Vinous violence goes viral
MAGGIE FOLLETT
Weekend Argus (Sunday Edition)
6 Nov 2011

AClassicwhodunnit called Murder at the Manor is the first branded, web-based film series to be released in this country. It is the result of a unique collaboration between a well-known Boland wine estate and a visionary young independent…read more… Tech Tags: Weekend Argus (Sunday Edition) newspaper UNCORKED

BREAKING NEWS – HERE IT IS – THE SECRET IS NOW OUT!

There has been a murder in the Diemersfontein Manor house… Who is dead? and …who did it?

Launching a first-ever for a production of its type – Diemersfontein Wines in conjunction with Sentinel Entertainment & Muddville Productions have produced a short film (in 5 webisodes of 5 min each) based on a typical Agatha Christie type murder story, but with a twist! Each character represents one of the Diemersfontein wines, and so the plot begins! Watch episode 1 and see for yourself! Episodes will be released fortnightly… PS – We’d love to hear your take on it…

In March I wrote a post entitled “Follow the white rabbit – find your voice”, and looking back on 2011 it marked a turning point for me where I really just… let go.

You know the scene in Eat, Pray, Love where Julia Roberts character sits with her lawyer across the table from the poor man who committed his entire life to her, now faced with a divorce he doesn’t want, for no actual rational reason apart from her unhappiness?

That man was me. We married young, had a child young, and then my wife decided to finally discover herself, to realize what she wanted out of her life… and what she didn’t want any longer.

So that was the end of 4 years of a marriage and a life that I thought would last a lifetime.

As you can imagine, I didn’t have much to hold on to. It was a sink or swim moment.

What I held on to was the only thing I knew I wanted more than anything else, the only thing that makes me feel fulfilled and happy… making movies.

I let go and followed instinct, gut feel. I began to creak open any door left ajar and push forward step by step towards my own goals, my own dream.

Now I’m at the closing end of this rollercoaster year and looking back, it’s been a insane ride. It’s also been the most productive year yet in my growing career in this business. I’ve produced two short films so far, a psychological thriller ‘INSIDE’, and a period murder mystery ‘Murder at the Manor’, which is also a five part web series.

Murder at the Manor opened the door that has led me to Dubai to work with my friend Jac Mulder and his company Muddville. Before the year is out I’ll have produced a third short film, one of Jac’s films which is shooting Nov 28th.

So what’s next?

For a start, it seems I’ll be in Dubai working with Jac for the next few years, he’s got plenty of films up his sleeve that we intend to get financed and produced. I’ve got my major short film ‘The Investigator’ still actively in pre-production, scheduled to shoot Sept/Oct 2012, and a full length feature ‘Flame’ that will move into full swing pre-production in early 2012.

I also want to get my other screenplays written and/or finished… ‘Plague’ (action/sci-fi), ‘The Libertarian’ (action/sci-fi), ‘The Right Stuff’ (historical drama), ‘Orange Sunshine’ (surf, sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll… my longest running project), ‘The Beach House’ (a thriller I am very excited about), and ‘Bonneville’ (a period hot rod film… lots of fun). There are a couple others hiding in the shadows too.

So that’s where I’m headed, one day at a time, one film at a time.

I want to thank you all for joining me on this ride!

A week ago I had no idea I’d be on a Emirates flight to Dubai in a couple days.

I’m still following the white rabbit and it’s taking me on the next step in my quest towards indie film producerhood. It seems the next step is a foray into the world of producing commercials.

I will be working on a freelance basis with my friend Jacques Mulder and his company Muddville in Dubai until November 30th (along with his Red EPIC-M and EPIC-X!). This opportunity came about after working together on Murder at the Manor.

I’m not sure what to expect, but I know I’ll be working hard and enjoying every minute of it. I know I’m going to give a lot, and I’ll learn a lot and get a lot back in many different ways.

I can’t say much yet, but in a few days I’ll make my first post from the UAE. I have a feeling, God willing I might be there for a while. There are cool things going on at Muddville, things I would like to be a part of. However, for now it’s until November 30th and nothing further is assumed or expected.

I am not abandoning Cape Town, my daughter is here, and no matter what happens I will always have one foot here, even if the other one is 4720 miles northeast!

So from Sept 18th to Nov 30th I’ll be in Dubai, then I return to Cape Town quickly only to depart again for the UK on December 13th, returning to Cape Town Jan 13th. After that I have no idea!

The world is a small place, and I can use the airmiles.

Over and out from Cape Town.

This afternoon I was listening to Rex Sikes Movie Beat chat show live where he had Entertainment Attorney Paul Baptista on the show. It hit me how valuable the information being given on the show was, how rare these crucial nuggets of wisdom are and how few of my fellow filmmaking friends even know of the show, let alone listen in every week.

I wonder what their excuses may be. Sure, some of them are hungry and just don’t know what’s out there. Some don’t think they need it, many don’t know what they need in the first place.

So I have compiled a list of my most valuable resources… which reminds me that my A-List of must-follow filmmakers on twitter also needs to be updated. I think it’s been over a year now and I’ve met some fantastic new people over the last 12 months that belong on my A-List.

For now here’s a quick rundown of resources I use every day (or in the case of Sheri Candler’s new book launched yesterday, resources I will soon use every day.) Some you may already know these, some may not.

GENERAL FILM BUSINESS

Filmcourage with David Branin and Karen Worden – http://www.filmcourage.com

Film Courage is a weekly show on L.A. Talk Radio, and it’s really an hour every week at midday PST on Sundays that cannot be spent in any better way.

Follow @FilmCourage on twitter and you won’t miss a thing!

Rex Sikes Movie Beat – http://www.rexsikes.com

Rex Sikes, and his guests offer up a priceless amount of insider information which is both inspiring and full of down-to-earth practicality. This is another show that is simply not worth missing for anyone who takes their career seriously.

Follow @RexSikesMovieBT on twitter.

MARKETING & DISTRIBUTION

Selling Your Film Without Selling Your Soul – http://www.sellingyourfilm.com

Authored by Sheri Candler, Jon Reiss (of Think Outside the Box Office fame) and co-authored by The Film Collaborative (Orly Ravid and Jeffrey Winter), this is a freely available e-book which cannot be missed.

Follow @SheriCandler and @Jon_Reiss on twitter.

Hope for Film - http://blogs.indiewire.com/tedhope/

Ted Hope is a legend in his own time in independent film. Hugely pro-active, sharing and approachable he was one of the first people on my own A-List. He provides answers and insight, and often just puts forward provocative questions. One of the best things you can do is subscribe to his blog here and you won’t miss a post!

Follow @TedHope on twitter.

SCREENWRITING

Raindance – http://www.raindance.org

Raindance Resources - http://www.raindance.co.uk/site/Raindance-Film-Festival-indie-tips-for-independent-filmmakers

Elliot Grove is seriously one of my heroes. The Raindance website is easily the first place I go to when I’m stuck with something in the middle of writing a outline, a synopsis or a screenplay. There is a whole catalogue of downloadable screenplay collections that make fantastic reading and study material. The online search functionality and articles provided are second to none.

Follow @Raindance on twitter.

I’m going to keep this short and sweet. Those are by far the most valuable resources I refer to regularly on the web.

Enjoy!

You’ve got no excuses now!

By Jacques Mulder (originally posted on my other blog Digital Cinema Demystified)

Its been 2 months with my EpicM and have been meaning to write something about it, I can say in all fairness this camera quite easily found a way to humble my role as a Director and an individual. The camera has opened up so many more opportunities then I could have ever expected, my Bomb Squad (Brian Sheckelhoff) handler has been privvy to my tours across this planet, starting with Dubai, I ventured to Singapore, Barcelona, bit in Munich and Frankfurt, to Johannesburg and Cape Town. I now sit in Dubai with 4TB of footage that I just so desperately want to share. I met over 300 people in my travels, (I kind of know how TED feels) and in that time I met them all, the skeptics, the enthusiasts, the bewildered the flabbergasted and the random unknown. All the while people received the handling of the camera with fascination – all of them!

There was a stretch of 10 days that kept the camera really busy, some days the camera was rolling at 5am and being turned off at 2am, these particular days were in freezing cold conditions, the camera was so solid we only had one problem in a four day stretch, on a pinch zoom the Ouput monitor through the HDSDi split the screen (not physically obviously), we unplugged the cable and continued. We never lost a single R3D file, even if the battery died or someone accidentally pulled off the brick, we had 0 corrupt files, we recycled the 128gb drives at least twice per day (we had four) and then one of the best things about this camera was its battery life, we just rolled and rolled and rolled and it stayed on and got the shots.

In the short time that I have owned this camera I have produced and directed many projects, a few stood out, one a short film written and produced by Richard Lackey (a RED user) directed by Leon Laubscher. He asked if I’d be available to help him on a project. I was not really sure what I was getting myself into but found myself smack bang in a beautifully crafted and stylishly designed period piece. I mean, shoot an epic story on an EPIC, it really did justice for the production. We were limited by lights, 1k a 2.5k, a couple of Kino’s, one reflector and a white bounce. I mean, really! We never shot anything over 400 ISO with this light setup, I can assure you we did beg for more lights and landed with a box of Dedolights that did help. The light sensitivity of the camera was truly astounding and we eventually started using less light watching our blacks and highlights carefully. In some shots we were proud that we only used one light. Warrick Mcleod was a genius with the lights and in the end we ended up getting way more then we expected.

In this shot we had no lights, HDRx turned on.

From there, as luck would have it I was offered a unique opportunity to shoot a ballerina, Alice, what an amazing artist. I will be sharing the final film once we have completed the edit and the grade. But this is a testament to her fabulous art and a thank you to the number of takes I made this girl go through.

In Summary, I have had the privilege of working with all formats, a week before my Epic arrived I was still shooting film, I still have a couple of jobs in October that require that format, but in all honesty I am going to attach my EpicM to the side of the 435 and shoot with both cameras. There is one thing for those I would advise anyone out there to do and that is to get a truck load of hard drive storage. Don’t shoot HDRx if you don’t have to, but for those technical boys out there this additional channel is perfect for 3D tracking and amazing at bringing out the blown out backgrounds! It has been a long 7 weeks, but we did a documentary, at least 3 TVC’s, a more “corporate” film and a trailer for a movie by one of the big Post houses in Cape Town, the short film shown above and a passion project named Alice. Lastly, I have had the privilege of using a variety of lenses that most reputable equipment houses have to offer and I have my favorites… This topic I will not discuss now…

To the guys at RED – you have seriously humbled me…

Jac Mulder
Director/TD
Represented by www.spokefilms.tv | Dubai
Muddville www.mvdubai.com
Epic-M and Epic-X (on the way), clutch, canon mount and some cool toys…
jac(at)mvdubai.com

Every filmmaker is on his or her own journey toward some distant goal, facing obstacles at every turn and needing to pull immense courage, strength and perseverance to overcome them. (Sound familiar)

So much has been happening in the recent few weeks as a result of pushing myself harder and faster than ever before, and I have so many different projects at different stages of completion, that I thought it best to take a current snapshot, and provide a bit of a roadmap.

On any journey a roadmap is important… and the process of evaluating one’s current state and position in the larger context of that distant goal, and acknowledging it’s general direction has probably not changed, but yours might have… is an important part of keeping yourself moving towards it.

Having a clear roadmap is important for yourself, for your team and for anyone following and supporting you, especially when you have more than one active film in some stage of the process at a time.

I have three. Thankfully two of them will soon move into less intense stages of post – post production… and that means strategically engaging festivals and hoping for some acceptance letters (I am expecting the rejections already). Some wins, or at least some general positive sentiment for the films would really energize the rediculous thing I have committed my heart and mind to, which is the third project I have mentioned.

Here’s where we stand on September 11th, 2011.

INSIDE

Principle Photography – Completed August 3rd, 2011
Edit – Rough edit completed by August 18th, 2011
VFX – Shots are with Christo Crafford.
Locked Cut -
Colour Grade -
Sound Design -
Score – Nathan Shilz is awaiting the locked cut.
Final Mix -

[Current Duration - 00:06:12:07]

Murder at the Manor

Principle Photography – Completed August 22nd, 2011
Edit – Rough edit completed by Sept 11th, 2011
VFX -
Locked Cut – Sept 11th, 2011
Colour Grade – Week of Sept 11th?
Sound Design -
Score – Carin Bowman ready and waiting!
Final Mix -

[Episode 1 Current Duration - 00:04:58:22]
[Episode 2 Current Duration - 00:06:29:01]
[Episode 3 Current Duration - 00:05:21:16]
[Episode 4 Current Duration - 00:04:05:00]
[Episode 5 Current Duration - 00:06:47:00]

[Short Film Version Current Duration  - 00:27:05:15]

The trailer for Murder at the Manor must be ready for public release this week… it goes live on Thursday 15th September. The ultimate deadline for completion of the film is October 22nd. I would like to have it finished in time to courier for entry to Sundance to be received no later than Sept 23rd.

Upcoming Festivals of Interest:

FirstGlance Film Fest – Regular Deadline Oct 12th
Super Shorts International Film Festival – Late Deadline Sept 30th
‘IFS’ Independent Filmmakers Showcase – Late Deadline Nov 21st
Slamdance Film Festival – Late Deadline Oct 21st
Sundance – Late Deadline Sept 23rd

THE BIG IDEA! – PROJECT THREE!

Project 3 is something I am very excited about! It’s come about from a resurrected short film called “Flame” and although it will be completely re-written as a feature, the premise of the story stays the same. It will be shot in London and Brighton in 2012.

Some very exciting partnerships and collaborations are opening up on this film. I can’t say much at this stage, but I can say there are some BIG names involved and a crowd-funding campaign to kill all other crowd-funding campaigns is in the works. If you want awesome perks… then this is a campaign to keep an eye on. We’re gonna go big on the crowd-funding side, and combine that with some equity investment to make up a respectable budget.

The film is big, it cannot avoid major public exposure and press when we roll it out. It has the potential to garner a cult following of note, and will be fan-built in many more ways than just funding.

It’s time to get excited about this one!

“There is, unfortunately, no better time to raise money than when you are shooting a film. When a film is in production, there’s magic in the air. You can feel the energy. It’s the “crack-high”.” – Tom Malloy, Bankroll

First of all, I want to thank again our four cash backers that really made the shoot possible. They get executive producer credits for their support. The shoot could go ahead thanks to Dapo Osinaike, Jesse Gamble, Lisa Bobrowicz and Gavin ap’ Morrygan.

I posted in this blog on Saturday 13th August the need for a cash injection in order to go ahead, and by mid-week I still hadn’t moved on it, and the need was staring me right in the face. It threatened to bring everything to a grinding halt.

Somehow I needed to raise $1000 in 24hrs in addition to the longer term Kickstarter campaign, which is still in preparation and will be launched soon.

I’m not sure why I didn’t get on the fund raising bandwagon before, I think it was partly denial, partly fear (those two factors are tightly integrated), and partly a inner voice that said “wait… it’s gonna be okay”.

There’s something to be said for raising funds during production. Tom Malloy in his fantastic book Bankroll, called it “The Dangerous Approach”, and in many ways I agree.

The pre-requisites are the same as for any form of financing beforehand, you must have a killer product on your hands, you must have a large and influential network, and you must have total and utter confidence in yourself and your team.

You MUST be able to sell yourself.

In the end, YOU are the product you are selling more than your film.

I know this, because I know that in every Kickstarter campaign I have backed, I have backed the film maker, not the film.

I could write a lot about crowd-sourcing funds for a film, I think about it a lot, along with all kinds of more traditional financing avenues. I have witnessed many fantastic Kickstarter campaigns succeed, and I know what they all had in common. I know why 99 out of 100 people that want to raise funds online (I’m referring here to using Twitter as your primary networking and communication foundation) don’t stand a chance.

Most of my film maker friends that I speak to face to face in the “real” world will fail online for one reason, the reason is because I don’t know who they are in the online world. They don’t exist… okay maybe they registered for twitter at some point, but they simply don’t exist in the online arena that matters most… Twitter.

When I try to explain that they need presence… and that means 20 tweets a day, it means constant engagement with others, with influential others… growing a network, actively and strategically selling themselves (carefully and unselfishly) to everyone they come across, I get a glazed expression of confusion as if I’m speaking some foreign language.

Here’s some of my most fundamental thoughts on the matter, and they apply regardless of when or how you raise funds.

1. You should be selling yourself, not your film.

2. Selling yourself requires confidence (not arrogance).

3. Selling yourself requires doing, not just talking. Show what you’re busy with, photos, videos, blogs, utilize facebook and Google+ to showcase your work, your passion, your dedication.

4. Trust and respect is earned not deserved.

5. Building relationships takes time… months, years before you should ask anything from anyone.

6. Honesty and transparency are key.

7. Every tweet, no matter what it is, says something about you, make sure it’s painting the right picture.

8. Be respectful and encouraging to others, take a active interest in others, in their projects.

9. Give yourself away, if you have a niche area of expertise… give it away, become a resource.

10. Humility will get you far with people.

Actually (and I’m giving away a secret here), every principle you need to apply online, and really in all of your real world relationships is in a book written long before the computer or the internet. “How to Win Friends and Influence People” – Dale Carnegie. This book will change your relationships for the better online and offline. Get it. Read it. Read it again.

How to Win Friends and Influence People is one of the first bestselling self-help books ever published. Written by Dale Carnegie and first published in 1936, it has sold 15 million copies world-wide. – Wikipedia

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Originally posted on Digital Cinema Demystified

As my regular readers know, I’m busy writing up a tech series on the Red One MX, Arri Alexa, and now I’m adding the Red EPIC into the mix.

I’ve had the privilege of shooting with all three cameras over the past month and a half and I’ve certainly got my favourite now.

I also want to take the opportunity to thank Media Film Service (www.mediafilmservice.com) for the Master Primes on INSIDE, and the Ultra Primes on Murder at the Manor, as well as accessories, grips and lighting, and EPIC owner and friend Jacques Mulder of Muddville Production and Post, Dubai (www.mvdubai.com).

Alexa impressed me with it’s ridiculously easy menus and setup, and it’s latitude was a noticeable few stops greater than the Red One MX, but nothing could have prepared me for the EPIC. It certainly lives up to it’s name, and has latitude to spare even without shooting HDR.

The EPIC’s small form factor also places it in a league of it’s own compared to the other two top end digital cinema cameras. Built up, it is substantially more compact and lighter than any of it’s competitors.

I love the high data rate of the 5K Redcode, I’ve never been a fan of compression, no matter how clever it is, and although compressed, the new heavier flavours of Redcode RAW are fantastic for image detail, latitude and leave nothing else to be desired as far as I am concerned.

Post is easy, just as easy as shooting Prores 4444 straight to edit with Alexa, and a million times better as you have a 5K image and tons more image data than Prores could ever hope to provide. I can import the Redcode straight into Premiere CS5.5, drop it on the timeline, adjust the “playback resolution” dropdown to a figure acceptable to the performance of the hardware and play, what could be simpler? It’s flawless.

I’ll get into HDR a bit later, but for me, a celluloid lover, the EPIC has knocked the last nail in the coffin for 35mm acquisition.

More detailed reviews are coming, please subscribe to my blog to make sure you get them, but for now below are some frame grabs from my latest project “Murder at the Manor”, shot on the Red EPIC.

UPDATE – We actually raised $1210 in 24hrs!

A quick update that we reached our goal thanks to four amazing backers; Dapo Osinaike, Jesse Gamble, Lisa Bobrowicz and Gavin Ap’ Morrygan!

Awesome stuff!

Now let’s go make some magic!

I want to personally thank Jesse Gamble, Dapo Osinaike and Lisa Bobrowicz for responding to my call for help yesterday! They each get a Executive Producer credit on Murder at the Manor plus all the goodies that will be announced on the launch of our official kickstarter campaign.

We still need $490 to reach our $1000 goal by tomorrow, please contact me if you are able to assist in return for a valuable credit and some fun goodies.

Be a part of a great independent web series and a short film that we expect to bring in some awards!

Send me a email at: rich@sentinel-entertainment.co.za if you are able to assist us in making this happen!

The vision for Murder at the Manor, in terms of style and visual aesthetic, is more of a glossy re-interpretation of the 1930′s than a 100% re-creation. It’s glamour, gloss, wow factor.

We did fit the men this morning, but didn’t get to do full hair and styling today, you’ll have to wait until Friday to see their transformations!

You can certainly see that our leading ladies are looking the part!

Carin Bowman plays "Ceedee Pinotage"

All our girls, "Ceedee Pinotage" (top) played by Carin Bowman, "Summer" (bottom left) played by Tarryn Saunders, and "Diemie Pinotage" (bottom right) played by Pascale Neauschafer. This photo is sadly missing the wonderful lady of the manor "Shiraz" played by Delaney Carpenter who will be styled on Friday morning but will look just as fabulous!

Pascale Neuschafer plays "Diemie Pinotage"

Another shot of Pascale in the part! Watch out for this one!

Tarryn Saunders plays "Summer"

"Summer"

With our kickstarter campaign for Murder at the Manor about to launch, and the shoot in two days, I have hit a small financial hurdle. Our wardrobe is not going to be quite as free as I thought, and I need to be able to put some cash down before they will let us take the garments with us.

I have also hit a hurdle with the vintage Mercedes we intended to have on set for a few hours. The car is available but for a price.

So, because the notice is so short, and I have only a 10 – 24 hour period in which to raise about $1000 total (or half that amount at the very least… we can then get the clothes but we lose the car from the film), you have a opportunity to get an executive producer credit by committing to contribute within the next day (preferably via paypal… but if not possible, please talk to me).

Within minutes of my first post on twitter I had my first backer… which is fantastic, bringing me to $200 (GPB100) of the total goal.

So with $800 (GBP 400) please get in touch if you are able to commit in the next day to helping make this film happen. On offer are executive producer credits (we will be IMDB qualifying), and other goodies I don’t really want to reveal until the kickstarter campaign is launched this week!

Everything else is ready… from Red EPIC to lenses, to lighting to cast and crew, locations and we are rehearsed.

Please consider helping!

Email me at: rich@sentinel-entertainment.co.za

The script is written, ready and reads fantastically!

The characters are wonderfully cast, locations set and ready, wardrobe and make-up to be finalized on Monday with styling tests Wednesday, the RED Epic has landed in Cape Town and the camera and gear check is scheduled on Monday.

Crew is almost complete… pending confirmation of two of the best stylists in the country and a evasive location sound mixer. I am confident we’ll sort that out this week.

Shot lists, storyboards and schedules will be finalised.

Early Friday morning we will begin to turn the clock back 75 years on the Manor House and surrounding grounds at Diemersfontein Wine estate. Lights will be rigged, cast will be transformed into their characters, and cameras will roll.

However, all is not without hiccups.

Almost everything has been volunteered on this production but some critical cash expenses have remained.

Our vintage Mercedes 170S, to be used for three hours of shooting is a rental from a Museum, and our lenses, camera accessories, grips, and lighting equipment, while generously discounted will leave me with a invoice that must be settled.

So I’m going to turn to Kickstarter, and have begun to engineer a fun and creative fund raising campaign in which I will (have to) raise $4000 USD. So far approximately $70,000 worth of everything else has been given to this production, and $4000 is the cash amount remaining that we can’t avoid.

With five days remaining, the last thing a producer needs on his mind is cashflow… yet that’s what is on my mind.

I look forward to your support!

There’s going to be some fun perks, and even if you can’t give, I hope that you will spread the word!

Production of our pitch video is taking place this week, so stay tuned for the launch of the campaign!

I’ve wanted to write this for a while. I’m not sure if it’s overlooked in a lot of indie productions, or if there is just limited access to emotive locations without having some money.

Notice I said emotive. There are good locations, and there are emotive locations. For me, choosing the right locations is as important as casting the right actors for the lead roles. A location says an awful lot more than most give credit for… it is a character in it’s own right and surrounds everything else that you put into it.

Here’s some of mine over the past two films.

Tribeca Bakery (Daydream, 2010)

Tribeca Bakery (Daydream, 2010)

Witsands (Daydream, 2010)

Witsands (Daydream, 2010)

Tokai Arboretum (Daydream, 2010)

Abandoned Structure, Grabouw (INSIDE, 2011)

Ungraded Redcode RAW frame grab, Abandoned Structure, Grabouw (INSIDE, 2011)

Ungraded Redcode RAW frame grab (INSIDE, 2011)

Railroad Tracks, Grabouw (INSIDE, 2011)

Railroad Tracks, Grabouw (INSIDE, 2011)

Ungraded Alexa frame grab, Railroad Tracks (INSIDE, 2011)

Railroad Bridge, Grabouw (INSIDE, 2011)

Ungraded Alexa frame grab, Railroad Bridge (INSIDE, 2011)

Eikenhof Dam, MTO Forestry, Grabouw (INSIDE, 2011)

Ungraded Redcode RAW frame grab, Eikenhof Dam, MTO Forestry, Grabouw (INSIDE, 2011)

This post is being written in a whirlwind… the digital cinema revolution continues!

My short film INSIDE wraps production tomorrow night (Wed 3rd August) and has been a fantastic experience. We shot two days with the Red One MX and the final day with Arri Alexa, Master Primes on both cameras.

I’ve started the tech write-ups that I promised for the Red-MX side, but will only publish them once I can add the Alexa content alongside.

To add to the mix, my upcoming web series / short period murder mystery “Murder at the Manor” will be shot on the Red EPIC, so you’ll be hearing my thoughts on Red Digital Cinema’s new flagship camera platform as well.

I’m no Philip Bloom or Vincent LaForet, but if you want some real-life down to earth opinions and experiences from a grass roots indie production on the high-end digital cine cameras, this is a good place to keep an eye on!

This post is re-published from my other blog, Digital Cinema Demystified, make sure you subscribe to future technical posts by email or in your RSS reader. You can also get the feedburner feed here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/DigitalCinemaDemystified

My leading man Leon Laubscher in the back, my director Christo Crafford front left, and D.P. Warrick McLeod.

It’s been a week now that I’ve settled down since the first two days shooting my psychological thriller short film INSIDE. I’ve purposely avoided writing too much about it, or even thinking too much about it, as it’s really still in a somewhat pliable stage with one more shoot day to go.

I will however say a few things that stand out for me from the whole experience… things that will likely become standalone blog posts soon, and then I will continue to share my thoughts once we’ve wrapped the final shoot day.

Back to School.

I really feel like I’m in film school. I’ve never been to film school, I studied to be an engineer.

But this experience has highlighted how much I am learning, and how much I am absorbing that I will need to process for months before it is assimilated fully into my approach to future projects.

– from Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe

Last year I shot Daydream… on three 400ft cans of 35mm film with a borrowed camera. I didn’t have to sneak into the lab because I worked there… but you get the jist. I basically followed Werner Herzog’s recipe.

“Daydream” doesn’t quite flow for me yet, it’s all beginning and middle with a weak payoff at the end, but it is a good little story. I will end up re-cutting it until I am happy, and then I will tag it onto the end of INSIDE as a little extra feature. At that point it may only be 30 seconds long. I was focused on creating visuals, not directing and it shows. I was D.P. and I am proud of my shots. End of story, lessons were learned.

Daydream – Lesson 1: Don’t spread yourself too thin… don’t think you can D.P. and direct, one will suffer and you can’t afford that.

Daydream – Lesson 2: This one is subjective to me, but I learned that I can confidently handle a camera… any camera, film or digital, even a 35mm motion picture camera. Technically I understand optics, I understand the physics of light. I understand the chemistry of celluloid (and what’s going on with a digital imager)… I know what’s going on inside the camera, why and how to control it to produce the results I see in my mind’s eye. I also learned I can translate the shots I see in my mind onto film. I can choose lenses, I can pull my own focus, I can achieve a perfect exposure every time.

Yeah... it's my film, I carried a typewriter.

Those two lessons had a huge impact on how I approached INSIDE.

Firstly, I wasn’t going to do everything myself (although I was tempted… it was originally the plan). As soon as I had opportunity to bring a D.P. and a director on board, I stepped back into a producer role and let go of the technicalities to others. I knew I could shoot if I wanted to, and had nothing to prove to anyone.

I jumped at the chance to work with Christo Crafford as he is co-writing and will be directing “The Investigator”, but I don’t feel he really had the opportunity to shine… you can’t bring a director on board at the last minute who doesn’t know the story, has had no input, and no storyboard. Maybe that can be my lesson number one from this shoot. Still, his input was absolutely invaluable and I wouldn’t trade having him part of the team for anything.

My hands full... um, not.

On the shoot, I didn’t do much. I was concerned mostly with risk mitigation, time keeping and doing everything I could to make sure we’d end up with a film at the end of it all. Most of these stills are mine. I wanted to make sure my team had what they needed, I wanted to encourage and facilitate. I was a runner, I fetched lenses and ran back and forth from the car to set. I enjoyed this immensely. It was still my film, my script, my vision but I could trust professionals to do a better job than I could. I wanted them to be happy and have fun.

D.P. Warrick basking in the sun on a mid-winter's day, and director Christo.

I enjoyed seeing Warrick McCleod, my fantastically capable D.P. enjoying what he was doing. I enjoyed the shots I was seeing, and I found that what I wanted was simple, good solid cinematography… and that for the most part he could shoot off the script with no shotlist or storyboard (not an approach I would recommend normally… I will get to this on it’s own later). I am not sure how his normal experiences are, but I imagine I was pretty easy to please compared to some people he has worked with. I decided early on that I wanted his signature in the shots, so I gave it totally to him… here’s the story buddy, you’ve got a blank canvas.

Structure vs Organic Co-Creation

What happens when you have a script… and a fairly loose one at that, locations that are not the original locations envisioned in the script, no shot list (actually that’s not true, we just didn’t use it), no storyboard, and a “blind” director and D.P. brought on at the last minute?

You either have a recipe for disaster… or in our case a recipe for fantastically fluid co-creation. I loved it! and we all had fun, but this really is a very risky approach. I will not take this route again on any more demanding type of film, especially where time is more of a pressure than it was for us. Maybe we just got lucky… the small team and mutual respect for each other combined in our favour. This time, it worked.

Here’s some more photos from the shoot – http://www.flickr.com//photos/richlackey/sets/72157627256092182/show/