November 10, 2009

Filming Everywhere

I love the video embedded above.   It just looks so cinematic, something out of a romantic comedy, indie or otherwise.  It was shot with a Canon 7D, but there are several other stealthy DSLR cameras that are just as capable of shooting high quality stuff.

The death of film has been heralded several times over the last 50 years of video camera development, but now it’s finally coming to a head.  Passing hundreds of feet of celluloid through a camera is dead, dead.  The only projects still being shot on film are big Hollywood films and boutique art projects that delight in their antiquities.

Everything else is and will be capture on a digital camera.

That in and of itself is rather boring, but what’s further fascinating to me is the world remixing ability that these tiny cameras give the filmmakers.  You can now go anywhere, shoot anywhere — anywhere.  This is going to be especially irksome to the owner’s of false commons, say like Malls and theme parks and even airplanes.

I can imagine a whole feature being shot inside of Disneyland with a crew of one, with two actors and a cast of 40,000 extras.  Sure the ticket says that such filming is prohibited, but in this YouTube world, who cares?

We’re already seeing this sort of thing with a show like Ikea Heights, a show shot entirely inside an Ikea store without the store knowing it.

Will the stores and theme parks and other places catch on?  Maybe, but some of those places need to let tourists take pictures and the tools for high quality production will continue to blur the lines between consumer and professional.

November 6, 2009

On Not Sucking and Having “Something”

There’s a great thread over Cinema5d.com on Making a Living: Being an Image-Maker in Times of Change.  This comment from Chimay cuts to the chase:

No matter how happens, one must embrace changes. Complaining will not put food on the table. New technologies are awesome. And, in the end, quality work will always prevail. Digital filmmaking is so affordable these days that lots of independent films are being released. Some of them are really bad! But, in the midst of all these, a few extraordinary talents are emerging.

Yes!

The real question is how can you be one of the emerging talents that gets recognized and not dismissed as a piece of chaff in the revolution?

It’s tough.

Filmmaking is the most humbling of all artistic disciplines since it encompasses all of them.  And falling down in any single aspect has the potential to negate the entire piece.  Of course you could also shine so brightly in one area that let downs in other areas will be forgiven.

One of my favorite things to do in my early days of trying to be a filmmaker would be to read interviews with directors that became successes and watch the films that broke them out.  My universal conclusion was that in order for you to become a success your movie had to have two things.

First thing, it couldn’t suck.  Now this is much harder than you think.  Most movies suck.  It’s just true.  It’s so hard to put together a film with all of the moving pieces and ill-defined creative processes and know that it’s not going to suck.  You can hire people known for not sucking, but this time out, they sucked.  The ways of potential suckage are infinite and know no bounds.

But having a film that does suck isn’t enough, it also has to have “something”.  That “something” could be spectacular dialogue (Clerks), a groundbreaking look (Pi), a ground breaking performance — just anything that sets it above competence, above the rest and makes it memorable.

The same thing applies now in the web video space.  First and foremost it has to not suck.  So many shows that get sent my way do not pass this threshold.  Acting is awful, editing is meh, and the visuals are grating.

And fewer still pass that second hurdle of having “something”.  The Guild is watched because it has both, same with Easy To Assemble and others.

So how does one find that “something” and learn how to not suck?

The real secret is to just follow your bliss and keep getting better.  This is not a quick process.   Give yourself permission to grow and learn and then do it again.

November 1, 2009

Thoughts on 10 Years of Digitalfilmmaking

Writing this and not coming off as a grumpy old man is tough.  But we truly are living in the most exciting time ever to be a filmmaker.  I am approaching the 10th Anniversary of my leaving college to become a professional storyteller, and in that time we have seen such an amazing growth in the capabilities of the tools and an intensification of the competition.  It’s almost unthinkable where we will be in the next ten years.

When I started editing movies I used the first iMac with Firewire and the first version of the iMovie.  The 1.0 of iMovie didn’t even have an “undo” feature.  I had to save a lot and revert back.  I was so excited when 2.0 came out and there was an undo.  Render times for DV were atrocious and hard drive space was scarce (you couldn’t even fit a whole DV tape onto one drive).

Now most laptops can churn out DV, and Harddrives are spacious.  Render times and space still get eaten up by HiDef, but that will change and soon we’ll all be working in 4k…

Back then I bought a Sony TRV-900 for $1800.  It cost as much as my car at the time.  It was a 3-CCD 1/4 Camcorder that recorded to Mini-DV tapes in Standard Definition.  Feature films were shot on this camera, films that made it into festivals, and into the theaters.

Now I bought a Canon 7D SLR that shoots beautiful stills and video for that same $1800.  It has an imager that’s as larger as Super 35mm film and shoots in High Definition with replaceable lenses.

Back in 2000, my friends at the comedy schools I attended and where I met Douglas Sarine, no one was thinking about putting their stuff on the internet.  I was showing them films like 405, Hard Drinking Lincoln, and others to get them excited.

Now I go to parties that have 500 people all with their own web show.  All seeking funding, all looking to be the next Ask A Ninja or LonelyGirl15 (and some of them not knowing what Ask A Ninja and LonelyGirl15 are…).

So in summary, in terms of tools, now has never been a better or more exciting time.  If you can’t mange to get your vision realized with whatever level of tools you have available to you, you lack imagination.  Every Mac for the last ten years can edit video there is a new or used one available at your price point.  Most stills cameras from the last 3 years can shoot video, as well as most cells phones, and then there are the amazing and high quality HD camcorders too.  The tools are there, go tell a story.

In terms of competing for scarce resources, now is probably the most daunting time.  Anyone can be a producer and director, and you’re only going to stand out if you’re talented and lucky and persistent.  LA is a great place, but it’s also a place where there will be thousands of other just like you.  If you stay where you’re from and become undeniably good you’ll eventually get here.

I had no choice, I grew up in Southern California, but it’s very expensive and isolating without a family (and that “family” can be a close-knit group of friends too, but those are very hard to find in LA…).

Go tell your stories, and keep getting better at telling them.  And always remember to care more, that will get communicated to your audience.

March 30, 2009

Thoughts on the First Streamys

Well the Streamys happened and it was a marvelous party.  It was one of those nights that was a marker in the quick history of online video.  Ten years ago at the edge of Web 1.0 there were some brave video pioneers making shows for the net alone in the wilderness with no standards of delivery, business model, or format.  Shorts like 405 and series like Homestar and Red vs. Blue and many, many others that haven’t endured are the giants upon which we all are standing.

Four years ago the second wave of video shows appeared, embracing podcasting and the first iterations of flash video (including YouTube).  This was the wave AskANinja, TikiBar, Rocketboom, French Maid TV, and LG15 were on.

And today we have 1000 plus people gathered to watch celebrities and weblebrities present and collect awards.

As Streamy Award winner Zadi Diaz OH’d from the afterparty:

L.A. has turned from “I have a screenplay” to “I have a webshow.”


That is a very true statement, everyone here now either has a show idea or an actual series.  The problem is that you still need the screenplay — or at least another show that you can sell to someone else.

But Felicia Day’s speech was a great reflection of the pentup frustration at how creatively deadly Hollywood can be, in her speech she thanked all of the casting directors and everyone else in Hollywood that refused to hire her because she didn’t look right, so she had to write something for herself to showcase her talents.

And that’s exactly right — the jobs I get to direct are the ones that I help create, same as it ever was.  No one will believe in you if you don’t believe in yourself.  Make something and prove yourself.

As for the Streamys the show itself?  Overall it was wonderful, the best awards show for online video thus far.  But it was an awards show — the banter was bad (but isn’t it always at every awards show), the speeches sometimes went a little long, and they should have acknowledged Tay Zonday from the outset, or put him on stage or something, and no one told me I had a reserved seat (but I chalk that up to my own idiocy :P ).

I thought it was great that the winners included so many celebs, old guard, and new comers.  It was a good mix.  I think in the future we should somehow put webisodes of TV series in their own category — having the Battle Star Gallactica show win so many awards with it being such an established brand was the only thing a little weird to me.

At the after party looking around with some other old hands in this game, we all had a bittersweet look in our eyes.  The days of being a small club of intimates were over, and it’s been replaced with the glitz and glamor of a Hollywood scene.

But that’s okay.

We knew it was going to happen and we wanted it to happen.  The important thing is to keep the doors open for those of us behind us, the unknowns just cutting their teeth and looking to entertain and delight us in the future.  If we somehow close those people out of the party, we’ll all be the poorer.

March 17, 2009

Tom Bodett Says Pwned in a Motel 6 Radio Ad

I was driving around the other day and I hear Mr. Tom Bodett come on and do an ad for Motel6.com.  Nothing too unusual there, but then Tom says ‘Totally Pwned”.  OMFG.

I went to Tom’s site and Motel 6′s and googled, and couldn’t turn up the audio.

So I went oldskool and sent Tom an email and here was his response:

Kent,

Attached for your listening pleasure is the one.  Go forth and multiply.
Best,
Tom
So with that here it is!

(the streaming sounds awful for me, but clicking on the file link sounds great!)

The Whole Ad

Just Totally Pwned

March 12, 2009

“Stealing” Indie Business Models

I’m sorta in the middle of an indie-filmmaking online scuffle, I know both parties involved and this post is meant not as a critique of any one party, but as an attempt to bring a larger perspective to the whole situation.

In this corner: Jessica Mae Stover, creative force behind ArtemisEternal.com, a site which is dedicated to destroying conventional filmmaking by raising $100,000 through small donations to make a 10-minute short film with the title of “Artemis Eternal.”  I appear in an upcoming promotional video for the site/film and know Jessica socially.

And in this corner, Mike Ambs and Amanda Walker, the creative force behind ProjectPedal.com, a site which documents Mike and Amanda’s five year struggle to produce a feature-length documentary about a cross-country bike trip which will ultimately be titled “For Thousands of Miles.”  It should be noted that Amanda and I were in a very serious relationship until recently and that her dog still loves me.

Okay, so with that, here’s the drama.  Jessica feels that Mike and Amanda have pulled off some sort of thievery in their recently re-launched “For Thousands of Miles” site.

There are certain similarities to both sites, both are about unfinished film projects, both feature a side scrolling timeline, and both ask for donations.

That’s it.

Sidescrolling is a bit novel, but it’s pretty out there already.  This collection of scrolling sites doesn’t include Artemis at all.

And donations?  Well, PBS, The One Second Film, and countless other projects (including projectpedal.com from 2005) have been seeking donations to make their visions a reality for decades.

So what’s the crime?

Not sure — I know I have been outright ripped off before (there are billions of Ask A Ninja homages out there…) but I never complain or let it get under my skin.  I compete by being better, funnier, and more creative than them.  And I actively try and promote our business model and try and learn from the success of others.  Because when it all comes down to it, we’re all just trying to do our art and make a living from it.

Mike and Amanda struggle just as mightily for their survival as Jessica does.  It’s one thing to steal source code or content and try and pass it off as your own (which no one claims happened), it’s another to see what works and make it your own.

It’s crazy to think there can’t be two indie film projects with a side scrolling timelines.  Just as it’s crazy to think that Jessica can’t open a twitter account for her film, or a myspace, or a facebook.

All of those things are just tools and techniques to talk to an audience.

February 23, 2009

Democratizing The Tools And Acceptance

I was genuinely moved last night when Slumdog’s DP Anthony Dod Micahel won the Oscar for Best Cinematography.

This snippet from the Hollywood Reporter tells why:

Both “Slumdog” and nominee “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” were multiformat titles, lensed with a combination of film and digital-cinematography cameras. “The Dark Knight” is the first narrative studio feature to be lensed in part using Imax cameras.

I’ve Slumdog was 60% digital and 40% 35mm.

There was no heavier embrace for film as a theatrical experience than the Dark Knight shot in actual IMAX format (truly an expensive and amazing choice to make).  It was a huge film shot on huge film that everyone knew was best seen on a huge screen.  Which is why I picked it to win Best Cinematography.  It would have been a vote for the status quo of film acquisition.

But Slumdog won it.  Shot on an experimental digital camera and 35mm that were wildly intercut.  Unpolished, but polished.  Ugly, yet beautiful.  And completely appropriate to the story being told.  In many regards, this win stands on the shoulders of the 2004 Cinematography nomination for City of God (which is also about brothers in slums).

This award should be exciting to the indie filmmakers.  It means that we are quickly approaching a post-tool era.  What that means that the tools we are using will increasingly become irrelevant, what matters is what you shoot and how it advances the story.

Another film that is a good example of that is the 100% digital feature Frozen River, which was nominated for two Oscars last night (and sadly lost them both).  That was a $500,000 movie, that told a very compelling story with digital acquisition.

So this is the challenge: find a good story and tell it.  It doesn’t matter the format you shoot it on, if it’s a microindie, a well financed indie, or major studio franchise, just shoot in a manner that is appropriate to your story.

If the camera format is taking people out of the story?  You fail.  That’s your fault, not the tool’s.  Or more succinctly, you’re a tool if you let your tools tool you over.  Tool.

Focus on your craft and the rest will follow.

February 21, 2009

Thoughts on Norway

Coming to the end of a great trip to Oslo, Norway for the By:Larm music fest.

Here some observations after the jump. Keep reading →

February 9, 2009

Fine Bros Play With Fire And Get Burned

From NewTeeVee:

Since January of 2008, online video creators The Fine Brothers have been producing a comedic sendup of Lost called Lost: What Will Happen Next? using the series’ own official action figures.  Last week, ABC launched Lost Untangled, an comedic series of Lost recap videos … using the series’ own official action figures.

NewTeeVee:  In the end, though, it’s not so much that you’re accusing ABC of anything; you’re lamenting the opportunity that was lost because they didn’t come to you for the Untangled videos.  Even if they’d never heard of you or Lost: What Will Happen Next, your feeling is that it would have been a much smarter move on ABC’s part to seek out someone already making successful Lost-related web content, right?

The Fine Brothers: We would have jumped to do it, and we know we would have been able to produce an even better product than they made themselves, based off our experience.  Not only that, but we had the ability get the video seen by more people online, not only because of our connections and following but because of the great success story it would have been for Internet filmmakers.

I don’t know anyone involved in this chain, either on the web side or on the ABC side, so here’s my blind analysis of the situation.

These guys are talented and they deserve to be paid for their efforts, but expecting a rights holder to embrace your unlicensed efforts are not the best way to go about it.

ABC would never in a billion years ever hire the Fine Brothers to do this series for them.

Here’s why, first and foremost, it would put them into legal jeopardy in regards to clearing the preexisting series.  Every joke and unlicensed figure would be viewed as a potential liability.  That sort of cost would aleready make execs twitchy.

Secondly, it’s low production value.  Why hire people that have potential leverage over the studio?  And the only people that could bite them in the ass in terms of the above liability.  They can hire a clean slate production company that can meet Disney’s hefty insurance requirements and produce in the way that Disney likes things produced.

Thirdly, they are being kind by not suing the Fine Brothers into submission.  The recaps are fairgame, but using the figures in that matter is pretty grey, arugments could be made on both sides and Disney has a pretty deep war chest.

As for the Brother’s Fine wanting to get paid to do such things, that’s a great idea.  But their best hope would be for someone like NBC to hire them to do Heroes recaps or CBS to do CSI, etc.  It’s the same principle that writer’s have used for years when writing spec TV scripts.

Never write a spec script for a show you want to work on, because they’ll never be able to read it or use it due to legal concerns.

Sometimes the stars do align and the rightsholder does love the remix and reuse of their IP, see roosterteeth.com, but that’s rare and should be viewed as the exception.  If you’re going to make your mark riding on the back of someone else’s IP, be sure that you’ve got a great follow up idea ready to go, because it’ll be very diffuclt to make a living off of that one.

February 9, 2009

Courage and Comedy: How Oprah Saw Me In My Undies

_MBB2820, originally uploaded by TED Conference.


So that happened.

Now we’ve been getting a lot of responses on how brave we were to get on stage in front of thousands of very important strangers in our tighty whitey underwear.  But for us, it was never questioned once we came upon the idea.  This post will hopefully shed a little light on our process and why we did this.

First and foremost, we wanted to be memorable and make a big splash — we only had three minutes and we felt we had a clear reason for being asked to be on the TED stage, to make people laugh.   We knew that we had to stand out quickly, and that the main thrust of our piece was a video of the Ninja introducing the United Tunnels of America, LLC .com.

We also knew that we were going to be making fun of specific noble (and Nobel) individuals (Bill Gates and Al Gore, both in the audience) in that video, but also the very concept of trying to save the world and make it a better place for us all to live.  The United Tunnels of America, encourages the elites of the world to abandon that folly and give up and go into hiding 40 stories below the Earth’s surface.

So with that we needed to instantly remove all credibility on ourselves and make us look like fools.  Hence the underwear.  The context of the gag was that the Ninja was going to show up in his undies and be the ‘D’ of TED, but instead he showed up on the video screen and mocked us for falling for the oldest joke in the TED book.

I think it’s the sign of being really creatively in sync with each other that we both knew it was what we needed to be done.  Even when uber motivational speaker Tony Robbins slipped into take Douglas’s chair as he was heading back stage to undress and tape up, we never wavered in our commitment to the gag and to each other.

And the gag serves on another level too, most people are completely fearful of public speaking, especially on such a large stage.  There’s the hackneyed advice of imagine everyone else in their underwear, and the age old nightmare of being in your underwear while giving your speech.  We just embraced that common fear and turned it on it’s head.

So that was that and there we were in our tighty whiteys in front of the world.  And would I do it again?

In a heartbeat.[/