Mar 6
So, I know I’ve mentioned that I used the Canon HV40. However, when Canon released the T2i, I couldn’t resist. The difference between the two cameras is startling, to say the least! Rather than blab away about it, I’ll just show you. When you watch the following videos, keep in mind that I’d had the camera for less than 24 hours.
This first one is just to demonstrate the depth of field.
This second short is to capture the color range.
Mar 4
METHOD OF PRODUCTION
The script is finished (or as finished as you can make it prior to hearing actors speak it in context). Now, what’s next? You can try to sell it to Hollywood, try to find someone else who is looking for their next project, or make it yourself. Since Hollywood seems to be a vault locked from the inside, and other creative people can be a bit fickle for my tastes, I’m making my movies on my own. Movies are a collaborative medium; when I say, “on my own,” I mean, as the writer, producer, director, cinematographer, and editor. Other people will contribute making my movie and the result will better than I ever could have done, “on my own!”
FINANCING
Some people go to other people for money. And, that’s an option to consider. Many great scripts cannot be made for less than millions of dollars! I think LEGION was the most inexpensively produced movie I’ve seen in the theater for the last 10 years, and it cost nearly $30 million to make. If that’s the movie that you want to make, and if you don’t have a huge wad of disposable income, then you’ve got to find financing. Keep in mind, though, that money comes with strings, and usually those strings are control over the picture and a large percentage of the profits, should they ever come.
However, it’s possible to write a script that will be produce-able with very limited finances. On top of that, it’s also possible to find people who are willing to work as you are, for the promise of money down the road. It is WRONG (think “Special hell) to hire people to work for copy (a DVD/Blue-Ray of the finished movie) and credit (a name in the credits, imdb.com, etc.) and then to horde any future profits to yourself.
If you’re planning on doing that, stop reading my blog! I don’t like you and I don’t want to have anything to do with you!
DISCLAIMER
There doesn’t seem to be any required order to the following posts, but it all has to be done. If, as I progress in the production of Current Project, I find that there is a required order, I’ll certainly post it!
Feb 25
THE WRITING (cont.)
THE ECSTASY
In the previous post I mentioned rewriting. The initial draft is where the idea comes to life! It’s fresh and vibrant and we’re jazzed about every single piece in it! For many writers, it’s the part of writing they most love. But, like so many things in life, it doesn’t last forever. Eventually we put that last period on the last page or we write ROLL CREDITS and the very rough draft is finished.
JOY IN REWRITING
And, as much as those writers love that rush of vitality, they hate the rewrite process. But, it doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, it can be even more fun and fulfilling than the initial draft. The key is keeping in mind what we’re trying to do with the rewrite.
STRUCTURE
The first thing to keep in mind during the rewrite is structure! Does the structure of the story make sense. I’m not talking about the whole three act structure, though that’s important to know too. No, I mean, if someone sat down and read your script, would they see how the scenes connect from one to the next? Does it start and end where it should (Come in late and leave early!)?
THE MEDIUM
One of the main issues many scripts have, even produced scripts, is that the writer forgot that they were working in a visual medium. Often times someone will write exposition (the part where people say information) to cover up bad writing. If someone needs to convey information, it should either be done visually, or done in an interesting way (unless you’re writing noir, at which point, sitting and chatting about the facts is the interesting way).
Even if you’re going to have someone spout exposition, make sure the scene is also about character. It can’t just be a guy sitting, reading something off a billboard, (Hey, it worked in L.A. STORY) That doesn’t tell us anything about who is saying the information. The simplest way to convey this is to remember there are three aspects, any two of which should always be happening: conflict; exposition; plot.
DIALOGUE
From the moment we first learn to write, we’re forced to write in a formalized fashion. If it doesn’t read like a dissertation, then it isn’t writing. You might be thinking, “Kids today are learning to write realistic dialogue by their constant texting.” And, you’d be wrong. How many times have you heard someone actually say “L-O-L”? I’ve heard it a few times, and it sounds LAME! The only time I’ve heard it work when Alec Baldwin said, “O-M-G” and it only worked because it showed how stupid it really sounds.
Then, of course, there are people who say you’ve got to go to public places and listen to how people really talk. But, let me save you the trouble. In a normal conversation, people pause, they say, “Um,” and often repeat themselves. Listening to that would make a very boring movie. The trick to realistic dialogue is that it should ALWAYS be about character. It’s not just, “What’s the information she’s got to tell him?” It’s, “How would SHE say this.” Once character is the focus of dialogue, then it flows naturally.
PACING
Pacing fits into structure, but it’s not quite the same thing. The pace of a movie is really about how each scene feels, and then taking a step back and seeing how that scene fits with the ones around it and the script as a whole. My tendency is to fill the story with action from page 1. But, people can’t sustain that kind of intensity for an hour and a half. So, there must be scenes where people can breathe. However, those scenes must also be necessary!
Feb 18
THE SCRIPT
Making sure the script rocks is priority one. If the script sucks, the movie will suck. If the script is good, the movie’s got at least a chance of being good. Of course, it can be mucked by any other step in the process, but let’s not worry about that until we get there.
THE IDEA
Almost everyone thinks they’ve got an idea for a movie. And, most of them do. However, most ideas are terrible. Of those few that are good, most of them wouldn’t make good movies. Of those very few that are left, those are the raw ore from which great movies are made.
How do you know if your idea is good or not? The easiest, and best way to know is to as yourself if you’re willing to spend the next six to sixty months working on the idea without quitting. Yeah. It takes a lot of work and a long time to bring something from idea to perfection. True, as you get better at writing, that time will get shorter, but since you’re reading my blog, I’m guessing you’re not William Goldman. (It could be that Mr. Goldman takes years to vet a good script too!)
THE WRITING
So, let’s say you’ve got the idea, and your idea is one of those very few that would make a great movie! Now what? Write it. (Easier said than done, I know. Especially if you don’t want to sound like a cliche 
If you’re at all like me, then your best ideas aren’t actually about characters, but about concepts. The problem is, the great movies are all about characters. No matter how good an idea is, if we don’t care about the people around the idea, then the movie’s going to suck! In other words, the best movies, and stories in general, are about characters. We don’t have to love or even like the characters. But, we must care about what happens to them.
Here’s the easy part: Almost everything in a movie can be a character. In 2001: A SPACE ODESSY a computer is a character. In CHRISTINE, it’s a car. In CASTAWAY the island and the surrounding ocean are characters, to say nothing of Wilson! And yes, even people can be characters too. You might laugh at that last one, but the sad fact is that many people characters in movies are so shallow that they hardly qualify.
REWRITE
You’ve got your genius idea. You’ve made every character into someone we care about and who we can believe could be real. It’s time to rewrite it! Don’t get annoyed by this point. It’s probably more important than the initial writing. And, if you’re anything like me (I know I already said that before, I often repeat myself for clarity) then you might enjoy the rewrite process just as much.
Feb 11
INTRODUCTION
If you follow me on Twitter, you know that I’ve been spending a lot of time on a new project. Since I’m posting this on this website, it should be clear that the aforementioned project is movie related.
The project is radically more complex than my previous filmic ventures. CATHARSIS, the first short movie I’d ever done, ended up being about 17 minutes (Most say it should be shorter and I’ve been considering editing it accordingly.). The second project 5 TO COTO was a time-lapsed short that was basically a thruput test for the iPhone.
The current project (I need to come up with a working title than I can share without giving away ANY plot points) is going to be feature length and include locations other than my apartment and actors other than myself. The logistics of directing myself in my apartment meant CATHARSIS could be written and filmed within a single week. The current project has already eaten up nearly a month! But, the script is nearly in a functional first draft, I’ve got a few locations locked in, and I’ve even got some actors and crew on board. There’s simply a lot more to it than my previous work.
Right now, I’m working on getting firm commitments from all the actors. You know, I’m actually juggling everything at the same time. So, if this post seems a bit disjointed and ambiguous, well, that’s the way my brain is right now.
So, I’m going to break this into a few posts, one going live a week. (If you’re interested in reading more, sorry to leave you hanging.)
The iPhone and Final Cut Studio
SUMMARY
I’m working on a feature length movie (not telling yet, so don’t ask) and I thought it would be cool if there were some shots from my iPhone 3Gs. There were a couple things I had to know before I moved forward: 1) Is there a length limit to the video an iPhone will record? 2) How do I get the video from the iPhone into Final Cut in a way that looks good (or as close to good as possible)?
VIDEO LENGHT LIMIT
Since the 1st part is much easier to answer. The only limit to video length within the iPhone, is the amount of memory available. And, I don’t mean some tricky definition of memory, like VRAM or cache or L2 cache. I mean, my iPhone’s got 16 gigs, so that’s my limit. True, I haven’t actually tried to fill it up, but I recorded 30 minutes of video and there weren’t any problems. I’m calling that a win!
EXTRACTING VIDEO FROM iPHONE
The easiest way (read: probably the only way) to get the video from the iPhone is to use iPhoto. Simply connect the iPhone to the Mac via the standard USB cable and open iPhoto. iPhoto will ask if you want to import stuff. Label it, and wait. (iPhoto crashed once while I was doing this. So it’s best not to say you want to delete the originals until you’re SURE you’ve got the video into your machine!) Then, just drag and drop the files where you want them to be.
iPHONE VIDEO INTO FCP
This was NOT easy. I’m a normal geeky guy, so of course I couldn’t simply do a few minutes of research (Apple’s FCP discussion forum) and find the answer. Instead, I had to try and figure it out myself. Well, that took 2 days out of my life, with no success, I might add.
Finally, I gave up and consulted the aforementioned forum. Sure enough, the answer was there.
iPhone records in some unusual format, that is functionally unusable within Final Cut. Yeah, it works, but it requires rendering for EVERY change made. There were even a few times that I had to re-render the video when I hadn’t made any changes! It’s not a huge problem on small videos, but I was working on about 30 minutes of footage!
But the good news is that the video can easily be converted into a usable format using Batch (Settings/Apple/Other Workflows/Advanced Conversion/Standard Definition/DV NTSC). After it’s in the new format, simply import it into FCP in the same way you would any other video file. It’s as easy as that!
Oh! There’s one more issue I had to solve.
EXPORTING FINAL VIDEO
Once the video is converted, and quite possibly before, it uses 29.97 frames per second. If it gets converted to 30 fps, then these ugly lines show up in the video and are VERY distracting.
THE VIDEO
So, without further introduction, here’s the iPhone 30 minute video (time-lapsed down to about 3 minutes)!
Enjoy!
Jan 16
This is the first movie produced by Spiritus Vult. Please, let us know what you think about it in the comments. Thanks.
Jan 7
PREFACE
Okay! This post is going to be a bit geeky (read: tech heavy) and has information specific to Soundtrack Pro. So, if you’ve got background noise and you’ve got Soundtrack Pro, read on. Oh, and if you’re just bored or like my writing or etc., you can read on too.
HV40
As I’ve mentioned on previous posts, I used a Canon HV40 to record a short movie. One of the larger issues with consumer-grade camcorders is that their built in mics leave much to be desired. In the HV40’s case, it picks up all the camera’s internal workings; mostly those noises are just the tape moving, but there are other electronics inside too.
But, you might have your own “noises” you want to get ride of, so enough with the HV40.
BUILT-IN NOISE REDUCTION
Soundtrack Pro has a built-in noise reduction option. But, after mucking with it for hours I found that I could not get rid of the specific noise. On top of that, any attempt to get rid of the noise only resulted in the track either sounding tinny or muddy.
NOISE REDUCTION HACK
Okay. “Hack” might be overstating it a bit. Soundtrack Pro has intense tools for those who care to find them, and these tools are far more effective than the one-button solutions.
So, you’ve got your project imported to Soundtrack Pro. If your project contains separate files, as mine does, you’ll have to take them one at a time. Select the file you want to edit. When you click on it, it will appear in the waveform editor at the bottom of the screen. (Before I continue, I want to give most of the credit for this where it belongs, to a Ripple Training Video).
Once it’s in the waveform editor, select the “Display Frequency Spectrum View” button on the top right of the waveform editor. Instead of the standard db display, you’ll see a very pretty rainbow display. Now, highlight the specific section with the noise you want to edit.
Right-click (control-click if you don’t have a two-button mouse) and select “Show Spectrum Controls.” From this menu you can choose to limit what the waveform editor displays by either frequency or by amplitude (it’s called “Power” in this HUD), or both.
Since my issue is a broad frequency spectrum (read: basically white noise) but at low amplitude, I want to display only a specific amplitude. So, I set the “Minimum Power” to it’s lowest setting.
I guess I should have put this earlier, but it’s here. One of the things you’ve got to do is figure out where the noise is that you want to eliminate. Since mine is at a specific volume, I had to select a part of the soundtrack that only had camera noise. I then watched the volume meter to see what the max noise volume was. The highest the meter got was -45db.
And that leads to the next setting: I set the “Maximum Power” setting to -45db. The moment you click on something that isn’t the “Maximum Power” setting, the change takes effect.
Now, the only things displayed in the Waveform Editor are within the amplitude settings I’ve just selected. We see a huge block of rainbow blur, with intermittent peaks popping out. The block, not the peaks is what we want to reduce.
On the top left of the waveform editor window there is a small series of buttons. Click on the second one from the left “Frequency Selection Tool.” Now, highlight the rainbow block, not the peaks.
Click on the “Process” menu and select “Adjust Amplitude.” You’ll probably have to muck around with this setting until you get what you’re looking for. I chose -25db and clicked “OK.” When we go back we find that the undesired noise is gone, but the rest of the wanted content still remains!
QUESTIONS?
If you’ve got any questions or if there’s anything unclear, let me know in the comments and I’ll answer them as fast as I can (might be a few days, but I’ll get to it!).
Dec 31
It’s New Years Eve! I’m not working, and you shouldn’t be either!
You might be thinking “Right. You’re not working. But, then why is there a new post on your blog?” The easy answer to that is that Wordpress has a “Schedule” function. This was actually written December 21.
If you’re thinking that this post reads a lot like last week’s post, it’s because I copy/pasted it!
If you want see the short movie that has been the catalyst for many of the recent posts (and some future posts too) check it out. It’s called CATHARSIS and is about 17 minutes.
Oh, and, HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Dec 24
It’s Christmas Eve! I’m not working today, and you shouldn’t be either!
You might be thinking “Right. You’re not working. But, then why is there a new post on your blog?” The easy answer to that is that Wordpress has a “Schedule” function. This was actually written December 21
Oh, and, happy Christmas!