taking a huge risk). But if I see a romantic comedy cost $20mil. Why? What on Earth is going to be better about that movie than if it had cost $10 mil?
Woody Allen knows this. The Coen Bros know this. Keep your budgets low, and you can take the risks, and largely be left alone to make what you want to make. And each in their time have produced some amazingly innovative work.
For the small fish like us, I think this means you can try a movie Hollywood can't afford to try, and if throw some crazy assed movie out there, that gamble might pay off. But smaller fish can afford that gamble.
You can see by the movie "Monsters," I have not seen it yet, but I know it's not what's being sold in the trailers. I don't know if it's good, but I doubt a studio would have ever funded that movie without turning it into an action flick that would cost $100mil.
You can see in Paranormal Activity. How the studio couldn't help themselves from ****ing up the ending with cheesy efx. The original ending is soooooooo much better. But in general, that is a pretty risky movie because the terror is such a slow build. It's lucky some exec found PA in a box at the studio and had the vision of how it could be marketed.
2) Flexibility. When I thought we were headed for disaster (maybe we still are), I was able to pull the plug and sut it down instantly to reconsider. No on was hurt. The money spent to that point was minimal. When this happened (numerous times) on the last Superman movie, it cost millions, and it cost many execs their jobs each and every time it happened. And given that I think the film landscape is still in crazy flux, and it's going to take you 2 years to bring a movie to market, you need to be able to be flexible. Hell, by the time you get Superseeds to market, for instance, it might make more sense to release it as a web-series. Maybe you get offered a deal for that. Or maybe you release as a film, and it's a flop. Nobody wants it. Well, with our level of budget, you can afford to run off and try releasing it as something else. Hollywood can do this too, and often do, but not without considerable expense.
But usually when Barry says this(that's the camera guru), I think he's referring to going with your gut. Many independent filmmakers run out and make essentially pale versions of what's already coming out of Hollywood. Why? I know people think it's sellable, etc, but Hollywood is aleready very very good at making rom-coms, sci-fi shooters, slasher films, etc. In reality, I think your chances of actually returning money and making a success are just as good going with your gut - even if that's risky - as they are trying to make something Hollywood already makes - and makes well. In the end, I don't think your chances are any worse. If you have something to say, you can make it heard. If you don't you shouldn't be doing this anyway.
1) Risk-taking. Yes, there might be small chance of ROI, but that's kind of the point, I think. Often it seems like studios will make a movie cost gazillions more than it has to. So then their only choice is making back gazillions of dollars. I can see Avatar costing gazillions of dollars, due to new tech, and pushing the envelope(and actually taking a huge risk). But if I see a romantic comedy cost $20mil. Why? What on Earth is going to be better about that movie than if it had cost $10 mil?
Woody Allen knows this. The Coen Bros know this. Keep your budgets low, and you can take the risks, and largely be left alone to make what you want to make. And each in their time have produced some amazingly innovative work.
For the small fish like us, I think this means you can try a movie Hollywood can't afford to try, and if throw some crazy assed movie out there, that gamble might pay off. But smaller fish can afford that gamble.
You can see by the movie "Monsters," I have not seen it yet, but I know it's not what's being sold in the trailers. I don't know if it's good, but I doubt a studio would have ever funded that movie without turning it into an action flick that would cost $100mil.
You can see in Paranormal Activity. How the studio couldn't help themselves from ****ing up the ending with cheesy efx. The original ending is soooooooo much better. But in general, that is a pretty risky movie because the terror is such a slow build. It's lucky some exec found PA in a box at the studio and had the vision of how it could be marketed.
2) Flexibility. When I thought we were headed for disaster (maybe we still are), I was able to pull the plug and sut it down instantly to reconsider. No on was hurt. The money spent to that point was minimal. When this happened (numerous times) on the last Superman movie, it cost millions, and it cost many execs their jobs each and every time it happened. And given that I think the film landscape is still in crazy flux, and it's going to take you 2 years to bring a movie to market, you need to be able to be flexible. Hell, by the time you get Superseeds to market, for instance, it might make more sense to release it as a web-series. Maybe you get offered a deal for that. Or maybe you release as a film, and it's a flop. Nobody wants it. Well, with our level of budget, you can afford to run off and try releasing it as something else. Hollywood can do this too, and often do, but not without considerable expense.
But usually when Barry says this(that's the camera guru), I think he's referring to going with your gut. Many independent filmmakers run out and make essentially pale versions of what's already coming out of Hollywood. Why? I know people think it's sellable, etc, but Hollywood is aleready very very good at making rom-coms, sci-fi shooters, slasher films, etc. In reality, I think your chances of actually returning money and making a success are just as good going with your gut - even if that's risky - as they are trying to make something Hollywood already makes - and makes well. In the end, I don't think your chances are any worse. If you have something to say, you can make it heard. If you don't you shouldn't be doing this anyway.
Barry_Green
Moderator
Exactly exactly exactly.
If you try to go head-to-head with Hollywood in the Romantic Comedy arena, you're going to lose. Hollywood has perfected that genre, and Hollywood can afford Rachel McAdams and Hugh Grant and Jennifer Aniston. You can't. You will be, at best, a pale imitation, a lame also-ran, compared to what the Hollywood machine turns out.
Same with action. Are you really going to go head-to-head with Die Hard 4? Really? Are you on your micro-budget going to crash a car into a helicopter and have it look real? No. You're going to be bringing a spork to a gunfight.
So what can you do that Hollywood doesn't? Lots of things. Look at any indie that's hit it big, and I don't think you'll ever see anything that looks remotely like a hollywood movie. Go through the list: Clerks. El Mariachi. Blair Witch. Paranormal Activity. Open Water. The Last Broadcast. A Polish Vampire in Burbank. Napoleon Dynamite. Birdemic. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. Brain Dead. Evil Dead. Memento. Sex, Lies, & videotape. Which of these were conventional hollywood films? Which of these were "what Hollywood does"? None of 'em. Each was unique, and different, and creative in its own way. Which of them had Hollywood production values? Not one of 'em. (well, maybe Napoleon Dynamite). But they all had a unique voice. They all gave the audience something different than what Hollywood does.
If you want to make a romantic comedy, don't try to make your own version of "The Wedding Planner." People have the same $8 to spend on a ticket -- why on earth would they go see a no-budget, no-star version, when they could see the Matthew McConaghy-Jennifer Lopez version, for the same price? (hint - they won't, which is why you don't see any indie "romcom" on that list of breakout hits). Instead, make something that they haven't seen before. If you want a romantic comedy, consider "My Date With Drew" - a film that cost absolutely zero to make, but played in theaters nationwide, and even had Drew Barrymore in it. There's something that Hollywood would never make. Sure, it wasn't a box office smash, but it played in theaters and may have done well with home video audiences, and the host/director went on to make "Baby On Board" starring Heather Graham, Jerry O'Connell, Lara Flynn Boyle, and Jon Corbett. Looks like it was probably lousy, but it had an eight million dollar budget -- not a bad career path, going from zero to 8 million.
If you want to make an action film -- don't try to make "The Expendables." You can't. And without that cast, it would have gone nowhere. Instead, make "El Mariachi" -- good action, no-name cast, but done totally different from how Hollywood would have done it.
Mark's doing a film that Hollywood wouldn't. He has a voice. He has something to say. He's not trying to churn out his own version of what's already out there, he's trying to tell a new and unique story. From Hollywood's perspective, it's much riskier -- they'd rather go with the tried & true, with what they know works. But for the indie -- going the Hollywood way is far riskier. Because the indie just cannot compete with doing stuff the hollywood way, so the risk of failure is pretty much 100%. Whereas if the indie forgets about trying to imitate Hollywood, and instead does their own thing their own way, the result is that there's a chance (a very slim chance, but still, a chance) that they can break out, cross over, and really appeal to audiences with something they've never seen before.
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Mark Harris
Pain in the ass
Thanks Barry.
So our plan is:
1) Say what I have to say = follow gut = slim chance.
2) Movie is paid for as we go, so no pressure to take bad dist deals out of desperation = we can afford to wait.
3) Movie is made cheap = we can afford to experiment with as many distro forms as we need until we find one that works.
4) Movie is made cheap = we don't need everyone in the world to love it. We need a small audience to make it a financial success. We think that audience is out there. But we don't have to please everyone.
This film will live and die on what I have to say in it. And if it turns out that I have nothing interesting to say with it, taking fewer risks won't help me anyway.
So our plan is:
1) Say what I have to say = follow gut = slim chance.
2) Movie is paid for as we go, so no pressure to take bad dist deals out of desperation = we can afford to wait.
3) Movie is made cheap = we can afford to experiment with as many distro forms as we need until we find one that works.
4) Movie is made cheap = we don't need everyone in the world to love it. We need a small audience to make it a financial success. We think that audience is out there. But we don't have to please everyone.
This film will live and die on what I have to say in it. And if it turns out that I have nothing interesting to say with it, taking fewer risks won't help me anyway.
Mark Harris
Pain in the ass
Last big shoot of the whole film today. A few pick-ups, but no more actual shoot days!!!!
I am preparing a pretty large blog post about practical our efx on set and our art direction. Hope to have it by next weekend. But here is one quick grab from today.
Click for larger image:
I am preparing a pretty large blog post about practical our efx on set and our art direction. Hope to have it by next weekend. But here is one quick grab from today.
Click for larger image:
GOOD luck my brother! I'll definitely help you on anything thats left!
Mark Harris
Pain in the ass
Another great on set photo from my Art Director:
Michael Anthony Horrigan
More Cowbell Pictures
Last big shoot of the whole film today. A few pick-ups, but no more actual shoot days!!!!
I am preparing a pretty large blog post about practical our efx on set and our art direction. Hope to have it by next weekend. But here is one quick grab from today.
Click for larger image:
Very cool image! Can't wait to see this movie.
MAH
Mark Harris
Pain in the ass
Thanks Michael. We are getting to the finish line and very very excited about what's coming out of this.
Just saw MACHETE sooo much fun. What DESPERADO should have been. He basically made an El Mariachi type movie for $20 mil.
It's not production value that makes Machete - it's Rodriguez's imagination. For example -- small action scene spoiler but worth it -- Machete's in a hospital, the doctor explains to twin hot nurses that the intestines are 60 feet long, Machete listens. Later when the bad guy's come for him in the hospital he guts one, reaches in, grabs his intestines, and jumps through a window and uses the intestines like the firehose in Die Hard and swings through the window on the lower level to safety - the crowd cheers! OK that's a stunt - but a few things like that are not undoable on a $10K budget. Plus you can have blood, bullet shots, etc that look like they do in Rodriguez grind house movies for cheap - all post, not hard to do.
And there's tons of low or no budget reversals and gags that make it a delight.
Which goes back to the writing and imagination.
Another great on set photo from my Art Director:
Whoa - awesome man.