Take 751

When I started in media, which was when I was in 4th grade, we had Bell and Howell film projectors, and film strips and tape recorders and ...

That isn't what I am writing about today. Today I am going to write a little comparison between Stanley Kubrick and Clint Eastwood, that has little or no academic verification. What I am about to write is what I can tell having watched informative videos of Stanley Kubrick and having read somewhere about Clint Eastwood and comparing the two different styles of director and production styles.

I was looking today online at a production company that had called me a few years ago but I was unable to help them out. Today I believe the same company was involved in making the Revenant. I recently read a story about the director for the Revenant which brings me to one of my past experiences and a comparison to Mr. Eastwood's productions.

I used to be a radio announcer. I used to also listen to my recordings of myself speaking so I could become better at it.

One day I made an ad for the station. I had a pretty good voice recording on the first take, and another around the 4th take, and then another out around take 75.

Here is the question, what are you prepared to put up with?

The director on the Revenant, according to the story I read, put his actors through a lot of hard work to get what he wanted. I suspect that meant a lot of takes as well.

Stanley Kubrick also did this. 80 takes wasn't unusual. I also believe Alfred Hitchcock did this.

Clint Eastwood, Malpaso Productions, is known for going out and getting a film done in 3 weeks. I suspect that Malpaso probably does a lot of prep work first, and a fair number of rehearsals as well, and then with everyone familiar with the work to be done, they go and knock it out fairly quickly.

So three weeks is actual production time with a lot of pre-preparation work before hand. Like a painter painting a room in a few hours but spending two or three days prepping the room so it will only take a few hours.

So... having been there, so to speak, because I have put myself through take 700* to get the best take, what are you prepared to do to get the take that is going to work for your film?

* I've never done 700 takes but my point is it can take a lot of takes to get the keeper.

The making of:

There are books and TV shows out there about the making of certain motion pictures.

Here is a link to the Making of Star Wars:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Making-Star-Wars-Definitive/dp/0345494768

Here is a link to Youtube video that features the making of Star Wars:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSuDjjlIPak

There are others. Here is the making of 2001: A Space Odyssey

http://www.amazon.com/The-Making-Stanley-Kubricks-2001/dp/3836559544

Please keep in mind that 2001 was written by Arthur C. Clarke, who also came up with the concept of the satellite. He did not make the movie.

And, I haven't researched this but, I remember reading somewhere that George Lucas wasn't a very good writer.

I post these thoughts and links because I think making a movie is similar to making any good piece of art or anything in general. Do a lot of preparation and research. You can wing it and create something quickly, there are plenty of people who do, but I also think your results will vary according to how skilled you already are and how good the subject is and whether or not your audience enjoys your work.

Call it "ten thousand hours." There is more to it than that, being at the right place at the right time. with a receptive audience has a lot to do with how well anything goes over. Read Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers for more on this.

Frank Lloyd Wright is known to have waited until the last moment before designing great pieces of architecture and other works. I imagine he had plenty of experience before making short work of great architecture designs.

What I am pointing out is that I think it is important to read and learn as much as possible about any endeavor you attempt. And then properly prepare, like a great 10 course meal.

I think you may have a better idea about how to proceed if you are better prepared.

Addiction

A link to a New York Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/09/opinion/when-addiction-has-a-white-face.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0

For what its worth:

Follow this and read it:

http://www.wired.com/2015/05/inside-ilm/

One of the most important things you can do...

If you are serious about making a movie, digital video, or film...

Go to school for it.

In the United States the, THE film school is at USC, the University of Southern California Cinematic Studies school, Here is the link to the Stark School of Cinematic Studies:

http://cinema.usc.edu/producing/index.cfm

Good luck.

I personally am going to download the PDF files that have the course sylabi available.

By doing this I will be able to read the recommended course books and educate myself about that particular field of Motion Picture making.

The problem is, there isn't a syllabus available for every course BECAUSE:
Many of the courses are hands on and taught by industry professionals. And often the courses do not have a syllabus available because of an agreement by the school and the individual teaching the course. Most of the teachers are working in the industry, and come to the school one day or night per week to teach a course.

Today I went to my local library and took out a book on making a movie, "The complete guide to making a movie - low budget and beyond." By Lorene Wales, reviewed positively by Kritie Stahl, the producer and owner of Whitestone pictures.

Here is a link to a Whitestone online story:

http://whitestonemp.com/film/john-henry-and-the-railroad/

-CB

Listening to your second audio track on a DVD

A couple weeks ago I was playing with the remote and happened to discover the secondary audio available on the SG-1 DVD I had from the library.

As I clicked the audio select button, I came in just as the people were talking about the new SG-1 opening, and that they used a Frazier lens to get the incredible depth of field, which allowed them to put the camera almost on the Stargate, shoot at an angle, and keep the whole curve of the Stargate in focus up to several feet away.

I borrowed the DVD again from the library just to pick up on that little piece of information and was lead to this website talking about the Frazier lens system:

http://petapixel.com/2011/04/19/frazier-ultimate-lens-shows-everything-in-focus-with-massive-depth-of-field/

There is a nice video on that page that shows you how that lens system works.

From there I happen to find another link into the camera company that so many movies are shot with, Panavision:

http://www.panavision.com/products/macro-and-specialty-lenses

And yesterday I inquired about having the garage in back of our house blown up via CGI. I went to http://www.revelpix.com/VideoProduction and then contacted the owner. He was referred by a friend as pretty good with CGI. His reply was it would be about $1500 dollars to create the scene I want with some give or take, depending on how long the segment is and how realistic I need it to be.

The rule of thumb on such is to mark it up by at least 10 percent. So in my head, if I were to budget for this shot, I'd price this out at $2,000. Better to have the extra cushion than to not have it.

Music, no music.

It isn't so much about music.

In my Radio and Television class my professor used to tell us to turn off the sound.

Do it.

The lesson here is that, and you may hear this term someday, video follows audio.

Turn off the sound, watch the movie. It makes almost no sense.

But...

Turn off the picture and turn the sound back on...

You can listen to a movie, or ad or whatever, and fairly well make out what is going on. You have dialogue, and you have the music. We have all been trained to eerie sounds, tense music, happy sounds, sad and so on.

Music brings a lot to the picture.

Recently the guy who wrote the song Wild Thing was interviewed on NPR. He was talking and then in the middle of the song he said listen, and the song stops for a few moments, he then says that's one of the best parts of the song, because there isn't any sound there.

In graphic art, the correlation is negative space.

Stop looking at your cell phone if you have the TV on in the room. Or go turn it off and pay attention to your cell phone. Don't do both.

Dakota 2013 Live Concert Centerway Square

Down below...

In the post down below called "thoughts on the music Business", I mentioned how my radio and television professor commented about needle drop fees. Here is what I wrote:

From Professor Morriseau I got the term "needle drop fee." This term has been updated into several new terms, a mechanical fee, a synchronization fee, and some others.

I was reading today's Wall Street journal and have now found out that a "mechanical fee" actually dates back to music being printed on rolls of paper for player pianos.

Just an FYI.

-CB

The Martian

This is not meant to be a critic's review of The Martian, which stars Matt Damon, although it might read that way.

Hollywood is taking old music seriously, as Director Joe Gunn did with Guardians of the Galaxy, in Martian we are treated to old disco tunes, which are treated by the main character, Watney, as his backboard for what is supposed to be humorous self entertainment for Watney and witty repartee' for the movie viewer.

It didn't fall on my ears that way, probably because I have seen so many movies and so I expect something different instead of trite formulaic output.

It also is a rehash of several stories, not that this is bad, but it does become somewhat of a distraction when nothing new is offered. The old storylines in The Martian are: Robinson Crusoe (and I suppose to some degree Castaway), Herman Wouk's Caine Mutiny, which in and of itself is a retelling of a true story out of the US Navy, and probably out of old history in other naval settings, and the old story of "we never leave our man behind", which I suppose came out of some battle. Romantic and Hero, but not, for-the-most-part, reality based.

For myself, a somewhat nerdy, science kind of person, what I found interesting was the cobbling together of old tech to make it possible for the lost man to survive, and the creation of new ways to communicate were utilized to achieve the continuation of the rescue story.

The unexpected also came at a good time, spoiler alert, but I won't tell you when.

It also occurred to me how much of a blank canvas an actor has to be, repeating the lines as the script dictates and the way the Director wants them delivered. During the movie my thoughts went to Chris Carter's X-files and how Mulder and Scully deadpanned their lines. Whereas other Directors might ask people to go into a kind of hyperventilation of emotional output for the delivery of lines (think "YOU"RE NOT READY FOR THE TRUTH" as delivered by Jack Nicholson; implying that both characters are at the verge of coming to blows)(Has anyone ever seen lawyers duke it out? Please Hollywood don't do that. Thats just what our justice system needs).

I have heard many of these lines before, which bothered me.

It is my opinion that Kubrick didn't want that, he wanted deadpan line delivery and true tech speak, to achieve reality. And when Kubrick wanted to achieve real suspense he enhanced it with dead silence. For example: Airlocks did not have a sound when it was in a vacuum environment. Hal wasn't going to open the airlock when commanded to (at the time a very different kind of mutiny), and when Dave blew the hinges, no sound was heard. That moment had an impact for the viewer because it was silent. Kubrick framed the beauty of space travel with The Blue Danube in the more laidback, we're-enjoying-flying-through-space scenes. So Kubrick generated a very real scene when Dave had to make his way in silence, silently into Hal's core to dismantle that Artificial Intelligence.

A very different use of audio to achieve the ends of the Director as opposed to The Martian.

It is like a line I read recently states, you can take the Stairway to Heaven or the Highway to Hell. One builds confidently towards an amazing end, the other steamrolls with a kind of pounding confidence. There isn't anything wrong with either, it is how it registers in the long term with the mind that either makes it a jack hammer endorphin laden remembrance to the brain or that we're going to hold our breath to hear the ending properly sung kind of neuron impulse on the grey matter.

I can find my way comfortably with either. But I expected more of The Martian.

And so I make a tangent comment about music today, it is all 4/4 timing. I can't recall the last time I heard a mainstream song in 3/3 or 2/3 timing like a waltz might be.

The Martian stays mainstream by following a typical movie output for a sci-fi genre movie.

The dialogue was also high school tough talk with expletives inserted here and there. As if tough people have to talk tough and use dirty language to make tough decisions and convince others to make tough decisions, and to elevate the importance of the moment with such talk as well.

I am not inclined to think NASA astronauts, let alone astronauts from any country, would do this. Maybe, in an aside moment. It made the movie seem to me to be appealing to high school male thinking.

The 3D was very good, except I now have noticed something about 3D, it seems layered, much like Max and Dave Fleischer created in some Popeye cartoons. This tells you how old I am that I see this. With each layer in The Martian, the layer itself appears to me to be 2 dimensional, as if several layers of 2D were layered together with proper spatial and temporal movement to give the appearance of 3D, but still not quite getting there, especially if you look closely at any given layer.

I picked up on this quickly when Richard Daniels opens the movie with his first lines and the way the camera pulls back, Mr. Daniels has a pasty-grey flat look about him.

But, on Hollywood's side of doing business, I think they choose some not so good repetition of old ways of doing business that they know still work, and sacrifice originality to make big bucks. I can't say I blame them, they are after all the experts; they are the machine.

I balance that though with movies that came out of original thinking like Sylvester Stallone's Rocky. I am sure there are others, but Hollywood has to keep the butter urn churning, and so original dialogue and story lines are few and far between.

I also think that non-sequiturs could have been put into the movie. I suspect Hollywood considers these distractors, and possibly money not wisely spent. Perhaps, or they might be foreshadows of what's to come in the future of a story franchise.

The Martian is a one off, there might be a future retelling of its storyline, but nothing tangent was introduced to tell us we can expect more that will continue this story.

For what its worth,

CRBaldwin.

New Concept camera in the works from Canon

Check out this news blurb about a cinema concept camera in the works from Canon:

https://www.cinema5d.com/canon-announce-8k-concept-cinema-camera/

That red line around the lens is an indication that this is part of Canon's luxury - best line of lenses.

In my opinion the discussion about it being 8k is important. It is an indicator of the camera's range of ability, and the article talks about 300 pixels per inch [summarizing] -approaching the limit of human visibilty-.

It is the same difference between a 2 watt audio amplifier and a 500 watt audio amplifier.

The 2 watt will be audible but probably won't reproduce great sound at all ends of its range of audio volume. The 500 watt unit will probably have better electronics in it, if the engineer that designed it was looking to build quality, and a better sound through most of its range of volume.

What this means is that even on smaller displays, like a smartphone, you will have a better picture, even if your smartphone has a poor display.

And if you have an 8k capable unit, you'll get near film quality resolution.

Keep in mind the eye, and the human brain, combined, is the ultimate resolver.

Read this for visual acuity of the human eye,

https://www.nde-ed.org/EducationResources/CommunityCollege/PenetrantTest/Introduction/visualacuity.htm

I like the part about 180,000 rods per square MILLIMETER at the fovea.

That is about 116 million rods per square inch if my math is right, or about 387 thousand rods per pixel.

The eye then brings a lot of definition, or resolution, to each pixel.

And keep in mind, a pixel on a monitor is easy to see when one goes out. A pixel on a camera pickup is pretty small and may go un-noticed without careful examination.

Film on the other hand works at the chemical level. You can't get much smaller than a molecule of silver halide, which coats film.

Therefore to say this camera is reaching the limits of human visibility is an interesting comment. If I had to tell the difference between one rod being one color and another rod being another color I don't suppose I could tell the difference.

The question is what is the limit of human visibility? How small does a pixel have to be before the human eye and the brain together can't tell the difference between one pixel and the pixel next to it?

-Chuck

Furthering the discussion of making a motion picture film...

Today I asked Google what issues are present when working with motion picture film.

Here is one page that came back:

http://www.supnik.com/film.htm

This page discusses many issues. It is worth the read, and clearly indicates how big the mountain is when trying to make a major motion picture.

-CB

Postscript to the above:

http://www.supnik.com/

-CB