From the Annals of the FBI

You have to be so careful about the movies you make:  you will become them.*  I remember one screenwriter who burned to death in one of those Malibu brush fires, and whose filmography included Fire with Fire and Third Degree Burn. Or there was the producer of grisly B-grade horror movies who was murdered, then buried in cement under his own house.

See what I mean?

Me, I’d prefer death by baseball or by codes. Having made Gandhi at the Bat, I’ll never quite get period baseball out of my system; and after The Red Machine, I suspect I’ll never totally let go of cryptography and code-breaking (and I doubt they’ll ever let go of me).

Evidence of this: I just stumbled across this FBI primer on criminal codes and ciphers:

http://www.fbi.gov/hq/lab/fsc/backissu/jan2000/olson.htm#horse%20race%20bookmaking%20codes

It may be just about the coolest thing ever.

Lately, I’ve become addicted to The Wire, the first season of which features a code similar to the ones described here.  (Personally, I think all movies should have codes.)

Anyway, also on the FBI site is this chance to test out your code-breaking skills:

http://www.fbi.gov/page2/dec08/code_122908.html

And while we’re on the subject of codes and ciphers, here’s the website of the American Cryptogram Association, which I’ve found tremendously helpful and fun:

http://www.cryptogram.org/

…and here’s their very useful page of resources:

http://www.cryptogram.org/resources.html

Yup, I’m a nerd, all right.  But it beats brush fires and murderers…

*NOTE: This is also true of cars and dogs — you will become the car you drive and the dog you walk.  Me, I have a Miata.  And three cats.  I don’t know what that means.

Fun with the Sony EX-1

Last weekend, we helped a friend on a short project, which gave us our first real-world experience with the Sony EX-1; overall, we felt that it was a good strong image coming out of the camera.   Here are a few of our other first impressions and experiences:

•Before our shoot, cinematographer Eric Adkins very generously shared some of his EX-1 tips with us; one was that if you output from the camera using the HD-SDI port, you can go through a Blackmagic HDLink box to connect to an Apple Cinema display monitor for on-set viewing.  We happened to have an HDLink and a 23-inch Cinema display, and it worked great.   At 1080, the image filled the screen completely; we were shooting at 720 because we wanted to be able to do slow motion, so the image didn’t fill the screen, but it still looked very good and gave us the ability to really evaluate what we were shooting, especially focus.

• Most prosumer cameras have lens barrels that rotate without any stops on either end, so it was nice to find that the EX-1 (in manual focus mode) performed more like a standard movie lens, allowing us to properly pull focus as needed.

• Like the Panasonic HVX200 (which we have a lot of experience with), the EX-1 has a noisy image in general, but the fact that you can shoot at -3dB gain does help that, and we tried to shoot at -3dB as often as possible.

• The camera handled overexposure well; we could go to 106% exposure and still have it look decent.  Above that, it looked like ugly video overexposure.  (Eric did caution that unless you’re doing color correction that can accommodate those extra high values, it’s likely that anything over 100% exposure will get chopped off — but we haven’t gone through post or color correction yet, so we haven’t encountered that personally.)

• Don’t leave the batteries in the camera if you’re walking away from it for more than a few minutes, because the power will slowly drain out.  (This is apparently also true with the Panasonic HVX200.)  So during lunch and certainly overnight, take the batteries off the camera.

More will follow later, as we track the footage through post-production…

QuickTime Pointers

While looking for info on downloading AJA codecs, something I needed to do to get ready for the color correction on The Red Machine (more on that soon!), I stumbled across this nifty page filled with tips on working with QuickTime:

http://www.fxguide.com/article462.html

FXGuide.com is affiliated with fxphd.com, a very cool-sounding online VFX training program; I’ve had fantasies about taking some of their courses — but no time, so for the moment, I’ve consoled myself with the bite-sized learning available at www.lynda.com, which is great.

I was recently talking to someone about learning about filmmaking technology, and I realized that aside from spending years interviewing the best in the fields of cinematography, visual effects, film editing, sound editing and mixing, I’d learned most of what I knew from www.pixelcorps.com, with Lynda.com a close second.  I’ve taken a lot of real-world classes too, some of them quite expensive, but those two online sources beat them all, and for a relatively low price.

Anyway, I thought the QuickTime info was very good.

Genachowski and Net Neutrality

The news came out today that Barack Obama has nominated Julius Genachowski to head the FCC.  I find this very promising news for indie filmmakers; Genachowski is apparently a big proponent of net neutrality, which Wikipedia explains like this:  “A neutral broadband network is one that is free of restrictions on content, sites, or platforms, on the kinds of equipment that may be attached, and on the modes of communication allowed, as well as one where communication is not unreasonably degraded by other communication streams.”

In other words, it would prevent telecommunications companies such as AT&T (recently named the “worst company in the world” by Stanley Fish), Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner from giving preferential treatment to some websites over others.

Again from the Wikipedia entry, here’s a quote from Lawrence Lessig and Robert W. McChesney: “Without net neutrality, the Internet would start to look like cable TV. A handful of massive companies would control access and distribution of content, deciding what you get to see and how much it costs. Major industries such as health care, finance, retailing and gambling would face huge tariffs for fast, secure Internet use … Most of the great innovators in the history of the Internet started out in their garages with great ideas and little capital. This is no accident. Network neutrality protections minimized control by the network owners, maximized competition and invited outsiders in to innovate. Net neutrality guaranteed a free and competitive market for Internet content.”

So Obama’s choice is, I hope, a step in a good direction for all of us still toiling in our garages.

3D or Not 3D

Today’s New York Times has an article about Hollywood’s embrace of 3D, which I found quite interesting.

I wrote two articles on 3D projects last year — one about an IMAX film called Wild Ocean (by the directors of Stomp), and the other about Journey to the Center of the Earth (which was going to be called Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D, until they realized there wouldn’t be enough 3D-equipped theaters ready to accommodate its release).  In writing about Journey in particular, I got very caught up in imagining the possibilities for the format, and I came up with one idea in particuar that I would love to try in 3D.

But by and large, I remain skeptical.  There’s still so much about the format that screams “gimmick.”  And just last Friday, I heard one very intriguing theory from an industry friend who’s very clever and thoughtful and aware of the latest technology.  He pointed out that there’s little incentive for theater owners to go to the major expense of installing digital projectors — which he felt aren’t really completely ready anyway.  But…if you tell them that they need the projectors for something that’s noticeably different, something they can’t get with their film projectors, and (most importantly) something they could conceivably charge higher ticket prices for, well, then you’ve got something.  But my friend predicted that once there are enough digital projectors out there in theaters, 3D will fade away and get replaced by standard 2D digital releases.

On the other hand, I am very excited to see what James Cameron does with the technology in Avatar…

Final Cut Pro Mini-Tips

Sometimes you want to read a 600-page manual on a software, and sometimes you don’t…

I’ve been giving people a lot of little tips about Final Cut Pro lately — those time-saving mini-techniques that we all pick up in our own particular ways, and I thought I’d write up a short list of those.

But first, I decided to go prowling around the web to see what other lists and tips were out there.  Here were a few that I found especially useful:

http://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2008/06/26/ten-tips-for-a-better-final-cut-pro-experience/

http://www.brighthub.com/multimedia/video/articles/18576.aspx

http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/freshdv/story/top_10_final_cut_pro_tips_and_tricks/

This last one is from 2004 but still has lots of good info — and Ken Stone’s site is great, one of the first places I look when I need an FCP answer:

http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/option_key_fcp_4_balis.html

Baseball in the Depression

We’ve made two movies set during the Great Depression — Gandhi at the Bat and The Red Machine — but despite having spent so much time there in my imagination, I never really wanted to actually live the experience…

The one good thing about this economic disaster is that it is sparking a lot of interesting writing about the Depression, like this New York Times article by Ken Belson, about baseball during the 1930s.  (Of course, the article plays into my solipstic delusion that anytime anyone mentions or writes about the New York Yankees or the Philadelphia Athletics of the 1930s, they’re mentioning them specifically because those teams are featured in Gandhi at the Bat.  I had the same problem when I was in Cooperstown for Gandhi at the Bat’s appearance at the Baseball Hall of Fame Film Festival: I really did think that all the photos and memorabilia for “our” players had been put out just for us, for that weekend.  I’ve been told this is not the case, however.)

The other two Depression-related books that I’m reading at the moment are Anxious Decades, a history of the period by Michael Parrish, and The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, by John Maynard Keynes.  But on the whole, I’m thinking that right about now, pulp crime novels might be a lot more fun.

Sound Advice

After a lull, better known as the Holiday Season 2008, we’re back mixing The Red Machine with the very talented Dino Herrmann.

We’d done a pass through the entire movie with Dino before the holidays took over, but now we’re polishing.  This is the first time that we’ve had the chance to work in 5.1, and it’s really a pleasure to explore it, particularly working in such a nice studio.  The one catch is that we do have to contain our giddiness a little and not have spaceships roaring over the audience’s heads every two minutes — something that could be particularly distracting because there are no spaceships in the movie.

Anyway, in keeping with our joy at being back in the world of sound, I’m posting a few resources on post-production audio.  First, very close to home, I’ve reposted something that I wrote, an overview of sound editing based on a converation with a friend who’s a long-time sound editor.

Second, I’d like to introduce you to the wonderful www.filmsound.org, which describes itself as a “Learning Space Devoted to the Art of Film Sound Design.”  Read anything by Randy Thom or Walter Murch in particular.

And finally, just for fun, here’s a link to what may be the most talked-about article I ever had a hand in.  Back when I was an editor at the Editors Guild Magazine (published by the union that represents film editors, sound editors and re-recording mixers), we would arrange conversations between people we thought might have interesting things to say to one another.  This one — a four-handed discussion between sound mixers Mike Minkler (Eagle Eye, Mamma Mia!, American Gangster) and Myron Nettinga (Kill Bill, Team America: World Police), sound editor/mixer Larry Blake (Che, Ocean’s 11, Syriana, Puffy Chair) and supervising sound editor Mark Mangini (Che, Spiderwick Chronicles) — got into some of the most contentious areas of motion picture sound, issues that still haven’t been resolved, as far as I know.  Even now, when I run into sound people, they remember this one, and I think the gentlemen offer an enlightening and very opinionated glimpse into the world of movie sound.

Maybe We Don’t Need That Blu-ray Burner, After All…

I’m starting to wonder if Blu-ray might just turn out to be one of the shortest-lived formats ever…

Way back in 2005, I visited a savvy friend who works at Paramount and is given to energetic rants, and even as early as that, he said that the winner of the HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray contest would be…neither.  The movie industry would go the way of the music industry, he predicted, with downloads taking the place of physical media.

Today’s Washington Post has an article about new LG Electronics high-definition TV sets that will be able to stream Netflix videos directly from the Internet, without an additional device.

At the moment, Netflix streaming movies can be viewed on Windows-based computers, and they can be watched on TV’s via a Microsoft Xbox 360 video game console, a TiVo recorder or one of LG or Samsung’s Blu-ray DVD players that are compatible with the Netflix streaming service.

You can also watch Netflix movies instantly on a TV using the the $100 Roku box.  We’ve had a Roku box since June, and while the choice of movies can be somewhat limited (though improving), it’s really quite thrilling to think of a movie, then thirty or so seconds later, have it playing.  Very Jetsons, in the best possible way.

Meanwhile, over at the NY Times, there’s yet another article, pessimistically entitled “Blu-ray’s Fuzzy Future,” in which Reed Hastings, the chief executive of Netflix, claims that “the window of opportunity for DVD and Blu-ray discs is longer than most people think. But it’s not going to last forever.”  The article continues:

There are 1,092 discs available in Blu-ray format, mostly new movies like “The Dark Knight” and “Wall-E.” Apple’s iTunes Store introduced high-definition movies a year ago and already has 600 titles available to rent or download. A similar Internet-connected box, Vudu, can access about 1,400 high-definition films.

“When Vudu popped up and had more high-definition movies than Blu-ray, it was a warning sign,” said Rob Enderle, president of the Enderle Group, which advises technology companies like Microsoft and Toshiba. “I think Blu-ray can sustain itself as a transition technology, but, at the end of the day, I don’t think it will ever replace the DVD.”

But what does that mean for the Nerd Filmmaker?  The Red Machine, like everything we write and love, is about/by/for nerds, so I’ve always felt that its distribution should cater to that crowd — early adopters, gearheads, people who feel there could never be enough digital devices in the world.

For this movie, we are still planning to do a Blu-ray version; but I think it unlikely that will be the form in which most people see it.  And for future projects — I have my doubts that Blu-ray will be the dominant medium of distribution.

And apparently, I’m not the only one coming to this conclusion.  In Scott Macaulay’s blog at Filmmaker Magazine, he responds to an article by Michael Glitz at the Huffington Post, in which Glitz enumerates all the reasons why he thinks we should all be buying Blu-ray players.  Macaulay admits to being “perplexed” by the article — but even more compelling is his survey of the comments other people made in reaction to Glitz’s article.  Those, says Macaulay, ran about two-to-one against Blu-ray — and largely in favor of downloaded media instead.

Dialects

Although I started this blog mainly to create a resource for filmmakers, it’s hard for me to keep other passions from creeping in…like yesterday, Donald Westlake.  And today…

Lately I’ve been playing a lot with languages (mainly French and Arabic, at the moment), and that’s led me into dialects.  The coolest resource that I’ve found is the International Dialects of English Archive, which is a brilliant collection of recordings from all over the world:

http://web.ku.edu/idea/

The speakers read two standard written texts, and also sometimes just talk about themselves.

The founder and director of the archive, Paul Meier, also has a nice list of acting and dialect-related resources here:

http://www.paulmeier.com/links.html

Very cool!