Since last week I have done nothing with the footage. My other classes have been taking up my time so I couldn't capture any footage. Also, because I shot in HDV, I need a Sony HDV camera to capture the video. So I need to rent a camera before I get any footage. Once I do, I hope to capture the footage and start editing immediately. There is not much time left in the semester. I am looking forward to the finished product, as should you...
~Greg Z~
Monday, March 26, 2007
Monday, March 19, 2007
HUGE Change of Plans
Well, this past week was fun. I apologize for not posting last Monday but things were very crazy. And I know that you may be looking for a production timeline but that will not be here. My local resources, which I referred to in the last post, did not pan out. So with two actors and two locations my success rate decreased dramatically. However my sister came up with an interesting idea. She suggested that I do a documentary on the company she works at, Infinity Publishing. Infinity Publishing is an "author originated" book publisher. They are the leaders in the publishing-on-demand industry. I considered my options and decided this was the only way I could not fail this Projects class. So I packed up my gear and made my way to Allentown, PA to commute with my sister to her job for three days. Here are the three days in journal fashion. Enjoy!
Day One - Tuesday
I am an idiot. I forgot my tripod back at my sister's house. Looks like I am going freehand today. I can't believe that I forgot it. I am also running into some serious issues with the camera. I have been reading through the manual and I am starting to get acquainted with the camera. However some of the settings are very sensitive and if I am not precise, then the footage will be unusable. Today I will get lots of B-Roll and specific shots of the production department and establishing shots of the building.
Day Two - Wednesday
I reviewed yesterday's footage and a lot of it is unusable; especially the shots of the production department. I though I had the white balance locked down, but the footage's balance strobes from bluish to yellowish in exact intervals. Sucks for me. Today, I will make sure that the while balance is locked down for every shot. Today I remembered the tripod so I will get some more B-Roll and establishing shots. Also, I will conduct the interviews, which will drive this documentary. Since the office is not very photogenic, I will hold the interviews in Infinity's sister company’s Audiobooks studio across the parking lot. Let's hope my audio equipment is sufficient.
Day Three - Thursday
I got a good amount of footage yesterday. I think I am in pretty good shape. Today, I will redo the shots in the production department; get some office antics, and the closing shots. I definitely think I am in good shape.
Considering the entire process, I did pretty well. The audio for the interviews did not come out as loud as I expected, but I will make do with what I got. Now I have another issue. I wanted this digital short to be about 7 minutes. However I filled up 5 MiniDV tapes. Now the convention that I go by is this. Good Amateurs shoot at least 300% of what the final cut will be; Good Professionals shoot at least 3000% of what the final cut will be. 300 minutes raw (give or take) / 7 minutes finished (give or take) = 4286%
Crap.
~Greg Z~
Day One - Tuesday
I am an idiot. I forgot my tripod back at my sister's house. Looks like I am going freehand today. I can't believe that I forgot it. I am also running into some serious issues with the camera. I have been reading through the manual and I am starting to get acquainted with the camera. However some of the settings are very sensitive and if I am not precise, then the footage will be unusable. Today I will get lots of B-Roll and specific shots of the production department and establishing shots of the building.
Day Two - Wednesday
I reviewed yesterday's footage and a lot of it is unusable; especially the shots of the production department. I though I had the white balance locked down, but the footage's balance strobes from bluish to yellowish in exact intervals. Sucks for me. Today, I will make sure that the while balance is locked down for every shot. Today I remembered the tripod so I will get some more B-Roll and establishing shots. Also, I will conduct the interviews, which will drive this documentary. Since the office is not very photogenic, I will hold the interviews in Infinity's sister company’s Audiobooks studio across the parking lot. Let's hope my audio equipment is sufficient.
Day Three - Thursday
I got a good amount of footage yesterday. I think I am in pretty good shape. Today, I will redo the shots in the production department; get some office antics, and the closing shots. I definitely think I am in good shape.
Considering the entire process, I did pretty well. The audio for the interviews did not come out as loud as I expected, but I will make do with what I got. Now I have another issue. I wanted this digital short to be about 7 minutes. However I filled up 5 MiniDV tapes. Now the convention that I go by is this. Good Amateurs shoot at least 300% of what the final cut will be; Good Professionals shoot at least 3000% of what the final cut will be. 300 minutes raw (give or take) / 7 minutes finished (give or take) = 4286%
Crap.
~Greg Z~
Monday, March 05, 2007
A Slight Change of Plans
Sorry for the late posting. I usually post every Monday during my down time at my MTV internship. However this was no ordinary Monday. My department is moving from the 8th floor to the 17th floor. And yes, upgrade in floor height equates to amount of respect (that is probably not true but I can believe, right?). Anyway, I was archiving loose tapes all day today and never got to my ritualistic down time. So I post now. I am sure nobody really cares. Yes, it would be nice to wake up to an updated blog/feed but Mondays are my days where I collect my thoughts on the previous week. So having to look back on this Monday as well is just added value. But enough with the prologue, now comes the meat of this post.
Last week, as you may or may not remember from that post (it's right below this one), finding actors is very hard. So I posted a Casting Call for my digital short on craigslist.org. I posted it in the TV/Film/Video list of the Philadelphia section. I did not expect much due to the vastness of the list. However after a few hours, I had 7 e-mails from people interested in the digital short. To say the least I was floored. I waited until the next day to reply because I did not want to repeat myself...digitally. By then I had 13 actors interested. However the actual auditions proved to be a problem. It was Friday at this point and I should have started production at least a week ago, if not two weeks ago. So I wanted to hold the auditions on Sunday, which is super-late notice. To no surprise almost all of the actors could not make the audition. I say almost because one could. That actor lives on the corner of Olden and Rte. 31, 2 minutes from the campus. So I called off the auditions. I spent all of Saturday contemplating my options. I did not want to fail. I wanted to make this movie. But how? After some time I realized that the answer has been staring me in the face.
This semester has been plagued with the exact opposite of what a Styx song suggests, not enough time on my hands. Spring Break is next week. What better time to shoot a digital short than a completely open week? So now I have enough production time. But what about the actors? For this answer, I looked to a Hollywood director that I can relate to, Robert Rodriguez. His first feature-length film, El Mariachi, was made with family and friends as the actors. By the way, it is a very good movie that is the predecessor to his Desperado, with Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek. So I will use my familiar resources around my home back in North Jersey. Here, I can have a much more flexible schedule and I might have the cooperation of the local Police Station. I am excited once again with this digital short and I expect great things. Currently, I am putting together a long-overdue production timeline for this and next week. Keep you browser or aggregator pointed here for an update to this post. I will be posting the production timeline soon...and sorry for the long post.
~Greg Z~
Last week, as you may or may not remember from that post (it's right below this one), finding actors is very hard. So I posted a Casting Call for my digital short on craigslist.org. I posted it in the TV/Film/Video list of the Philadelphia section. I did not expect much due to the vastness of the list. However after a few hours, I had 7 e-mails from people interested in the digital short. To say the least I was floored. I waited until the next day to reply because I did not want to repeat myself...digitally. By then I had 13 actors interested. However the actual auditions proved to be a problem. It was Friday at this point and I should have started production at least a week ago, if not two weeks ago. So I wanted to hold the auditions on Sunday, which is super-late notice. To no surprise almost all of the actors could not make the audition. I say almost because one could. That actor lives on the corner of Olden and Rte. 31, 2 minutes from the campus. So I called off the auditions. I spent all of Saturday contemplating my options. I did not want to fail. I wanted to make this movie. But how? After some time I realized that the answer has been staring me in the face.
This semester has been plagued with the exact opposite of what a Styx song suggests, not enough time on my hands. Spring Break is next week. What better time to shoot a digital short than a completely open week? So now I have enough production time. But what about the actors? For this answer, I looked to a Hollywood director that I can relate to, Robert Rodriguez. His first feature-length film, El Mariachi, was made with family and friends as the actors. By the way, it is a very good movie that is the predecessor to his Desperado, with Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek. So I will use my familiar resources around my home back in North Jersey. Here, I can have a much more flexible schedule and I might have the cooperation of the local Police Station. I am excited once again with this digital short and I expect great things. Currently, I am putting together a long-overdue production timeline for this and next week. Keep you browser or aggregator pointed here for an update to this post. I will be posting the production timeline soon...and sorry for the long post.
~Greg Z~
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