Rantings of a Maniac

Shooting and Editing Widescreen.

2008-12-06T14:22:00.000-08:00

When shooting with 16:9 in SD DV there are different ways to do it.Some cameras have proper 16:9 sensors and record proper anamorphic DV, using all 720x576 (720x480) pixels. Other cameras have 4:3 sensors and you lose a number of the vertical lines recording widescreen, even if you record anamorphic the resolution i is no better than recording 4:3 and cropping off the top and bottom. These cameras are the ones I shall be refering to in this essay thing. There are therefore a few ways of recording widescreen, hereafter known as the right way and the wrong way. Unfortunatly I have a differing opinion to many people on which way is which.

One of these lovely instituions is the SIT, an instituion I have long been aware of but never had anything formerly to do with. They have grated on me before and they grate on me still. They recommend the practice of filming 4:3 and cropping down to 16:9 in post so you can reframe if necessary. A fine idea that seems great in theory but works horribly in practice. This is largly because it requires more steps that people never seem to follow properly. It also severly screws up the workflow. Every time someone insists on working like this I wince because I know that something screwed up is going to come out of all this, and most likely I'll have to help fix it up.

The first problem comes during shooting. If you want to shoot 4:3 and later crop to 16:9 you have to know what it's going to look like in 16:9 so you can frame it properly. When I did this (once) I just stuck some tape over the the top and bottom of the LCD screen. Most people don't do this, they just frame for 4:3, shoot 4:3 and then in post crop the damn thing down. Then ends up an unmitigated disaster, framing is all screwed, tops of heads are missing, stuff down the bottom is missing. You've heard about how much directors hate Pan and Scan because it mutilates their vision, this is like doing the same thing to your own work before it's even finished.

Then we have the editing, they stick it into their editor of choice, throw a widescreen filter over it, then edit away. This creates numerous problems, often to do with, due to the fact that they are working in a 4:3 edit space, to put it simply, stuff coming over the black space. This includes special effects, (like muzzle flash), credits, and stuff like fade to white, where even the black bars get white. Then after all of that it's still not going to play properly on a 16:9 screen and you are going to have to do something with that anyway. All this is ef fort is hardly worth the ability to reframe given that you probably aren't going to reframe anyway, especially given the way to crop the images.

Could it be shot 4:3 and cropped later if done properly, absolutly. Probably if done within an anamorphic window and zoomed in, rather than in a 4:3 window and cropped, but that also takes work. In the end I've only ever worked on one project where someone has done this properly, and that's because we planned it all from the start, and as I had little to do with the post process I have no idea how much extra effort it was. Do I recommend it, hell no. Chances are you are going to screw it up really badly, hell a lot of people seem to have trouble just editing the damn thing properly in anamorphic without attempting to do stuff you barely understand why.

In conclusion, screw the SIT and there stupid ideas, they give out a piece of advice and yet don't follow it up with the whys and how to do it properly so we get a big mess. They don't explain properly why they are doing it and students just do it without understanding the purpose and make a big mess. At least the coming HD revolution should get rid of this mess even if it causes numerous other problems, and at least there are some SD cameras that record 16:9.

To finish up with, if you ever recommend that anyone I have the slightest possiblity of working with, or even anyone who's film I might see, shoot in 4:3 and then crop to widescreen I will personally stab you*

*I will not stab you.

The 48Hours

2008-06-11T23:10:00.000-07:00

For those not in the know, and as far as I know the few people who read this thing are in the know, the 48Hours is an event in which you make a film in 48Hours. It started out as an international event passing through New Zealand but the New Zealand bit has now branched off from the others. Basically the rules are simple, you are given just prior to starting, a randomly picked genre, a line, a character, and a prop to have in your movie, and then have exactly 48Hours to complete your movie. Not getting it in on time gets you disqualified, though you can still show your short in the heats, and not having some or all of the elements will also get you disqualified. You'll also get disqualified if your short is too short or too long. Our film last year was too long by 30Seconds so we got disqualified. Such is life.

This year we were determined to get our act together, or something, and by we I mean our director, and by get our act together I mean make us some soup. It was good soup, but I digress. Last year we had a couple problems, one of which was the two directors, the other was that I was actually the most organised person on the team and the only one that new how to hand it in. When I am the most organised person things are in a very very bad state. This year we had one director. Other things that turned out better than last year included

We finished with plenty time to spare to add the music so the music composer didn't hate us at the end.
Our plot actually makes sense to people that haven't had it explained to them beforehand.
Our lighting is a hell of a lot better.
We got a lot more sleep than last year.

On the downside we almost burned down the director's house but that's a small problem all round. We didn't get into the finals, but oh well. I had nothing to do with the writing this year, for better or worse, so don't blame me if you hate the plot, also don't praise me if you love it. (Though I don't really mind the latter)

For the crap quality Youtube version go here

Updating the Update Process

2008-06-11T23:08:00.000-07:00

Having left this blog abandoned for too long I figured it was time for an update. Regular updates will hopefully follow. I'll try and do one a day.

Disgusting Looking Foods of The World : Episode One

2008-02-06T00:26:00.000-08:00

First off there is a very good chance there will never be an Episode 2. It's just I came across this and it seemed just horrible enough to get it's own post.

Take, if you will, a boiled egg. You like boiled eggs right? I like Boiled Eggs. Boiled eggs as you no doubt are aware are taken by placing a raw egg, generally a hens egg but sometimes a duck or other bird's egg, into boiling water and leaving it there until they float. (Or 20 minutes or whatever)

What if you decided to change things slightly, instead of taking an unfertilised egg, you took an egg that had a partly grown embryo in it and boiled that instead, what a treat that would be. Thoroughly sickened. You haven't seen the pictures yet.

Here's the peeling off of the shell.

And here's the product in a bowl. Do not view this if you are eating, just ate, or plan to eat in the near future.

According to wikipedia it's usually Duck's eggs but sometimes chicken's eggs. Apparantly it's quite the delicacy in The Philippines, Cambodia, and Vietnam. If you ever get the urge to try this apatising foodstuff, let me know what it tastes like. I'm not overeager to learn what it tastes like firsthand.

Click here to learn more.

New Banner

2008-01-27T20:49:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Daniel for the new banner. Not that I had an old one, just words, and not that I would have made one for a while, and not that it would have been as good anyway, so we're all happy. It's much better than what was there.

I'm not even a maniac, it just sounded cool at the time.

R.I.P. Heath Ledger

2008-01-23T00:30:00.000-08:00

Yeah, you've probably been inundated with information about Heath Ledger, but I'm adding my little post on the matter and I'll be damned if I'm going to let you stop me.

I don't actually have much to say about him that hasn't been said, except that he was actually a really talented guy, who, like a couple other actors I could name, seemed just to be another 'Teen Hearthrob' (got a hate that phrase) but with roles in things Brokeback Mountain showed how awesome he really was. Allegedly, I never actually saw Brokeback Mountain. I know, I suck. I'll see it eventually. Anyway, though I'd liked numerous roles the guy was in what really impressed me was the trailer for 'The Dark Knight' where he played The Joker. Yeah I'd had second thoughts on whether he should play it, preferring someone like Crispin Glover or Mark Hamil, but watch the trailer and you'll realise just how good he really is.

So yeah, if you haven't, go watch the trailer for 'The Dark Knight' which Heath Ledger fortunatly finished filming, and look forward to what will sadly be his last movie. Unless the one he was part way through filming when he died comes out, which you won't be surprised to learn was being directed by Terry Gilliam. That guy just never gets a break does he.

Anyway go here to get the Dark Knight Trailer.
http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/thedarkknight/trailer2/

The sad state of the horror genre.

2008-01-21T22:58:00.001-08:00

I'm a horror movie fan. A fan of the horror movie genre. The sad thing is, this is a fact that I actually argue with myself about, as I sometimes don't want to be a fan of the horror genre. Why, because lets face it, most horror movies suck.

Lots of other genres have their fair share of crap, comedies have a consistently high supply of total crap, and look at all terrible action movies that come out each year. We have the awful romantic comedies, the mind-bogglingly awful dramas, and sci-fi movies that make you consistantly bang your head on the wall. (Though these are nearly as prolific as in the 50s for instance)

But horror movies have overcome the odds and manage to out suck all of these genres, possibly all of them put together. It's flooded with uber-shitty Halloween rip-offs, mostly crap torture movies (like Hostel) and those movies that try to mimic the supposedly great Japanese horror (not really sure since I haven't seen much Japanese horror) but fail at being good. Example, The Grudge. Don't even get me started on The Grudge. Also can't forget the crappy remakes to the good films, and even the crappy remakes of crap films. There are also a number of other horror movies that don't fall into any category I can think of at this time but they are usually pretty crap and star 'Famous Celebrity of the moment'. You know what I'm talking about.

Why is horror in such a crappy state, why has it sunk so low? (Not that it, arguably, was very high to begin with.) The answer is, I believe, that people are, for some reason, willing to accept complete and utter crap in this genre more than any other. The eighties was especially bad with fifty thousand shitty Friday the 13th rip-offs. (Not forgetting the movie was a rip-off itself), complete with no name actors who couldn't act, or maybe they could and it was so hard to tell and the dialogue was so appalling that no-one cared. Who cares if the dialog is good? Who cares if the actors can act? Who cares if the plot makes any sense whatsoever and isn't a rehash that completely contradicts the first movie altogether, the dumbass public will still lap this shit up and we'll rake in the proceeds.

We also get stuff like Hellraiser, which was a really original idea, and a good, if heavily flawed, especially in the special effects department, movie. The studios missed the point and with the exception of Part 2, almost all the sequels sucked. Trust the studios to not get it.

I'll say a small amount on the torture movies. I think the first Saw (Haven't actually seen the sequels) was pretty decent as the scenario was pretty well set up and it had a nice atmosphere throughout. I've seen better but I've seen far far worse. Hostel on the other hand was a complete piece of crap. Eli Roth seemingly wanted to copy the brilliance of Takashi Miike's 'Audition' (There's a movie you should check out). He however completly failed in this task by making the protagonists so annoying that you honestly couldn't care less if they died in the most painful of ways. The movie lacks in so many ways that I won't go into right now because that would take another post. Maybe in the future.

Maybe what horror really needs is the independents. People willing to take a risk. Give us something with some imagination. Don't go over the same old shit time and time again. Maybe what it really needs is for the public to stop accepting the total shit the horror genre is giving us. I wouldn't wait for that to happen anytime soon.

The best horror is actually happening in movies that aren't primarily labled as horror. Maybe those are the movies we should be turning our attention to, maybe they can save us from this dreck.

Movie outline.

2008-01-16T20:12:00.000-08:00

Following Jeff's ponderings on the beginning of the universe I devised a sort of a plan for a movie explaining how the universe started. Some have said it slightly resembles a movie already in existence directed by that guy who directed that movie where Jack Nicholson goes crazy in a hotel in the middle of winter or something.

Anyway, it starts with scientists in space picking up a signal for help somewhere in the solar system, I don't know, by one of the near planets or something. One of the scientists for some reason has been reading Jeff's blog, and, thinking he's awesome, picks him to man the expedition there for some reason. Jeff, (who plays himself) thinks it's pretty cool he's been picked for a space mission despite the fact he has no training and there are lots of astronauts with lots of training who really wanted the job. Anyway, him and his friend, not sure which friend but we'll choose John for now, board the spacecraft and go into space.

Not sure of the specifics at this point but the scientists have provided stuff to keep them entertained during this time including a NES. Millions of dollars worth of space equipment and they get a NES for some reason. Anyway, as they are nearing their destination, the NES starts to act a little strangely, and conversations with it sentences are often garbled and hard to understand. (Hopefully the audience will just accept the fact that the NES is having conversations with them)

Anyway, something goes wrong with the left propeller or something (What do you mean they don't have propeller's in space ships? Pick something else then, I don't know, a rocket something or other) and John has to go outside to fix it, but the NES, which at this stage has snapped and gone evil, cuts the cable, sending John floating into space. Jeff, decides he has to retrieve his friends body, but fails in doing that, and then the NES locks him out. 'Open the pod bay doors NES' 'I'm sorry I can't do that Jeff' or dialogue like that. Anyway, somehow Jeff gets into the ship anyway, and then pulls apart the NES while it sings the theme tune to 'Super Mario Brothers' it gets slower and slower and slower until the NES finally dies.

After this, Jeff has no choice but to go outside and investigate the source of the distress call. It turns out to be a sort of a wormhole, which sucks him in. He yells out 'Help' and is sucked in. His cry is sent back in time a few months. Jeff on the other hand is sucked further and further back, through lots of special effects that look like those visualisations you get from some media players. Jeff arrives at the dawn of the time and explodes, creating the big bang and beginning the universe. It is subsequently proven that Jeff is the centre of the Universe.

I plan to shoot this on location in space, and I estimate the budget to be a few billion. I'm currently looking for backers.

Let me know what you think. A lot of these ideas were obviously Jeff's which I just elaborated on such as him being centre of the universe, but the others came from other some place entirely. One thing is for sure though, it's not a complete rip off of 2001 : A Space Odyssey.... Y'see.... It has no monkeys.............

SCO files for bankruptcy.

2008-01-12T02:50:00.001-08:00

Back when I gave a crap about such things, I was routinely annoyed by a company by the name of SCO that decided Linux was infringing on it's copyright and decided to sue IBM or something, with anyone having half a brain telling these charges being complete and utter nonsense. To cut a long story very very short, and I am sorry I'm so late on this, SCO has recently filed for bankruptcy.

You can read about the whole ordeal here

and read about the the bankruptcy here

Isn't it nice.

Warner Converts to Blu-Ray. HD War all but over. Thank God.

2008-01-04T20:22:00.000-08:00

Not that I have any particular love of Blu-Ray or dislike of HD-DVD, I just really wanted this crappy format war to be over. I was actually going to post here about how I refused to support either side until one of them became the victor but now it seems I don't have to. Paramount is still supporting HD-DVD for about 18 months or something but it's all coming down now which is nice.

If you want to read about it click here

Exciting News

2008-01-03T01:04:00.001-08:00

As fans of movies, there are always movies we look forward to. I am looking forward to The Dark Knight, I am also looking forward to No Country for Old Men and Sweeney Todd even though everywhere else has already had them for ages. Here's a way to prevent movie piracy, simultaneous movie releases in all countries. Failing that at least make it only a few days apart, a week at most.

Back on topic however, there is a movie you will be thrilled to learn is being remade, a movie that you heard was getting a remake but thought was a joke, one of the few movies you just feel years for a remake, needs a remake, and if that remake should show up the world would be a better place, or at least you would enjoy it a lot for 90 minutes or however long the damn thing is.

The movie in question is Death to a Businessman. It's a story of many things, revenge, more revenge, some killing, exploding sequences, um, well it's an action movie. It has what may be construed as a love story at the very start but the writer/director insists there isn't one so we'll go with his vision. Basically a guy is hanging out with his girlfriend when she is killed in a hit and run by a businessman who pays the guy off. The guy then becomes an assassin, obsessed with killing businessman everywhere, with the businessman who killed her being the main one he is after. Why he goes after the other's I'm not sure but I'm sure there is a reason in there somewhere. The main character's name is Death Jimmy and he has some sort of gang consisting of some fairly weird characters. The Businessman for some reason also has a gang, and the assassin is intent on killing them all, if they don't kill each other first. The body count is bigger than Commando, some of the acting is good, especially from the corrupt cop, some of the acting, especially from the burglers and The aforementioned businessman is awful, and some of it is merely so/so. It's filmed all over christchurch from the gondola to the city centre, to the mountains to other places.

The remake however is said to be even more epic. Varied locations, not just in Christchurch but all over the city, new and better actors. A businessman who doesn't suck immensely, a larger budget, and more of a plan. It's said to follow the original plot pretty closely. Expect to see it in Cinemas around 2009/2010... maybe...

It'd be nice to film it in Alberta though.

American McGee's Alice

2008-01-02T22:51:00.000-08:00

This is a game I finally got around to playing what seven years after it came out, but I've done far far worse in years past, and let me tell you, it's the most consistently fun video game I've played for a long time. I've been put off video games recently and sort of stopped playing them much because a lot of them just grated on me and felt more like work than actual fun. I had a lot of fun with Kingdom Hearts II, but parts of it grated on me. (Though not nearly as bad as it's predecessor, which consisted of way too much crap before the good stuff occured)

I decided to hunt down Alice after a recent obsession with the works of Lewis Carroll, and similarities to other things I was interested in and the fact I'd been meaning to play it for a long time and it sure was worth it. The storyline is interesting, compels you to follow it, the gameplay isn't too easy but it's certainly not hard enough to make you give up, and the level design really is a joy to behold.

Basically, if you don't know, it follows Alice, from 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' and 'Through the looking glass'. Her parents are killed in a housefire, but Alice escapes. (Possibly because she is warned by her friends from Wonderland.) She slumps into despair and winds up in an asylum. Eventually, around ten years later, after her sanity slips so far, she is called back into Wonderland. Wonderland however is, and always was in her mind however, but with the current state of her mind wonderland is warped beyond belief. The Cheshire Cat for instance, Alice's guide in Wonderland, is a sort of a scrawny gothic thing with an earing, The Duchess has cracked from hiding from the Queen of Hearts, the pepper has finally gotten to her. She's trying to make soup of the mock turtle. Humpty Dumpty is broken and smoking a pipe. Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee are running an asylum with horribly deformed children. My favourite character is certainly the Mad Hatter. He's really gone mad now and he's become obsessed with time and perfection. He's turned the march hair and the doormouse into deformed cyborgs and keeping their tea from them, he's turned himself into a robot as well, he seems to control the asylum, and he's repaired the Jabberwock from the damage down with the Vorpal Sword.Yes The Jackerwock is partly robotic now, the Queen's guardian.

Other interesting points are that instead of losing life Alice loses sanity, when she loses it all the game ends as her mind is completly gone. I didn't actually realise this on my first playthrough though so it makes no difference whatsoever. Her weapons, with the possible exception of the vorpal blade, are all toys, the deck of cards, the ice wand, and the croquet mallet. (As the Cheshire cat says, 'Here's a riddle for you, when is a croquet mallet like a billy club? Whenever you want it to be'.

All in all I highly recommend this game for anyone after an enjoyable and slightly different game. Also the voice acting is pretty awesome which is certainly a plus. It's available for Windows and Mac OS. They recently released a universal binary patch for it so you can play it with Intel Macs which is pretty cool.

Apparently there is a movie coming out this year. Currently Sarah Michelle Gellar is down for Alice, which is, I'm sorry to say, a horrible choice for the role. Oh well, could've been worse.

DVD Aspect Ratios.

2007-12-30T22:56:00.001-08:00

Something is rotten in the state of demark. Actually this topic has nothing to do with the state of denmark whatsoever but I always wanted to use that quote in an article an this is the closest I have yet come to putting it in.

DVDs have a resolution of 720x576(PAL) or 720x480(NTSC). As you can work out if we used square pixels both images would be a mess. PAL would be 1.25:1 and NTSC would be 1.5:1. That's why we PAL uses slightly wider than square pixels and NTSC uses slightly taller than square pixels for 4:3 video.

Anywho DVD can support two aspect ratios, 4:3 and 16:9, both at the same resolution (Both use even wider still pixels to get this aspect ratio but we're sick of the wideness of pixels so will try not to mention it again) When movies have an aspect ratio equal to or great than 16:9 they should be shown in anamorphic widescreen rather than letterbox as this gives a higher quality picture on widescreen TVs while looking the same on 4:3 TVs. To learn more about Anamorphic DVDs go here.

The problem is this only works out properly if the DVD player AND the TV is set up properly, which half the time aren't because consumers have no idea what the hell they're doing, which is a shame as images really look better when they aren't squished or stretched. There are three problems that can show up.

4:3 TV set to widescreen.

This is when the DVD player isn't set up to properly change the image for the TV so the image looks stretched on the TV when anamorphic DVDs are played. Usually people don't know any better but doesn't it annoy anyone else. Occasionally done on purpose to reduce the dreaded “Black Bars”

16:9 TV set for everything.

Just as irritating are those people that insist on watching everything in Widescreen. Not everything is widescreen, why in the hell would you want to watch everything in widescreen? It just looks stretched. Trying to avoid the black bars again? Once more of course there are those consumers who simply don't know any better

And the worst one

16:9 TV set set for everything with DVD player set to 4:3

I've seen it happen. Everything looks stretched, even the widescreen stuff. It's screwed whichever way you go. I know someone with a setup like this.

Now supposedly in these rants I'm supposed to suggest possible solutions. I don't like this part and have no idea on these solutions. Better educate the public I guess but they're not very good at it. My vote is down to Make DVD players that interact with TVs, and, like computer monitors, simply know what aspect ratio they are. Not that that's likely to happen anytime in the future.

This is the good thing about watching movies on a computer. Some people can't abide it but at least the aspect ratio is pretty much always right. Now if you'll excuse me I have to go and make sure 'American Werewolf in London' is being shown in the correct aspect ratio.

Actually I'm not going to do that and that would be way to convenient, but wouldn't that have made a cool ending... damnit.

Done and Done

2007-11-29T22:20:00.001-08:00

So I'm finally done for the year and figured I should write some stuff up about things. The movie itself I'm fairly happy with, even if it is disjointed, makes no sense whatsoever, and has parts which are totally nonsensical unless you know the back story. It does have some pretty cool gore effects, and they are always nice. Mostly actual fake blood but a couple CG gunshots created by someone with the time, ability, and inclination to do it for me which was pretty cool. As expected Jack completly stole the show, whether he actually had much to do with the plot or not, but all the cast played their parts well enough, I even believe some of them understood their characters better than I did and I actually learned about their characters from them. So yeah, movies are a team effort, treat your cast and crew well, they are what makes the movie.

The night itself wasn't great, but it wasn't that bad. Photographer didn't show up so I have no photos. We actually had to start clapping to remind the audience they should clap. It's just something you should know to do y'know, but in a way, it's every single person's fault. Only one person needs to start.

The day of the screening was actually pretty insane as well just before the screening. I was finished the actual movie but I was still trying to do a thousand things at once before I finally broke down and went insane. That'll teach me to trust no-one else to do the compilation tape and insist on fixing all the weird technical problems myself.

Incidentally I finally decided to create that damn myspace account I've been putting off doing. The reason I've been putting off doing it is because everything I've experienced of myspace leads me to believe it's a poorly coded piece of crap of a website that consists mostly of large amounts of bloat, in fact pieces of bloat trying to outbloat each other. Actually signing up for an account has led me to realise that it's not that bad, it's actually much much worse. The interface is crap, the friends system is buggy, the extended network makes no sense, it's nigh on impossible to hide certain pieces of information, the search system is impossible to use, the date of birth system is screwed to hell, the music is a bloody nuiscance to turn on and off, and most of the themes, including the deafault one, are utter crap, especially when mixed in with all the adds. It also allows users to customise stuff and add their own html, and most of them don't know what they are doing and make the site into an even bigger mess. I also believe it may be a security risk but I don't know much about that so I'll let it off on that count. In short it's one of the the most poorly designed websites I have ever had the mispleasure of visiting, but people insist on using it so I guess I'm going back. Bebo is one hell of a lot better, and I could never really be bothered with that either. I forsee much pain in my future.

More Interesting Stuff

2007-11-20T21:38:00.000-08:00

Screening got postponed like the day before we were due to screen it for six more days. Plus side, six more days to work on it. Minus side, working on it for six more days.

It's for the best though as if I showed it yesterday it would have had some major sound problems and now it's a lot better. I've actually got two other editors working on it now who have finished their own projects and want to help make mine better. They're actually members of my cast and crew (which ended up largely of the same people in the end) so they have a vested interest in it. Sound should be a hell of a lot better now. I really recommend showing up on Monday even if you are in Invercargill and have to astrally project yourself.

In other non film news, I somehow managed to cut my head open by jumping into a door frame (don't even ask). After a couple hours I finally decided I should probably go to the hospital. Ah the joys of waiting in the room for ninety minutes with nothing to do but read crappy magazines or watch the crap shows that are playing on TV with the volume turned down so long you could barely make out what they are doing. Staff are really good there though. Got some stictches and I'd post a pic but I hate posting pics of me so instead I'll post a pic of Frankenstein's monster, as portrayed by Boris Karloff. (I actually prefer the Christopher Lee version but I like the Karloff imagery. Never actually seen the one with De Niro as the monster, but I want to.)

Calvin Island Poster

2007-11-18T01:53:00.000-08:00

With Calvin Island drawing to a finish, I think I'll continue my posting marathon thing. Haven't got a lot to say here so I'll stick up a poster made by my brother Callum. He's better at Photoshop than me since I've forgotten most of what I know about it. Jack is the only character on it because Callum couldn't find any other photo he was happy with.

Calvin Island Status

2007-11-15T19:50:00.000-08:00

More on my running commentary on the state of Calvin Island, which will be most of what I think about until the screening comes around. The movie does not actually have the character of Frank Calvin anymore, giving the name somewhat less point. I've never come up with a better name though so that's the name it stays with. It's like Isolation, which was a place holder name that never got changed.

The last few days we've spent a large amount of time getting the damn music sorted out for it. Getting music for a movie is not the easiest task in the world. Luckily I had some really knowledgeable people helping get the music to work properly. It's either find music or make it in Garage Band or Soundtrack, and unless you are really good, that music sounds like crap. I'm still in the process of deciding whether Jack's rendition of 'Up Where we Belong' or the equally brilliant 'Why are there so many songs about rainbows?' should go in.

Also, John, who played Frank in Calvin Island may actually have his movie done for this year's film screening, which is pretty cool since I remember shooting it about this time last year, and it's cost him a couple thousand dollars. It's about twenty minutes long so it should be pretty cool.

I put in a few more making of photos here. Still camera photos look a lot better than DV even at the same resolution. The last one is during post production during the music decision making process. Getting closer and closer to the screening it is. Hopefully there are no or at least few overly painful moments left in the movie come judgement day, or screening day, same thing really.

Who creates the character?

2007-11-13T00:50:00.001-08:00

Characters themselves are created by three people, the writer, the director (often, especially in student films, the same person) and the actor. Often the way the actor portrays the character is pivotal to how well the character ends up working. It's not just a matter of good actors or bad actors, it's more what the actors turns the character into, and it's almost always a completly different idea than you, as the writer, had in your head. Frank, for example, in Isolation, was never intended to be as big as he was, but he became famous simply because John played him so creepily. Jack, as another one of my favourite examples, was a joint creation between me and Dylan, the actor who plays him. Neither of us could honestly tell you who's creation he was because he's both. We just kept adding to the character until he became a character weird, wonderful, and screwed up enough to develop his own cult following and blog. (I've actually locked myself out of that blog and it has no posts, but I'll set up a new one soon) We actually put a lot of work into the main character of Johnny as well, but his character is far less over the top so it's not so obvious. Bit of a shame really.

Now I think about it I could probably write a book about this damn movie, going into details on the characters, the actors, the experiences, what worked, what didn't. Maybe I should.

The writing process.

2007-11-06T12:09:00.001-08:00

Writing, as has been said many times in the past, is a journey of self discovery. It's a journey that can start out with something vague, or something sort of there, a merge into something far different than you could ever imagine. Characters take on lives of their own, and you learn things about them that you sure as hell didn't know when you started writing them. Events change drastically and you realise that things you really wanted to do simply shouldn't be done if it helps the story. A lot of what you know about the characters simply doesn't end up on the page or on the screen, because there's no room for it, or it simply doesn't serve the story. I am for example the only one who knows who Frank really is, what his full name is, and what his backstory is. I'd really have liked to put it in a movie somewhere but I haven't found the room for it. I also know more about Claire from Calvin Island than the movie reveals, and some things that she doesn't even know about herself, I know what really killed Sarah's parents, and what happened to Johnny's brother and what the guy in the Hawaiian shirt has to do with anything. None of it really serves to help the story along though so it gets cut out and I just hope sometime I can fit it in somewhere. For the record, unless otherwise stated, all my stuff takes place in the same universe unless otherwise stated.

For the record, possibly my favourite character I have created, and certainly the favourite character of most people who've seen the stuff, overtaking even Frank, is Jack, the crazed groundskeeper who wants to be a pirate. It works so well, you can fit it all together. It's like having a pirate except you can be as unauthentic and rediculous as you want. His accent is really bad? It's put on, he only thinks he is a pirate. His eye patch looks like it came from a $2 shop? It does, he only thinks he is a pirate. His mannerisms are way over the top? Again he only thinks he is a pirate. He's also like Captain Ahab, who is always looking for the whale. Jack is always looking for the Giant Squid. The exception being that the whale actually exists and Ahab is hunting the sea for it, wearas the existence of the squid is pretty doubtful and Jack seems to look everywhere for it, including wandering through the forest calling out for it. Good times.

Calvin Island

2007-11-03T21:39:00.000-07:00

Last year I made a movie called 'Isolation' which was a story about a girl who wakes up in a deserted house, in an almost deserted town, and encounters almost no-one till she encounters two people and then some zombies. As plots go it was fairly simple but the movie turned out pretty well and I was, and still am, fairly happy with it.

This year I decided to do something I bit more complex and wrote something called 'Calvin Island' which was a convoluted script that came to 34 pages, had about 13 characters, had more sub plots than you can really keep track of, and a body count of pretty much everyone involved in the movie. Needless to say I realised it was too complicated, something I should have worked out earlier. I attempted to shoot it anyway, and have since shot bits that were in the original script, realised it was too long, then tried to join other bits to make it simpler. Whether it works or not is something I'll leave to the viewer but it is a project that took far longer to make than it really should have since it'll probably end up at about 10 minutes, the same length as Isolation.

The number of characters has been drastically reduced, now their are about five with a couple small roles thrown in when I need be. For anyone interested the movie is about a young man by the name of Johnny, who goes to 'Calvin Island' to search for his brother. For your viewing enjoyment I've thrown in four screenshots from the movie. Will they be at all color corrected or fixed or changed or deleted anytime before the movie is finished? Only time will tell.

On the stupidness of the name 'DV'

2007-11-02T13:59:00.000-07:00

DV is currently the most common consumer Standard Definition video codec. It has many uses, everything from home videos to weddings to some hollywood movies. I will however, in this short post, not be discussing it's pros and cons, but rather the stupidity of it's name.

DV basically stands for 'Digital Video'. DV is video and it is digital. Digital video however is not DV. Therefore although DV stands for Digital Video, it does not in fact mean Digital Video. You frequently get people confused by this and also mixing it up with DVD. They aren't similar in the slightest. The High Definition version of DV is known as HDV which is possibly an even stupider name. Couldn't the companies behind DV have given it a decent name in the first place?

On Student Films and also Pirates.

2007-11-01T20:04:00.000-07:00

Student films come in two varieties, the good ones and the bad ones. (Which are which is a matter of opinion and a complicated thing altogether) When you go with the good ones there are again two basic varieties, the ones that you really enjoy watching, and would happily sit and watch again, and the technically good but otherwise uninteresting ones. You know, the ones where you kind of sit there staring at the screen thinking 'Nice cinematography, a very deep message here, god I wish this thing would be over'. They don't even need to be sleep inducing, they can merely be thoroughly uninteresting. It's for this reason that I've always tried to make my films interesting to watch, and my favorite student films are the ones that are interesting to watch. I'm sorry people but student films can't honestly be that good and I'll take zombies and serial killers over deep stories of dead family members any day. Unless of course that is, if the family members come back from the dead and start eating the living, that I'll take.

First post, gotta have that first post.

2007-11-01T19:51:00.000-07:00

It all came to me in a dream, a voice said to me 'You need a blog man, it's the best place to publish your nonsensical rants, poorly worded film reviews, and completly irrelevant from every possible angle essays.' I said 'Is that you Steve Buscemi' and changed the subject to discussing the fate of his character in 'Reservior Dogs' at which point he shot me point blank in the head and then went on to direct a movie about nothing, or something. I forget.

You'll find me posting here often, or perhaps seldom, depending on the mood I'm in and whether I care enough to continue. Sloths sadly will probably not appear in this blog much.