Capturing Reality: The Art of Documentary is a collection of videos of documentary filmmakers who talk about the craft, ethics, and other things related to making documentaries.
Errol Morris, Werner Herzog and over 30 of today’s top documentary filmmakers provide an in-depth look at non-fiction filmmaking and the steps to making a documentary. These masters of the craft reflect upon the nature of documentary as a form of storytelling and offer insight into their approach to the ‘truth.’
1. Change the title of your indie film to begin with an “A” or a number to get higher placement on iTunes.
7. Genre always makes a difference. Forget costume dramas and spoofs.
10. Financiers basically want a return on their investment. “I encourage indie producers to understand their film’s audience as much as they can. Understand what you mean when you pitch project. I want to support a film, but I care about capital and return on that capital. I just want to get my money back,” explained banker Hallren.
16. Build a fan base for an indie film before it’s even made.
24. Before an indie film gets to the marketplace, producers must know who the audience is for the film, counseled Dennis Rice, Founder of Visio’ Entertainment. “If you can’t market your film, you shouldn’t make it. If there’s no audience, you can’t get a return on investment.”
34. There is opportunity for indie producers as long as they don’t get hung up on a 35mm theatrical film release. Ira Deutchman, CEO of Emerging Pictures, explained: “With digital, we can begin to play around with release patterns.”
What I find really interesting about the list, is the emphasis on reaching the audience. From scripting to final distribution, it’s all about:
What audience am I going for?
What are they expecting?
How do I let them know this film exists?
How do I get this film in front of them?
All these become easier and overlapping when you involve social media.
I added a whole bunch of documents to the Resources page. It was formerly the “Software” page, but I expanded it to hold a bunch of really useful stuff.
The ShuttleXpress and its big brother, the Shuttle Pro, are USB peripherals designed for media applications.
The ShuttleXpress comes with a spring-loaded shuttle, a jog wheel, and 5 buttons. It’s also conveniently configured for many popular applications such as, Adobe Premiere, Final Cut, Adobe After Effects, and others. It’s also easily configurable for any application such as, Winamp and VLC.
The construction is pretty solid. The buttons have a satisfying click to them. The shuttle has nice resistance in the spring for fine controls. And the jog wheel has subtle clicks for precise tuning. The base is wide with 5 rubber feet to give it nice stability. Not that you’d be thrashing the thing around.
Using the ShuttleXpress is a breeze. It’s not meant to replace the mouse, rather, compliment it. I placed mine to the left of the keyboard. Scrubbing through long footage and navigating the timeline is fast and easy.
My one regret is not going for the Pro model. The Xpress only comes with 5 buttons while the Pro has 15. But for the price is fair.
If you do a lot of video or audio work, I would definitely recommend one.
This past Saturday, I went to the Gunks to do some outdoor climbing. The first route we did was a 5.8. This was the first time I toproped outside and was decidedly nervous.
The first part of the climb was pretty easy. But then I got to the overhang in the pic above. This was about 50ft up. I reached blindly over the edge and felt around for a good hold. I settled on a small crack, crimped, and threw my left hand up, grasping for whatever I could find. I then kicked my right foot up on the edge and pulled myself up. Afterwards, I just stood there on these tiny jibs, mentally and physically tired. My toes trembled with adrenaline. But I made it.
The rest of the climb wasn’t too difficult, but there were moments I wanted to say, “No, I can’t do it. It’s too scary, I’m too tired, it’s too high, my shoes are slipping off, I want to come down.” But I didn’t. I pushed and got to the top.
When I got back down, my ankles were still quivering from the adrenaline and the feeling was amazing.
So much of what you do is mental. Writing, getting your film made, finishing that painting, or just trying something knew. And when everything inside you is telling you, “You can’t do it”, you have to tell yourself, “No. I’m going to try.” And you may climb over the crag or you may fall, but what separates the winners from everyone else is going for it.
What do you need to go for? What steps do you need to take to make it happen?
“The only reason for using another cut is to improve the scene.”
When undecided about the exact frame to cut on, cut long rather than short.
“Splicing a few frames back onto a scene which has been lopped short makes ‘jumpy’ viewing, and a cut full of such amendments makes proper visualization difficult and perceptive judgment impossible.”
Whenever possible, cut in movement.
“Creating a ‘diversion’ of sorts … is also the principle at work in the action cut.”
The fresh is preferable to the stale.
“In art, the obvious is a sin.”
Substance first—then form.
“Technical skill counts for nothing if it is used only to manufacture films which have little to do with humanity.”
Cut for proper values rather than for proper matches.
“The film’s dramatic requirements should always take precedence over the mere aesthetics of editing.”
All scenes should begin and end with continuing action.
“Subconsciously suggest to the viewer that he is seeing a fragment of continuing life, not a staged scene with a visible framework.”
I think the best rule is this following guideline:
The best film actors act from there eyes. Use the eyes to guide your cuts. Cutting dialogue sequences is much more difficult because it’s not just cutting words: You’re cutting the emotion. You are cutting lives connecting. Attitudes, moments, emotions. And the actors have to look good; they have to be cherished and they have to be honored.
-Carol Littleton
The important thing about editing is the story. And stories are carried by characters and characters are built by emotions.
It’s pretty easy to tell good writing. You have good structure, some snappy dialogue, and some memorable scenes. It’s pretty easy to tell good directing too. But what about editing? What’s good editing?
Some people think quick edits and stuff like that is what makes editing great. But I view quick edits as more of a tool in the editor’s box.
I found the following list to be pretty helpful.
Do we understand and get involved with the story?
Do we understand and get involved with the characters?
Do we understand and get involved with the ways in which the characters and the story change as the film moves along?
Is the film told in the best possible way for its story and its characters?
The primary function of editing is to shape the story. If the plot or narrative is your structure, than your characters are what moves the plot. Both are integral to story. Editing is the final step in putting these stories together. When you put one image next to another, it’ll tell a different story depending on the image.
People are starting to realize that, when it comes to distribution, the internet changes the game.
“If you’re a business whose content is easily distributed and stolen digitally, you have to figure out ways to engage your [audience] on a deeper level — figure out how to get them to your site, offer them extras on a DVD, or benefits that are only available through purchase,” says Aaron Dignan, founding partner of Undercurrent, a new media consultancy.
If you’re going to distribute, I would say host torrents. Most of the major sites (aside from Google Video) have caps on length or file size which makes viewing kind of tough. Watching a few minutes is not a big deal, but 1.5-2 hours, I want to kind of sit back. This is not to say you shouldn’t split it up and put it out there though.
If you want to monetize the net, you need to look at something like Dr. Horrible by Joss Whedon. He didn’t take TV and cram it into the internet. He looked at internet and came up with something that fit the medium. If TV barely fits online, film will be even harder.
Whedon invested about $300k and after an initial free run on the internet, charged for it on iTunes. The free buzz that was generated piqued people’s interest. Even now, you can still find it oh Hulu.
The lesson to be learned here is that he fit the product to the medium. But what’s important, is that Whedon controls and owns all the intellectual property rights. And that’s worth a whole lot. He make soundtrack CDs, a DVD sequels, or just continue to expand the storyline. He can do whatever he wants with it.
I can already here you say, “But it’s Joss Whedon! He already has a legion of rabid fans!” Fair enough. Let’s talk about Head Trauma.
Lance Weiler took Head Trauma his film and built events around them. He had the film scored live during the showing. He had the actors engage the audience. And a whole bunch of other crazy game type stuff.
Does it take a lot of work? Was it a huge gamble? Heck yeah. But he took the existing technologies and leveraged them to make some money.
Then there’s the traditional film festival route. But even that’s drying up. At Toronto, there’s reports that Steven Soderbergh had trouble moving Che with Benicio Del Toro in the titular role. And he’s not the only one.
“Filmmakers have to take a lot more ownership of their projects,” said Cynthia Swartz, a partner in the publicity firm 42West, which represents more than a dozen films showing at Toronto. She spoke of a growing need for even the most established filmmakers to baby their works through a festival apparatus that can keep a film alive when commercial distribution is slow to materialize.
The game is changing and the good news is everyone’s trying to figure out the new rules as we go along. The key is to keep pressing on and taking those risks.
David Bordwell has an article about production shoots. The article covers 3 kinds of shooting techniques.
Shooting for Coverage
Usually, this is one camera. First, you shoot a master shot that will cover the entire scene and its geography. Then you move to medium shots, medium close (if necessary), close ups, and any other crazy angles you can think of.
This was the way I was taught, mainly because I didn’t know any better at the time. I didn’t know anything about editing, so I wanted to give myself options.
Multi-camera
This grows out of the coverage mentality. But instead of using one camera, you use several and roll them all at the same time. This essentially accomplishes the same thing as shooting coverage, it just doesn’t take up as much time. This method is generally used for TV shows and expensive one time action scenes.
Some of the problems of this technique is lighting. It forces the DP to make compromises on how to light the subjects so it’ll be easier to cut. Another problem is you now limit where you can place the camera as to not get them in other shots.
One compromise that I’ve seen people do is to combine multi-camera with shooting for coverage. You still shoot the master, but when you move to mediums and close ups, you use a mult-cam set up. You would still light it the same way, but you would also get a lot more coverage faster.
Shoot for the Cut
This is a technique that I learned about a few months ago. Usually, when you shoot coverage, you’ll shoot the entire scene over again. This gives you a lot of options in the editing room. Shooting for the cut is similar to editing in camera. Instead of shooting coverage, you just shoot the parts you need to cut together. For example, if you have a close up of just one line, instead of doing the whole scene as a close up, you would just shoot that one line.
I don’t think there’s a best way to run your shoots. Depending on your resources, each has its place. But it’s good to know the different tools that are in your box.
Mark Gill, the CEO of The Film Department and former President of Miramax Films, declared provocatively, “Yes, The Sky Really Is Falling.” Speaking at the L.A. Film Festival’s Financing Conference, he starts with the bad news.
[O]f the 5000 films submitted to Sundance each year– generally with budgets under $10 million–maybe 100 of them got a US theatrical release three years ago. And it used to be that 20 of those would make money. Now maybe five do. That’s one-tenth of one percent.
Put another way, if you decide to make a movie budgeted under $10 million on your own tomorrow, you have a 99.9% chance of failure.
He continues on to offer a harsh solution, the one that we know deep in our gut, but wish there was an easier path.
A good title should have many of the attributes that a movie needs to embody now:
*Succinct & Descriptive: the film has to lend itself to brief encapsulation. A high concept is no longer the thing that studio movies do and independent films shun. In this age of info overload, it’s crucial for every picture to have this. Without it, your odds shoot through the floor.
*Distinctive: not the same story we’ve heard five times before; something that at least takes the cliche and twists it; not something we get too much of somewhere else in our lives (Exhibit A: Iraq movies; who wants to see more of that mess? We already get too much of it every day in the news media).
*Provocative: something that cuts through the clutter, stands out, gets attention; not “So then Phoebe sat by her mother’s bedside, suffering in silence for eight weeks.” Give us incident, conflict, excitement, ideally something that hits a cultural nerve.
*Memorable: this is essentially an accumulation of the other traits, or sometimes altogether separate. It’s the avoidance of cotton candy. The possibility of resonance. Something sticky.
*Not too dark: these are very dark times, for audiences the world over. Audience enthusiasm for dark films is as low as I’ve ever seen it. There are a lot of reasons for this, of course. But the one I hear almost nobody articulating and everyone feeling is this: in the western industrialized world, wages haven’t even remotely kept up with productivity demands, and that stresses us out.
[...]
If you want to survive in this brutal climate, you’re going to have to work a lot harder, be a lot smarter, know a lot more, move a lot faster, sell a lot better, pay attention to the data, be a little nicer (ok, a lot nicer), trust your gut, read everything and never, ever give up.
It’s stark sobering news and just a little discouraging. But just like everything else, if you’re in it for the money, you’re in it for the wrong reasons. My hope is that I’ll be able to continue learning and honing my craft so I can get the budget to make something worth seeing. That may take years, but like JFK said, “We don’t do it because it’s easy, but because it’s hard.”
