sdeming.blogspot.com

I've Moved!

2011-01-25T14:37:00.001-08:00

So, if you'd like to keep up with me check out my new site at www.sethdeming.com

See ya there!

The Dear Hunter Part II

2010-11-19T21:45:00.000-08:00

I'm not quite sure I had permission to make this video...but I was so inspired by the song's tone and lyrics I didn't really have a choice! The song (from the upcoming green album?) asks such a honest/human/ecclesiastical question, which I think is common to everyone. But through pondering that question we're blessed. At least I have been. I mean, look at all the people there, from the children to the elderly and everyone in between. Life is beautiful, and it's a gift! So for me, the video is simply about the question. Because you know what? It's not wrong to ask.

Hope you guys dig on it.

Again, great photos of the evening here.

Ok, I had a ton-of-fun making this. Basically woke up on Thursday morning at 6am and shot footage until 5pm (while taking a break for lunch and watching 30 Rock :). Anyway, I just asked people if I could film them and like, one out of seven people said no. Really awesome. Plus, it was a perfect excuse to test my sweet new slider via igus slider for the dolly shots. LOVE IT. Although, I need to remember to lock it down when I'm moving stuff around. For instance, when I filmed that tough dude in the factory, I went to pick up my my tripod/slider and it wasn't locked down. The slider part (with my camera on it) started to slide off but I caught it JUST before it did...thank God! Cause, you know...it would have been embarrassing crying in front of that tough factory dude.

It was a pretty gloomy day, with intermittent sun poking through here and there. So I had to do some movie-magic to make shots a bit more interesting. Other shots (like of the statues) I left with the grey sky in because it fit the mood better.

In a perfect world, I would have recorded Casey in a better space with better gear, and I would have had him lit better, and put in a different environment altogether with more shots. Anyway I was trying to record and film this at the same time and I'm not too familiar with the Zoom H4N for recording music, so for this song I actually left my camera rolling while I checked the audio. So I had to remove me too. :)

Anyway, if you guys like the song check out the band at www.thedearhunter.com

The Dear Hunter

2010-11-16T06:24:00.000-08:00

When Casey of The Dear Hunter plays a show in your friends living room, you record it. You record it good. And I sort of did that. This song came out quite nice on both the camera and audio recording side of things. That boy's got pipes, and some of the more intense songs suffered from dreaded peaking. I'll post the other songs via just the camera audio soon, they wont be as polished, but still awesome none the less.

Also, if your friend's uncle or sister's boyfriend is some big wig in the music industry, be sure to shove this band in his face until they are signed with a big fatty contract.

I'm just sayin'.

Update: Check Chrissy Deming's awesome photos of the evening here.

New CloudKicker is here!

2010-09-17T07:41:00.000-07:00

http://cloudkicker.bandcamp.com/

Go buy it, and enjoy. This band is really cool, we emailed them (him?) to ask if we could use their song in one of our promo video below. They were very cool, and since then I can't get enough of their music!

The Gravel Metric Invitation from OC Imageworks on Vimeo.

Youtube paying for your video?

2010-09-12T14:37:00.000-07:00

Wait what? Yeah I know, but check this out, a friend of mine recently linked me to this article here. Where Alissa Wilkinson of World magazine writes:

YouTube's videos still have amateur content and production quality; most professionally produced videos land on competitors' sites such as Hulu.com, drawing away potential viewers and advertising revenue.

Hoping to change this, YouTube recently announced a $5 million Partner Grants Program, which will give emerging, talented, but non-affluent filmmakers a few thousand dollars—or a few hundred thousand—to back their projects. Through this program, YouTube hopes to attract more professional content to its site—along with larger audiences and mainstream advertisers.

Ok, so that sounds too good to be true. But, if it does happen that would be a very cool revinue source for independent film makers globally. But look out! Here comes the realist!

Holahan of Businessweek.com states in her article here that there are some serious problems with this business model. For starters, reviewing the massive amount of crappy content to make sure it's not sexually explict, stolen, or otherwise bad/evil would cost a ton.

The potential for such legal claims, coupled with the difficulty of screening so many videos, could make paying creators more trouble than its worth, says Thomas McInerney, a co-founder and former CEO of video site Guba. "I think this is somewhat of a me-too move for YouTube, and I don't think they necessarily need to do it," says McInerney. After all, he adds, they don't need to attract additional traffic—they are one of the most visited sites on the Web as it is. And they don't have a problem attracting content. "People upload content to YouTube because there is an ego in broadcasting yourself," McInerney says. "People like the attention."

I'm no market annalist, nor do I have a firm grasp on how these companies are run, but to me it seems like a flash-in-the-pan-idea. Kinda like a guy who announced 'Drinks on me!' only to realize he left his money at home; this idea will quietly make its way out a back door.

Although, if it did happen that would be very cool. Not just, for people like me, but people like Ray William Johnson, the Vlog Brothers, or Pomplamoose etc. They wouldn't jut be paid by advertisers, but by youtube too.

*EDIT

I emailed Alissa Wilkinson of World magazine and asked if she could link me up with her sources from her article (above). She hit me back with three very credible sources the next day. So from the horses mouth youtubes blog posts the rules for getting in on the fundage:

Here’s how it works:

YouTube is identifying eligible partners based on factors such as video views, subscribers, growth rate, audience engagement and production expertise
Selected partners are contacted by YouTube and invited to submit a Grant proposal
Proposals are evaluated by YouTube based on signals which include projected performance, distribution plan, marketing plan, cost requirements and appeal to advertisers
If approved, funds are transferred to the partner so they can get started on their project

Link to the blog post here.

Film Night Looks Nothing Like Real Night

2010-09-06T19:24:00.000-07:00

So this Friday we get to film a chase-through-the-woods scene. So, in prep for this scene I've been watching a show that had more chase-through-the-woods then there are calories in a box of Kripsy Kremes, LOST.

Thanks to some A-Mazing BTS, I've been able to get a glimpse of how the pros do it. And the secret is...light! When shooting a really dark, gritty scene, light the crap out of it. Don't believe me? Check out some of these screen grabs.

Here we see two cameras and a hand full of high direct lights with no filters, or soft boxes on them. This is some harsh lighting, but it's up high and pulled back so it becomes nice and diffused. Sort of like, well, thi s guy.

Check out this still of Jorge Garcia and Josh Holloway. Note how some of the lights are there to simply light the back ground, and give depth the woods. This looks so bright doesn't

it?

But wait, check out this still of Mathew Fox fighting Terry O'quinn. Again, a wide shot that looks too bright. But through the alchemy of post processing, lets see that same shot from the cameras perspective after a color grade.

Now that looks like some sexy night. Heck, I even took that shot of Mr. Garcia and Mr. Holloway into photoshop and got a similar result by a simple levels adjustment here.

After we finish our shoot, I'll post stills of the shots, before and afters as well as some wide shots to show what we did. It wont look as good as Lost, but it'll come close, a heck of a lot closer than if we just used 'available light'.

*Edit

Gillvane from HV20.com had a really good take on what it takes to convey darkness in film: contrast. Here's what he had to say:

A difficult concept to get is that in a movie, darkness is about shadows, not the amount of light. The most common mistake people make trying to make a shot look dark, is using less light. The amount of light is not important, it's the CONTRAST RATIO!!

What you want, is things that are well lit, and things that are black, with some stuff in between. That makes a dark shot. Everything lit to an f1.8 does not look dark, it just creates grain in film, or video noise in digital.

But if you get 3 or 4 fstops difference, contrast ratio, the audience will see it as dark.
it really doesn't matter how bright, or how dim, the contrast ratio is what sells it.
So one side of your face is really, really bright, like f16. It will still look dark if the other side of your face is f8.
and if one side of your face is f8, it will look dark if the other side of your face is f4.
But both sides of your face lit to f1.8 just looks dim and grainy.
The problem with interior shots is spill and reflection. If you light up one side of your face to f16 indoors, you're probably going to get so much light bouncing off the ceiling, walls, etc., that the the other side if your face is a 14, which won't look dark.
That's why to get darkness in interior shots, you end up using a lot less light, to avoid all that spill and reflection, but still it's not the amount of light, but the contrast ratio.

Join the discussion here.

Giant Oil Companies Need Our Help!

2010-08-03T13:27:00.001-07:00

Quick, go get your wallet because BP needs your help!

Ok here's what happened, my wife and I have a BP credit card which we got for buying gas a few years ago. It's barely used anymore but BP still sent felt it necessary to send us a letter asking for -get this- donations for help in cleaning up the oil spill. *Ahem*, their oil spill.
After I checked my eyes, I promptly decided I would not be donating any of my hard earned money to an oil company which in 2009 it's profited $14 Billion.

Pay to clean up your own mess BP.

How Social Networking Expands Your Rodriguez List

2010-07-18T09:22:00.000-07:00

This post is a reference from a reference. Stu Maschwitz talks about the Rodriguez List in his book the DV Rebels Guide, which is a reference to Robert Rodriguez' book, Rebel Without A Crew.

What's a "Rodriguez List"?

The idea is simple. You make a list of all the assets you have access to, things your friends, family, in-laws, extended family own that they would let you borrow for your film project. Cars, locations, props, etc. I love this idea, it's both efficient and frugal.

So, we're filming a movie called Dust, and within the story there's a scene in which a cop car parks in front of the main characters house. Well, how am I going to get a cop car? Enter facebook. Here I have three hundred or so friends, family, acquaintances who through a simple 'event' know that I'm making a movie, and that I'm looking for a cop-like car.

I ended up getting two cars (!) that were cop-like. A white Chevy Impala, and a white Chevy Blazer. After removing some hub caps, putting a cage in the back seat, adding an air-soft shotgun under the rear view mirror, and putting a laptop on the center console: we had a cop car!

Social networking at its finest.

OMG That Was Close (an HDSLR scare)

2010-07-15T09:53:00.000-07:00

We were filming a scene in a borrowed location the other night at about 10:30pm. Trying to direct and operate the camera takes 100% of my brain. Not to mention the fact that we filmed the sequence in reverse order. Thank God for script supervisors, and sound guys! If I had to try and do all of that, my head would very likely explode. And because I was holding the camera, it wouldn't even make it on to youtube....

Anyway, like I said things are crazy, I've got this poor actor in a prosthetic, trench coat, and hoodie. AND it's like 89 degrees in there. The next shot we had to film called for a tripod, and I need to switch to it from our shoulder support. Well, I'm doing the switch and after the camera is on the tripod I go to set the exposure and fear strikes my soul. It looks like video. Oh my God, we've been filming in 30p. Now, keep in mind this is after about an hour and a half of work that could have just been flushed down the toilet. And I'm there with the script supervisor in utter terroR. tthat is until I go into the play back menu and hit the info button.

And there it is like a cold glass of water on a hot day, 24p listed on all of my files. Thank you, THANK YOU Canon for including that information on the video files. Come to find out what had happened was when I was taking the camera off of the shoulder rig, I had bumped the mode wheel and switched it to C1 (custom one) which for defaulted to 30p instead of the beloved 24p.

I just moved the mode dial back to 'manual' and of course everything was fine. PLUS none of the clips we had shot previously were in the wrong frame rate!

So lesson learned. Even though things are crazy out there. It's good to take a breath to center yourself.

Whew. That was close.

Things I Never Thought I'd Have To Do

2010-07-14T19:20:00.000-07:00

So in making a film I've done somethings I never thought I'd have to do.

1. Buying Make Up at Walgreens. Our film (Dust) calls for a prosthetic piece (which we had made here) Two nights ago, I went to Walgreens because I needed to buy make up to blend the prosthetic back into the actors skin. So, that was weird. It's not everyday I ask a girl there what foundation cream she uses.

2. Applying A Prosthetic Joe from Four Finger Effects was kind enough to teach me how to actually apply the piece to the actors face.

3. Beg Everyone for Everything If you have someone in mind for a one word (yes, word not line) roll, like say...a social worker, you may find out that the person who you thought would do it no problem, is a terrible actor/actress. So, you have to find someone. Now, to be fair I've found that getting people involved isn't as hard as it seems. I'm finding that people seem to want to be a part of something, and if they can be a part of a film and you have a positive attitude, people will pick up on that and want to contribute. On the other hand, asking a relative to borrowing their crown vic to deck out like a cop car might not be as easy, some begging/bribing may be required.

4. Talk To the Police We're filming a scene this saturday where the fake cop car I begged to get is sitting in front of the main characters house. I rented a police light from a local guy who rents police cars for movies. Strange that he was so close, but I'm not going to argue. Anyway, there are fake cops and airsoft guns in this scene so we thought it'd be a good idea to let the local authorities know. The worst thing that could happen is have the real cops show up while your filming with your fake cops. Ugh. Your whole crew could loose faith in you. Also, letting the neighbors know isn't a bad idea either.

5. Work So Hard Making an hour long film is hard. Making an hour long film on a spiders thread budget is harder. I mean, I'm so thankful for my dedicated actors and crew (two guys). But I will say, that even with all that, it takes a lot of planning, dedication, and attention to EVERY detail. It takes time and effort, but then again, most things worth while do.

Let Them Eat Gravel

2010-06-07T20:56:00.000-07:00

The Gravel Metric is a gravel road ride (don't call it a race...but whoever finishes first does get bragging rights). Anyway we shot this in a day (5D, 7D, & a GoPro) I edited, colored, and rendered it in about six or eight hours.

The Gravel Metric Invitation from OC Imageworks on Vimeo.

So, a few geeky notes. The shot of the barn with the windmill was an effects shot, as was the guy coming out of the tree.

In the barn shot, I replaced a new looking barn with a wind generator in a field, and in the tree shot I removed the guy standing on a ladder handing off the bike.

I will say this, this is one of my favorite projects yet! I fell in love with CloudKicker while working on this, and the guys in that band are very cool.

We shot the on-bike shots from the back of a van, again using the beloved 70-200mm. I love that lens. And these guys(in the video) rock. They were totally cool with us dousing them in baby powder to look dusty, putting them in culverts, drainage ditches, and making them climb trees in those biking shoes.

AliBoo Farms

2010-05-26T14:33:00.001-07:00

David (my business partner and I) went out on a whim to shoot for a day at this local horse farm. We did three interviews and I used two of them in the final product. This family is impossibly generous, and fun. It was fun getting to know them and being able to get some great footage. I mostly shot with a 7d and a Tameron 17-50. David shot with the 5DmII and traded between his 400mm and 70-200. In my opinion all great lenses. It was at this shoot I just fell in love with the 70-200. Such a filmic image. The lens does cost about as much as a body for a 7d, but it's the glass that makes these images sing. For the interviews I used 50mm on the 7d and the 70-200.

Of course we shot with a flat picture profile so the grading in post was just fun. I converted all of the footage using cineform's neoscene and all of the color work was done in AE using the methods found here.

Before & Afters:

Also the music was a track off a friend of mine's (Greg Wheaton) recent cd. Check him out here. He's an expert guitarist, who's music is just inspiring.

Anyway, you can see I did some simple effects in this film. There's the windmill (just shot against a blue sky and chroma'd out the blue) and of course the OCimage credit.

AliBoo Farms from OC Imageworks on Vimeo.

Dimensional Letters

2010-05-23T12:16:00.000-07:00

We did this video for the print side of OC, as a spot to show their customers the what's-what about Dimensional Letters. Thankfully, this was shot in much less time than our previous video.

Dimensional Letters from OC Imageworks on Vimeo.

Lost: It ends tonight.

2010-05-23T11:33:00.000-07:00

Best. Invite. Ever.

Also, if you talk I will kill you. :)

Side Job! OCImageworks

2010-05-23T11:25:00.000-07:00

So, I was recently hired (via handshake) with a local production company who shoots primarily with Dslrs (!).

One of the owners is a long time photographer who saw a niche and we've been working together to build this, er, division.

At this point we've shot about four videos. The first one was a vignette on a local artist, Steven Hill.

I was one of two camera operators (yes, I used my 7D) and Brian Barrow Shot with a 5d. We used a Zoom for external sound. It was a LONG day of shooting. We had no plan, but I think it came out pretty nice. Cudos to Brian for the brilliant editing, and Steven Himself for the music.

Steven Hill: A Potter's Journey from OC Imageworks on Vimeo.

Left 4 Dead The Movie

2010-05-22T19:03:00.000-07:00

Not that anyone's asking me to...

Recently, my wife had our first child (Lucas!) Anyway, he's about three months old and when he eats at night we usually get our Left 4 Dead on. Yes, my wife rules. So if I were to make Left 4 Dead the movie, I'd cast the following people:

Jada Pinkett Smith as 'Rochelle',
Chi McBride as 'Coach'
Dean Winters as 'Nick'
Eric Ladin as 'Ellis'

This is before I went to IMDB and found out that Eric Ladin is already Ellis. And Rochelle Aytes, Hugh Dillon, and Chad Coleman would most likely all do great.

Totally random. Just thought I'd share.

Using The 7D's Light Meter

2009-11-08T06:45:00.000-08:00

Until the Magic Lantern hack comes out for the 7D we don't have those convenient zebra stripes to show us when we're overexposing our images. I just wanted to mention this fact for those who don't have any photography experience-and that is until you get zebras (maybe even after) use the light meter!

We shot for eight hours yesterday (all outside locations) and for everyshot I used the light meter with the camera pointed at my subject and changed my aperture for a proper exposure. Unfortunately it was bright and, I didn't have any ND's to knock out light. Plus, I was running at 100 ISO and I wasn't about to change my shutter speed from 1/50 (although for a few shots I used 1/500-which is about as fast as a film cameras shutter angle can go.

Now, I'm sure I blew out the sky in some of the shots, and I tried to bring the exposure back to see both the sky and the subject. That being said, I'm not sure there was anything I could have done about that with what I own. But the point is - I used the light meter, like I would when I was taking still images. And most people that frequent this blog comes from a video background and I made this post because I haven't heard of anyone using the meter for video before. Probably because the people that know about it are like "Duh, why wouldn't I use that?"

This is an invitation if you aren't already at the party; use the light meter, it'll save your shots.

7D First Shoot

2009-10-05T19:40:00.000-07:00

So I got my 7D on October 1st and haven't exactly gotten through the manual yet...that being said, I wasn't about to wait :)

Alright, bad news first: Friday night I went out to downtown Dubuque, IA at about 11pm with my sister Angelica Deming and we improvised a little ditty while I experimented with different ISO's. I found out afterwards that the changes ISO isn't a "liner progression". Link. (Thanks to hermmermferm from dvxuser for his chart.) There's some pretty noisy shots in this footage (at about 0:28 till 0:37) But, thanks to Michael Munkittrick's advise from the creativecow forum, it really helped cut down on the crazy noise. I think for those shots I was shooting at around 6400 ISO, but for the most part I was shooting between 1250 and 3200 ISO.

The only other thing (most likely user error) was during the editing I noticed some banding on a few clips. Now, I'm not sure if this was my fault (incorrect settings) or has something to do with the way the sensor writes the information.

Alright, that was the bad news. But for the most part, the ISO on this camera rocks. Coming from the land of HV20, it was such a great experience to have full manual controls. The image quality is outstanding, and I'm so proud of Canon for listening and giving us most of the goodies we asked for in one camera.

This was all shot with a shoulder rig and a Tameron 17mm to 50mm lens. I followed Stu's method of flattening the 5D for the 7D, which gave me a lot of wiggle room in post. I edited it in Adobe Premiere Pro (using Proxies) and then color corrected using the DV Rebel Tools in After Effects. All of the audio was in camera. Yes, I'm going to have to buy something to record audio separately-but I knew that going into it ;). Not sure if there's anything else to report. More later.

Canon 7D & My Soap Box

2009-09-01T13:12:00.000-07:00

Yes. It's here. The camera of my dreams. True 1080p 23.966 recording with switchable frame rates for PAL and even 30p. Oh did I mention 720p at 60fps, full manual controls, and a number of other goodies.

I couldn't sleep last night I was so excited. I couldn't nap after work because the excitement continued. Honestly, my vision is blurry right now and I have the 7D to blame.

So now that this wet dream of a camera has been released, the question begs: what now? Well, film is what now. But then again, film has always been "what now". People are saying that film makers no longer have an excuse, but I would argue that we've never had an excuse.

Therefore, here's my plight to RED owner all the way down to the humble HV20 owner: you have a tool, go film something. I exhort thee, if you think you need to finish that next device before you can make your movie/documentary/commercial/music video/whatever; you don't. You have all you need.

That's all for now. Happy 7D day!

Onlining the test shoot

2009-08-15T21:39:00.000-07:00

I happened to get CS4 for a really great deal (thank you student discount!) and with it came Premiere Pro, Mocha For After Effects, After Effects, Photoshop, and a bunch of other really amazing programs. Now, I had used Sony Vegas Pro before I got my grubby fingers on this bundle of amazing goodness. And actually, I ended up using Vegas to do all of the audio tracking for this test shoot. I found Premiere Pros audio to be a bit clunky but in all fairness, I'm probably just used to Vegas. :)

Anyway, I had minor surgery on my foot a few weeks back and because my work requires me to have two feet, I was off for a few weeks. It was great! I was in a boot, grew a beard, and had time to delve into After Effects as well as Mocha.

Color Correction
As a test shoot, I learned to never, ever, ever have your talent wear black-black or white-white; especially when shooting against a white car! Gross. Also, green (grass, tress, etc) is a very hard color to work with. Next time, I'll be choosing my locations and clothing PRIOR to shooting.

Effects
I shot with my humble HV20 in Shutter Priory mode, and used a 1/250 shutter (except for one shot which I used 1/48 shutter).
Used After Effects to remove pulldown and edited everything in Premier Pro. I imported the Premiere Pro project into After Effects and made a different AE (after effects) project for each clip.

I was brand spankin' new to AE and for a while I felt totally overwhelmed. But, my saving grace was videocopilot.net. Especially Andrew's basic training. Also, the people on their forum are really cool and helpful. Again, the DV Rebels Guide was a huge help, and the people on the rebel forum were a huge help too. But really, After Effects should be looked at like an oil painter looks at his brush and oils-AE doesn't make what your working on awesome, you need to learn to move the brush and manipulate the colors, so to speak. And learning how to do that is a lot of work, and a lot of fun. I don't have it all figured out by any stretch, but I'm on my way. I think it's important to point out that when your tackling something like this, just take it one step at a time.

Motion Tracking
Mocha is a delicious beverage as well as an amazing motion tracking program made by Imagineer Systems. I used it to map the bullet holes on that white (grr!) Chevy Blazer. Obviously, you can use it for a lot more than that (just check out their sample videos!) This tutorial really made the Mocha workflow click for me.

Audio
The audio was so much fun to build. I didn't use any of the sound from the shoot except for one spot during the hand-to-hand fight. I built all of it from the ground up recording sounds and using a bunch of the resources from Freesound.org.
To be honest, I stole a bunch of the gunshot sounds from Rainbow 6 Vegas2 by recording the Left and Right out of my Xbox360. Even though that game has great sound, I found a lot of the gunshots didn't sound like gunfire, but instead sounded like, well, a video game! That being said, after some EQ work and track doubling I think I achieved some nice sounding gunshots.

This is a screen grab from the audio build.

Do It Yourself

2009-07-18T20:13:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to take a minute and talk about DIY projects, because I've spent so much time on them(I think a good portion of 2008 was spent in my basement hunched over a soldering iron).

Alright so, the first thing I attempted was a 35m adapter. Obviously depth of field is a great story telling tool, and I became somewhat obsessed over making my own. I used a combination of parts from jetsetmodles as well as the diy gg holder from Greg Tay. Went through two EE-A screens, and I used a vibrating motor from a cell phone (which works great) until I got a second motor from Greg. After wiring up a control box (with the help of a friend,RadioShack and the internet), I got a nice adapter that gives me clean footage even at high shutter speeds.

So, here's my advice. Buy one. There are a bunch of reputable sellers on the net, (I just linked you to two) and after all the work you put into it, you may have just as well bought one. Save yourself the time. Oh, I've delt with http://jag35.com/ and he's been great too.

Second, I made a DIY track dolly basically just like this one.

Third I began working on a steady cam. Now, there are a ton of great steady cams for sale out there, but unlike the 35 adapter, these can be quite expensive. And I think can be made with a little elbow grease and patience. Mine actually works pretty well, I mean, it's no merlin, but it did only cost me $85.00....And it's pretty close. Here's a link to the guy whose design I copied as much as a I could. Oh and while I'm here, I have to plug Johnny Lee. He's got a really simple steady cam and he's an all around great guy who, as a side note, is someday going to be creating computers that are controlled by our minds. Seriously.

Fourth, I started working on a rail system. I knew I wanted to build a follow focus system and I wanted to shoot with a lens hood so it was an excuse to build something to support all of these add-ons. Anyway I basically used 1/2'' conduit and built the whole thing from stock electric parts from various hardware stores. Here's a thread I made about it.

So since then I've made a few other things and it's been a ton of fun-but I would suggest that you just start shooting. I can't count how many times I've read in the DIY forms people saying "I'm working on _____, and after I finish it, i'm going to start filming." Statistically, I wonder how many of them actually get to the filming part.

Thankfully for me, during all this time I was working on a documentary for my band as well as a few shorts, and I learned a lot about my camera and how to get good looking footage. I'm no master, but the point is this; if you bought a camera you probably want to make a movie. So go do that. You don't need all of this stuff before you start filming.

Test Shoot

2009-06-01T18:03:00.000-07:00

I decided it was time to do an actual test shoot, and because I’m a guy who digs guns, and action in general-I decided on filming an action sequence that happened near the beginning of the first episode of the story I was working on. I knew it would be a challenge because this was one of the more complicated sequences; but I also knew that if I did it well, it might help convince others to get on board and generate excitement for the project.

Well, getting people on board was way easier than I imagined. I spent a few days slowly buying props on line, worried about getting the soldiers in the shoot to look somewhat authentic. I knew some people with realistic airsoft guns and they lent me some stuff. A buddy of mine with some actual military garb lent me a few things too which helped a lot; but the door really blew open when a friend of a friend (now just a friend) said he’d be interested in helping out. Turns out he had an arsenal of airsoft guns and gear. And just like that my props were all taken care of. My ‘Rodrigez list’ just grew exponentially.
So the day of the test shoot came, and everyone that showed up was needed. Not only that, but the shoot was long and difficult; mostly because I had no idea what I was doing. I just want to add that having the storyboards there with me helped me tremendously shot to shot. It also helped in showing everyone involved what we were trying to achieve for a specific shot as well giving everyone an idea how the entire scene progressed.

We shot for eight or so hours and it was much MUCH fun. I wouldn’t say it was easy…one of the shots took 27 takes (a hand to hand fight filmed on a dolly…and it’s a little less than three seconds long).

But we got it done and with daylight to spare. The crazy thing was, at the end of the day I thought those guys would never want to work with me again. I mean these guys spent their Saturday afternoon pushing dollies, moving gear, doing take after take…. But, to my surprise, each one called or texted me that night saying how much fun they had, and that they couldn’t wait to ‘do it again’.

PICS!

Storyboarding

2009-04-12T10:33:00.000-07:00

Like I said before, I’m not that great of an artist; but I can kinda draw. And as Stu says in The Guide, that’s all you need.
I had a Wacom Tablet from a few years back and literally pulled it out of the attic, made a Photoshop file with a bunch of 2.39:1 boxes. I basically read through each section of the script, let it play out in my head and then I jotted it down in the form of stick figures filling over the boxes on layer above them. Then, when the section of the story was concluded, I went back and filled in the drawings a little more. I know that this step was a bit anal, and overall unnecessary-but I did it anyway. Plus, it was cool seeing this story come to life in the form of little boxes on my computer screen. Even cooler when I printed them off. ;)

EDIT*
I just wanted to say again that you don't need Photoshop, or a tablet to do storyboards. Just grab a pencil and a piece of paper. And start doodling. If you are just terrible draw stick figures. Also, this is a great place in the independent film making process to start to use some of those people around you who can do this type of stuff. Do you have a friend whose an aspiring artist? Well, see if they'd be interested in fleshing out your stick figures.

One last thing, if you don't have Photoshop but would like to to work in that format, get GIMP. It's super cool. And free. :)

-Seth

On Writing

2009-03-30T17:28:00.000-07:00

Anything, including film starts with an idea.
My initial idea for a film project started as a Half Life 2 short. I wrote about four characters who were trying to find others in the post apocalyptic Half Life universe. So, I wrote a forty six page script (that I thought was awesome) and sent it around to my friends and family.
Found it was pretty bad.
Some people responded with fluffy sentiments like, 'it's great, stays true to the source material!' while others (the honest ones) told me it was either 'just OK' or 'Not very good'. But that's OK, good even. Anyone who's interested in writing knows that for most people, it'll take ten or fifteen scripts before you get something decent. The most important thing is to actually start writing.
That first forty six page script was good for me. It taught me mostly what not to do (cliches, forced exposition, and plot hammers). It also taught me that, hey, I can write. Alright, I'm no Cohen Brother, but heck; I've got me about fifty pages of script here. That's a starting point, and my idea lived in there somewhere.
But, my idea needed a new home, and I knew I needed help to get it there.

TO THE INTERNET!

I began reading professional writers blogs. There’s a ton of them, but I fell in love with John August's blog as well as Jane Espensen's and from there, found I was doing it all wrong. I was using a jack hammer instead of a chisel. JJ Abrams has some interesting things to say about story telling, and the year before I read On Writing by Steven King (a must for anyone who wants to write at any level).
Those are all amazing resources, but the real kick came from a friend of mine who encouraged me to take the story out of the Half Life universe, and make it something my own. I heard my idea yell ‘YES!!’
Oh, and uh, these guys were already doing the Half Life survivor story better than me anyway :)
Anyway, by making the story completely my own, it meant I was free to use my own ideas, it also meant no rules and (more importantly) no copyright infringement! Hurray! I preformed open heart surgery and removed my idea from the Half Life body and started writing from the ground up, now developing the content for the Internet.
Ahh the Internet.
Storytelling on the Internet, isn’t movies, it's not books, and it’s not television. The Internet is a new medium where the rules of conventional storytelling are not set. It’s an open range, and I’m Wyatt Earp. I can do whatever I want, as long as it doesn’t suck. I’m not saying that story telling on the net needs to be completely different from the way television and movies (generally) tell stories; just that there is no convention. So for me, that kinda blew thing open a bit.
The idea of writing for this new medium got me thinking. I wrote my second and third drafts around this but they were garbage too. Better, but still garbage. Honestly, I think it was either the seventh or eighth script that I knew I had something that wasn't bad. I knew I had something good when my wife told me she thought it was 'cool' and that she wanted to ‘find out what happens’.
Yes.
My idea was coming to life. The next step was storyboarding.

You want to do what?

2009-03-12T20:16:00.000-07:00

I’d been playing music forever. My dad had a band while I was growing up and taught me how. I took music lessons, my friends played instruments, and music was life. I was constantly playing or wanting to play. I’d get in trouble at school for ‘fidgeting’ but really, I was drumming to the song in my head on my desk. Music was all I ever knew. I drew a little, but I never was really good at it. I wasn’t into books because nobody told me they were awesome until I got older. So, the one, and only thing I thought I could do was music. And that’s what I did.

Fast forward twelve years, a hand full bands, getting married, and there I was; really trying to make it big in the music industry. I had a pretty good job (still do) in insurance, and I was in the best band I’d ever been in (as I write this, were getting ready for our last show). As much as I loved music, it was unintentionally moving into the periphery of my life. I was finding it less and less satisfying, and began looking for other creative outlets.

Then, I saw this. I watched it three times and thought ‘Oh, I want to do this. Film. Holy crap, I want to make movies.’ I realized film encompassed every fascist of art that I loved; drawing, music, photography, writing etc. Not to mention everyone could be a part of it.

See, in a band, the experience feels exclusive-even if you don't want it to be. I mean, unless you have a producer, only the band members themselves are able to truly contribute. But with a film, well, everyone is vital. If you sow, great, I can use you. Know a lot about guns? Awesome, you’re in. If you mix sound, well now you’re more important than any lead singer ever was.

Chrissy (my wife) and I were driving to a friend’s house when I told her about my idea to delve into this. I wasn’t quite sure how she was going to react, but, she didn’t even blink. She just said, “Yeah, I could totally see you doing that.”

(!)

With her support, I knew I had a real chance. Because when your wife believes in you, it’s like freaking jet fuel. But before I could fly, I needed a jet-or more accurately, a camera.

So I started researching. I knew nothing about film, much less cameras. I knew I wanted widescreen and that was about it, and there are literally hundreds of options. I honestly looked for about two or three weeks straight, and in the process learned a very introductory knowledge about cameras, frame rates, etc. It was when I read about 24p in particular, I knew I had to have a camera capable of shooting in that frame rate. After deciding on the HV20 (I might add, an amazing little camera), and nearly getting swindled for $400.00 in the process; It was December of ‘07 that I went to a Wolf Camera and bought it for no money down and zero interest for ten months. By the way, they try to charge you that interest at about five months, unless you call and correct their ‘mistake’.

Now I had my jet, and my fuel.

It was time to break it out of the box.

IRVB Focus Ring

2009-01-29T15:58:00.000-08:00

The HV20 is a camera that lies on the line between consumer and prosumer. I'm going to start of by saying I love this camera. For the most part. If you have the patience and the gusto to work with a crippled camera, it's worth it as it's images can be amazing.

The camera has some pretty amazing features, but inorder to get to them you need to 'trick' the camera into working for you. I know this is old news to most of you, but I thought I'd share a review of a little add on that makes manually focusing SO MUCH EASIER. Before this little wonder you needed to use your thumb on Canons idea of a 'focus dial' to pull focus, which never quite worked right because you'd enevitably bump the camera to the right while turning the dial. Anyway, here's my review which is featured on the products website.

Get yourself one if you own an HV20/30/40.

Cheers.