The would-be filmmakers thread - Page 9

Congratulations! Now the hard part, eh?

Holy crap, Greg wooooow!!

What an amazing sequence of super informative and brilliant posts regarding only the greatest movie filmed in Texas in all of 2009!!! (so far)

Gee whiz, we should all be so incredibly cool!

But seriously, that zombie dude is terrifying. Whoever is responsible for that needs to win the lottery or something.

Jeez.

Well done, my very good friend -- I know how much this thing meant to you.

Congrats, Greg! Looks like you guys had a good time shooting the thing, and the monster does look cool. Looking forward to a trailer!

Always a relief to finish a shoot. Congrats Greg.

Nice piece by John August on the break down for his web pilot The Remnants.

25k + is still a lot for 10 minutes of footage, but just interesting to see how he broke things down.

Well I finally have something to show you guys.

http://chud.com/articles/blogs/1546/...t-Results.html

Cool looking trailer, Greg. Can't wait to see some more of the gore you teased us with. What song is that you got playing over the footage?

I think we talked about this before, but the debate over the Bale video has got me thinking about/interested in hearing your stories, as directors, etc., when it comes to working with difficult talent. I've already discussed how I wish I was a much stronger director on Redemption Falls, especially with some of the talent, but I found it a problem in how to assert your so-called alpha dog status when nobody's getting paid.

It looks like my natural attitude is to go all James Cameron tough on people when things start to slag more slowly than I would like (Which usually takes about five minutes) etc. My main problem is that I can't bully people who don't take this seriously and are helping out for something to do. You can't pound a sense of inspiration into them because most of them could care less. Make sure your crew wants nothing more than to shoot something and you're saving yourself alot of trouble off the start as a director.

I've been very lucky to have been working with the same core crew for the past six years. I used to grip and gaff with these guys, then got an opportunity to direct and they all had a place on my set. It's a huge asset, having the majority of the crew on your side. People tend to side with the big dog on set, or just sit quietly and keep to themselves. There's a lot of loud, "big dogs" on my crew that generally keep any of the new guys on staff in check.

When it comes to actors, I spend a LOT of time casting. We generally have 3-4 call backs before we choose our cast, and a lot of that time is spent just talking to them, getting to know them, feeling them out. I bundle that with a GREAT (and kind of intimidating) Assistant Director who's always on point, and keeping things moving.

I'm shooting a music video next month where I've got to run a club scene hosting 100+ extras, and it'll be my first time trying that out. I'm curious to see who's going to be more of a pain in the ass, the musician in the foreground or the extras in the back.

I guess that's what I love about film. Every scenario is a new scenario. It never gets boring, and your job literally becomes one of problem solving. After the scene breakdowns, the shot lists, the rehearsals, and the various meetings with the various departments... it all comes down to solving any unforeseen problems that arise on the set. Get some sleep, eat, come to set well-prepared, and surround yourself with people you trust.

If they're not getting paid, you still need to assert professionalism. It's one of the only things that can make a zero-budget zero-experience production stand toe-to-toe with the big leagues. They might not be getting paid - but that makes it easier to replace them.

I regretted my lack of control over my first projects, it'll never happen again - and I still occasionally work with a lot of cast that don't get paid.

My problem was that we were put in a situation where the actors were unreplaceable. I really wish I had rehearsed with the entire company before we shot, though, because watching the film again a few weeks ago with some friends, I was really able to see how uneven the cast is. Although nobody's particularly terrible, there are a couple of scenes where you have a weak actor against a good actor, and it's noticiable as fuck.

Anyway. But learning how to work with actors/assert professionalism better are two of the things I've been working on and reading about, and I'm really confident that some of the stuff that went down won't went down again.

Plus it's easy to say you can be replaced, but honestly, how many people really are willing to work for nothing, and also take the job seriously? From my experience they're rare.

Directing on a low-budget set where you have an unpaid cast & crew that you need to maintain authority over and at the same time inspire and give a sense that they are part of a team? Want respect mixed with camaraderie? Two things:

1. Watch Errol Flynn in Captain Blood. Understand Errol Flynn in Captain Blood. Be Errol Flynn in Captain Blood. If you do this right your people will be ready to follow you through Hell and back.

2. Know your technical stuff backwards and forwards. All it takes is one stupid error when talking to the crew and you haven't just been shown up in front of them, but the cast sees that too. All of a sudden you're a baby-faced Lieutenant Junior Grade fresh outta West Point dropped in Vietnam with a grizzled platoon of battle-scarred basterds ready to frag ya.

So you're saying dropping in and out of an Australian accent is a must?

Also the Christian Bale approach. Wisdom beyond his years.

I never really had too many problems with actors when they were on set. Most of the problems were people no showing. It was a giant pain in the ass because not only did it mean you wasted a day but many times all the other actors had given up things they could be doing for nothing, so it made me look like a chump because I said be here at this time and we'll film this. Then they show up on time and we're not filming anything.

So I adopted a 3 strikes rule, if they no showed 3 times then they were out of the film, and I recast the role no matter how many scenes it required re-shooting. Which at the time was really annoying because the filming process was so slow only being able to shoot on weekends as it was. it really felt like the whole thing was slipping backwards into a hole at certain points.

Now that it's mostly all said and done, all the scenes that got re-shot turned out better than the first go at it, and all the replacement actors turned out to be way better than the originals, so I'm pretty glad it happened.

It was kind of a weird headspace that I had to put myself in where the world was divided into 2 things: assets and obstacles. either you were helping me make my movie or you were in the way. If you were in my way then you got left by the wayside. No 4th chance, no negotiation I didn't even ring people to tell them they were fired they were simply cut out of the loop.

Sometimes I think that that was kind of a cowardly way of handling things, but I'm not a very confrontational person, and I figured the best way to deal with stress was to just eliminate the cause of it.

And it only happened twice.

It does depend on what you're making - and I can only speak for my experience in the UK, but we have an inexhaustable supply of talent willing to work for nothing, travel hundreds of miles and be committed, passionate and willing to be directed.

It's all about image. If people know working for you involves potential visibility, it's not in their best interest to make themselves look unemployable.

There's an art to picking free talent, and it usually involves not picking the obvious choices.

If you didn't already know this then I don't know what the hell I can teach you people!

I finally managed to upload a copy of a short film I made, I think I posted it already in the thread but the streaming on the site I uploaded it to wasn't very good and the site is now gone, so I've uploaded it again.

http://vimeo.com/3170136

Here's a short film I made in The New York Film Academy back in 1996.

Christ, was it really that long ago???

Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mh95afQwy7c

Two problem actors in my 9 (!!!!) years of making films.

1. Girl seemed ok when I cast her as the LEAD in my Stephen King dollar baby. We shot the first week of the 2-week schedule with no problem. 5 days left to go. Then she got into a primadonna battle of wills with one of her co-stars. Then she got kind of bitchy on an overnight shoot where she was running around in nothing but a nightie in a park. I let it slide because she was running around in a park in a nightie! Next was a partial nude scene she agreed to before we cast her that she backed out of and we had to find a way to shoot it withouth showing anything.

Then on the last day of shooting, her boyfriend came with her. He shoots really shitty looking television commercials here and started talking shit about our camera work. Apparantly, hand held is "shitty looking and ameturish." She started playing off his attitude. This was the last day of shooting.

Then I needed her to come in to do her voice over for two scenes that were montages. The lines were directly from the Stephen King story and she called it "shitty writing" on my part (without knowing it was directly from the story). Then she refused to say the lines the way I told her to, because that was not the way she would talk in real life. She had no idea what the montage looked like or what feeling I was going for, she just knew it was not how she would talk, personally. The movie was compelted, except for this voice over and she had be handcuffed. I did the best I could with it (edited some of her dialogue together with other to make it close to what I wanted) but I still feel she fucked up my movie.

2. The next guy did everything I asked of him and did it well. However, it is hard here to find reliable people to do music scores and I am actually still looking for someone to score it, but because it was not finished and in his hands one month after filming wrapped, he lit into me about being a shitty filmmaker who doesn't finish his projects and wastes actors time.

This was because I wanted him for my next film (which required no music, and therefore is already done and sent to festivals). He told me he could not make it for the entire month of July. The lead actor I specifically wrote the movie for was leaving for LA in August, so I recast the supporting role with someone else.

He said if I was really his friend, I would have held out for him to get back. I told him this was business and that is when he ripped me about WWZJD not being finished yet. The guy has turned into a major prick and I'm afraid he is talking shit to other filmmakers, making his casting a HUGE mistake to begin with. I should have known because when I was casting him, he was talking shit about the filmmakers of a feature film he worked in before this.

Mistakes, both of them, but the signs didn't come until it was too late

To make everyone feel better, I was recently working some re-shoots for a major motion picture coming out this year. Basically some establishing and filler shots of the main character and another riding a couple of motorbikes.

We ended up running late the first day because the bikes wouldn't run and wound up losing half the 2nd day because they were being repaired. So even on large budget features shit doesn't work and bad shit happens.

And the moral to the story is make sure you have a prep day and make sure everything you need for your scenes actually works.

I'm going to be directing a 25 minute episode for a possible TV series, excitement abounds. I've never filmed another person's script before and I've met the writer and discussed changes that need to be made to the script, he seems cool with it, but still, it should be interesting.

After seven years of doing crappy commercials, I finally decided to make a short film last year. Hope you enjoy it:

http://rathershort.com/movies/sesils - You can turn on the subtitles, by the way.

Some friends and I, angered at the shitty movies student filmmakers were making, decided to make our own shitty movie lampooning shitty student films. This is the best scene from the movie we made. You can watch parts one and two if you want, but this poker scene is the stuff of legend. See what happens when a bunch of film students get together with a shitty camera and no script.

I found it funny. Hopefully you will too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15Z25...eature=channel

There's some great shots in there - a particularly nice one is when he steps in the puddle after using his reflection.

They're not criticisms, merely comments on how i'd edit using the material given to me - but your first "act" before the lead wakes up in the room again is probably at least 2 minutes too long. There's certainly plenty of the titular running - but some shots begin to feel redundant and could possibly keep the pace of the film up by just discarding them altogether. The entire project feels like it's perhaps running longer than it should, but I figure as it's a rough edit you're just putting it all out there to start with.

Also, i'm not sure if it's a post-prod filter, or the white balancing on the camera, but the blue hue tended to get more distracting for me than anything, i'd desaturate it heavily, but leave a gesture of colour, then play around with the contrast and brightness to make it look a little more filmic and a little more vivid. As is, the blue just looks like broken auto WB.

Great locations and some impressive improvising when it comes to tracking. Those things are a bitch on a budget. Always satisfying to have a project coming together - keep it up!

Got some pretty exciting news yesterday: The TV pilot of Redemption Falls will have its world premiere in June. We've been accepted as one of the selections at the Hoboken International Film Festival. As an official selection, we're eligible to compete for the Best TV Pilot award. After a long post-production process, it's nice to finally get some recognition for the film -- we'd also previously won a Silver Ace Award at the Las Vegas International Film Festival.

The validation feels great, but it's also going to be helpful as I look towards directing again, as the next one will cost a bit more and I'll be starting fundraising from the ground up. I'll be starting on very early pre-production with a small reading next month, and hopefully be shooting some test footage this summer.

Congrats man!

Congratulations, Rath!

A little something I made over a weekend with a friend to test out his Canon 5d MkII.

Really cutesy. Rough cut.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1E07fEWdpU&fmt=18

Great test, mcnooj! Impressed with the fact that the footage came from the 5D. Looks fine even without timing. Did it come with that lens (I'm assuming you shot on a 50mm) or did your friend purchase it separately?

(Edit: Sorry if that sounded ignorant, I haven't ever purchased a stills camera before and was wondering if this one came packaged to deliver that kind of quality, or if your friend had to spend some extra dough on a lens.)

Um... I believe it didn't come with any lens. I know he had a 50mm, but we also used another zoom lens he bought online used.

I'm actually pretty ignorant about it too. Sadly, despite the fact that I love doing this stuff, my knowledge of cameras and lenses is SEVERELY lacking.

Thanks!

EDIT: I'll ask my friend to gimme the details.

Looks very nice. I continue to be impressed with the relative quality of these video-taking DSLRs.

Yea, the Canon took some really pretty footage. It was kind of a bitch to take it into Final Cut though. The camera saves the footage in Quicktime's H264 codec, which makes working with it in a non-linear editing program really irritating. We had to convert all of our material into Apple's intermediate codec to get the video to scrub through smoothly.

Say whaaaa? H.264 should be working wonderfully with Final Cut!

I know! That's what I thought too, because I KNOW I've used an H.264 Quicktime file and even edited it in Adobe Premiere. But we took it in there AND FCP and it was CHAAAAW-PEEEE!

There's another DSLR coming out soon that shoots 1080p. It was a Phillips or a Panasonic... I can't remember. But I'm seriously tempted to invest in one. I believe it's cheaper than the Canon.

Perhaps the file was to big, or the system too slow? Both? Who knows... Cool that it turned out.

Naw, not that big. Though, we considered that. Google was our friend in this case. It seemed like lots of people were having that issue. Even with pretty robust setups. But yea, they had a clunky way to circumnavigate the issue. We were thankful nonetheless.

That's fantastic stuff. Puts some of us using video cameras to shame.

You ever have one of those nights where even the simple act of getting a MONDAY TO FRIDAY QUICKTIME to a MOTHERFATHERCHINESEDENTIST DVD is a trial worthy of Heracles? One of those nights where you have to have it done early in the morning for someone, but each render takes forever, and each failed attempt brings you closer to deadline...?

One of those nights when all of your trusty programs; Avid, Premiere, After Effects, Encore, Final Cut, iDVD, and three dinky burning programs from the internet all fail at tasks you've accomplished A MILLION BILLION FUCKING TIMES before....

A night where there were at least half a dozen small issues, all seemingly inexplicable, and no time to properly figure any of them out (yet you know they are compounding upon one another...).

Fuck those nights.

My favourites are when i've run a multi-hour export job only to find a minor flaw when i've come to burn it.

Hooray!

Right at the cusp of 99.9%!!!

Ya couldn't have found a hiccup earlier!?