More RED techie thoughts, this time from underwater cameraman and RED expert Andy McLeod…

Can’t see the video? Click here – http://shootingpeople.org/bensblog/2010/03/andy-mcleod/

My brother found the video that you can watch in my original blog post here – http://shootingpeople.org/bensblog/2010/03/red-flow/ – it’s Mr.Steven of Soderbergh talking about his feelings about the digital processes and how, for instance, he was cutting scenes together on the drive to location in the morning.

His main joy about using digital is that because it’s faster to get to the end product, there’s more time to reflect before you have to go back to it and make it better… It doesn’t have to be about squeezing edit times just about giving yourself more time to think. It’s good stuff…

Che and the Digital Cinema Revolution from high rez on Vimeo.

Whilst we’re on such themes, avid readers (no pun intended) will know that next week I’m off to the ÉCU festival in Paris and one of the many delights I’ll be blogging about is a work flow workshop being held by festival sponsor G-Technology.

This may sound dry and if you didn’t get the awful pun in the previous paragraph then you probably shouldn’t sign up for the workshop but really it’s about “…reducing cost, speeding up production and giving filmmakers more time to spend on their creative process…” so hopefully, after watching Mr.Soderbergh you’re not all shaking your heads and saying “But Ben, you’ll be in Paris… why are you going to workshop on hard drives when you could be eating cake?” Though if you are saying that then I’ll just point you to the last historical figure who blabbed about eating cake in Paris, let us not forget that the sticky end she came to had nothing to do with the business end of an eclair…

Anyway the workshop is also going to include tips on shooting on RED and how to manage this footage most effectively with external storage and software configurations. So yes Guy, I will take notes.

Further more…
“The workshops will feature the real life case scenario of ÉCU shortlisted filmmaker, Preston Reed, sharing the workflow set-up he recently used in the making of the low budget production Travelling Salesman, which employed both RED camera capture and G-Technology drives.

The hour-long workshops will be held at 2pm on both Saturday, March 13 and Sunday, March 14, at the Cinema Le Grand (La Salle Club).”

Pre-register now by emailing workshops@ecufilmfestival.com and if you are going to ÉCU then drop me a line and let me know because it’d be lovely to see you there. Especially because there’s this amazing cake shop…

Geeks click on the link to read prolost…

Developed following feedback from photographers and cinematographers, Firmware 2.0.3 further enhances the EOS 5D Mark II’s excellent video performance. The addition of new frame rates expands the camera’s video potential, providing filmmakers with the ability to shoot 1080p Full HD footage at 24fps (actual 23.976fps)—the optimum frame rate for cinematic video. 25fps support at both 1920×1080 and 640×480 resolutions will allow users to film at the frame rate required for the PAL broadcast standard, while the new firmware will also change the 30fps option to the NTSC video standard of 29.97fps.

Wintery thanks to my mate Darren for pushing this in my direction. Below is some footage filmed on the impressively tiny GoPro HD Hero camera.

Skywalker to San Francisco Airport: GoPro HERO HD from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

This clip was shot in 720p 60p and converted to 30p and, to be honest, though impressive for its size it is not the most astonishing piece of HD footage you’ll ever see. However Phil Bloom has married it to a brilliant piece of music by Philip Glass and the whole effect is quite hypnotic.

And it looks warm out there doesn’t it?

Mmmm.

When filmmaker Alex Jacob’s arrived in Jersey for the Vauxhal Branchage 48hr Film Challenge he was unlucky enough to draw the genre Fantasy and the unwieldy title Dashes Of Yellow. I thought we had our work cut out with a war movie but if there was genre/title coupling I’d rather not have had this is it…

However Alex and his team rose to the challenge, click on the picture to see their response…

Chris and I came up with idea for the Branchage 48hr Challenge because we wanted to do something with our new camera, the Canon 5d Mk II (that’s right, our film was shot on a souped stills camera). Xanthe agreed that it was just the sort of thing Branchage would enjoy but Phil was worried as to the quality of filmmakers, especially those who could be convinced to come out to Jersey. So it fell to us to invite the directors and most of the actors who would make these films.

A lot of people wimped out, many hesitated until it was impossible, but the first person to get straight back to me with an unwavering “Yes!” was Alex Jacob. This was appropriate because I’d first met Alex at the first Branchage festival the year previously. His first short film “Ruby”, later a Shooting People Film Of The Month, was showing at the festival and he and his lead actress Ellie had come along to see the reaction. More of this here.

We ended up stuck in Jersey airport together and he impressed me as a man who’d taken a considered and clever approach to his career but who was ready for something more (something I’m pleased to say he’s now getting as he starts to direct for proper actual tv). As a result he was one of the first people I asked to take part, so it was nice he was first to say yes.

At the start his team was just him and his friend and camera operator Sean Mackay. However before the competition had even officially kicked off he’d secured the assistance of actresses Nathalie Pownall and Rachel Kirkland and the team was finally complimented by Jersey native, student Patrick Casey.

Alex, Nathalie, Rachel, Sean and Patrick

Realising that our guest directors were unlikely to be able to guarantee their own casts, we’d taken steps to invite a wide and diverse group of actors to take part in the competition too. For directors the challenge is daunting, but at least it feels like your destiny is in your own hands. For actors, asked to fly to an island and work on a film with someone they’ve never met when they don’t know what it is or what role they’ll be playing… it’s bravery on the borderline of insanity. This fact alone though does not quite explain why, out of the 30 or so actors and actresses we invited, it was only women who said yes.

Both Nat and Rachel were from mine and Chris’ guest list and had never met Alex before. Rachel’s main focus is comedy and I’d seen her earlier in the year when she was in the Edinburgh show that my girlfriend directed. There, amongst other things, she was taking the piss out of the role of Puck – a part not dissimilar to her role in “Dashes Of Yellow” as she leads Nat on a magical journey of self discovery.

I first met Nat when I turned out to be too expensive to cut her showreel together. However this did at least give me the chance to watch everything she’d done and I’ve been keen to work with her ever since. She has a great physicality and a natural pixie-ness that suits Alex’s film tremendously. Alex will admit that the process of making “Dashes Of Yellow” was tougher than he’d expected and, as is often the case, the more they filmed the more the story began to slip from their grasp. In the end though I think Nat’s performance holds the piece together and gives it a surprisingly emotional resolution.

All of which shows what can happen when actors trust their director. Thrown together by fate and Blaines, Alex, Nat and Rachel could have been cautious or tentative with each other. Instead by the end of the first day the girls were naked and in the sea. This could have been a disaster on many levels but I think it comes together simply because of the whole hearted approach; the director and his cast throw themselves into this film with an abandon that heartening to watch.

At least that’s my opinion – why don’t you give Alex six minutes of your day to find out what you think by clicking on the link below?

When I first heard that both Nat and Rachel had been running naked into the waves I worried because festival organiser Carla MacKinnon had stipulated that all the films had to be “suitable for a family audience”. However in the end it was Rob Morgan’s film “Overtaken” that she had to ban… and that’s what I’ll be looking at tomorrow…

Vote for Dashes Of Yellow here…
http://www.mishorts.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&category_id=14&flypage=flypage-comp.tpl&product_id=895&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=13

At last! Your chance to watch and vote for my work! (I know you’ve been wanting to do this for ages…)

Keen readers will know that at the start of October, Chris and I lead a fearless guerrilla unit into the hills of Jersey and made a short film called “Truth In The Valley” as part of the Vauxhall Branchage 48hr Filmmaking Challenge.

Keener readers and those with their fingers on the pulse will already be aware that all five completed films are now online at MiShorts.com. We made them not as competitors or rivals but as allies and friends, however the online world is harsh and now we’re in bitter competition for a cash prize.

“Truth In The Valley” is available to vote for here:

Whilst I do want to win, I also have to admit to a strange sense of pride for all five films. Each one is 6 minutes long and all were made over the course of 48hrs with titles and genres drawn at random at the start of the competition. Most were also made by filmmakers who’d never been to Jersey before, many using actors they’d only just met.

They range from Alex Jacob’s beguiling “Dashes Of Yellow” (I think the cruellest title draw), Gaelle Denis’ richly atmospheric “Morning Mist”, Rob Morgan’s astonishing “Overtaken”, Emma Rozanski and Michael Pearce’s hilarious “Occupied” and our own largely historically accurate “Truth In The Valley”. All five have something unique and brilliant to offer. Which is why this blog is going to focus on one film a day for the next week, giving you a little background on it’s creators, how they got involved and how they worked.

I have already told a great deal of the behind the scenes story of “Truth In The Valley” on this blog… here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and most of all here and here. However I don’t think I’ve properly expressed my gratitude towards our amazing cast and crew.

We had some much valued support from a couple of locals including Reuben our Nazi trooper but our core team was fellow filmmaker Laura Brocken, old time teammate Alex Mayover and actresses Rebecca Eve and Jessica Fostekew. Alex used to work with Chris but I first met him on the first day of the first ever 48hr Filmmaking Challenge held by Jonny Oddball back in 2002. We’ve been friends ever since and he has worked on all four of the 48hr films that we’ve made, though never before with a beard.

Alex Mayover with beard and industry standard 416 microphone...

Chris mentored Laura as part of the Branchage Bootcamp the year previously and we both fell in love the short film “Tell” which she made with him. “Tell” picked up the prestigious Islander award at the festival this year, one of many it’s won. So she is a real talent in her own right, however on “Truth In The Valley” she was part of our team and was astonishingly willing to take up the vital but unglamorous jobs.

Laura Brocken forgives me for being a ponce.

We met Rebecca earlier in the year when she auditioned for us and later did a series of promotional stills for a film we’re working on. All of which merely whetted our appetite for working with her, so when she admitted she actually came from Jersey we did all we could to encourage her to come home whilst the festival was on. I love the unexpected strength she brings to the role she plays. The vulnerability you expect, but it’s the flashes of steel that really give the performance it’s strength.

Rebecca Eve freezing to the bone...

Jess is an old friend of ours who we’ve been longing to work with properly for years. Her performance is the anchor of the whole film and once we’d fixed the idea in our heads we knew that the whole thing would live or die by the long silent take of her walking across the sand. Jess, like us, is best known for making people laugh. She’s most regularly employed as a stand-up where she is filthy, smart and hysterically funny. Her joke about the names of colours is still one of my favourite things in the entire world. We always knew that there was much more to Jess than silliness, as we hope is true of ourselves. However all three of us were aware that we were entering unfamiliar territory with no time to change our minds… The glowing praise that people have given her for her performance in this film is something I am totally delighted by. She’s very brilliant and I’m very proud of her. This a picture of her with a Nazi:

So there we go, that’s my directorial love-in for the people who made this brilliant brilliant film with me and Chris. You will now either be desperate to see and celebrate its shining wonder or you will want to revel in the schadenfreude of hating it and marking low. Whatever floats your bloat give me six minutes of your life by clicking on the link below and tomorrow I will tell you everything I know about Alex Jacob’s “Dashes Of Yellow”…

“Truth In The Valley” is available to vote for here:
http://www.mishorts.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&category_id=14&flypage=flypage-comp.tpl&product_id=911&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=13

I recently mentioned some of the possible uses a filmmaker might have for the social networking/micro blogging/photo-sharing site www.tumblr.com. Determined to prove me right they’ve just launched Reblog This Festival.

“We had so much fun at this summer’s Reblog This Concert in New York City that we’ve decided to take the party to the West Coast. In five weeks we’ll descend upon Los Angeles to showcase some of our community’s amazing creative work that inspires us every day.

We’ll announce the films we’d like to feature a few days before the big night, which will include filmmaker interviews, a panel of industry insiders, and of course, a big party after to celebrate with the Tumblr community that has brought all of this magic to life.”

Because there’s no prize money, no award even, little in the way of kudos or bragging rights I imagine a lot of people are going to treat this with suspicion. Typical of all tumblr stuff it’s also shockingly easy to use – there’s no other rules and no entry form beyond a webpage where you enter your tumblr ID, an email and a web address where the film is.

No rules, no named list of judges, no tech specs… dear me, what are they playing at? It’s like they just want to make it simple… it’s like they just want to share good films with people…

Obviously it’s no news that filmmakers can use the internet to promote their work but I have to say that this website to promote Jane Campion’s John Keats film “Bright Star” is one of the nicest I’ve yet come across. As is only fitting to such a romantic subject, the site eschews modernity for a hand written, pencil and paper vibe which is pleasingly tactile for something merely virtual. Have a look http://www.brightstarthemovie.com.

The other newish internet service that I think has a lot to offer filmmakers is Tumblr which can be found at http://www.tumblr.com and which claims of its self:

“Tumblr lets you effortlessly share anything. Post text, photos, quotes, links, music, and videos, from your browser, phone, desktop, email, or wherever you happen to be. You can customize everything, from colors, to your theme’s HTML.”

In effect Tumblr is just another blog cum social network but it’s super simple interface and superb ability to easily lift content from the rest of the internet (as well as your own uploads) make it the perfect online scrapbook. Obviously if you wish you can just use it to post pictures of “Panic! At The Disco” and at the moment most of tumblr seems to consist of fashionista photography of girls in fields generally not wearing much and often holding old school 35mm stills cameras or of psychedelic kittens eating cake and macaroons.

However, Chris and I have been using it for a few months now as an online look book for our most developed feature film script. In putting together a package to accompany the script we took the not unusual step of gathering a couple of actors and taking some stills that we thought represented some of the key visuals from the story. We were greatly helped when bringing this photo shoot together by being able to send our stylist, make-up artist, photographer and cast to our Tumblog, where they could simply browse through (and add to) a collection of similar images.

Look books are nothing new but having one so easily accessible online and so easy to put together and share is proving very useful, especially as the service is entirely free. And of course it can include music and movies as well as text and pictures.

There is an added benefit too, in that Tumblr is a social networking/micro blogging site in the vein of Twitter (and yes you can tweet your tumbles…) As a result we’re hoping that we’re already starting to reach out to our prospective audience. Without us doing anything our tumblog has already gathered a handful of followers, who check our feed simply because they like our style. They have no idea that one day it’ll be a film, but when they find out they’ll hopefully be desperate to see it…

First up in my list of new filmmaking tools are a couple that really prove my point about how suddenly the internet is actually useful. Soundcloud which exists at http://soundcloud.com/ describes its self like this…

“SoundCloud lets you move music fast & easy. The platform takes the daily hassle out of receiving, sending & distributing music for artists, record labels & other music professionals.”

And just to prove its up to the moment ecommunity credentials, the site then better explains its self in a flash video voiced by one of the early users. However, to get to brass taks its basically just an online storage depot designed for users to upload audio files. It then offers two ways of sharing these files, one via a social-network friendly embeddable player of the sort myspace or ilike users will be well familiar with, the other via streaming direct from the soundcloud site. This last option is what caught my eye because it enables you to send a file privately to a specific email address, that user can then not only log in and either stream or download the file (in either full quality or as an mp3) but they can leave comments on the track directly in a timeline.

SoundCloud: The Tour from SoundCloud on Vimeo.

This instantly struck me as a massive boon for working remotely with a composer or sound designer. It’s long been possible for the composers that Chris and I work with to send us tracks either via email or ftp. This generally means waiting for the file to download, listening through and then calling or emailing back with notes, usually emailing if Chris and I aren’t in the same place. A three way conversation of this kind is unwieldy and prone to confusion.

With Soundcloud there’s only one upload. The listeners just log into the site and track plays instantly. Then we can mark the exact points we either love or doubt and those comments don’t get lost in a slew of emails. Working this way can, if necessary, much more easily accommodate the sharing of mixes and ideas between a wider group (producers, execs, other musicians) as well as working perfectly as portal for delivering high quality final mixes.

Chris and I tested the system on a recent job we did where, whilst Chris did the final fx work, I ended up doing the soundmixes for a series of twelve short videos we’d shot for a charity. I was able to mix the films and upload them, so he could quickly listen through and give me feedback linked to the specific moments he wasn’t happy with. In a fraught 48hrs with a deadline upon us and two machines eating up render time, overall I thought this was a great way of working… though there were problems.

Firstly, one of the big bonuses for me is that having streaming audio can effectively cut out half the download time. However to be honest there is only so much you can do without hearing the track in sync with the pictures and obviously at the moment this means downloading the mix and syncing it up.

The site is also surprisingly expensive in a world increasingly used to seeing everything available for free. There is a free entry-level stage but it doesn’t offer much. The service is then in three price bands raging from €9 a month for 15 uploads to a rather off putting €59 a month for a limitless upload service. Since Chris and I were working on twelve different films I rapidly had to purchase the middle option of €29 a month for 50 uploads which if I’m honest was expensive for the value I got for this one particular project.

Also, a minor but important thing, the player on the site doesn’t respond to the editor’s universal play/pause spacebar… so swapping between editing software and Soundcloud left me endlessly missing the point I wanted to comment about by hitting the spacebar to pause the track only to find I had instead just jumped to a different part of the page. Like I say it was a fraught 48hr session and with no sleep this became quite a problem.

Never the less I remain a fan of this service which does seem like it can really enable easy and effective communication between a composer and the many interested parties that exist in a film project.