14 posts tagged “psychopath”
YouTube just launched a video analytics tool called Insight that lets you get an idea of who's watching, where your video viewers come from and soon, how they found your video. Pretty cool marketing and feedback tool if it works the way they say it'll work. Here are a couple of articles talking about what you can do with it: NY Times, YouTube.
It's free! I tried it and found that Psychopath has been viewed in 93 countries and the biggest spike in views was when I first posted it.
Here's how you turn it on: in your account page, go to "videos," "edit videos," "About this Video."
Happy obsessing!
Susan Ee
http://feraldream.com
Much to my delight and surprise, Psychopath has spontaneously generated another invitation to a film festival. Viscera Film Festival is a horror festival for films directed and produced by women. Their motto is "Bring your Daughter to the Slaughter," and it's organized by the horror production company, Chainsaw Mafia! Ha! I love it!
One of the films that played at the Northern CA Film Festival was directed by Michelle Fatale (The Cleaner) which was a huge crowd favorite. She and another filmmaker, Shannon Lark (It's My Birthday) who's film also played at the festival, are organizers of the Viscera Film Festival. Michelle saw my film at the festival and contacted me to invite Psychopath into their Festival. FUN!
Last night, I went to my first film festival. It was really fun to see Psychopath on the big screen! The audience was great -- obviously there to enjoy the movies and support the filmmakers. The films were funny, cute, gory and one was a super-slick sci-fi shot on film with a budget of $25k starring a very good TV actor who's name I don't know. The projectionist was in 3 of the films! He leaned out of the projectionist window to talk to us about his film. I, too, got up to discuss my film. The audience got a kick out of the fact that this was my first film and that it was inspired by a Dear Abby column.
My film was not in the running for the audience vote as invited films (as opposed to submitted films) were not part of the contest. That just made it more fun for me since there was no pressure. :-)
The Northern California Film Festival (where Psychopath played) is part of the Festival of Festivals. This week, four fun-filled film festivals play at the Galaxy 12 Theatre in Riverbank for 6 glorious days of festival films: Northern California Film Festival, California Animation Film Festival, Zomiefest, and Shockerfest! All of these festivals are put on by the Fireside Foundation which is run with loving and friendly care by George and Louise Baker. Thanks, George and Louise!
A few people have asked about the striped lighting effect on Psychopath. The story took place in a closet and I knew I wanted lights to stream in through slatted closet doors. I know those types of closet doors are common but when I looked for them, I couldn't find them anywhere. Then when I had almost given up, I happened to notice that there was a storage closet with slatted doors right where we held our audition!
The slats on the doors slanted the wrong way -- the lights would stream up through the slats, not down. So we unscrewed the doors and put them in backwards so the slats would slant down where we needed them. If you look carefully in the film, you can see that there are handles on the inside of the closet.
We perched a single 250W work light on top of a ladder just outside the closet. It was left undiffused and streamed in through the door slats, blanketing the kids in stripes. When the door was opened, it gave a perfect showering light pattern behind Cheyenne, giving the white wall texture and Cheyenne an angelic glow.
I learned that it's a great idea to record off-camera crying separately from the rest of the dialogue just as you would any sound effect.
During the shoot of Psychopath, we recorded the mom character, Valerie Weaks, crying along with the dialogue. But during the sound re-recording, I recorded her crying separately. Later in post, I realized that crying, moaning, and other off-camera actor sounds are better separate because you can position the sound exactly where you want it. You can also control the volume of the crying separate from the rest of the dialogue, implying that someone is crying elsewhere in the house even if all the actors are clustered around the mic. When I think of it as a sound effect, it seems obvious. But my brain had classified human sounds as part of dialogue even if it was off-camera. That's lesson #2,067 for me, all from shooting a 2-minute film.
I performed my first rotoscoping in After Effects.
Now you see it.
Now you don’t.
I tried getting rid of the blood by desaturating the red but that didn't work so well. It's amazing how much red is in this frame -- the red in her hair, the red barrette and even some red in her skin tone. So I ended up painting the blood out frame by frame. Since my old Wacom tablet didn't feel like working with my new computer, I used my mouse. Left-handed, of course. :-)
I’m on my way to becoming a wizard!
Okay, that’s a lie.
I’m on my way to becoming an apprentice, though.
This is for the cool DV rebels at the Rebel Cafe (http://rebelsguide.com/forum/index.php) who are helping me out with some effects. Thanks guys!
Last night, Psychopath premiered at the Chillin' 9th Anniversary Party. 8 DJs, 60 fashion designers, 80 painters/photographers, 60 filmmakers in trendy SoMa of San Francisco. The films played on three screens -- projected on a large screen in the party room, outside in the alley, and in a separate movie screening room. It was quite a bash!
The script called for a mouse. Here were the issues:
1. How was I going to keep the mouse from bolting the second we put it down in front of the camera?
2. I didn’t want to buy a mouse unless I had to – pet stores do not let you return mice even if you don’t ask for your money back. What would I do with it after the shoot?
I put out an ad in Craigslist. Wanted, a well-behaved mouse for a film. I got two responses. One was for a mouse called Butterbean, the other for rats. I had it in my head that it should be a cute little mouse so I told the rat person I was hoping for a mouse but that we’d contact him should we decide to use a rat. Butterbean got scared off as soon as his owner heard the word “violence.” I waited until a couple of days before the shoot, hoping to find another mouse but in the end, decided it was better to have a rat with an owner who could keep him from bolting. But when I sent an email to the rat guy, I got no response (he responded the day after the shoot – didn’t check his emails regularly).
So I decided to buy a mouse and asked for a volunteer to be the animal wrangler. I figured the last thing we needed was a runaway mouse on the set and I wanted to make sure someone was paying attention. We discussed various ways to corral the mouse in the set area but were still nervous. One of the crew said his biggest fear was that the mouse would take off and we’d spend the rest of the day looking for it.
At the pet store, we found out that mice are only 2 inches long. Much too small for easy capture on camera. So we ended up with – you guessed it – a rat.
He turned out to be the cutest, sweetest, most mellow rat. He’d happily sit on the animal wrangler’s shoulder and sniff at everyone near him. We started calling our wrangler “Rat Whisperer.”
A third issue came up during the shoot: how do you get a rat to stay in the light? I had to rely on luck. The photo above, “Psychopath Rat Light” was the shot I wanted to put into the final film but the clip was too short and inconsistent with the next shot. So I had to settle for another shot where he did that cute small critter thing where they clean their faces. Unfortunately, he chose to do it in the shadow rather than the light.
The kids went nuts over the little guy. When they weren’t acting, they were playing with the rat. After the shoot, one of the kids took him home. A happy ending for all.
