Another DOF trick is to be far from your subject and zoom in, then manually focus on your subject. I tried it out yesterday and it looks awesome. I'd put up a sample but I'm on the road and don't have all my gadgets with me. I'll try to put it up when I get back to HQ.
One "problem" with doing a movie on video instead of film is the deep depth of field. DPs often use a 35mm adaptor that lets you use 35mm lenses which allow that beautiful shallow depth of field you'll see in film and professional photos. But as with all things cool in the movie world, adaptors are expensive. They're also big and awkward. Here's a trick I used on TOOTH FAIRY to get shallow depth of field without an adaptor.
Open the iris wide, using a neutral density (ND) filter if it's too bright. The HVX and I think DVX come with a built-in ND filter you can switch on. Otherwise, you can buy one for cheap. Place the subject close to the lens and zoom in. If you have a macro mode, try that. This is how mine came out:
Hey, check out Smartflix. They offer those expensive how-to videos for rent, including the famous Barry Green HVX Bootcamp videos. You can rent the set for $17. They also have some After Effects how-to videos, Premier Pro, Final Cut, special (makeup) effects and lighting videos. Sweet, eh?
Can't find that perfect composer for your film? Check out Pump Audio. They have a collection of music that you can license. For a short film (less than 30 minutes), you can get festival and web rights for $49. These are perpetual rights which means you pay once and you're done. If you have a feature (30 minutes or more), then you can get festival and web (perpetual) rights for $99. You need to pay separately for DVD and other rights.
NOTE: if you're hoping to distribute your film, then make sure you get ALL rights (and not just festival rights) to the music because you really don't want to get a distribution offer and then not be able to obtain the music rights. If you want to get all rights for your theatrical release, you need to contact Pump Audio and discuss it. They don't list the price which means it's prudent to negotiate before you lay your track.
Here's an alternative to Detonation Films: Artbeats They have stock footage ranging from explosions to NY aerials. Detonation Films has some footage for free and some for about $7-$11 a pop. They cater to no-budget filmmakers who are having a good time and they're not shy about saying their footage isn't quite as good as Artbeats'. You gotta respect that. Artbeats sells theirs for about $200-$300 a pop.
Check out Detonation Films where you can buy pre-made explosions, blood splatters, end-of-the-world mushroom clouds. Yeah, baby!
All you have to do is learn to composite these into your film. How hard can that be? :-)
If you look closely at the photo on the right, you'll see that the guys aren't actually holding any guns.
That's me, right? :-) Here are some extremely cool things I'm currently drooling over:
Letus35
Mini for HV20 - $1,100
Dell XPS M1730 laptop - $4,824
Ooh, pretty, shiny toys... what filmmaker wouldn't love these?
I've been quietly editing TOOTH FAIRY for the last few weeks. I've been very pleased with the results so far. This was the first film shot on my new camera and the picture quality is gorgeous. But last night, I had a conversation about how I couldn't tell the difference between the standard 30 frames per second (video look) and 24 frames per second (film look for which my camera is famous) . This morning, I realized I had made a major mistake... I imported the footage into my editing suite by accepting the default import settings which means it imported in 30fps, not 24. No wonder I couldn't see the difference.
OH, THE PAIN!!
My camera is famous for its ability to take native 24fps. Adobe Premier went out of its way to get their software to import footage in native 24fps. And what do I do? I load the thing in 30fps. I'm pretty sure this means it adds (software-generated filler) frames to the footage to make it 30 frames per second. Premier lets you pulldown from 30fps to 24 so I could do that as a quick fix but there's no guarantee that it'll get rid of the same frames that it added. It all boils down to lower image quality. The only question is how much? UG.
Now I'm faced with a dilemma: do I put up with a lower image quality and justify it by saying that the HVX has amazing image quality and a little degradation won't be that noticeable? Or do I throw away several weeks of work and start from scratch?
If you're looking for me, I'll be in the corner banging my head against the wall.
The IIFF panel was great. The speakers were fantastic and the crowd was small. Here are some interesting tidbits:
For indie films, theatrical release is mostly marketing for your DVD and Internet releases but worth it to the point of paying for it out of pocket if you need to. Try for the digital theatres if you can because you don't have to convert your movie into film which would be very expensive. There are about 150 digital theatres in the US.
If you're trying to raise money via a business plan, show interest in the financials because the investors want to know if you're the one who can mitigate their risks.
Your chances of making money through a distribution deal is very, very, very small because not only do you have to share revenues with everyone along the chain, you get charged for all the costs along the chain. For example, your distributor pays for marketing but when your movie starts generating revenues, all marketing costs get taken out of the filmmaker's share. One small distriubtor said they typically spend $150k on P&A (film print and advertising). The distributor basically fronts the money for you and you have to pay them back out of revenues before you see a penny. But as one speaker put it, no filmmaker makes money... except for the ones who DO. No one was clear on the odds of being one of the lucky ones.
By 2010, the IPTV market is projected to be a $1.8 trillion market, video on demand a $204 billion market. This may be where indie filmmakers want to be because the space hasn't been claimed yet.
When scheduling a shoot, keep in mind that a typical Hollywood shoot does 15-30 setups per day; a typical indie shoot does 20-30 setups per day; Roger Corman does 45-60 setups per day. Don't schedule more than a 12 hour day, otherwise, you risk having your cast and crew fall apart before you can finish the movie.
Interesting film funding panel going on tonight in San Francisco: Institute for International Film Financing Town Hall Meeting Here's the agenda:
1) Winning Angel Investments: Practical Insight & Advice for Filmmakers & Financiers — by Ian Sobieski
2) From Dream to Distribution: How a First-time Producer Got a Multi-Million Dollar Movie Funded & Made — by Paco Chierici
3) State of the Market for Indies: An Analysis of Latest Developments & Current Opportunities — by Sandy Rosenberg
4) The Economics of Film Distribution: Realistic Distribution Scenarios for Credible Business Plans — by Rob Barnum
5) Anatomy of a Film Budget: A Guide for Producers & Investors to Getting the Numbers Right — by Curran Engel
6) The Digital Advantage: Why Independent Filmmakers & Financiers Stand to Win Big — by Greg Berkin
7) Hollywood Profits: Quantitative Drivers of Motion Picture Profitability — by Thomas Trenker
