Physical vs Digital Ownership

John August's terrific blog has had several posts the last couple weeks discussing the move from physical to digital media.

My biggest concern with the inevitable migration to rentals and downloads is the poor user experience currently available with the various streaming methods and downloads.  I love extras.  I like commentaries.  Listening to Steven Soderbergh and Lem Dobbs talk about The Limey; David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin on The Social Network.  Kevin Smith and his gang are often funnier than the underlying movie.  I like the behind-the-scenes footage and documentaries.  What happens to the 20+ hours of extra footage on the Lord of the Rings boxset when you are just streaming them on Netflix?

Even more minor - I like chapter stops.  Watching a 30 Rock marathon is a lot less annoying when you can hit a button to skip the credit sequence.  As far as I'm aware none of the existing streaming services offer anything beyond Start, Pause and FF.

There are certainly technical ways the offering could be improved - it would be trivial to emulate a dvd .iso file within the download framework.  I can see how streaming may be more difficult, but I'm sure some smart people could figure it out.  I'd even be happy if most of the standard dvd content migrated to websites although there is no substitute for watching on the large screen tv.

The bigger problem is that someone has to pay for all that extra content, and I have a bad feeling that if the studios can get away with Not offering it, they will opt not to.  How much extra would it cost to buy an "enhanced" movie on iTunes with three commentaries and a documentary?  Would they even convince the filmmakers to do them? 

For me the addition of extras to DVD was a revelation better than the enhanced quality.  I learned more from Robert Rodriguez' "10 Minute Film School" snippets than half a dozen books.  If the future of online media means all that disappears I'm going to be very disappointed.

New Projects! Other things!

It's been another awhile, but we are about to work on the 48 Hour Film Festival project in Atlanta.

We'll post more updates as the project gets worked on, and we're VERY excited.

PostProduction

I know it's been a while since I put up anything new, but that is mostly because there hasn't been much to say.
After I put together the initial rough cut we decided that we needed a couple more shots to tell the story.  That meant finding a time with all five of the principal actors and our DP and 1st AC that would work.  We ended up shooting on 7/24 and did three scenes.  The footage looks terrific, especially considering we didn't rent any lights or other equipment for the pickup day.

We did a brand new ending and got a lot of new footage in the motel room.  That scene just wasn't working before and now I think it does splendidly.

We did dialogue recording in a studio with everyone on the 25th and have been incorporating that into the edit as well.  Our sound mixer just got back from his world tour and is starting on his work in earnest.

We are still aiming to be done by early September for the Sundance deadline and just might make it.

Go Go Post Production!

So our 4 day shoot went really well and the raw footage looks fantastic.  I've spent a week doing a preliminary rough edit and it's looking pretty good.  I'm still worried the whole filmstrip gimmick will come across but I think it works so far.

Now we need to go through scheduling hell for a half day of additional photography and then get the actors in for audio recording.

People have been uploading a ton of photos various places that I'm not going to repost on this site because that's just a big waste of time.

Tim Daust's Facebook Photo album: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1063002477&ref=pymk#!/photos.php?id=747435415

John Paul's photo blog: http://jpmarston.com/news/

First Day of Shooting!

Well, first day of shooting is completed.  I did not know it was possible to be so sore just from standing around telling people what to do for 12 hours.  In what I'm sure is a totally unrelated coincidence all of the crew guys were skinny...perhaps I should look into that.

I think the footage we got is fantastic - the lighting is dark and hard and moody just like I envisioned.  The actors nailed their parts. 

We started in the room of a seedy motel and our crew had to build a huge cave in order to block out the sun going into the windows but still leave room to put our own lights there. 

We ended up tearing apart both rooms we rented in order to switch beds and then use all the linens to help block light. The other room was for staging, but it wasn't exactly a relaxing environment either.

Inside the room it was hot and steamy and had too many people, but we got into a rhythm pretty quickly and ended up doing 21 setups in about 4 hours.










From there we moved to the convenience store and started getting exteriors.  Our contact there Josh was awesome - he kept the place open for us to go inside and cool off as well as buy much needed drinks and supplies.  He even got into one of the shots as an extra.

The crew again was super fast, laying out dolly track and lighting both inside and outside the store in short order and we started making up some of the time we lost earlier in the day.  We ended up two hours over, but we did get all our shots.  I guess it's also not a real film shoot unless the police show up, but Josh was able to convince him we had the owner's permission and I had an email from a city employee saying that as long as we were not interfering with the public we didn't need a permit.  The email actually said "It is my understanding you don't need a permit" but fortunately he didn't make me show it to him.

I'm still trying to figure out a decent way to link to facebook albums (stupid facebook), but here are some pics from set taken by out lead actor: http://www.facebook.com/#!/album.php?aid=2063690&id=1327537405  and our Hair and Makeup person: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=lf#!/album.php?aid=174012&id=720763699.

This week is more prep, finalizing a restaurant location and then the marathon 3 days of shooting over the weekend.

Some Preliminary FX Stuff

With just over a week to go before shooting we're almost there.  Still lots of things to take care of but it's achievable.

I just got these videos in from Tim our FX guru and wanted to post them since they look pretty cool.  These will be combined with greenscreen work putting actors and props into the alley.

1st 3D Test                                                            3D Test w/ Movement

Alley Test - new alley                                             Test 4

Quick Crew update

We've got our Assistant Camera and Gaffer secured for the entire shoot.  Having continuity among the camera and electric leads ought to be very beneficial to the project.  We have queries out for some grips and assistant gaffers that should be locked down soon.  I need to start gathering PA's and other enthusiastic but inexperienced volunteers because we're pretty much out of budget for any paid positions.  However, we believe that as long as our department heads know what they're doing we'll be just fine.

Still on the list - we need a script supervisor and I'd very much like to get someone that knows about film make-up and hair.  Our FX Supervisor will also be looking for a helper with his on set work.  Wardrobe is starting to come together as are the props and set decoration.  The goal is to knock all that off our list by the end of next weekend so that final week will be putting out the unanticipated fires.