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.

Organisation and Director Envy

Having just taken on my first feature film editing job I have had a lot of opportunity to think about the way that organisational skills impact filmmaking. A boring topic, I know, but having a pre-established system of organisation really is what separates a professional from an amateur. Without a definitive way of tracking your decisions throughout the whole filmmaking process something is always going to get lost. For any budding editor or assistant editor I would definitely recommend Make the Cut by Lori Jane Coleman and Diana Friedberg. It has a plethora of information on how to organise your work-flows and keep track of things. Just when I thought I was being too anal about my bin layout in Avid, this book showed me that I wasn't being nearly anal enough.

Before this film I had taken somewhat of a break from filmmaking as I focussed on teaching my various degree, diploma and short course students all the wonderful features of Avid and the intricacies of Music Video production. Coming back the world of filmmaking has stared to give me a fresh dose of Director Envy, which is a great way of motivating me to finish my short film script. Hopefully by the time I have finished this feature I will be ready to think about shooting it. I can hardly wait.

The Technical Details

Its something I say often to anyone who has the misfortune of having to listen to me, but the most difficult thing about the world of TV and Film production is that it is simultaneously very technical and very creative. This is why so few people end up being masters in this field. It takes a very rare kind of brain to be both technical and creative.

The Storyteller's Flicker

I've heard alot of different views expressed on the difference between progressive and interlaced video and the effect it can have on your audience. Phrases like "the eyes see in interlaced but the mind sees in progressive" and "24 frames a second synchronises with the pulses of the brain" come to mind. None of these have ever really struck a chord with me but recently someone I was doing some training for, Christopher Mann of Mannmade Productions, came out with something that made much more sense to me. He referred to the phenomenon as "the storyteller's flicker". His reasoning was as follows; way back when we were cavemen we would spend the day outside hunting and foraging etc. At night we would go back to our cave's, light the fire and tell stories to one another. People would draw on the walls and string narratives together as an effective way of passing the time and passing on information to others. In the day time there would be a lot of light and our eyes would be pretty responsive. This is the equivalent of interlaced video now. But at night the flicker of the fire would be only light to see the images on the wall by as the stories unfolded. Chris suggested that progressive footage, and particularly film, flickers in a way that reminds us on some genetic level of the flickering fire. It reminds us that these are only stories and not to be confused with the reality outside. This is why is makes so much sense that whilst the news looks right in 50i, films look right in 24p. It also explains why it feels weird watching a film with daylight pouring through the window.

I hope we remember this idea as filmmaking technology moves forward. Yes, more frames may be technically superior at capturing motion. Yes digital projection may be more cost effective for distribution. Yes 3D produces a more immersive environment. But we should think very carefully about weather these things are good for the medium. People don't go to the cinema for realism. They go to sit in the dark and see a story flicker into life. The shorcomings of cinema in representing reality are what makes it an artform. For every detail you fail to capture a million more are formed in mind of the audience. What so many filmmakers do not realise is that it is not you, but your audience that create the definitive version of your film. You can guide them, but the final result is always out of your hands. Scary, but true.

"This Time of Year" and Gear

Not posted anything in a long time, mostly because I have had so much work to do. Have now finished David's Schofield's film, "This Time of Year" so I'll try and post it up soon. Am really happy with how the grade went, I've been quite subtle most of the way through and tried to help the story along more than anything., using the colours to show the progression of the day and indicate the main characters state of mind. I had a little trouble with a few shots that had a dodgy light that was spilling some magenta (my personal grading nemesis) onto the scene. Yet again the wonderful saturation curve tool came to the rescue on that one. I'll post some before and after stills this weekend. The only shot that I am not happy with features a view out of a window which is a bit blown out. I spent over an hour trying to pull that down and bring in some detail but in the end the way the light was wrapping round the character made it impossible. I wouldn't usually let it bother me, but the shot cuts to outside where it is supposed to be dusk. I think in the context of the story, we get away with it, but I would have liked to find a way to solve it.

Other than that I have been in charge of ordering a load of new gear for work. Some of the most exciting objects that will be coming our way include a 24inch FSI Grade 1 Monitor and a Euphonix MC Color control surface, both of which will hopefully improve and speed up my grading work. Honestly can't wait to try them out. Lots of other toys coming too, including some Kinoflo's, a Dolly, a small Jib arm, a few Canon DSLRs (which I've already talked about extensively on here) and a Panasonic HPX500. Think I'm gonna be a bit giddy when all this stuff arrives.

Pics as promised.

This comes from the shot I talked about with the magenta spill from a faulty light. Fleshtones were horrible and you can see the effect it is having on the boys vest and the wallpaper especially. I slightly desaturated the whole image, used a saturation curve to remove the magenta and then pushed the mids back into the bleak brown colours that the wrest of the scene occupies.

This shot comes from a slow motion sequence. The main character is drunk and disorientated and I tried to reflect that with a high contrast blown out look.

 This scene in a cramped toilet was a little underexposed. I lifted the shot up and defined the characters face with some secondaries. It has also been heavily desaturated to give the environment a feeling of sterile hostility.

Digital Snow

I'm currently working on some effects and the grade of a short film by David Schofield (see his last film The Most Important Things in Life in a previous blog). The majority of the effects work is adding some snow into a couple of scenes. This film is set at Christmas and whilst they were lucky enough to have snow on the ground on the days of shooting the exteriors, they're was no snow falling from the sky and David felt that it was integral to the mood of the film. Below is a preliminary test for the particle system I have created for the shots. I'm using Trapcode Particular inside of After Effects to generate the snow. I still have a little bit of work to do, to introduce some snow behind the character and make the snowflakes a little less uniform in shape. I'll keep you updated as to how its going.


Snow Test 1 from Renegade Films on Vimeo.