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Posts Tagged ‘Film’

Where’s The Fun?

Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010

It’s been a long time since I felt a twinge of excitement at the prospect of watching tv, but tomorrow night sees the UK first showing of season 4 of The Big Bang Theory – a new-found favourite of mine – and Friday is the UK premier of The Walking Dead, which could be the best show of the decade, if you’re into zombies. Most of my friends who would be interested in these shows have already seen them, having watched low-quality versions from the torrents/newsgroups/bloke-down-the-pub. I prefer to wait though, as the anticipation is part of the experience; I want maximum value from these broadcasts.

It’s got me thinking, though, about the perceived value of entertainment media, and how the work of teams of talented people, over a year or more, is now considered disposable when viewed in the context of the torrent of freebies available online.

Maybe the answer is in finding a way to monetise the experience surrounding the product, rather than the product itself, but that leads me to think that the only money is in the medium – the technology – and not in the message. The message used to be everything; now it’s the added value. As an amateur writer/filmmaker/musician, it pisses me off, as it makes me think there’s no point trying to build a career out of what I love; I have to accept a conventional day job – either working for myself or a company – and relegate my other endeavours to hobbies. I’m not at that point yet, but like I said, it’s on my mind.

Today, I was asked to shoot some video for youtube, and not wanting to do a half-assed job, I offered to record some music for the soundtrack too. I love this kind of project – pure creativity, and zero business. It’ll be fun, and nothing more than that, so I’m in. I am concerned about the devaluing of creative media, and its implications for me, but maybe the bigger question should be, ignoring the wider business world for a second, what do I want my creative life to be? And this video project, right now, is it.

 

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Posted in Music, Opinion, Video, Writing | No Comments »

Conflict in the Comfort Zone

Thursday, September 30th, 2010

I’m conflicted.

A couple of weeks back, I started wondering if I should start submitting Make a Move to publishers again. It was never my intention to stop; I decided to put the book out myself to have some fun while waiting for responses, but the process has taken so much of my time that the submissions have fallen by the way. Then a couple of people independently asked about my submission status, and that confirmed that I needed to give it more brain time.

The problem is, I like where I am right now. Not in a “indie ’till I die!” kind of way, but I like the creative freedom that I have. I’m not a writer who worships the process; writing has always been hard for me, and I have to force myself in front of the computer most days. What I do love is how the stories and characters make me feel – how they make my readers feel. I love ideas – how they collide and coalesce into something amazing. Books let me capture these experiences and share them, but they’re not the only way.

Right now, I’m working on a script for an indie film – nothing major, just a 10-minute short – that features a band. I’m also writing/playing/recording the music for the soundtrack. Thinking about the roll-call of musicians in the fictional band, I realised that the soundtrack would need to feature the instruments they play (I have a keyboard player, there need to be keys/synths in the music). The reverse is also true; I can’t have characters playing instruments that I (or the multi-talented @theanonwonder and @jooleemarie) can’t play, as we wanted to do the music ourselves, without bringing anyone else in. I love that relationship between the reality of the music and the fiction of the film – it gives me the restrictions I need to produce my best written and musical work. The situation transcends story.

I love working this way. I fires me up. I have the best job in the world. I’m just not getting paid for it…

But would an advance on Make a Move change anything? I’d be contractually compelled to write the second season of the book, instead of being able to rely on the understanding of my readers while I get the film done. And I’d have more money, but not enough to give up my day job, which I like. I’d have print distribution, which would get my books out to more readers, but unless the goal is financial reward, more readers isn’t a goal in itself. Sales of the book are far from stellar, but I know the best way to drive more sales is to get the second book written and published, which I can currently do at my own pace.

I think the main reason I still want a book deal is that I love the publishing industry. Yes, I said it. Even though I find their output largely unreadable, and I’ve often said bad things about the way they operate and the mistakes they’re (in my opinion) still making, I love the concept of the institution of publishing. I guess it’s the same way people still see a need for the royal family; they’re a flawed institution, but they’re important just because they are. And as I love publishing, I feel like I should play my part in the big machine, even if I’m not convinced it’s the best path for my career as a writer, or for Make a Move.

Like I said, I’m conflicted.

 

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Posted in Music, Opinion, Submissions, Writing | 2 Comments »

5 Tricks I Learned About Doing Video on the Cheap

Sunday, May 16th, 2010

I’m back from holiday, and back in front of the computer.

While I was away, two friends have been working on the video and audio for an author interview we recorded a couple of weeks back. They’re in the final stages of editing, polishing and bleeping out the swearing, and the video will be online before the end of the month, so now seems a good time to share what we learned. This was our first “proper” video (as in, something more involved than an amateur wedding video) and we learned by doing. The budget extended only as far as food and beer, so renting a camera and basic lighting wasn’t an option (despite my techno-fetishistic nature trying to tell me otherwise). That left us with one main camera (recording DV to tape), two extra cameras (recording compressed MPEG2 to hard disk or flash ram), a condensor mic (recording via an audio interface to a laptop), and whatever lighting our chosen location provided.

We decided to film at Travelling Man in Manchester, after hours, for three reasons: space, the visual appeal of walls of comics as a backdrop, and lighting. We turned up as the shop was closing on a Friday, unpacked the gear, and then tried to work out what the hell we were doing.

Thing is, with modern digital editing, you can make a video look semi-professional after the fact, but you have to have good, clean, well-lit footage to start from, and it was that requirement that guided our choices on the night. I hope we succeeded (I haven’t seen the edited footage from the main camera yet), but either way, I learned 5 tips that I want to share that I know will set you off to a good start in making an interview video of your own.

The List

  • Lighting. This is THE MOST IMPORTANT resource available to you. Modern video cameras, even (especially) consumer ones, are adept at trying to make your subject look good. You know when your final footage is all grainy and orange-coloured? that’s your camera fighting for light, and boosting the light levels artificially. Give the scene enough light and your camera will do the rest. You don’t have to hire lights, and you don’t have to use daylight-equivalent bulbs; just get lots of overhead lighting, and if the scene comes out too yellow-orange, colour-correct it to “cool it down” afterwards in your chosen editing software. If too much overhead lighting is causing shadows under your subject’s eyes, add some low-level lamps to fill in the dark patches.
  • Makeup. Seriously. If you followed the previous point about lighting, you now have two problems: you’re sweating like a pig and the lights are reflecting off your shiny head. This is nothing a touch of face powder won’t fix. Remember – you’re not trying to change the colour of someone’s face or make it look like they’re in drag, you’re just taking the shine off.
  • Camera(s). I bought a video camera about 6 years ago for about £500; it records to tape and has become completely outdated by modern camera developments. Or so I thought… Cameras that record to hard disk or flash ram typically compress the footage to fit more on. That extra recording capacity is very convenient, but the quality of the footage does suffer. It’s only a tiny amount of image degradation, but it’s noticeable, and as with all digital creative activities, it’s important to keep the data quality as high as possible for as long as possible; compress for output, not while you record. You can get a video camera for £100, but if you can stretch your budget to get one that records digital video (.dv) and has a higher quality sensor, your footage will be the better for it.
  • Sound. If at all possible, don’t use the built-in mic of your video camera. It’s too far away from the subjects, it’s possibly pointing the wrong way, and it’s probably low quality. If you can afford/borrow a shotgun mic for your camera, perfect, otherwise get any half-decent mic you can, mount it near your subjects, and record the audio separately to be stitched onto the video later. To synchronise the audio with the video, get someone in front of the camera to clap their hands together at the start of each shot (make sure you can see the point their hands connect).
  • Timing. Work out how long you want the unedited to footage to be (shoot lots of content to ensure you have enough material; we shot 90 minutes with a view to editing it down to one or two ten-minute videos) then double that time and add an hour. That’s how long the filming will take. Minimum. As you get more experienced, you can start to shave that extra hour off, but don’t underestimate how long you’ll need and end up rushing or missing content you wanted to film.

So there are my tips, but there’s also one warning I wanted to add:

  • Framing. Don’t assume that the view you’re seeing on the fold-out screen of the camera is showing everything the camera is recording. Take some test footage, rip it to a computer, and check it carefully. I made that assumption, and objects I thought were out of shot, aren’t. For me it’s ok, but for you it might ruin all of your work.

Results

You’ll have to wait to see if what we captured came out okay (I’m interested to find out myself) but I’ll blog the video and you can see for yourself if we did a good job and if these tips are worth following.

 

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Posted in Video | No Comments »