So we had our final pre-production meeting for Rectify this weekend and we are locked and loaded. I am truly honored to be a part of a group of such talented and experienced artists. I am confident that this is going to turn out to be a great project that everyone is proud to have been involved with. Have a great New Year’s Eve everyone and I will see you on Saturday!
I went and saw I Am Legend this weekend at the IMAX. I must say it was a pretty fun ride. Will Smith proved himself as a serious actor in Pursuit of Happiness and he delivers some similar quality performances here as well. There is also plenty of Will Smith “Big Willy Style” charm and humor to keep it from getting too heavy. I like Will Smith in general so I found it to have a good balance. With that said, there were a couple scenes that weren’t firing on all cylinders but they didn’t ruin the movie. It also isn’t the most unpredictable story ever made but the concept was interesting enough to work for the movie. If you are the type of person that goes to a movie trying to figure out ahead of time what is going to happen next then you will probably score 100% at calling the next move. Personally, I don’t spend 10+ dollars to try to “figure out” a movie. I want to be taken for a ride emotionally, visually, or if I’m lucky both.
My final grade is GnG (Good not Great). If you like the trailer then you’ll like the movie. No surprises, just a fun time. I recommend seeing it at the IMAX. I don’t care how big your TV is, you won’t be experiencing the full movie without seeing it on a big screen and they don’t get any bigger than IMAX. As a bonus you’ll get to see a 7 minute trailer for The Dark Night!
To be perfectly honest the holidays are something I survive more than anything. Maybe that’s why I liked The Ice Harvest so much. It’s dark. It’s gritty. It starts John Cusack. ‘Nuff said. The critics didn’t seem to dig it too much but what do the critics know anyway right? Directed by Harold Ramis, who helmed such films as Caddy Shack and Ghostbusters, it was in my opinion, funny as hell. Granted, the humor is dark so if that’s not your cup of tea then you may want to rent something from Disney instead. Otherwise, throw it in your Netfilx queue and give it a gander.
Sometimes you just gotta let the pictures do the talking…
As you have no doubt noticed I have added a couple bells and whistles to the blog recently. The first is a nifty little item called VodPod. It is single handedly responsible for the presence of those bitchin’ little videos you see to your left. (Actually, they’re not single handedly responsible. They just created a great little mashup from a ton of video sites out there; but they’re cool nonetheless.) The videos are randomly pulled from a collection that I create.
The second is the quote rotator that is residing under the videos. It’s simple, it’s elegant, and that’s what makes it cool.
So why bring attention to the obvious? I’m glad you asked. The content for both of these widgets is controlled by yours truly. What that means to you is if you send me a cool film related video - YouTube, Metacafe, etc. - or a classic movie quote I might just throw it into rotation for the whole world to see. So yeah…send me some stuff. Just make sure it’s cool.
The coveted film look. What is it and how can I get it?
The “film look” is the visual aesthetic that we have learned to associate with high quality film making. I say learned because in Japan most things are shot on video and the Japanese tend to appreciate the sharper image quality and smoother motion that is inherent to video. I believe it comes down to what we grew up with and we are used to. I’m not going to get into the artistic debates as to if and/or why film looks better. I will just assume that if you grew up in the western hemisphere you think it does. I know I do.
On a more practical note, as an indie film maker if your project looks like it was shot on film it will gain a small amount of credibility right off the bat. It shows that you are serious about what you are doing and not just shooting crap for YouTube. Of course, this isn’t a cure all. The story is always the most important thing. If your story sucks then making it look like film won’t magically fix it, but at least it will look good whilst sucking.
Some of the most recognizable characteristics of a motion picture shot on film are 24 frames per second, progressive scan images, a non-linear gamma curve, and a specific depth of field that comes with using a 35mm lens.
24 frames per second means that for every second you are watching you are seeing 24 separate images flash before your eyes to create the illusion of motion. Video in North America is closer to 30 frames per second. (29.97fps to be exact but we won’t get into that here.) This creates a much smoother illusion of motion that is more like real life and less like the magical dreamlike motion when we see movies on the big screen.
Progressive scan means the frame is presented to your eye all at once or at least from the top down without skipping lines. Video signals sent to your TV on the other hand are interlaced. An interlaced image draws every other line of the image in one pass and then fill in the missing lines on the second pass. More info on that here.
The gamma curve refers to how contrasty the image looks. Video has a much flatter gamma curve resulting in a less contrasty image. Film naturally has more contrast giving it a richer appearance. Super technical info about that here.
Depth of field refers to how much of the image is in focus. If an image has a large DoF than everything is in focus whether it is close to the camera, far away, or somewhere in between. A shallow DoF on the other hand gives you an image that only has focus on the things that are a specific distance away from the camera.
So if that’s what makes film look cool how do we get that look for our project? Well, the easiest way to get the film look is to shoot on film but since we are self funding this project that ain’t gonna happen so we’re gonna have to fake it. Most of todays “pro-sumer” cameras have the ability to shoot a 24 frame per second, progressive image which is a great start. The gamma curve inherent to film can also be pretty reliably mimicked in today’s non-linear editing programs, so that’s not going to be to much of a problem.
That leaves us with depth of field. This cannot be accurately faked. It boils down to physics. A 35mm lens takes the light coming into it and focuses it onto an area that measures 35mm diagonally; the size of one frame of 35mm film. The sensors in most video cameras are much smaller; usually around 6mm. The depth of field created when getting an image to focus on an area that measures 35mm is going to be much different than am image focused on an area that is 6mm.
To get around this we will connect 35mm lenses to an adapter that will focus the image onto a spinning piece of textured glass. The video camera will then capture the image from the spinning glass and Presto! We have the “film look”. Take a look below and see for yourself. This trailer was shoot using a similar rig that we will be shooting with. It may not be the Red One but it looks pretty damn good.
For those of you who weren’t a part of this crew, this was my first film. I wrote it while on the set of the feature film The Evading in late 2005. We shot it over 4 days in early 2006 and premiered it in April of that same year. If you haven’t seen it take a look and let me know what you think. If you have seen it, watch it again! =D
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4004784202525306906OK, time for a real post.
Welcome to the blog for my short film - Rectify. Rectify is a 5 minute short film about one man’s attempt to fix a mistake. It’s a pretty big mistake so he’s trying hard, but things don’t always work out the way we plan.
We are currently in pre-production and things are going very well. I have a stellar crew and I couldn’t ask for a better cast. All both of them. We will be shooting on Saturday, January 5th 2005. Stay tuned.