New Feature Shoot Announcement

After completing and finding distribution for 'The Addicted', it's time to start production on my next feature film.  'Seven Cases' is a genre mash-up between Horror and Gangster, but with a really emotional core. It's the story of two retired bank robbers who come out of retirement for one last score before they head off into the sunset. Unfortunately, a previous victim of theirs has decided to make their final job absolute hell for them... They have to play a twisted game in order to get their money back and it takes them to the very limits of their humanity.  It's a tale of choosing money over a life and then trying to live with yourself.

I've been working on pre-production for a few months now and i've got the specialFX guys working on some of the more elaborate 'contraptions' i need. 

We're currently hunting for locations and casting the last few parts. With regard to casting, i can't say much at the moment as we're still talking to people, but i'm hoping we'll have a household name movie star in a major role. Trying to sell a movie without a big name is hard...really hard and it's worth the cost to get a cinema legend involved.

Technically, we're not re-writing the book. I'll be shooting on the Sony FS100 and the Atomos Ninja2 and i'll also be doing lots of Go Pro Hero3 and DSLR shots... there's a lot of action in this movie and small, crash-type cams are going to feature heavily. Why not 4k? Why not raw? 'The Addicted' was shot 1080p ProRes HQ and it looks amazing on the big screen. We up-rezzed it to 2k and the distributors all thought it looked fantastic. I have a very efficient workflow up and running and it's really quick...and making movies at this end of the budget scale is all about working fast. I don't have the extra time or money required to shoot 4k or raw and at this stage it's just not necessary at all.  Good luck to all those new raw converts, but on a 100minute feature it's just a huge jump in terms of data, workload and money.

There's a lot of car interiors and after much deliberation we've decided to shoot these in a studio using the process technique. In other words, shooting plates first and then back projecting them onto a huge screen which will be behind the car. The car itself will be in a tunnel made of a heavy black material and surrounded by a moving light rig to simulate passing cars and brake lights. It will give us the flexibility to move the camera on both a dolly and a jib while shooting car interiors - impossible on a trailer or on the road. Green Screen just looks awful to me most of the time....the green cast across the rest of your set and the huge pain in the arse in post just isn't worth it for me.

As well as the interior shots, we'll also be shooting some amazing driving footage out on a road. We've been doing tests on this for a few months now and we're confident we've got some great ideas for a unique looking perspective.

Major differences in production from the last feature? Probably the biggest change will be in the audio department. Last time we recorded directly into a mobile Pro Tools rig from 4 radio lav mics and 2 booms. This time we're using a very small but very high quality mixer to give us 4 balanced XLR inputs into the Ninja2. The Ninja2 can record 4 discrete audio channels so we don't need to worry about syncing in post - which took a long time on 'The Addicted'. We've also decided to use just boom mics this time. The radio lav mics were great for the type of film i made last time, but this is a much more controlled film with a lot less working 'on the fly', so i can control the set a lot more rigidly and allow for optimal boom placement from my Production Sound guy, Jon Atkinson.

On 'The Addicted', i made regular video blogs as we were in production, but this time i'm going to do things differently. There will be the odd video blog, but most of the documenting of the production will be kept for use later. This film relies on the audience not knowing too much in advance so too much coverage will spoil the surprise. However, we're aiming for a fast turnaround on this film and we hope to have it ready for Sundance 2014.... so there's not too long to wait to see what we're up to.

That's all for now...

S

Digital Film Maker Magazine

I'm sure if you're based in the UK like i am, you will have noticed a new magazine on the shelves in WHSmiths. Digital Film Maker is aimed at the indie film maker and anyone interested in making films with the new technology available to us today. It's already had some great interviews with up and coming Directors and some great established talent. There's loads of useful hints and tips and every month there's articles coving the behind the scenes stuff we all feed on for inspiration and insider knowledge.

I'm pleased to say that i'm contributing to the magazine with a few articles based on my experiences of being a Director and Producer on two micro-budget feature films. The first one of these articles looks at how to cope with being both a Producer and Director in the lead up to principal photography. It's on sale sometime at the beginning of June.

I must admit that i wasn't sure a monthly print magazine would be able to find a place now that we all read blogs and online news which is pretty instant...BUT, i haven't been able to put my copies of DFM down. They have very in-depth interviews and cover such a wide range of the industry that i find myself reading about projects i might not usually think i was interested in. It's definitely worth picking up a copy to read while rendering your latest masterpiece. 

The Canon 5D Mk3 and RAW via Magic Lantern

Magic Lantern, those busy Canon DSLR hackers have managed to squeeze Full Frame RAW video footage at 24fps out of the 5D Mk3. NeumannFilms have been one of the first to get something up online for us to check out... it's pretty amazing that this came from a DSLR:

Now, before you go and sell your C300 or FS100, remember that this is a $3500 camera that wasn't designed to do this... It's a hack, and not a very mature hack yet, so let it settle in a while. It could be that 5D Mk3's subjected to this start frying their own processors. It's a lot of data to shift to the CF card in a very short space of time. Talking of CF cards, it will only work with very fast ones like the 1000x, not the 600x.

What does this mean for the budget indie shooter? Not much really... you still need to spend over £3k if you want a camera with enough CF cards and batteries to make it workable, and then you'll have a lengthy post process to compress those huge RAW files down into something you can edit without your computer telling you where to go.  For the same money you can get a BMCC set up and feel safe in the knowledge that your camera was designed to do what you need it to.

However... there is one caveat. The 5D Mk3 is a seriously shit-hot stills camera and i for one really notice the benefit of having a great stills camera around. So, if you need stills as much as you need video, in time, this could be a great solution.

It'll be interesting to see if this filters down to other models like the 5D Mk2, 7D and 550D et al.... i'd love to be able to get RAW out of my little 550D... it's already a great little B-Cam, RAW would make it much more useful. We can only hope...

As ever, my overall advice is get something that suits you. I got a lot of shit for shooting on a DSLR for a couple of years, but it was perfect for me at the time, but now it's not.

Lastly, the one big upshot from projects like this are the affect that have on pricing. BlackMagic Design will have to think hard about the price of their next camera if this hack turns out to be stable and portable to other cameras...and Sony and Panasonic too will have to watch out. None of them want to start losing sales to DSLRs like they did a couple of years ago.  It's all good for us though...democracy through invention. Fantastic.

UPDATE>>>>

Just seen this from Cinema5D (Thanks guys)...it's a split screen demo of RAW footage comparing the 2.5k RAW of the BMCC and 1080p (Full Frame) RAW of the 5D Mk3.  I gotta say, the 5D seems to be a tad better to me... and with people finding the image less noisey in the blacks, this could be trouble for BlackMagic Design. I kind of hope not, as regardless of their supply issues over the last year, they have helped bring better specs down to an affordable budget and they deserve a slice of the action for that alone. Props to Magic Lantern though - this is a serious achievement. Makes you wonder what Canon's R&D department get up to all day....

Micro Budget Films in the current market conditions

When it comes to putting the budget together on micro budget films, cutting corners and finding savings is vital or your production will never be able to re-coup it's production costs.

Things have changed for micro budget films. In the last few months, HMV stores have ceased trading and that's hit the indie industry hard. Indie DVD distributors in the UK relied on HMV taking stock and this lead to more deals elsewhere going more smoothly. Since HMV has gone, you're really only left with the supermarkets in the UK for sales of actual DVDs. This is all very well having all these big name supermarkets looking for DVD product...but they have got a lot more choosy. With such an over saturation of straight to DVD films coming from the US, UK produced movies are finding it tough to secure distribution.

3 years ago, my first feature got distribution mainly because of the celebs involved and that was fine...we knew that was it's main selling point. My latest feature 'The Addicted' has no 'names' in it. We were very lucky that the positive press coverage we got about the project elevated it to the point where we have now managed to secure distribution in both the UK and the US as well as worldwide sales representation.  But, i don't think we can hope to achieve that again in the current market. If our next feature doesn't have at least one bankable name attached, we will struggle. It's sad to think of all the micro budget features in production right now that will have to go down the self-distribution route as no distributors will be interested, but that's the reality of it.

So, my advice is budget for a 'name' that will attract the kind of coverage in the press you will need to get your movie distributed. Even a 'story' behind the production of somekind helps... maybe it's a true story and you can play on that? Maybe there's a connection to a well known franchise of some kind...not necessarily a movie franchise, but possibly a game franchise or even a tie-in with a band people have heard of? You need to get your PR head on if you want to succeed these days.

This brings me to another thorny subject. Payment. Some Directors & Producers have a policy of only working with cast and crews who are fully payed as per the non-budget end of the industry.
This policy is fine if you can afford it and your investors are ok with this kind of structure. Personally, i believe that if your investors are ok with such a huge percentage going on wages when there are so many other options which don't hit your bottom line, they shouldn't be investing in budget films.
There are some caveats to working on micro-budget films and one of them is that i can't afford to hire an experienced DoP or 1st AD... but, there are lots of people with some experience and a keen desire to get more who will work for deferred payment or a back-end cut deal. There are also plenty of actors who are more than keen to work on a feature for experience and another few scenes for their showreel... this is how things get done - everyone wins. It's not being dodgy....and it's not wrong...everyone is free to say no to the job and everyone knows the sketch before they sign up.
Hollywood budgets are ridiculous and i would struggle to be ok with that kind of spending with such a messed up economy and so many people living on hand-to-mouth budgets at home...  The day of the the well planned and sensibly budgeted indie film is here. Too many wannabe directors are chucking cash at RED or Alexa packages when their films will go straight to DVD if they are lucky. Wake up, smell the coffee and stop acting like Michael Bay. Making a career out of this business is possible, but it's got nothing to do with what camera you shoot on or how many crew you have on set, it's all about the end product. Evolve, shrink the crew, utilise new technology to work smarter and if the Unions have an issue with the new way of doing things, let them worry about it... this industry is changing fast, don't get caught in the past. Just look at what happened to the music industry. The warning is there for all to see.

With Cannes just around the corner, i'm usually prepping market materials and working through the night getting footage ready to show in meetings... but, this year i'm not going. With 'The Addicted' all sewn up and the next feature in pre-production, there's neither the need or the time. However, we have representation there and 'The Addicted' will still be involved, even if we're not.

Lastly, some news for Go Pro Hero3 users... the new firmware update is out and this should finally sort out the reliability issues for the Black version and even add some new features.

Get it here: http://gopro.com/support/product-updates-support/

MoVI Alternative...

The MoVI is grabbing all the NAB headlines... but there are alternatives. Yes, some of them are not 100% as 'developed' as the MoVI.... but they're not $15,000 either.

Check this one out:

Making of handheld camera stabilisation system from Flite.pl on Vimeo.

Atomos Samurai Blade - NAB

Hopefully i'll do a full review on this soon, but for now, check out this video from NAB on the new Atomos Samurai Blade. As you might know, i'm a big fan of the Atomos system and i use a Ninja2 myself... but the screen on the Blade has me drooling. It will save having to have a separate monitor for critical focus. I must admit that although there are awesome shooting assist modes on the Ninja2, i do sometimes wish the screen was a little sharper for focussing. I was toying with getting a separate monitor, but i think the Blade is the answer.

New From NAB in Vegas

NAB always brings a whole plethora of new toys for the filming industry. This year is no different...and as usual the term 'Game Changer' is being thrown around with wild abandon.

Let's just agree on something... if it's a camera with great specs and a crazy low price... it's not a game changer... it's just progress. If it's something that literally changes the way we work...then maybe... but since DSLR, i don't recall anything make that much of a splash...

But... now, we have MoVI. Vincent LaForet has been talking about this for the last couple of days on his blog.  Freefly Systems based in Seattle have come up with a revolutionary new stablization solution for cameras up to 10lbs... with both a bigger and smaller model to come in the near future. By using some silent servos and some very clever software, the MoVI can give you incredibly smooth footage without the need for post production tricks to iron out the bumps and shakes. It works handheld, but could benefit from a vest/harness system just like a Steadicam. Here's a little film that shows what it does...

How much is this touted 'Game Changer'? It's got to be cheap...  after all, that's what made the 5Dmk2 such a big hit...the entry point to cinematic shooting dropped a lot.  Well, i'm afraid not. The MoVI is $15,000. Ouch. Now, if you believe everything you hear about it, you won't need a tripod, a glidetrack, a dolly or a crane ever again.... most of those shots you can get with this. So in that sense, it's cheap. But... it's not going to cause the same stir as DSLR shooting did. On another note... some people have noticed that this is basically the same kind of gimbal stablized shooting platform that people have been mounting on Quad and OctaCopters lately... us included. Vincent LaForet assures us that we are paying for 10 years worth of R&D and it's the software that is the clever bit. Well, if it really is completely silent and very easy to use, i'm sure it'll do well.  Watch this space for people making similar products by the dozen soon.... i fear the $15k price tag will mean a copycat product may steal the market.

BlackMagicDesign Cinema Camera goes 4k...

The news from BMD is two new cameras... yep - a 4k capable BMCC with a global shutter and compressed DNG files...as well as Pro Res and this time a proper Super 35mm sensor! This should fly off shelves (once it gets on the shelves... people are still waiting for the first camera to arrive).  But... in true BMD spirit...the price is mentally low - just $3995 for a 4k camera with a global shutter. Will it actually record 4k onboard? Don't know yet....

BMD also give us a Super 16mm sized mini-cinema camera. This could be perfect for under-the-radar shooting or just for keeping handy.  $995 for film making in your pocket...  

EditShare Shows Lightworks for Mac at NAB

Lightworks has become the first NLE to be available not only on OSX and Windows, but also Linux. The Mac version has been long awaited, but it's almost here...it's being demoed at NAB as we speak....well, a pre-Alpha version is. Expect quite a lengthy Alpha/Beta phase...

Lightworks has been used on hits such as Mission Impossible, Pulp Fiction and many more...  some editors swear by it. It comes in 'free' and 'pro' versions and is visually quite different to the other NLEs out there. It can use Adobe plug-in architecture, so you're not completely cut off from the rest of the editing community if you decide to use this more open source editor.

I'm sure there's plenty more to come out of NAB....  expect another post soon.

On another subject... sort of...  has anyone noticed how many 'film makers' these days don't make their living from making films. Famous names like Phil Bloom... Phil's a thoroughly nice chap and an excellent film maker, but he spends most of his time running workshops... Then there's Andrew Reid who runs EOSHD... he's on twitter a lot, but he seems to spend most of his time testing cameras... i've only seen one narrative piece of work out of him - nothing wrong with any of this by the way, it's just that a lot of people take what these people say as gospel, and in truth, they aren't actually working in the same way as a career film maker is. Just something to bear in mind.  I don't claim to know everything by any stretch of  the imagination, and nor do these guys... but it's always interesting to see this kind of behaviour. Does it mean that film making itself is far harder to make a living out of than teaching/testing? Maybe....

Underselling...

Last year i got asked by a local firm who made double glazing to quote for making a series of web videos to show off their unique manufacturing service. I went to a meeting with the company and was shown what i would be required to shoot for the first few videos, then we retired to the office for a coffee and chat about price. I told them that i thought each web video would take a day to shoot and a day to edit. I said that i could do that for slightly less than my normal price as there was a lot of work to do over a few months - a kind of bulk discount.  The whole job worked out at around £500 per web video.

I was then phoned a few days after getting the the job to be told by the boss that a friend of his had a son who had offered to do the job for £100 per video. I asked what his experience was and what he would be shooting on, but they didn't know. They asked if i could match the offer and i explained that i couldn't as my overheads and principals wouldn't allow it. I did mention that putting a poor quality result online could be damaging to them, but i also said they might get lucky and this kid might do a good job. So that, was that.

A few months later i checked the website of the company and the first video was up there... it was clearly shot on a DSLR but with no lighting, no moving shots... and some awful editing. He'd clearly gone mad with all the presets in iMovie and produced a very home-movie looking result. But hey, the client was happy and maybe most of the punters looking on the website won't know the difference.

The trouble comes when this kid needs to make a proper living out of his work. He priced me out of the job by going in at five times less than i was charging. That company might use him again... but he'll never squeeze much more than what they paid for the first job out of them. They've had it proved that someone will always do it for less... they'll go elsewhere.

The website appears to be gone now, so i can't show you... but i did find a worse company promo video online. This is truly awful...more in concept than execution.. but it's bad beyond belief.


You can only see this one on YouTube: http://youtu.be/aM69aTQBNQ4


I love that the audio loop at the end for the credits doesn't loop properly... class. Would you hire this lot to do your PR? Nope....me either.


I often get asked to work for much less than i can afford to....and sometimes, if there are valid reasons i will work cheaper than advertised - but it's a dangerous game. I charge what i know is fair and what is the minimum i can work for and still cover my overheads and make a little bit of profit. If enough people start offering work for less than half of what i charge, they will kill the industry... literally biting the hand that feeds. It's such a hard balance to get right. A lot of the work i get used to be done by 'camera man with a van' type companies. Usually an ex-BBC or ITV cameraman with a shoulder mount P2 or even Sony optical disc camera and a van full of lights, dolly and track and other grip gear. They often charged in the region of £700 - £900 per day of shooting!!  I came along with my old DVX100 and later a Canon DSLR and charged half that. I didn't pretend to have their experience, but i did have the tools to get the look people wanted at the time - shallow DOF and a lot of experience of editing using the latest tools... not an old copy of Premiere or Avid. I purposely went for a visual style that set me apart from the old-skool guys. I charged less because i turned up with a couple of camera bags and not a van full of impressive looking 'stuff'. I still find myself going up against that kind of competition, but nowhere near as much. I did a job this week where i had to fit around a very busy environment with very little space and i had to just capture what was going on....fly on the wall style. With my FS100 on my small dolly system, a Go Pro 3 hooked up to a Ninja and capturing footage from the craziest of angles and my Canon 550D for grabbing handheld shots at a moment's notice - i had the gig covered. I got a lot of really unique footage and i wasn't in the way at all.

I think what i'm trying to say is: Undercutting your competition is fine if you are offering something different that may be perceived as risky or 'new' to the client... but if you go too far, no one will ever want to pay what you are actually worth again - and we'll all suffer.

I think anyone with a DSLR can shoot OK video... but if you put that DSLR in the hands of someone with vision and talent you will see a completely different result.  We need to not be lazy... always push the boundaries and give clients the best work you can. A saying i heard recently sum this all up nicely:

"If you think hiring a professional is expensive, you should try hiring an amateur...."

Pixel Film Studios PROCUTX problems...

For anyone using PROCUTX on a machine with the same set up as mine, there may be issues getting PROCUTX to work. I have a late 2011 iMac i7 and i have both FCPX and FCP7 installed. Whenever i try to use the PROCUTX app with FCPX, it all connects fine, but as soon as i touch ANY control on the iPad, it tries to launch FCP7... which obviously won't launch without quitting FCPX. So...basically, i can't use PROCUTX.

I contacted Pixel Film Studios and they said it would be fixed in the next update... but it wasn't. I contacted them again this week and they said it would be fixed in an update soon. That's kind of annoying. They did give me a 25% discount code to use as a goodwill gesture, but i'd rather PROCUTX just worked.

So... if you've got FCPX and FCP7 on your system...beware. I've no idea if this is specific to my system for some reason or not... i guess time will tell.

VFX - Shoot or Animate?

Like a lot of low budget movie makers, i don't have a massive dent in my production budgets caused by VFX artists. VFX (or CGI) artists are responsible for a lot of the explosions, backgrounds, foregrounds, characters and even lens effects we see in modern blockbusters. (in Avatar, they did pretty much everything...)  I was quite shocked to see the recently released footage of the Avengers movie showing how much of the film was CGI, rather than real locations.

Visual Effects (VFX) are a huge part of Hollywood in 2013. There's rarely a big blockbuster movie that comes out these days that doesn't feature a huge amount of VFX work. It used to be that VFX or CGI was reserved for shots that could not be done any other way and this was the only solution, but now, it is often the first choice of directors to use green screen and VFX technology to bring you the fantasy world of 'the movies'.

I'm not adversed to CGI shots...i love sci-fi and i'm not knocking shots where there really is no other way to achieve what you need... but these days it's got ridiculous. When i pay to see a movie, i want to see something real. A fantasy world created in the mind of a creative writer, but put on to the screen using light and shade, locations and performers...not computer generated images. I don't have a problem with CGI per se... i just think there is a time and place for it. Sci-Fi... un-achievable shots like London in the 19th Century or LA in the 23rd Century...not New York in 2013.

Have we become lazy? Or is it budget lead? Because if it is budget lead, things have got out of whack because the FX houses are protesting that there is not enough money in production budgets to keep afloat. (How does this happen? Surely they know what they will make from a project before they sign up for it?)

Either way, it's time we got back to shooting real people in front of real locations using real light... not computer simulations. I don't want to be part of the generation that killed off movie making using cameras and replaced them with computers. Let's get back to making films... no more simulations.

Essential FCPX Plug-Ins

Since really getting to grips with FCPX, i've built up a stock of plug-ins that i use all the time. Essential plug-ins that enable me to work fast and get on with the edit with minimal amount of fuss.

First up is 'Dashwood Widescreen'...a freebie from fcp.co

This simply allows me to add a letterbox to my footage to get a 2.35:1 frame. It has an offset control, different aspect ratios and a border size adjustment. I use this a lot.

Next is 'Magic Bullet Looks 2' from Red Giant.

Magic Bullet Looks 2 is an excellent package for grading, adding lens flares, gradients and all kinds of other effects that make post production easier. It comes with lots and lots of preset 'Looks' to get you started. I love being able to save my favourite settings and then be able to slightly adjust them to match each clip in a scene... If one shot is slightly more exposed than another - use the exposure setting to match them up...  Something in shot that shouldn't be? Gradients allow you to drop the exposure of just one area of your shot to mask it out... really useful. The only downside to Magic Bullet Looks 2 is the amount of competition it has now - everyone is making Preset Grading Plug-Ins...and most of the other useful additions like lens flares and gradients are available elsewhere now too. Also... it's still a bit of beast to render. It's one of the few plug-ins in FCPX that can't play properly in realtime until it's rendered...and that's just annoying.

Next in line..'NEAT Video Noise Reduction'

The Neat Video Noise Reduction Plug-In is totally essential. Any footage shot in low light or with an overly hight ISO setting an have some nasty noise in it...and Neat is the only plug-in I've used that can deal with it properly. GoPro footage needs it to look right if you shot in anything other than broad daylight. It's easy to use and although slightly taxing on the processor and memory, it's worth it for the job it does.

Finally... ProLumetric from Pixel Film Studios

ProLumetric is a collection of effects that let you add lightrays to your footage. It uses bright light in your footage as a means to generate very realistic looking lightrays which you then have complete control of.  You can choose the colour, the angle, the length, mask out where you don't want them to go... add haze, dust... it's all there. The source material needs to be good, but the results can be stunning.

Before anyone else points it out... yes i know there is a plug-in called 'Lightrays' from fcpeffects...i have that too...but they are different. I use 'Lightrays' too, but it works in a slightly different way.

I had an email earlier about the 'Pixel Film Studios vs MotionVFX' thing that's been going on. Like i explained in the previous post - It appears to be dealt with and i'm like everyone else - i don't really know what happened. MotionVFX make some stunning plug-ins (I have some of them which i will cover soon) and if Pixel Film Studios want to make similar products (within the law) and sell them cheaper, that's good for all of us. Unless i hear otherwise, i've no reason to not cover PFS products.

Next time... i'm going to be looking at some of the many 'Looks' packages... there's lots out there - but which are worth looking at?

Using FCPX...another update.

It's been a month of FCPX editing for me... I've been working on a trailer, a music video and a motion graphics project. I've got to the point now where having to go back to FCP7, which i used for years is a scary prospect. I don't go back to FCP7 often, but for the trailer i'm working on, i have to grab the clips i need from a project cut in FCP7. It just reminds me what a pain in the arse FCP7 was...i can't believe i stuck with it for as long as i did.

FCPX had a hard start in life. Lots of people (me included) gave it a harsh welcome when it didn't work how we wanted it to. We couldn't make our way of editing fit with the new way Apple wanted us to work. We resisted. On top of the unfamiliarity of it all, FCPX used to crash...a lot. I tried it several times, and some of those times i was getting on well...but then it would crash and lose my work. I can't put up with that.

But... it doesn't do that anymore. I've been working on it solidly for months and it's very very stable.  Everything i used to be able to do in FCP7, i can now do in FCPX...only quicker. The plug-in support is phenomenal. There's so many great plug-ins available and so many of them are very reasonable in price. I enjoy working on FCPX... it's very creative. It's easy to try things out and then go back and try another way. The lack of 'tracks' is so liberating... as is the way you don't have to stop to render all the time.

Here's something for the crowd that aren't convinced... maybe you moved from FCP7 to Premiere Pro or Avid: It takes a while...but one day, it just clicks. You suddenly realise how fast you're working and how little the interface is getting in your way. Looking at Avid or Premiere Pro now is like looking into the past...how things used to be done. Apple got it right with FCPX... it took some time to iron out the kinks... but they got there. I'm genuinely excited to see where FCPX goes now... it's a new product still and it's getting better and better with every update. The support for this software is huge... TV productions and features are slowly but surely making the move and it's rare now to find an editor who has given this a fair test that doesn't like it.  The only editors i know that still don't like it haven't actually got into it enough yet... it took me a few projects before it all clicked, but it was worth it.

The Pixel Film Studios vs Motion VFX debate...
This week a row broke out between two of the companies that make and sell FCPX plug-ins... Motion VFX released 'MDusts' - a collection of dust footage handily supplied as a plug-in for FCPX. Then, a few days later, Pixel Film Studios released 'ProDust'...a collection of dust footage also handily supplied as a plug-in for FCPX - only cheaper. The row broke out because the dust footage in 'ProDust' was the same raw footage that Motion VFX shot themselves for the 'MDusts' plug-in... in other words - theft. Ouch. But... Pixel Film Studios denied it... .then eventually said that a 'rogue employee' had done it without their knowledge and they had in fact shot their own dust footage which was now being re-released in the 'ProDust' plug-in.

Who knows what really happened here...? To a certain extent..who cares? Some people have said that there are few of us who have never used a dodgy mp3 or movie before, so what's the difference? The difference is repackaging someone's hard work (and intellectual property) and then re-selling it. Anyway... They've agreed to let the matter go... I've got products from both of them and seeing as no one can really say what happened, i'm not going to stop blogging on either of them.. Life's too short. Let's just hope it stops..

PROCUTX From Pixel Film Studios

This is pretty exciting news for FCPX editors like myself. Pixel Film Studios have just released PROCUTX, an iPad App that controls Final Cut Pro X. It looks fantastic. I currently use a Shuttle Pro which is great, but i think this will make a really useful addition to the edit suite.

PROCUTX for Final Cut Pro X is an iOS iPad application that allows editors to control Final Cut Pro X on their MAC through an iPad.

Built from the ground up to meet the needs of today’s creative editors, PROCUTX breaks free from the menus and tabs to streamline editor tasks. This application gives users control over all the FCPX editing tools in one clean interface, eliminating the need for clicking and searching through the Final Cut Pro X menus. From import to export, PROCUTX can control every step of the FCPX editing process.

Features Include:

• Precision Timeline Scrubbing
• Quick Retiming
• Auto-Correct Color
• Color Grading
• Compound Clip Editing
• Import, Export, and Rendering shortcuts
• Quick Keywording
• Fast access to Tools
• System Volume Control
• Timeline Zooming
• Audio Enhancements
• Record Voiceovers

Get it here...only $24.99 at the moment...rising to $40 soon...

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/procutx-for-final-cut-pro-x/id596946635?mt=8

EDIT>>  There's loads of chatter online about this app at the moment. Lots of people are saying that without some kind of 'real' buttons to feel, this product isn't worth using. In my opinion, that's such a crazy argument... I have my iPad mounted in front of my monitor and i can see it fine without looking away from my monitor...a momentary glance to hit the right button is way quicker than multiple mouse clicks any day of the week. I have a hardware controller and i will keep that... but let's give this new and exciting product a chance. And as for the people complaining about the price? Seriously? You can't invest $25 in your edit system? Madness...

Building a bigger, heavy-duty camera slider/dolly

The finished slider working on set and easily carrying my full camera rig.

Like a lot of you, i bought a 1m camera slider a couple of years ago.  My films suddenly had sideways motion in them! Great.... but, using such a small slider gave me a few problems. I had to dismount my camera from it's rig because the slider couldn't take the weight of my full camera rig. This meant losing time on set..  The 1m slider also seemed really small for a lot of work. Unless there's stuff right in the foreground or you're close to the ground, it's hard to see the dolly movement having much affect on the shot. I decided i needed something bigger.

Why not get or build a full-sized 'doorway' dolly you might ask... Well, i've got one of those and it's great for feature film sets...nothing does a 20m tracking shot like a proper dolly.. But, you need a van to transport it around and you need someone to push it.... not ideal for small shoots like music videos and to be honest, a lot of feature work requires quick set ups on indie shoots, and the full sized dolly ain't quick to get rigged.

My original idea was to build a 2m slider with a permanent track like a slider, but with a removable dolly that runs on skateboard wheels. The track should be solid enough that i can mount it on a pair of tripods for use at waist or even head height. I also wanted it to be tough.. it had to take the abuse that doing lots of set-ups in a day can dish out to equipment.

My first step was to make the dolly itself. I bought 8 old skool skate wheels from eBay. They had to be old as modern ones often have recessed bearings and i need to mount the wheels almost flush to the dolly. Older wheels are also usually made of softer rubber than today's skate wheels. I got 8 wheels for about a tenner. Result. Then i bought some aluminium box section and some wood. I cut the box section and drilled holes for the bolts which were going to hold the main wheels... then i drilled the piece of wood which was to become the bottom of the dolly to hold the other 4 wheels in a 2 + 2 offset arrangement. After messing around with various designs based on what i'd seen online, i decided against the 45 degree angle wheel mounting like a lot of DIY dollys use... it just seemed a bit unstable and made the dolly sit to high on the track.

Version 1 of the dolly..(upside down here) Ally centre and wood top & bottom.

Slightly rough build quality for the 'test' version.

After a bit of testing on the knocked-up version of the track, it became clear than the bolts holding on the main wheels where not working too well with the aluminium.... it also had a nasty 'hollow' sound as it moved. But... it worked really well. I decided to replace the side sections with wood and start again.

See the wheels on the underside...they keep the dolly on the track.

Very simple construction inside...

Testing with the Cullman Titan Fluid Head attached with 3 big bolts. 

More testing. The rails are 1.8m heavy duty chrome curtain poles.

 Once the dolly was working well, i made the track more permanent. It's just two 1.8m heavy duty curtain rails. These are ideal is they are strong, light and come with end sections which hold the poles in place. I lined the insides of the pole holders with rubber to make the join more solid. Then it was just a case of joining the two sections together with a simple piece of wood.... finally i added rubber feet to all three floor pads. The end sections can also be mounted on tripods.

Finally, it just need a paint job. Luckily for me, this whole thing fits in my car so i can get around to shoots without renting a van.

On the first two shoots i used it on, it was perfect... i'm so happy with it...and it cost about £80 all in!

The end result....

Recoil AIRCAM QuadCopter Aerial Filming

For the last 3 years, myself and RC pilot, Neil Jones have been trying to perfect our aerial filming service. We started with a Trex400 RC Helicopter and then moved up to a bigger model which we mounted a Canon 550D on... each time we got pretty good results, but not perfect. We always had problems with what our American cousins call 'Jello'. The vibrations of the rotors caused the sensor to shake so much that you get the nasty wobble effect on all the footage... which although sometimes wasn't too bad, it was always there...and that makes the footage unusable in a professional situation.

There's a lot of QuadCopters out there which people mount GoPro cameras on...but again, most of these suffer from Jello... 4 rotors can often mean 4 times as many problems for vibrations.

But... we have solved it. Neil meticulously balanced each of the motors before mounting the GoPro3 using a combination of rubber based materials to the frame... he then developed a simple but effective servo controlled gimbal which keeps the camera pointing forwards when the Quad pitches forwards to move...  the combination of all these things gives us beautifully smooth, jello free images.

We also have FPV...First Person View... Neil can actually see in a pair of video goggles what the camera is seeing... so we know what we're shooting...we don't have to guess based on where the Quad looks like it is pointing. The Quad also feature a HUD (Head Up Display) so Neil knows when the battery is getting near the end and can bring the Copter home safely. If the worst happens and the signal gets disrupted... the Quad automatically ascends to a safe altitude and then returns to the point of take-off and lands itself.

Currently, we have the GoPro Hero3 mounted on the AIRCAM, but in the near future we will be flying the 550D too. As part of the service (and included in the £350 price) we also stabilise any shots that need it and transcode all the footage to ProRes 422 before delivery.

Check out the showreel...

S

Louise Redknapp Shoot

Back in early December, i shot a 'behind the scenes' film for a photoshoot that Louise Redknapp did for Fabulous magazine. It's now online and you can see it here: 

http://fabulousmag.co.uk/2013/01/14/louise-redknapp-last-chance-saloon/

I shot it all on the Canon 5D Mk2 with a selection of lenses from the L Series 24 - 200 and the L Series 17 - 55.  I also used the Canon L series 50mm F1.2.

I had a GlideTrack, tripod, Zoom H4N and a set of 3 RedHeads for the interview.

I basically had to work around the photoshoot. The Photographer and his assistants were very busy all day moving lights, blocking with screens and changing the set around and i had to try and not get in the way.... easier said than done sometimes. I shot a lot... probably over an hour of footage...  It's the first time i've just handed over footage for someone else to edit.. that was odd... but it looks pretty good.

Things i'd do differently next time? Well, this was for a client who supplied the gear, so on that front i couldn't change much... but if i could, i'd shoot with my FS100 and my set of lenses. The 5D Mk2 is still a good camera, but it's tricky to operate in situations where you don't have control over the shoot... when it was time to do the interview, i barely had enough time to set up the lights, let alone check audio levels on the H4N... if i had the FS100, i could hit record and that would be that.... and with regard to the lenses, the Canon L series are fantastic...i love them, but i missed the manual iris control i have on my manual lenses.

Anyway... i'm pleased with the end result and shoot taught me what it's like to work in a different kind of situation to what i'm used to.

Big thanks to Cherry Duck for putting it my way.

Dance Showreel for client...

We were asked to shoot a dance showreel for Hana Lambert. Slightly tricky location as the 2 main walls were mirrored...so we couldn't help but get in shot with the gear sometimes.... so i decided to make it a feature of the film. I put lighting stands between the camera and the dancefloor to give the camera something in the foreground to dolly past. We also used a whole bunch of different cameras... an FS100 and Ninja2 for the main angles. A Canon 550D shooting from the floor at the front, a Go Pro Hero 2 on the floor at one end of the room and a Go Pro Hero 3 on a QuadCopter which we got some great overhead angles with...(it works great indoors - even in confined spaces).

It was then just a case of shooting some specific parts of the dance in Slow-Mo using the FS100... but at 1080 50p and also using the Fast Burst mode to get that crazy slow-mo look....albeit at a crappy resolution... 

The shoot was tricky at times because i didn't know where Hana was going next...so i had to be quick to react with the camera. I kept it on the dolly most of the time and just slid it backwards and forwards to keep her in view.

The edit was a case of listening to Jenny who as a dancer herself, knows which bits we had to use and which bits we couldn't... and then throwing the whole array of 'pop video' type looks at it to spice it up... i could have gone for a classier look and kept it all in Black and White, but for a dancer trying to get hired, i think throwing everything at it to grab attention is the best  plan. As is becoming usual for me now, i edited it in FCPX... the multicam editor was a complete lifesaver....and the text generators  and transitions obviously help to make it look exciting for the client and the people the client is hoping will hire her.

Writing an indie film script

I've written quite a few screenplays... two of which i have made into feature films. It's always tricky deciding which story ideas have the best potential to be actually made into films. I tend to write all the time...so i've always got more ideas than i need.

Working on a much tighter budget than Hollywood, i have to write based on what i know i will be able to shoot. It's no good writing about huge World ending events if i can't realise them on screen. I have to work on characters more... write about subjects that i know about. I also have to write based on locations i know i can find. It's not easy, but it does make you a better writer. Not only that, but if you look at a lot of the shit coming out of Hollywood Studios, they've clearly forgotten about character development...some big movies barely sketch out the main character's traits and reasons for being where they are before the main story kicks off.  It makes the viewer not care what happens to them.

For my next feature, i have a really strong story... but i'm getting bogged down in the finer plot points.. i'm worrying that the audience might not understand and then i'm worried that i'll need too much exposition to get the point across... not good.  Whenever i get stuck like this, i look back at the scripts that i finished and re-read them.

We all know that a film needs a 'story arc'... it needs to have a beginning, middle and end...and along the way, the characters need to develop or learn something. It's not always easy trying to join the bigger plot points together though. Sometimes you end up writing pages and pages of un-necessary dialogue.

You need to remember though, don't start writing until you have the base for your story. Someone (the lead character) has to have a reason (often life or death) that they HAVE to do something unpleasant or dangerous or maybe just very very out of character. They have to do this 'thing' in order to either save someone (maybe themselves), or achieve something incredible, or maybe just to keep things the same. But the movie has to be about how and why all this happens... I've said it before, i think Steve Weiss from 'Zacuto' said it once: "Movies should be about an extraordinary day, not an ordinary day".

Once you've started writing, it can be tricky sometimes to keep the momentum going. What you need is a plan. I find this incredibly useful... The 8 Point Story Arc... taken from Nigel Watts' "Writing a Novel and Getting Published".


The eight points which Watts lists are, in order:

Stasis

Trigger

The quest

Surprise

Critical choice

Climax

Reversal

Resolution       

He explains that every classic plot passes through these stages and that he doesn’t tend to use them to plan a story, but instead uses the points during the writing process:

Stasis - Where the film starts... what world the characters live in... a normal day.

Trigger - Something happens...a letter arrives...someone dies... It's the event that starts the story.

The Quest - The start of the journey to resolve whatever it is that the trigger started... secondary characters are often introduced here.

Surprise - Obstacles, conflict and trouble for the protagonist. The middle of the film... the bulk of the action. In a Bond film, this would be the chases, the mission to track down the bad guy.

Critical Choice - Somewhere in the film, the lead character has to make a choice.. this will reveal his/her true character and probably dictate the rest of the film's atmosphere...depending on whether they made a good or bad choice.

Climax - The Critical Choice lead to this moment. The peak of the film's story.... but not the end of it. The moment where the huge crescendo of music stops... and we wait to see what happens next..

Reversal - This is the outcome of the Critical Choice and the Climax combined. Something happens that changes the status of your lead character or characters. They do something they wouldn't have done before. Often the 'feel good' moment of a film.

Resolution - Back to the 'Stasis'...but this time the 'New Stasis' after the story has changed them. Older, wiser and with the story now complete... unless you want a sequel, in which case you might drop a last minute twist or cliff-hanger here.

That's it.... don't hang about when the movie is finished. End it. I hate the current Hollywood fixation with dragging out endings. I don't need to see 'The Resolution' sometimes.... we can imagine it and i think movies often end more satisfactorily when you don't know if they want back to their normal lives or not.

I do find it useful to look at this list while i'm actually writing. It keeps me on track and reminds me not to get bogged down in scenes that don't add to the story arc. In 'The Addicted'...(my latest feature)... i ended up cutting 12mins out of the movie because we had several scenes that i later realised in the edit, didn't do anything for the story. By taking them out, the audience might have needed to think a bit more, but they wouldn't miss anything important to the main story... so they got chopped. But... if you can chop them before you go to the hassle and expense of shooting them, so much the better. I try not to think of the long hours and hard work that went into those 12mins of screen time.

This YouTube video from ScriptBully is good... it shows that sometimes, if not all the time, lists like the one above can be condensed down to a much more simple formula. Give it a watch.

 

Huge Discounts on Shooting Deals

My production company is currently offering some very cheap deals on shooting packages.

• Aerial Shooting (QuadCopter with GoPro Hero3 and 2 or 550D) - £350 for a half day

• Music Video Shoot (1 Day Shoot, 2 Day Edit) - £500 all inclusive!!!

• Actors ShowReels from - £200

• Standard Shooting Day (Including all equipment - FS100, Ninja2, DIT, Lights) - £350

• Standard Edit Day (FCPX, FCP7, Motion 5, AE, Magic Bullet Looks, Neat Noise Red) - £250

BTW - THE QUADCOPTER SHOOTING SYSTEM NOW HAS FPV - FIRST PERSON VIEW...SO WE CAN SEE WHAT THE CAMERA SEES WHILE FLYING. TEAM THAT UP WITH THE STUNNING 1080P FOOTAGE FROM THE GOPRO HERO3 AND YOU'VE GOT A VERY USEFUL FILMING TOOL.

Special Offer for 2013 -  3 Day Shoot and 3 Day Edit - £1500*  

*Offer Expires 28th Feb 2013.

Distribution

This is just a little post to ask you to head over to the website for my latest feature 'The Addicted', where i've done a little piece on where we're at with Distribution and a bit about the whole distribution question itself.  >>>>Click here to read it<<<<