On Set Post Produciton

On set post is a major new development in the industry and whilst it's motives probably lie somewhere in the ever increasing complexity of digital acquisition, I think directors and producers will soon be wondering why they ever tried to make films without post staff on site. As an editor I have been constantly trying to push the point where I start working on a film forwards, to well before the film shoots and the guys I know in sound post do the same. It creates better work, its as simple as that. We are starting to see that shift now and we need to embrace that wholeheartedly. On the feature film I am editing at the moment, they have just finished doing 2 days of pickups and because I was already on board editing the footage from the first shoot, I can already tell that the new footage is going to be easier to edit, just because I was able to have some input. So you can imagine my excitement at having just been hired onto another feature nearly 2 months before it shoots. I will be onset, with an assistant, backing up, transcoding and editing the RED One footage on a MacbookPro hooked up to a G Speed drive. If I can establish that the new MBPs run Avid OK then I may even look into the possibility of utilising Thunderbolt. I doubt budgets will stretch to a Thunderbolt raid, but maybe a Thunderbolt to eSata or miniSAS going into a G Speed? Even that would produce mouthwatering speeds by Laptop standards. So why this obsession with speed? Well, because basically I need to be cutting, and if I'm constantly waiting for transcodes then there ain't much use in me being there. I would be a glorified DIT and not much else. The processor and disk speed are always your major bottlenecks. I'm already getting the fastest MPB processor available so it makes sense to maximise disk speed as well. Occasionally we will utilise native R3D access over AMA into Avid MC5 when we really need to know how a scene is cutting before we move on and hopefully getting our drives as fast as possible will at least remove one of the hurdles. What kind of performance we'll get on a laptop, I'm not sure but hopefully it will be enough to make some basic cuts if we ride the settings down all the way. Mostly we'll be using AMA to transcode to DNxHD36 and we'll stay in that for all of editorial. After that we'll be sending an EDL and the R3Ds for finishing, most likely on a DaVinci 2K, outputting a 2K DPX sequence for Digital and 35mm print. Oh what fun lies a head. I'll be testing this workflow in the coming weeks and will post results here.

Acting

I have been thinking a lot about acting recently so I thought I would vent some of my thoughts at 1am on an outlet that nobody pays any attention too. We might as well start off with a bout of theatre bashing. I think a lot of people interested in acting would disagree but I wholeheartedly believe that the theatre is a crap medium for good acting. This seems kind of counter intuitive but I think if I can tell what your supposed to be thinking or feeling from the back of a theatre, then you can't possibly be acting well. Or at least not in a way that I would recognise as good acting. Let me elaborate. See, I'm a pretty rare breed of 20 something in that I watch the culture show on BBC2. If you aren't aware of it, it's generally full of self important wankers who toss off or criticise a bunch of pretentious bollocks, but they often mention good films that I might not otherwise hear of, so I watch it. And the thing is that every piece of theatre that they show on there looks rubbish, and this is supposed to the best of what's coming out. I really hope to meet someone who knows theatre and could show me where the hell I'm going wrong, cause I would hate to dismiss a whole art form off hand, but Jesus they're gonna have to be one persuasive bastard to get me to see how theatre isn't the most melodramatic waste of time in the world.

Anyway, back to acting. My limited knowledge on the subject has lead me to the following conclusions. I hope anyone reading this finds them useful.

1)You can never truly experience anything as someone other than yourself. The best you can hope for is a moment by moment emotionally honest performance based upon your own experiences.

2)Your character is defined more by what you do than by any intellectual notions of "who you are". Even psychopaths don't think of themselves as bad people, it is what they do which defines them. If you judge a character you will never be able to play him as anything other than a caricature.

3)You should avoid anything that will result in you monitoring yourself. You have to give yourself up to the events around you. Don't think about the effect you have on the audience or the results you are striving for. Don't tell us what you are thinking, just think it and we will see it.

4) Your costars are your most valuable resource, use them. Truly listen to the other actors and react to their energy. Fight for the ideal of staring your costar in the eye, even if they are ofscreen and the DOP says the eyeline doesn't look right.

5) Don't push. We don't have to see it when we are at the back of the room, we have to see it when your face fills a 40' screen. Subtlety is everything. In a theatre you need a soliloquy, in the cinema we can read your mind.

That is all.