Making movies - Freelance work

Here's an interesting thing about freelance work in art. A lot of the time you work alone. Hell, MOST of the time you work alone. The meetings, consultations and all that jazz take up only a small percentage of your time, its the actual production, where you roll up your sleeves and get things done where you spend the bulk of your time.

Here's an example. Take my upcoming job editing "The Fence" a short film a friend is producing. I will no doubt spend about 40 hours in the editing suite getting this done. The first 5 will just be organisational. They're shooting RED so I'm sure they will have overshot the hell out of everything. So I'll have to go through and pick out the usable takes, get rid of slates and end cuts.

The time actually working with the director and producer on this project will be quite minimal, until we get to the end of the edit. After that we will be living together for the next 30 hours or so hammering out the little details. Which take should we use to show the little boy's reaction. How many frames should we sit on that reaction before the cut. Which direction do we grade...etc etc.?

Happily I'm working with a team of editors during this project. We are all regular FCP users who are simultaneously learning Avid and have decided to work together to help each other grow as editors. This should be a fun, yet frustrating experience.

Another project I'm doing for the fence is creating a children's book as a prop. I sat down with the director, over the course of a few meetings, for about an hour, hashing out ideas. Now that we know what we want, I have to create it, which involves actually painting in the studio for several hours creating this book, then bringing that work into the computer digitally, fixing it up and sending, adding the text and creating a version for the print shop to produce the final product for us.

Working alone can have serious pitfalls that can slow down or even stop your workflow in its tracks. You need to have constant communication with your client. Missed communication can mean spending hours on an idea they didn't necessarily want, or is fundamentally flawed over some small detail. Sometimes this is just the product of the creative mind expanding on an already great idea. Other times it is a simple misunderstanding of the facts.

Lack of communication can mean waiting for important details that will allow you to move forward. Downtime is expensive. It can also mean not being privy to changes in a project. Often the off site supplier is forgotten in the decision making process when they can provide valuable information that may sway a decision one way or another.

Freelance work is a great way to earn a buck. You need to be disciplined, smart and open to alot of new ideas. The key creating a good working relationship with your clients, especially if much of your work will be off site and solo, is to keep the channels of communication open. Having those channels closed can be time consuming and costly.

48 Hour Film Fest

Four friends and I entered the 48 hour film fest. We showed up Friday night, paid the $50 and got our package. We picked a genre out of a hat. Time travel. Cool. Then they announced the other elements we had to include:

Prop - A piece of chalk
Character - Stephanie or Steve Palmer, a chef
Line - Something's not right

We left the theater at about 730 and went to Maccers to hash out an idea (Maccers is australian for McDonald's) Several ideas went around the table. Going into the future to find out what people will order before they do, going into the past to take credit for creating the world's best dishes, a bucket of chicken that lets you travel through time...

We settled on not too distant future where all the world's chickens are destroyed by avian flu, and a mad scientist who just wants an omlette.

We shot near the school in Redfern. Think forest lawn but with crazy people, drunks and assholes wandering around everwhere drunk. While shooting on one corner we had to stop because a screaming match broke out between a guy on one side of the street, and the butcher on the other side. After that we had to stop because a small aboriginal man decided we had "killed all the indians and were stealing from the abo's"

So I made an executive decision to move to our shot inside the nearby store. We grabbed the gear and moved inside. Buddy then stood outside and screamed at us through the windows. Sweet.

We got our shots and moved outside again. This time a car screeched to a stop so the passenger could lean out and yell "You're the ugliest mother fuckers I've ever seen" This coming from a toothless fat man.

Tired of this we moved up the street to get another shot. About 10 mins in a carload of tradies from the nearby construction site drove by and screamed "You fucking faggots" and spit at us. SPIT at us. FFS. Who spits on people. We wrapped after that.

We ended up getting the movie edited in the car on the way to the drop off point. We arrived just in time to drop off the film and headed home. We watched it complete for the first time at Maccers on the way home. It's not too bad. I'll post it up here soon.

The Diary of A Film School Student

When you read about writing, the one common thread you'll see is how much work it is. Its a labour of love. You have to write. Then rewrite, and review and rewrite. The problem with screenplays is once you understand the format, how little you can actually put into your story.

A screenplay is a blue print. Its an outline. What you write is what can be seen on the screen. You can't write what someone is thinking, unless you plan on showing it somehow, a voice over, a flash back. Something.

I recently started writing a story based on a photo from a newspaper I'd picked out. It was part of a writing exercize for a class. So I wrote and wrote and got a story I was happy with and presented it to the teacher. He liked it. Said so. Had me read it out in class. Then he decided that what I wrote wasn't fiscally feasible for a student film (one of the guidelines of the project) so I rewrote the setting to fit an aussie landscape. Presented that. Well recieved.

So I show up to class on Tuesday and we had classmates read our scripts outloud, different people playing different parts, the author reading the big print. (the actions, the scene info etc) Suddenly, my script sucks. They can't "relate to the characters". There's nothing that "grabs" them. FFS!!

So now I'm rewriting it again so that it grabs people. Hey...have you ever thought of going to film school? really? Be prepared for the occasional kick in the nuts.

It's worth it .

What I learned from Taxi Driver

Film festival is this week. A chance to show all our hard work to the waiting world! As you can imagine, it's a stressful week. There is a lot of pressure on first time directors, producers editors and sound people to put their best foot forward and represent not just our own work but the work of the camera crew, production designers etc etc.

It's been a mad dash to the finish for us. Getting final cuts, last minute changes, music selection, sound mix, colour grading, exporting to a file the festival needs, transferring data to the festival organizers, writing up synopses-es and statements from directors. It's all stressful and time consuming.

Tonight I sat around and listened to some students discuss the merits of two digital camera... Red and the new Arriflex, duscussing lattitude and other equally exciting technical aspects of the new digital realm debating which on they'd rather the scho should by for them to use next term. For three guys who have never shot a real film in their lives, nor put their hands on either camera, they spoke with the confidence and expertise of grizzled hollywood veterans.

So a couple of us went out to see Taxi Driver at 7 over at the Danby Theater in Newtown. It's this little boutique style theater in a trendy neighborhood frequented by students and lesbians. Mmm, lesbians... I digress, um, right, Taxi Driver. Brillant film. Put boylth scorsece and dinero on the map. The film was shot in 76. At the time Eastman Kodak ws supplying fairly shitty 35 mm film. Taxi driver is grainy as hell, and typical of many 70s flicks, it the colour isn't perfect. In darker scenes the black is too black. The contrast is too high in spots. In others they desaturated the film to take the red out if the blood so they could get an r18 rating.

Given all that, it's still a great movie. Sit and talk about lattitude and resolution all you want, fact is, you can make a great movie with grainy film. No one in the audience gives a shit if you've memorized a bunch of spec sheets.

Halfway through the movie it stopped, froze, then restarted... Out of sync. The projectionist stopped it, took us back to the place it freaked out at and hit play. Life goes on. It will be the same at our student festival. Glitches will happen. Things will have been missed. Life will go on.

I'm glad I went to see Taxi Driver tonight. Ive learned so much!

Bollywood BABY!!

So my friend Sam calls me the other day. I'd just stepped into the shower, but answered the phone anyway. Why do I do that? So there I am dripping on the carpet telling him that I just got back from shooting a doco 5 mins before. He asked how tired I am, I say am fine, whats up? You wanna be the focus puller on a Bollywood movie in Strathfield?

Well where the fuck is Strathfield I ask, not that it matters, I'm going to say yes.

I dunno, says Sam, you can take a train though, its in the city.

Yeah ok, what are the details?

You need a focus pulling kit.

Shit, I don't have one, nevermind, I'll call around or pick up the gear I need....Uh, whats the directors name?

Guy's name is Shane, give him a shout. I'll be joining tomorrow I just happen to be out of town.

Shibby.

So I call the guy, get the details and grab my shower. FINALLY a hot shower. I call around and I can't get the stuff I need so I hit a hardware store for a tape and get some markers and gaffer tape from a new agency (Magazine shop back home) and hit the train.

I show up about 2 hours after I got the call. Oh hi Luke. Hi Shane. We're just setting up. Sweet.

Theres a massive gaffer truck outside with a HUGE generator. They type you tow. The gaffer is the dude that does all the lighting. This guy's got tons of it. The house is brand new and huge. And spotless. Almost no furniture. Inside I meet who I think is the producer, Stanley. Really nice guy. I speak with the gaffers, they're cool. Some dude named Nate was there, he runs his own production company, just starting out, hoping to get some work with Stanley in the future.

Suddenly people show up everywhere. All these old indian folks. Apparently we're shooting a party scene. So we take some measurements and start to film. The thing is, Shane isn't the director, Stanley is, but he's not really directing, he's kind of producing. And theres no AD. So no one is running the show. So Shane is sort of running the show. We film a few scenes of this STUNNING girl coming down stairs to announce the start of the party. Then we film some mingling, a close up of the girl again, then a guy coming down the stairs.

Suddenly, everyone is gone. Like that. (Picture me snapping my fingers) Like that. (Good) Now, for some reason, the people who own the house have a stage build in front of a window in the front room. What we find out is that there will be three dancing girls on this stage doing a routine. Traditional indian dancing, but kind of modernized and super sexy. The girls show up and they are gorgeous. Drop dead gorgeous. The only problem is, no one rehersed their routine with the stage.

We set up to shoot while the choreographer goes through the motions. 3 hours later, listening to the same shitty indian pop song watching these girls do the same three things over and over and all of a sudden they just decide to leave. Bang. Gone. We're standing their with this set up ready to go.

I'll shorten the next days story. about 2 hours set dressing, they decide to go back to the way we had it the night before. 2 or 3 hours standing around while they reherse. We finally get the shots. Then they reherse the stair part. Candles everywhere, one girl dragging this veil down the stairs, she alost lights herself up as the veil goes through a candle. About 9 my buddies leave. At 11 I left to make sure I can catch the last traing.

The next day I hear that just after I left there was a huge blowout. The producers husband ( oh, Stanely's not the producer, this lady that's been hanging out and is really annoying is the producer, she's a doctor and finanacing the whole thing. First movie, knows nothing about making movies juest always wanted to make one.) ...anyway the producers husband comes out, tells everyone to fuck off and get the hell out of his house. Apparently an entire day of listening to the same shitty Indian pop song (its actually pretty good if you're into pop) has a negative effect on the aged.

At the end of the day (2days) I made 200 bucks ($40 of which i spent on supplies) and I haven't been paid yet.

The diary of a film school student - Cinematography

"What'd you do this weekend?" she asked me.

"Well, I put rails on the ground then pushed a guy with a camera down the rails on a little wagon called a dolly."

"Why'd you do that?"  I can smell half a carton of Camels, or whatever they smoke here, on her breath. Its nice.

"Well, so we could get the shot we wanted."

"Why didn't your mate just carry the camera across?"

I'm feeling quite patient tonight...

"Well, cause your footsteps make the camera sort of bounce on your shoulder, so we make like, tracks sort of, and then it moves smoothly"

"Yeah well, maybe your camera guy should practice. Sounds like a waste of time to me."

I guess that's what you get for drinking at the local bar on a Sunday night. Not that I was out drinking on a Sunday night. I went out for a beer down the street to get out of the house for an hour after spending about 5 hours struggling with a POS computer that doesn't like it's new 3D program.

This weekend was actually pretty damn cool. Spent Saturday working indoors on a set setting up camera arrangements, and light readings. You ever notice those little numbers on an SLR camera lense. 1.4, 2, 2.8, 4, 5.6 and so on? Those control the aperature. Each number is a stop. That means that if you move from 2 to 2.8 you've gone 1 stop, and you've just cut the amount of light getting into the camera in half. You knew that though.

Here's something you might not know. Film only sees about 7 stops. So if you're looking at something kinda grey, you can go 3 stops in either direction before that grey thing looks pure white or pure black. Thats what those little light meters photographers use are for. To figure out if what you're taking a picture of is going to turn out.

The next day we went outside. Shooting with film outdoors can be a nightmare. A cloud can turn half your picture into shadows. Clouds come from no where. Clouds don't care what we're doing down here. Oh, and here's something else. The sun...it moves. So, that great reflection you got at 1, its no longer there by two. Which sucks because your focus puller needed to take measurements, so did your DOP, and the actor wasn't quite getting it, and for some reason the camera guy couldn't see through the eyepeice, turns out it was simply the shutter position, and  it took about 40 mins to get set up. Oh and the guy in the corner, now he's so far in the shade that he's completely dark in this aperature. Damn.

But the cool thing is learning from people that actually do this for a living. People that have seen the pitfalls, know what's going to go wrong, and think of things you haven't thought of. Even cooler, is they don't tell you, they let you flop, and figure out where you went wrong.

All in all a very good weekend.
Oh, the chick from the bar thinks I'm pretty stupid. I told her I'm American.

Diary of a Film School Student - Producing a Short film

I've been having brutal insomnia. I don't know why. Had a long day yesterday, went for a run with the girl next door, should have slept like a drunk baby. Ended up watching Mork and Mindy, the Dukes of Hazard and The Love Boat reruns till almost 5am.  Slept through 'an audition' which isn't a big deal because I'm not an actor and they had just asked if I wanted to try to fill in for a single scene in a student production. One of the guys is really pissed but to be honest I'm not here to make friends and I really don't care. Wow, thats callous! Ok I do care a little but really....

Had a meeting with my mentor today for my Producer's role. I thought I had everything together. Nope. Need to find a make up person, figure out catering and lock down my locations. I need to get my DoP to figure out our film stock, book the gear and get her crew together to practice. Need to get my Director and Production Designer talking. Need to get crew agreements signed. Need to decide on the cast so I have to book the applicants and then book a room and the film gear to do screen tests. It never ends. I don't think producing is for me. Maybe I should have gone to that audition. Hm.

So after the meeting I booked another meeting with my department heads for Friday and spent the next hour making notes about everything I need to do. Then I sat and chatted with a director from one of the other productions. I actually didn't think I'd like her (because I generally dislike everyone at first) but she turned out to be very cool and easy to get along with.

Fortunately I have a really good camera crew, for students anyway. They know their way around the camera and are excited about using it. My DoP is trying to figure stuff out already without being told so thats cool too. My Director and 1AD are a couple which is nice because they're both heavily invested.  My 1AD is also one of 2 people in the school who seems to want to actually do that when he's done.

Well, 19 days to go....we'll see what happens next.

Handling Swedish Bi-Curiousity at an Advanced age

When you go back to school in your mid 30s, things are definately different. I can't drink until 4 am and get up at 8 and go to class anymore. I didn't before but I COULD if I wanted to. But I slept in usually.

Another thing I've noticed is that I don't relate well to younger people. Right now I'm acting as producer for a short film. I'm the oldest person in my group by far. On other guy just turned 30 I think. My entire camera crew is 20 and under. One of them asked me the other day what I thought I'd do after film school. I said "Make movies". She said "Oh really? I thought I might go back to school and figure out what I want to do." Really.

Some of the people in my class were born after the first couple of seasons of Sienfeld. They never saw the Smurfs on Saturday mornings. Not even the later episodes when they were holding on for dear life and introduced smurflings and a stupid prince. Some of these kids were born AFTER Appetite for Destruction came out. Most were in the cradle when Smells like Teen Spirit hit the charts.

The other night I went out with these girls I know from school. Notorious party animals, but really good at the stuff we're learning. I get to the bar, which has $4 drinks all night,  and I can't find them because we're on 2 different levels. They finally find me and 2 of them are hammered. They go off to dance and I hit the bar with the 3rd. We get our drinks and look for the girls. They're on a couch making out next to the stage. I laugh and say, hey, your room mates are getting busy over there. So she just laughs and we head over. I figured they'd stop when we got there. Nope. The third one just joined right in.

So I'm sitting on a couch with three 20 year old swedish girls who are all making out. One ends up halfusitting on my lap for a while. Guys in the club are looking at me like I'm Hef. So they break it up for a while and this dude buys me a drink. He says, "I don't know which one's your girlfriend, but that's awsome mate!!" I just smiled. Later one of them would tell me I was the coolest 35 year old she knew. That made me feel good.... She then told me that if she was older, like 25 or something, she'd totally try to pick me up.

We get tired of the crazy loud techno/house/rap/dance/electronic 'music' we're being subjected to (to be honest I kinda liked it) and head to an Irish place called Scruffy Murphy's. I get wanded before I go in and have to pay cover. I hate paying cover. Most places don't charge here.

Now this place is weird, to get in you have to go through one door, up stairs, across the length of the bar, then back down stairs where there's another set of doors your only allowed to leave through. One of the girls decides she's too drunk about half way through. Right out of the blue. I go get her some water and she's just about comatose when I get back. Some dude was trying to pick her up. Then he acted like I'm an asshole when I told him to shove off. Oh, and her friends have ditched her. So I threw her in a cab. She invited me back to her place, but the shade of green she's turning tells me that that isn't a good idea. (Find out the next night she got kicked out of the cab for redecorating the back seat in a nice shade of sea food).

So, yeah, thats what I'm dealing with. How was your weekend?

The guy who won the oscar

So the guy who produced "The King's Speech" won an Oscar for best producer. He's on the board of directors and was into the school the other day. He didn't bring the Oscar. Dumb ass...

Anway, I got my picture take with him. It's actually a group shot. I'm kind of behind him. I've never seen the picture actually. But I remember it being taken. Because I was there.

The next time I saw him was on TV. He was meeting the Prime Minister and showing her the Oscar. He remembered to bring it there. I wonder if he'll even vote for her at the next election that's coming up.

So, in honour of that here are some fun facts about the Oscars. I'll put the answers at the bottom. I have to give credit to a guy from school who was posting some of these on face book and inspired me to steal. Thanks Robert.

1.Guess who won the most Oscars.
2. First woman to win Best Director
3. Most awards won by a single film
4. First African to win an acting award
5. First black actress to win for acting in a lead role
6. Most nominated living person
7. First X-rated film to win for Best Picture


Ok, i'm getting tired of this. Go look at the answers then pop some popcorn.

Emile Sherman Showing His Oscar to The PM of Aus.

Answers to Luke's awsome Oscar quiz. If you used Google you cheated. Bastard.

1.Walt Disney won 26 Oscars (22 competitive, 4 honorary). He also won the most Oscars in one year, with four. But c'mon, the guy was puting out 4 or 5 movies a year towards the end.
2. Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker (2009)

3. Three films won 11 Academy Awards. They are:

• Ben-Hur (1959)
• Titanic (1997)
• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

4.  Charlize Theron (from South Africa) won Best Actress for Monster (2003).
5.  Halle Berry won Best Actress for Monster's Ball (2001) 
      If some african had been in  Monsters Inc. they would have been a shoe in for best actress
6.  Film composer John Williams with 45 nominations. You can thank him for the Star Wars music   
     (somewhere a geek just got a chubby)
7.  Midnight Cowboy (1969). It was also the first X-rated film to be nominated for Best Picture.

Things I'm Learning At Film School

Well, the first thing I've learned is I'm almost always wrong. Which is a huge pain in the ass cause I'm used to being almost always right. Like clockwork. Hmmm.

Today I described music as ominous but the instructor said it was more unhappy. Damn
Then I said that I liked the way they used depth of field to create distance in their shots. He then explained that depth of field was how a camera's focus worked and that I was somehow mistaken on what I said. Hmmm.
I'm getting tired of being wrong, it doesn't sit well with me.

Also, film making is hard. We did a photo essay the other day. My partner and I, another Luke, did a spoof of a speghetti western called "Fist full of soda". Had to tell a story about 2 people in 10 shots with a 35 mm film camera using 100asa. We story boarded, scouted a location, bought props, and costumes, changed the aspect ratio of the shots to 9:16, downloaded sounds, recorded sounds, timed everything to go with the photos. HUGE pain in the ass the whole thing. But alot of fun. And it turned out pretty well. People apreciate hard work I think. Who knew?

Here's another thing I learned. Check your batteries. We went out to do a shoot the other day, I wasn't the director this time, just an actor filling in for some friends, and their batteries died on the 3rd shot. We have to go back out Wednesday.

Another thing to note. You're on your own. People will help you, but you gotta ask. No one reminds you of deadlines. There's no one to blame for anything but yourself if shit goes bad. You forget your film...no one cares, at the end of the day you don't have a picture. Next. You forget to check your lighting and your film doesn't develop right? That sucks, but hey, that guy has his shit together. Next.

However, people are willing to help. People are very enthusiastic actually. Everyone wants to be involved. There are tons of actors willing to be in a film for free just to have some experience. There are tons of people willing to help out on a slim to none budget in the hopes that, hey, one day you might make it and need a sound guy, or DOP or whatever. Its a pretty cool industry all together.

Anyway, pitching a documentary and producing a 2 min script tomorrow. Should go home and sleep. Good night world!