Know Your Crew: Pitfalls Directors Should Avoid

“Movies are made in post-production.”

While some producers and cinematographers may take issue with this maxim, Nancy Kirhoffer, an accomplished post-production supervisor whose credits include Memento, 50/50 and Bernie, makes a compelling case: “Movies are three things: picture, sound and music and two of those happen in post-production.”

Last week, Kirhoffer spoke to Film Independent Members about the responsibilities of her position. “I basically take over from the line producer. My job is to get the film through post-production. I oversee the editing, sound, music and I make sure it’s delivered.”

Kirhoffer recommends finding a post-production supervisor in pre-production. After all, they’re the ones responsible for helping the film reach the finish line.

“I’ve worked with so many people whose first movies never get finished.” By bringing in a post-production supervisor early on, filmmakers can know what to expect when they arrive at the editing bay, how long they should take to finish the film, and how much they should expect to spend.

“The truth of the matter is whether you spend $100 million or $100,000, the process is the same,” said Kirhoffer. “In that same vein, if someone is going to pay $15 to see your movie in the theater, they don’t care that you only had $100,000. They only want to make sure it’s worth their $15, and there’s an expectation that the film is going to sound a certain way, and it’s going to look a certain way, and you can’t get over that fact. It has to sound good.”

And good sound isn’t cheap. “There is no world where a sound job costs $20,000. No world where that happens. You’re going to need to spend at least $65,000.”

That’s why it’s key for low-budget filmmakers to bring on a post-production supervisor. They need to know, according to Kirhoffer, “the bare minimum that it’s going to cost to get your movie to where you can distribute it.”

To demonstrate just how tricky navigating post-production can be, Kirhoffer brought along her calendar for post on Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising. A variety of stages stretch and overlap, different tasks to accomplish by different points in post-production, comprising a tightly organized period of about 23 weeks from editor’s assembly to finished film.

Or at least, that’s how things should go.

“I call [the calendar] my work of fiction. It never goes this easy, never this good.”

Often, delays are caused by...[read full article]

Daniel Larios / Film Independent Blogger
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Christian Worldview Film Festival 2015

The full list of 2015 Official Selections is now online!
Guild & Festival // March 10-14

Here are the films I helped with that will be showing this year.

- Polycarp (Camera, Editor, Colorist)
- Bound (Consultant)
- Roses (On-set Editor)
- Wanted (Editor, Colorist)
- Firefly (Consultant)
- Awakened to Truth (Post Production Director)
- Overcoming Opposition (Post Production Director)
- The Egg Project (Post Production Director)
- Who We Are (Director of Photography)
- Set Free (Consultant)

View the full list here!

Also, if you haven't purchased your tickets to the Guild & Festival, be sure to use discount code JOHNCLAYBURNETT to get $25 OFF!

Purchase tickets here!

TMB - Tips for Interviews

Since launching the Music Bed Community, we have interviewed dozens and dozens of filmmakers and artists from all around the world. We’ve flown to Paris. We’ve Skyped to South Africa. We’ve GChatted to Spain. And during all that time, we’d like to think we’ve not only gotten better at interviewing people, but that we’ve learned a few practical lessons along the way. We’ve written them down here.

Before we get into it, though, just a quick note about why we’re so into interviewing in the first place. It boils down to this: We think what other people have to say is oftentimes a lot more interesting than what we have to say. Given the choice between talking about what we know about filmmaking and hearing what Eliot Rausch knows about filmmaking…well, the better option seems pretty obvious. We interview because we’re curious, because talking to amazing people opens up our minds, surprises us, challenges us — and honestly, it’s usually a lot of fun.

The types of interviews we lean toward (and so, the types of interviews the lessons below are relevant to) are usually a bit more rambly, the kind that take twists and turns, that unfold, that linger a little longer on a subject than people otherwise might. In other words — they’re conversations. And while there is certainly a time and place for a more straightforward Q&A kind of interview, that’s not the type of thing we get very excited about.

Here’s everything we know about interviewing...

Make Your Subject Feel Smart

Great interviews happen when the people you’re interviewing feel confident, when they feel like they’re saying intelligent things and you’re genuinely interested in what they have to say. In some of our best interviews, we hardly ask any questions at all. Maybe four or five questions total over the course of an hour. A good interview/conversation should roll like a boulder, with you just course-correcting here or there to keep the thing on track. A bad conversation is like you trying to push a boulder up a hill. Zero momentum. A lot of times this lack of momentum comes from your subjects not feeling confident about what they have to say. They answer in a word or two. They, “Don’t know.” Suddenly you find yourself doing most of the talking, trying to put words in your subjects’ mouths, and leaving with nothing. 

Go out of your way to make your subjects feel smart. Ask them easy questions at first (we usually spend a good five minutes talking about where the subjects are from) and be very interested in their answers. Affirm them. Just simple enthusiasm for their responses can go a long way to opening them up, making them feel comfortable — “No way! You’re from Long Beach?! I grew up in Long Beach!” or “You know, I never thought of it like that.” or “You know what, that’s a really good point.” The better your subjects feel about themselves, the better your conversations will go.

Let Silences Get Awkward

There is a natural human tendency to fill silences, to keep conversations moving forward, to do anything necessary to keep things from getting awkward. When you’re interviewing someone, silence can feel particularly devastating. It’s tempting to immediately step in, ask another question, make a comment — move things forward. But this is the wrong thing to do. After someone has answered a question, let her answer hang for just a few seconds too long.

Let the silence linger. What usually happens is the subject speaks up again. She fills the awkward silence, and she fills it by reaching a little bit deeper into her answer, saying something she might not have otherwise said. Be patient. Wait for those moments. Often the thing a subject fills the silence with is a unique and much more personal observation than her initial response.

We love how Philip Bloom opened up in our interview with him in 'Making Room'.

...(read the fulll article here)

10 Tips from Editors to Directors

Jonny Elwyn follows-up his popular article on what editors want camera operators to do to help out the process with an equally illuminating piece, this time focusing on the director/editor relationship.

My first article on Redshark News, 11 Things Editors Wish Camera Operators Always Did, seemed to have resonated with quite a few folks, so I thought I'd put down a few more thoughts on the complex creative marriage that occurs when directors are working with editors.

As with any close creative collaboration, personality, experience and personal idiosyncrasies all play a role in shaping how successful the union will be. Sometimes those differences create insurmountable conflict; other times, cinematic magic. But it is the professional editor's role to be what the director needs them to be at any given moment, and although the editor does have the opportunity to shape the final product in momentous ways, his-or-her work should ultimately all be in service of the director’s vision and producing the best possible end result.

With that in mind, here are 10 suggestions for directors on how to get the best from their editors.

1. It's a collaborative effort.
That means I want to bring all that I have to contribute to the project. I want to engage you in lively debate about the best way to shape the project. I want you to be open to trying new ideas and new approaches. I don't want to you to see me as only a button monkey.

2. What you have isn't what you had.
The editor is the one who has to stand in the gap between what the director thinks they have or wishes they had, and what they really have. We can only cut the footage you shot. Our job is to bridge that gap as much as we can.

3. Don't tell me when to cut.
No clicks, claps, points, taps or shouts please.

4. Leave me alone.
I need time to get on with things without you in the room. To get organized, watch through the footage, find the takes I like, try things my way, try crazy things that just might work but probably won't and to have the freedom to take a crack at things without wasting your time.

5. Be available.
If you're on the phone all the time, it's hard to collaborate. I'll need some quality time with you, at the right time, to help get your feedback, thoughts and collaborative energies in a focused way. You're the director after all - it's your project.

6. Be specifically general.
When working with actors it is common practice not to tell them you hated it when they said this word in that way. You'd say "once more with feeling." With an editor, if you say "the scene feels like it lacks energy," then I can go away and do things to amp it up a bit. If you say shave 5 frames off this shot and cut in here rather than there, things tend not to work out so well. Let me fix the note in the spirit of the note.

7. Be generally specific.
Towards the end of a project, it's OK to get more specific and granular with the details of your feedback. We want to make sure you get what you want and sometimes it's easier just to sit with you and give you that, especially if either option is a viable one.

8. Do not touch the screen.

9. Share Your Wisdom.
As an editor I've learnt much of what I know about filmmaking, narrative structure and creative ju-jitsu from the directors I've worked with. Your patient sharing of hard-won wisdom is gratefully received.

10. We sometimes get things wrong.
Usually spelling. I also think my most frequent fault as an editor, when collaborating with a director, is to dismiss an idea as one that "I've already tried and it didn't work…" Instead, I would be wiser to walk through the director's version of the idea once again – either to put to rest that it really won't work, or to be pleasantly surprised that it does.
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(Article Source)

How to Make Your Editor Happier

11 things video editors wish they could say to camera operators and DOPs

RedShark welcomes editor and blogger Jonny Elwyn to its growing ranks of writers. He responds with this handy list for shooters and camera ops, of ways to keep their editors happy.

As any experienced editor will tell you, after years of sifting through hours and hours of footage (some of it good, some of it bad, some of it very ugly), there are a few key things that anyone working behind the camera can do that make our lives much easier, the project far better, and the final result something we can all be proud of. 

Of course, it's very easy for editors to turn into armchair critics. They didn't get up at 5 am to make the sunrise or drag heavy gear half way up a mountain, battling the elements just to get the perfect shot. But we do have the benefit of the perspective gained by leisurely skimming through the results of your hard graft. So here are 11 suggestions for things every editor wishes every camera operator always did, and hopefully they'll improve what you get in the can, and improve the life of editors everywhere. 

The first and last suggestions are probably the most important!

1. Shoot for the edit  - Think in terms of sequences and storytelling. Make sure you've got an establishing wide, an interesting reveal, close ups, movement etc. If an interviewee mentioned a specific location, item, or view, try to grab that if you can. Also think in terms of triplets. Three shots most often make for a nice sequence of cutaways - two, not so much.
2. Always roll  - It's the 'bad bits' that we often use - re-focuses, lens whacking, snippets of background audio for filling in silences, etc. - so please don't wave your hand in front of the camera to say that it's no good. We might have a use for it anyway.
3. Don't always roll  - Editors don't love it when they have to copy, ingest, transcode and organise lots of footage that then turns out to be someone's feet, the inside of a car door, lens caps or other random things. Obviously, this isn't intentional, but if you know it's happened, please weed out the clip if you can. 
4. Metadata matters  - Make sure that the reel names and timecode on your camera are set correctly and that they increment with each new card, tape or disc. The more information you can supply us the better. If you're keeping logging sheets or camera reports, please know we do actually look at them!
5. Fix it in Camera  - Ensuring your white balance and colour temperature are set correctly is extremely helpful. Not only is this a pretty basic element for a professional cameraman to get right, it can be sometimes very difficult to fix in the grade later on (if the project is lucky enough to have a grade), especially under more exotic lighting conditions, for example inside a factory or under-ground parking garage. And if you want to really go wild, actually shoot a colour chart.

...(Read More)

Creation Proclaims

In June I had the privilege to produce and direct the filming of the next Creation Proclaims series with Dr. Jobe Martin and his family. I was able to take a crew of five crew members with me to California where we were filming at an animal sanctuary with the Martins and Dan Breeding. It was a growing and stretching experience in many ways, but God was very good to us and answered many prayers during the week!

We used two Canon C-100s along with my Canon 60D as a 3rd cam for animal close-ups. Alex Lerma, Andrew Garcia, and Micah Austin did a fantastic job as the camera ops.

We rented a small lighting package from a local company for the project. I was super excited to have Philip Bolzeman as the Gaffer/Grip along with Micah Austin who pulled double duty between grip and cam op.

Joseph Santoyo was our on-set sound man, and did a great job even amids the squawking birds, howling coyotes, and planes/helicopters flying around!

Due to the heat and wind in the afternoons and staying ahead of schedule, we were only filmed in the mornings after the first day. On one free afternoon we were able to take advantage of being on the west coast and took a trip to the Cayucos beach! However it was rather windy and the water was super cold...but we had a relaxing and enjoyable afternoon!

We also had some seafood at a local restaurant which had been recommended by some friends.

It was indeed incredible!

During the week we also had some fun with Lemurs!

Here are a few still images from the footage we captured!

When the videos are released DVDs will be available at the Creation Proclaims website. They also have other resources and episodes already in the series.

Beyond the Mask - Color Grading

One of the key players in putting the finishing touches on Beyond the Mask was senior colorist Keith Roush. A few weeks ago, Aaron and Chad flew out to LA to work at Keith’s studio, Roush Media, on the color grading process. It was fun talking to Aaron, Chad, and Keith about their time working together and getting a chance to understand what it was like developing the movie’s final, defining look.

The color in the final edit looks stunning. Here Beyond the Mask’s heroine
Charlotte Holloway enters a Philadelphia shop.

Because color grading is an aspect of filmmaking that gets little attention, I’ll let Keith introduce you to the process.  “We refer to our job as color grading. We don’t like to use the term color correction, because that title denotes that you are correcting for an error, so the DP (director of photography) doesn’t like that. What we do is color balancing, color enhancement, and look development. It’s really about setting the mood with warm, happy tones or dark, edgy tones to give the audience visual cues. We are shaping the lighting to enhance the drama of what’s going on in the scene.”

Chad and Aaron were excited about the opportunity to work with Keith. “Keith has a good eye for color,” Chad says. “One of the things that he did really well was understanding how much work to do in each particular scene. It can be easy to get lost in the weeds, twiddling the knobs, and do too much detail work in one particular spot, making the film look patchy. But Keith did a lot of great work keeping it uniform, and he didn’t push any of the details too far.” He has an impressive resume, and as a believer, he has a heart for faith-based films. Some of Roush Media’s most recent projects include the titles God’s Not Dead and Mom’s Night Out.

Roush Media’s equipment is state of the art.

In contrast to some of the more traditional, modern films, however, the job of color grading for Beyond the Mask was a bit more difficult. The details that make an action adventure film exciting, like night scenes, explosions, firelight, and VFX sequences take a lot of skill to properly balance the color. Keith agreed that these elements were challenging, but added that “They can be fun at the same time, especially the visual effects, because we are often doing twenty layers of the various controls on every part of the frame on those shots in order to really shape the lighting and make it as realistic as possible. In the scene with the explosion in the forest, we’re doing a number of color tricks in order to bring out the warm, red fire and have that color contrast against the cold blue moonlit woods. But those are the very beautiful, strongly lit, creatively colored scenes in Beyond the Mask that give the imagery depth and make it stunning to look at.”

One of Keith’s favorite sequences in the film is Will’s dream. Keith elaborates, “Chad and Aaron allowed me to be creative and push the bounds of what was possible with this scene. We created a very stylized look where we’re heavily washed in blue. Then we isolated the red and warm tones to make them pop, which created a unique and beautiful color contrast. It’s a monochromatic blue with very warm tones laid on top of it in a very stark, gloomy way. Then we also blurred the highlights, making it very soft and almost ethereal. It gives you a sense that this is in the mind’s eye. That’s an example of how colors really set the tone for what you’re looking at.”

In discussing their time working together on the color grade, Keith, Chad, and Aaron all commented on the moment they saw the film on the theater screen for the first time. The experience had an impact that they were not expecting. Chad says, “We had been working on this film for almost three years, but had never seen it on a big screen. The details, the acting, the visual effects – everything read better than it had on a smaller screen, and there was something quite charming about seeing the movie on the big screen.” Seeing their work in the theater, with the images of Beyond the Mask finally looking their best was a fitting finale to the process. Keith concurs, about the experience, “When I first watched Beyond the Mask on the little screen on my iPad, I was completely blown away by what they accomplished, so I knew that once we took that to the big screen, and started to do what we do best with the image and color, it was going to look like a Blockbuster, which it ultimately did.”
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(Article Source)

Christian Worldview Film Festival

COMING 2014!!!

Media Talk 101 has decided to add a new component to the ministry of teaching media discernment in the light of following Christ. 

Listen as Phillip Telfer explains why this is an important step and how you can stay informed as the plans progress.

Length: 28 minutes

Film Festival Website: ChristianWorldviewFilmFestival.com
Facebook Page: Facebook.com/ChristianWorldviewFilmFestival

Shoot Like an Editor

I believe that both directors and camera operators would  benefit from learning to be great editors. If you don't know how it will fit together in the end, then how will you know what to film when you're under the daily pressure on set?

Here is a short video I ran across that shares a few tips!

Who's Who on a Movie Crew

Here is a fun short film that describes the key positions on a movie production.

"Making a video can be a one person production but the more elaborate your ideas get, the more likely you'll need a crew to execute your vision. In this video, we give you a rundown of the basics of how all the work is divided up on a basic crew."

...see the full lesson HERE!