How to make a Film for the Hundred Dollar Film Festival - Part 6

In this and previous posts, I looked at how I made some of my films for the festival. In later posts, I will summarise what I learnt from those experiences and suggest how you can make a film.

I made If I knew . . . for the fourth festival in 1995. Like My Next Film, If I Knew . . . was a reaction to my previous film, Who Shot the President. Who Shot the President, although in some sense a simple film, had taken me much longer than I expected. I wanted to do a simpler, easier film for my next project.

The original idea came from a comment a co-worker made. We worked in the forecasting section of Transportation Planning. One day, while we discussed the difficulties of forecasting, she said, “If I really knew what was going to happen, I’d be down at the race track.”

The concept I developed was to have a series of static shots combined with title cards that had a “If I Knew . . .” comment on them. I came up with four titles and then looked for images to fit them.

I ran into some technical problems that made the film more difficult. The most serious was that one of the cameras broke. I lost the shot I had done with it and had to reshoot. That also messed up another shot. I wanted to do a dissolve for one of the images, but the only camera I had access to that could do a dissolve was the one that broke. I used a fade out instead. When I transferred the film to video years later, I took the opportunity to put in a dissolve.

I over exposed the titles and didn’t have time to reshoot them for the festival. Several people asked how I got the “cool” effect on the titles. I was slow to admit that it was just a mistake.

Several people told me they liked the film, although they weren’t sure they really understood the film. I’m not sure I really understand it either.

When I transferred the film to video, I had James Reckseidler do a music track for it. I feel that really added a lot to the film.

I planned to talk about my film Contingency in my next blog, but since I already posted an article on that film, I decided that I would move on to my summary of how I would make a Hundred Dollar Film Festival Film.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

How to make a Film for the Hundred Dollar Film Festival - Part 5

In this and the next post, I will look at how I made some of my films for the festival. In later posts, I will summarise what I learnt from those experiences and suggest how you can make a film.

I made My Next Film for the tenth festival in 2001. I came up with the idea for this film as a reaction to my experiences with my film Line of Taxis. Line of Taxis was my most ambitious film to date and took much more effort than any of my other films, until My Most Difficult Case. 

I wanted to make a smaller, less challenging film. It developed over a period of two years. Initially, I used events from my own projects, but when Patrick Aull agreed to appear in the film, I began to add fictionalized versions of his experiences with his film “All of a Sudden”.

I developed each bit of the script on its own, and bounced the ideas off other people. I dropped the ones that didn’t work and kept the ones that did. Eventually I compiled them into a script.

In many ways, this was one of the easiest of my films to make, but it was not without its challenges. As the film itself describes, I kept the production as simple as I could. I shot in a single location (my garage), used black and white film, and used a voice over for the sound.

My original intent was to have the film as a single static shot of Pat, but this approach didn’t work so well. While it was easy from the point of view of the camera operator, it is more difficult for the actor. Instead, I edited together shots from a variety of takes I did for the film. I incorporated many of Patrick’s suggestions that into the film.

For the shoot, I recorded my own reading of the script, which I then played back to Patrick as we shot the film. After the shoot, I rerecorded the voice over with Patrick. Again, I did several different versions and cut them together.

I shot the film on 16mm film and transferred the film to video where I did a preliminary edit. I used the video edit as a guide to do a cut of the film. I wrote some of the edge numbers on the print itself to help me go back to the cut of the film. If you watch my film Contingency closely, you can see one of the numbers in the shot from My Next Film. I completed the film with a negative cut and an optical track for the sound.

Although I completed the film with a 16mm optical sound print, I believe I could do a similar film today without that final step. As I did with my film Contingency, I could have projected the cutting copy, and played a CD of the voice over, or have the voice over done live.

In my next post, I will look at If I knew . . . , the film I made for the fourth festival in 1995.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

How to make a Film for the Hundred Dollar Film Festival - Part 4

In this and the next few posts, I will look at how I made some of my films for the festival. In later posts, I will summarise what I learnt from those experiences and suggest how you can make a film.

I made The Fence for the fifth festival in 1996. It developed over a period of nearly 10 years. It began when I noticed the fence one day as I rode by in a bus. It caught my interest, so one day I went out and took some stills of it. I thought about it from time to time, but never thought of anything more I could do with it.

When I decided to make my first 16mm film, I was stuck for an idea again. I thought about the fence again. I still wasn’t sure what I could do with it, but decided to take some film of it. Fortunately, for me, the fence was still there and I got some images of it. A few months later I went back and got some more.

By then, I had begun to see how I could use the images in a film. Over the next few months, I collected more images, at different times of the year and different weather. I also shot some of my old stills to get a greater variety of images.

The one thing I feared was that someone would tear down the fence before I finished my film. It just so happened that I couldn’t see the fence until I got to where I shot it. Until I got there, I didn’t know if it was still there. It was still there several years later, but eventually they removed it to build a condominium.

I did a time-lapse shot for the film, but this time I didn’t have an Intervalometer. Instead, I sat there and every few seconds I pressed the cable release. It wasn’t a bad way to spend an afternoon on a warm sunny day.

For the most part, the monologue is a description of how I felt. I did fictionalize the comments somewhat. I didn’t know how to end the monologue and wrote some words as a place keeper. I planned to write the actual ending later. As so often happens with my work, the positive feedback I received about it convinced me to use it, rather than develop a new ending.

When I developed the monologue for the film, in my mind the voice was female. That didn’t seem right to me, so I used Steve Hanon. He had access to recording equipment at his work, so we recorded the sound there.

I finished the film on 16mm with a negative cut and synchronized sound. The negative cut allowed me to do some nice dissolves. The original rules wouldn’t allow this. You can achieve a similar effect with an optical printer, which the rules would allow.

You could make a similar film today without the fancy dissolves and synchronized sound. It would depend on the nature of the film though. If you accept the limitations at the outset, you can develop your idea so that you don’t need them.

The Fence was another successful film for me, with screenings in Calgary, Ottawa, Edmonton, Los Angeles, and Adelaide. More important to me though, was the comments that I got from individual people who saw it.

I noticed an odd pattern. It seemed that most women who watched it liked it, while most men didn’t. As I mentioned earlier, when I developed the monologue, the voice I heard was female. I often wonder how the film would be different if I had used a female voice. Maybe I should try that sometime and see.

In my next post, I will look at My Next Film, the film I made for the tenth annual festival in 2001.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

How to make a Film for the Hundred Dollar Film Festival - Part 3

In this and the next few posts, I will look at how I made some of my films for the festival. In later posts, I will summarise what I learnt from those experiences and suggest how you can make a film.

Who Shot the President started out as an idea for a feature film. The idea came to me after I had seen one too many documentaries on the Kennedy assassination. After I played around with the idea for a while, I realized I wasn’t ready to make a feature.

Rather than abandon the idea though, I asked myself what was the point I wanted to make. What I wanted to say was that most conspiracy theories base their argument on a logical fallacy. I reviewed all of the scenes I’d come up with and picked one that would make that point.

It took me longer than I expected to make this film. Although I shot it twice before I was happy with it, the hard part came in developing the idea. I did a fair bit of research to find appropriate images to use. I used a series of still images for most of the film. I did have one short “live action” segment in the film. Years later, I learnt that Chris Marker used a similar approach for La jetée.

I use regular tripod, and put my images on the floor. At first, this worked well, but as I moved to shorter and shorter clips, I realized that it required about 2,000 deep knee bends. I wasn’t a fan of deep knee bends to start with. But, I got it done. Later when I redid the film on 16mm, I used projected slides to make it easier on my knees.

The sound track was an interesting challenge. I had two actors to play the parts, but couldn’t arrange them to be in the same place at the same time. I used an old two track reel to reel tape recorder, which allowed me to record one track at a time.

First I had Michele L record her lines, with gaps for the other actor’s lines. Then I had Steve Hanon record his lines while he listened to Michele L’s recording. We ran into a problem when some of the gaps were not long enough for Steve’s lines. When we played back the recording, it sounded like she interrupted him several times. Steve could have talked faster to fix that, but we decided that the interruptions worked well, so we kept it as it was.

The final touch was to add an echo. The recorder’s playback head was after the record head, so I could feed the recorded sound back into the recording. The sound turned out rather muddy, but years later when I redid the sound for a 16mm version of the film, the better quality sound equipment produce a sound that was too clean, so I used some of the original sound.

This was one of the more successful of my films and I got a lot of good feedback on it. I also got a lot of very negative feedback. I talk about that in an article I wrote: Why Do People Hate my Film?

In my next post, I will look at The Fence, the film I made for the fifth festival in 1996.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

How to make a Film for the Hundred Dollar Film Festival - Part 2

In the next few posts, I will look at how I made some of my films for the festival. In later posts, I will summarise what I learnt from those experiences and suggest how you can make a film.

I made Weekend in Calgary for the first Hundred Dollar Film Festival in 1992. This was a film that kind of just happened. I wanted to have a film in the first festival, but I was stuck for an idea.

One of the Super 8 cameras the CSIF had an Intervalometer. That is, it could be set to take a picture at intervals of 5 or 10 seconds. Out of curiosity, I wanted to try it out. At the time, I did not intend that this would become a finished film.

One Sunday, I set up the camera in my car and drove out to Lake Louise and back. Because of the length of the trip, I used up a bit more than half of a roll on the way out, so I switched to another roll for the trip back. I had to finish off both rolls later before I could get them processed.

At noon the next Monday, I went for a walk during my lunch break and ended up at Olympic Plaza where a local band was playing. For one of their original tunes, they had lifted a guitar riff from Pipeline by the Chantays. Pipeline was one of my favourite tunes from my childhood days. As I listened to the music I thought that Pipeline could work well with the film I’d just shot.

At the time, I knew many people in Calgary who, after a hard week at work, would rush out to Banff to “relax”, then rush back to work. I thought it was an odd thing to do, but it reflected the “go go” attitude that many people had at the time. That led to the title of the film. Now, with a point to make and music to go with it, I thought I had a film.

There were a few more hurtles before I was done. First, I would need sound and I had shot on silent film. My solution was primitive. I cut the two sections of the film together. Then, I used a sound camera to shoot the projected image. That proved to be a little trickier to do that I thought, but eventually I was happy with what I had.

I dubbed Pipeline onto the magnetic stripe. The film went on to win the award for consistent vision in the festival. Although we only screened the film a few times, years later people would still talk to me about it.

Years later, after I found out what it would cost to get the rights to use the music, I asked James Reckseidler to do a new tune for me. If I had to pay money for music, I’d rather pay a local filmmaker than a faceless corporation. I used his music for the version of the film I posted on YouTube.

In my next post, I will look at Who Shot the President, the film I made for the third festival in 1994.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

How to make a Film for the Hundred Dollar Film Festival - Part 1

When the Hundred Dollar Film Festival first began, the idea was that you could make a film for under $100. Now, twenty-one years later, is that still possible? In this and later posts, I will to talk about how to make a film for the festival. As I wrote this post, it began to get very long, so I decided to break it up into several separate posts. In this post, I will look at what kind of film I will discuss.

As the deadline for the twenty-first festival looms, this may seem a bit late to talk about how to make a film. But, there is always the twenty-second festival.

What qualifies me to talk about this subject?

I’ve had eight films in the festival over the years, with films in both the first festival in 1992 and the twentieth in 2012. I also started the festival.

The Festival Rules

The festival rules have changed over the years and it doesn’t need to be constrained by the original intentions, but I hope that films made to the original limits will always be welcome at the festival.

When I first came up with the idea for the festival, the kind of filmmaker I aimed it at was someone who had just begun to make films. That was what I was back in 1991. Maybe they were someone who had never made a film, or who had only made a few small films. Their interest would be to learn and develop their skills, and, of course, to have an audience for their films.

I became aware of a different group of filmmakers who were interested in the festival. These were experienced people looking for a challenge, or a chance to have some fun when they made a film. I know that some looked at these films as a way to reinvigorate themselves after a frustrating project.

The challenge came in the constraints on how they could make the film. In the first festival, the cost was not the limitation, as implied by the name. Instead, we set a limit on how much film the filmmakers could use to make the film. The limits were five rolls of black and white, four rolls of colour, or three rolls of sound. With a shooting ratio of 3 to 5, the final films would be 2 ¼ to 5 minutes long.

Can It Still Be Done?

A lot has changed since 1992. Can you still make a film the way it was back then? I believe so, although not as cheaply. Super 8 is still available, and you can make films on 16mm in the same spirit as Super 8. I did that for my film Contingency for the 2012 festival.

I estimate that films made to the original rules would cost $300 to $550. You can still make a film for under $100, if you shot only one roll of film. Shipping the film to the lab and back can cost more than the film and developing!

There are some further limitations on the films now. Super 8 sound film isn’t available any more. If you want sound, you need to put it on a CD, or have live sound. With pre-recorded sound, you can’t guarantee sync. It is not as easy to get a 16mm film negative cut and printed these days, so you can’t do effects like dissolves or title overlays, unless you can do them in-camera.

In the next post, I will review how I made each of my films. In later posts, I will use my experience to provide advice on how to make a film for the Hundred Dollar Film Festival.

I know that I don’t know everything there is to know about how to make a film, so I would appreciate any comments that build on my suggestions.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Update on Three Science Fiction Stories

Pete’s Plan

I got some comments back from some people on this story. I rewrote it based on their comments. I incorporated some new ideas I had as I read it over. It is a bit longer at over 1,000 words now. I think it is better too.

I’ll read it over again next week, and submit it to another magazine. One magazine I came across wouldn’t consider a story under 1,000 words, so I can submit to them now.

Felix

Felix is a reimagining of a H. P. Lovecraft story set on Mars. I made some good progress and still have ideas popping up in my mind. It looks like it will turn out shorter than I thought it would though.

The final story won’t be anything like the story I based it on. I’m not 100 per cent sure if that is a good thing or not.

Heat Wave

I am about half way through the first draft. I haven’t worked on it for a while now. I’d like to blame it on the other projects I worked on, but there is another reason. I started with the ending and worked backward, and now the ending looks a little lame compared to the rest of the story. Maybe I’m overly concerned about that. I should finish it and get some one else’s opinion.

I do still have ideas for this story pop up periodically. Mostly it’s because I see parallels between the character’s situation and some of the experiences I had. Like many other people, I always think of good responses to what people say to me after it is too late. I think I can use those “I wish I’d said” moments to say what I wanted to. That would give me a quantum of solace.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Rejection, But Not Dejection

I submitted my short story Pete’s Plan to Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine a few weeks ago. This week they sent me a note to say, “it does not suit the needs of the magazine at this time”. I was disappointed, but people were supportive.

The magazine encouraged me to submit the story elsewhere. I plan to do that, but I am in procrastination mode. They didn't really say why they rejected it, so I wonder if I should try to rewrite it before I do. On the other hand, I don’t really know why they didn’t want it.

If you would like to give the story a read over and let me know what you think, I would appreciate it.

I think it is a good little story. Before I submitted it, I read some stories from a Best SF of the year anthology from a couple of years back. I found some good ones, but many of them were disappointing, so I felt mine would be acceptable. I wonder if it is too political for them.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

“Some Days . . .” Update - 2012 November 4

I worked on my film “Some Days . . .” this week. I want to submit it for the 2013 Hundred Dollar Film Festival. http://100dollarfilmfestival.org/fest2013/

I originally did the film for last year’s festival, but I wasn’t happy with the image quality, so I withdrew it. I hope I get it right this time.

I took out a camera Tuesday, shot on Wednesday, returned the camera Thursday, and sent the film to the lab Friday. It usually takes about 2 weeks to get back.

I didn’t use up all of the film in my shoot, so I finished off the roll with some experimental shots. Maybe I can use them as a starting point for a new film for the 2014 festival.

The camera I used, a Canon 16mm Scoopic, came with a manual. I’ve used Scoopics for about 16 years and never saw a manual before. I picked up a few useful tidbits from it.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

“Sharkbiter” and “Some Days . . .” Updates 2012 October 28

I wanted to do something more to promote my video Make ’ em Squirm: The Sharkbiter Way video. A couple months ago, I split it up into a dozen or so shorter segments and posted them on YouTube. That didn’t generate the kind of interest I had hoped for.

This week I decided to pull a small (18-second) clip out of it and post it on YouTube as a sort of promo: Billionaire Orville Sharkbiter's plan for election reform. My idea was that people are more likely to pass along a short clip. Then, I hope, some people would go to watch the full video. So far, I haven’t had a lot of response to it. I think I will need to promote it more.

I have started to wonder if my time would be better spent on a new project rather than promoting an old project.

I began work on my new film Some Days . . . for the $100 Film Festival. I made it originally for last year’s festival, but wasn’t happy with the image quality. I went over the materials I had prepared last year this week. Some of my plan notes had gone astray, so I had to recreate those. I also fixed problems with some of the images I want to use.

Some Days . . . is a very short film, so I won’t need the whole 100’ roll of 16 mm film to shoot it. I came up with some ideas for shots that I might be able to use in another film later. Unfortunately, since it snowed last week, and it isn’t likely to melt away any time soon, I can’t do those shots.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

What Do I Work on Next?

Now that I have finished and posted the video version of Contingency, I’m at a bit of a loss as to what to do next. I’ve got many projects I want to finish. If you have some time, I would like to hear your opinion.

When I wrote my New Years Blog, I planned to do updates April 1, July 1, and October 1. I did one update in late March, but did nothing in July. I missed October 1, but now should do.

Some Days . . .

I tried to make Some Days . . . for last years $100 Film Festival, but wasn’t happy with how it turned out. I bought some new film and plan to redo it for next years Festival. The submission deadline is December 1, so I can’t dally over this one too long.

My Most Difficult Case

I should have finished this one and sent it off long ago. There are times when I almost feel afraid to touch it. It shouldn’t take much work, but since it has already taken so long, it is hard to think I am almost done. It seems like I have a million excuses to put it off until another time.

The Crying Lady

I’d written and published this as a short story. I wanted to turn it into a movie with Xtranormal. Partly this was to experiment with Xtranormal to see if I could use it as a tool to develop a project more before I made a real movie. I haven’t done anything on this, but I did something similar with my Make ‘Em Squirm video. Lately I’ve wondered if it would be better to use Then the Phone Rang for my experiment. I think it may be easier to do.

Bright Freedom

I wrote this as a script, but wasn’t happy with it. Over the summer, I converted the script into a novelette. I have a first draft done, but decided to leave it for a while before I do a second draft. I’ve come up with some ideas for the revision and I started to review what I have for revision. The story does need more research before I can finish it, but with a better second (or third) draft, it should be easier to get feedback from other people. The main character is a woman, and since I am not, I really feel I need to get a woman’s perspective on the character.

Heat Wave

This is an idea I had quite some time ago, but didn’t start on it until August. It is a science fiction story. I got about half of the first draft done. I did all the parts where I had clear ideas what I wanted to do. The rest of the story will be harder to do.

Felix

This is another science fiction story that I developed. I reimagined an H. P. Lovecraft story. I think its connection to Lovecraft may be quite obscure by the time I’m done. I wrote some notes, ideas and outlines, but I haven’t started to write the story itself. The end of the story has been a challenge to me. The one in the Lovecraft story doesn’t make much sense after the other changes I made.

The Gladstone Barrier

I wanted to turn one of my transportation planning stories into a novelette, or maybe even a novel. I’ve done some work on how to do that, but I don’t feel particularly inspired by the idea these days.

Web Magazine: The Journal of Transportation Fiction

I still want to do more on my transportation planning stories. The challenge is to come up with an approach that works. When I looked for a place to submit my science fiction story, Pete’s Plan, I came across some on-line science fiction magazines. I thought that might be a way to get some help with my transportation stories. I did get some people express interest in writing stories when I first promoted my stories, so I think it might work.

I find that if I work on too many projects at a time, I never get any done. I don’t like to put projects aside though. Some Days . . . has a clear deadline, so I think it needs to be my first priority. What else I should work on, I’m not sure.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

“Contingency” Now On-line - Please Have a Look

I finally got my film Contingency posted on-line. Please have a look at it and let me know what you think.

I made Contingency for the twentieth $100 Film Festival in 2012. It is a contemplation of how the festival came about. The film won the Best of Alberta Award at the festival. It is a departure from my earlier films.

I put in on YouTube (at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79sPbUoD9zM ) and on my own website (at http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/filmlist/contingency/ ). I will post it on Vimeo later.

The film could be quite opaque to someone who isn’t familiar with my previous films. Since some people may be interested, I wrote an article that explains where each element came from, and why. You can read the article here: http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/filmlist/contingency/an-explanation-of-contingency/

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

“Contingency” Update 2012 October 14

I worked on Contingency this week, but didn’t accomplish as much as I had hoped.

I reviewed the video again. I had thought I would need to tweak the images somewhat, but I was happy with the way it already was. I think I might adjust the contrast on a couple of shots.

Some of the comments people made about the film made me realize that the film won’t make much sense to someone who isn’t familiar with my earlier films. I decided to write an article to post with the film that explains in some detail what each shot and sound is and why I picked it. That took me longer than I expected. I’m still not done.

I still need to decide what to include in my descriptions. In the stuff I’ve done so far, I don’t mention the names of the people who appear. I think I should do that.

I hope to get the film posted in the next few days.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

J. J. Harper, Rob Cross, and O. J. Simpson

I just started to read a book called Cowboys and Indians by Gordon Sinclair Jr. It is the story of the killing of J. J. Harper in Winnipeg back in 1988. J. J. Harper was an aboriginal leader. He died after a policeman shot him. The case was national news and resulted in a special inquiry.

I’ve thought I should read this book for some time, but put it off for years. I went to school with Rob Cross, the policeman who shot J. J. Harper. I didn’t know him well. I can only remember talking to him once.

It is a new and strange experience to come across people I know when I read a book. That never happened to me before. Cross’ wife was in my class in junior high school. The author interviewed another person I knew. It also turned out that J. J. Harper went to the same high school I did. Although, he had graduated by the time I started there. I find this story very disturbing.

One of the reasons I read books like this is to get a better understanding of people, so I can use it in my own writing. When you know the people involved, it is much easier to empathise with their feelings. It makes me very uncomfortable when I read this book. I worry that I might trivialize people’s emotions.

That empathy for the real people makes a true story so much more compelling than any work of fiction can. Many years ago, I, like millions of others, sat for hours and watched O. J. Simpson drive along a freeway. I would never do that for a fictional character.

How can fiction compete with reality? I believe that the real story can be too painful for many people to contemplate. In my own work, it is easier for me to write a fictional version of a story than to relate the true story. I suspect that it is in this ability to create a distance from the full intensity of emotion where fiction has its value.

Most of us as children played games like “cops and robbers” and “cowboys and Indians”. These games allowed us to experience the idea of conflict with out the danger of conflict. Fiction allows us the same opportunity with a wider variety of experiences. We can watch a detective show and get an understanding of what it is like, but then within minutes, we can move on to other things. If we were involved with a similar event in the real world, it might take us years or decades to recover.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

A Painful Step Forward

I completed the conversion of the images I captured for “Contingency” into video files this week. It really was painful.

I got about half the images done the week before. For some reason, the last half took more time. I found the technique of overlaying a negative of one image worked well. It was easy to tell when I had a frame aligned properly. By the end, I got pretty good at it. Nevertheless, with well over a thousand images to adjust, it took a long time.

I didn’t notice it before, but this week I found the work was painful. I had to sit in the same position for hours while I made very precise changes with my mouse. That gave me repetitive strain injuries. I had my arm all tensed up at the same time, which created pain as well.

They say that an artist must suffer for their art.

One of the things that surprised me about filmmaking was how physical the work was. Even if you are the director, you are up and about all the time, even if you don’t do any of the heavy lifting.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

“Contingency” Video Conversion Challenges

My conversion of Contingency to video moved ahead this week. I have about half of the images converted to video now. I had to overcome a few snags.

The whole film runs a bit over 3,800 frames, but since I already have video of some of the shots, I didn’t need to transfer all of them. It still left me with 2,300 frames to convert. This week I got 1,100 done, or about 48 per cent.

The week before I shot all the frames I wanted on the optical printer. It isn’t too difficult to import them into Premiere Pro and create a video. Unfortunately, I ran into a few problems.

The first was that the images were in RAW format, which I couldn’t import into Premiere Pro. I converted them to jpg’s with Picasa. I started with the same resolution as the raw files (3522 by 2348), but that really slowed down Premiere Pro to the point I couldn’t use it. I changed to 800 by 534, which is still larger than the 720 by 480 video I want to produce. That worked better.

The next snag was image jitter. Apparently the optical printer didn’t align each frame in exactly the same spot. I don’t know if it was a problem with the machine, or with how I loaded it.

Premiere Pro allows you to move the images around in the frame, so it was possible to adjust each frame to remove the jitter. That was easier said than done.

The first show wasn’t too bad because it was a title. I over lay a horizontal line and moved each frame so that the title aligned with the line. It was very finicky work though.

For the next shot, also a title, I overlay one of the frames on top of the other frames, switched it to a negative, which is called invert for some reason I don’t understand, then made it 50 per cent transparent. When I aligned the frame properly, I would get a grey screen. It never fit exactly, but it was easier and faster.

The rest of the shots were not tittles, which was a little harder. I used the same technique, but it turned out that since the camera moved during the shot, the edge of frame would move in and out of view. I had to go back and move every frame up a little so the edge wouldn’t show. I also had to zoom in, which took more time.

After a couple more shots I did a little research and found I could use the paste attributes feature of Premiere pro to save a bit of time.

Eventually I came up with another trick that made a big difference. I put the frame images into a sequence that set up as high definition. When I was done with the HD version, I would set up a standard definition sequence and put the HD version in the time line. Then I could move and zoom the whole shot to give the image I wanted.

That also allowed me to use the frame borders to align the frames. There were always imperfections in the border I could use for alignment.

I had a lot of trouble with Premiere Pro crashes. The process seems to have pushed the system to the limits. It got better as I got more practice.

I know that some video cameras have an image stabilizer function, which should mean that there is a software method to do all the realignment automatically. I wasn’t able to find one. I didn’t look too hard though.

The rest should take a couple of days to do. Then I need to incorporate all the shots into a final video. Some of the shots could use some colour correction. I hope to post the final video by the end of next week.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Contingency Update - 2012 September 16

I took another step forward on Contingency this week. I used an optical printer to digitize the images from the film so I could create a video of the film. I will reconstruct a video from the images next.

It took me a couple of days down at the CSIF to get the images digitized. I used a piece of equipment called an optical printer. Filmmakers originally developed optical printers for special effects in movies. Orson Welles used an optical printer for several scenes in Citizen Kane.

The CSIF got a modification done to their JK Optical Printer so that they could use it to convert film to video. In place of the film camera, they use a digital still camera. It is all supposed to be automatic; press a button and watch it go.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the automatic mode to work properly. I had to press a button to move the film forward one frame, and then press the button on the camera to take the picture. That was rather slow and tedious. I also got some repetitive strain pain in my arm and shoulder.

I already had video for some shots. Because it took so long to convert, I skipped those scenes. At least I hope I have video for those other shots.

A few months ago, I tried to do the conversion, but ran into image problems. This time I did some tests at the start of each shot to ensure I got the light level and focus right. That was finicky work, but it does pay off.

I borrowed a memory disk for the still camera from my wife and another from my brother. I didn’t think my wife’s disk had enough memory. In the end, I used both disks.

The next stage is to import the images into a video editor and convert them into a video. That may also be tedious, but less physically demanding. I have to remind myself that patience is a virtue. I’ll try to get that done this week.

I wonder if there is an easier way to do this. I suppose I could send it to a commercial outfit for transfer, but that costs more money. I thought I could rig up an old projector and camera to do the same thing. It is easy to imagine what to do, but I’m afraid my mechanical skills may not be up to that.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Thoughts About Long Form Stories

Most of the work I’ve done has been in short forms (short films, short stories or short articles), but I want to move to longer form works. It has been difficult, but I have made some progress.

I’ve done four feature length scripts and started a couple of novelettes, but I didn’t feel I really understood the essential differences between long and short form writing.

“In a short story, the characters support the plot. In a novel, the plot supports the characters.” - Unknown

I came across this quote recently, but can’t remember who said it. I thought it was a good quote to remember. It was only later, when I recut Make ‘em Squirm, that I started to appreciate the point of the quote.

The YouTube statistics had shown that most people only watched the first minute of the nine-minute video. I felt that most of the “good stuff” was in the latter part of the video, so only a few people actually saw that.

When I did the recut, my goal was to get the viewers to watch more of the video. First, I split the video into 14 episodes and then I added a “teaser” at the start of each episode. I also changed the way I promoted the video.

What I realized was that in a longer form story you want to dwell mostly on the characters. In a short story, people don’t expect to get deep characters, so you can get away with superficiality. The role of the plot in a long form story is similar to the “teaser” in my video. It is to get the audience to watch long enough to get to the good stuff. In a long form story, the good stuff is the characters.

The beginning of a story should focus on plot long enough to get the audience involved. Then you can move on to your characters where you can start to say what you wrote the story to say.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

My Science Fiction Stories

I have four science fiction stories on the go now. Over the last few weeks I made progress on a couple of them, but I need to focus on one at a time if I want to get any of them finished. I’d like to find some people to critique my stories.

The Science Fiction Market

I thought I might try to sell my story Heat Wave to a science fiction magazine, so I did a little research on-line. One magazine, Strange Horizons, has a list of the type of stories they don’t want to see: http://www.strangehorizons.com/guidelines/fiction-common.shtml. I’ll need to look at it a bit closer, but Heat Wave just might be one of them. That prompted me to think of other possible stories.

I picked up a collection of the best science fiction of 2010 at the library. Well, actually my wife picked it up. I wanted to get a feel for the kind of stories and style of writing they feature. It didn’t look to me as if there is a big change from the last time I read a lot of science fiction, back in the 1980s. I think the stories I’ve developed wouldn’t be out of place. That is assuming they turn out OK.

Heat Wave

Heat Wave is the story of a climate researcher who doesn’t get along with his new boss. I wrote more after my last post about it http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/science-fiction-story-update-2012-august-5/, but not in the last week. The first draft runs about 5,700 words now and I think I am about half done. The final story would end up at about 11,000 words. That said, I think I can develop the story more, which could make it a novelette or even a novella rather than a short story. I’ll leave that decision until I do another draft.

I based the story partly on some of my own experiences and partly on what one climate researcher told me about the threats she’d received.

Pete’s Plan

It is the story of a man who lives in a future time where unemployment is so high, that people who have jobs are unlikely to ever meet someone else who has a job. The story is set at a time after the singularity, when some people have become immortal and the rest haven’t.

I got started on it when I woke up from a scary dream early one morning and found it hard to get back to sleep. The dream inspired a story idea for me. I got up and wrote a short first draft in my notebook. I completed a second draft of it this week. It runs about 900 words. My brother has agreed to read it and give me a critique.

The Helix

One story, The Helix, I based on a Lovecraft story, but I moved the setting to Mars. It features a Mars rover I call Felix. So far, all I have is a few notes and a first attempt at an outline. I might change the name to The Spiral Tunnel, because I called the rover Felix. I don’t intend the story to be part of the Cthulhu Mythos, although the story I based it on was.

The Two Davids

The Two Davids, is about a man who wishes he could be two people so he wouldn’t have to choose between two life paths. It doesn’t turn out well for him.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Contingency Update 2012 August 26

I want to complete the video conversion for Contingency soon. This week I did some preparation to try again.

I had worried that I had damaged the film the last time I tried to do the transfer. This week I did an inspection of the films I found some damage. Fortunately, it was only minor damage; about 24 to 30 frames. I could cut that out and still have a film I can project.

I will use an optical printer to do the transfer. I messed it up the last time, which is why I have to redo it. The process is quiet slow and finicky. I have to advance the film frame by frame and then photograph each frame with a digital camera. Some of the shots were from earlier projects and were already available on video. When I checked the print, I identified those shots. That will cut the number of frames I have to transfer in half.

The main problem in my first attempt was that I did a poor job with the focus. When I set it up, the focus looked fine to me. When I got home and looked at the image files, they were all out of focus. I want to run some experiments with the equipment before I try the transfer again. I learned quite a bit from my first attempt. I expect that I’d learn more from a test.

I do wonder if it would have been better to get the film transferred professionally.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Conan the Accountant

Some time not too long after I moved to Calgary, I had an idea for a book I called Conan the Accountant. That must have been in 1980 or 1981. My memory had faded about what I did, because I didn’t think I had done anything but think about it. I found eleven typewritten pages from the story, so I did more than think about it.

The idea of the story was that a Conan type character is transferred from the sword and sorcery era he lives in, to the modern world. I think I must have intended it to be a parody.

The first thing I realized was that I hadn’t used the name Conan. I called the hero Howard (or Howie) the Barbarian. Also, he gets a job in an advertizing company.

The stuff I found was from two parts of the story. The first part was after he reached the modern world. In it he is hunting for a job, and learning that he can’t use the same skills he’d use to hunt a lion. I have one line where he mentioned that he’d already left two interviewers lying in pools of their own blood when they didn’t offer him a job. The second part is set before he moves to the modern world. In it he meets a wizard and a new companion to help him in his quest.

It looks as if I typed the story without any notes or real outline. There were hardly any corrections, which surprises me. Lots of typos though. Some of the writing would be embarrassing to me, but it does sound a lot like the kind of story I was trying to emulate.

I started to convert the story to computer files with optical character recognition. I have three pages to go. I don’t think I can make any use of it, but I wanted it available.

When I was in high school, I started to write a Doc Savage story. Like my Conan story, I gave up on it after a short while. I would like to find it again. My basement is piled high with boxes full of my old paper, so it won’t be easy to find it. That is, if I even kept it.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Sharkbiter Interview Series Posted on YouTube

I posted all of the episodes of the Sharkbiter Interview series on YouTube. You can find them all in this playlist: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL976E68B76C10BFC8

The links to the individual videos are:

The Sharkbiter Interview Part 1: Introduction http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La96Qy8e63c

The Sharkbiter Interview Part 2: How He Made His First Money http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yvh6n968a6s

The Sharkbiter Interview Part 3: His First Tragedy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip3bxfTrO20

The Sharkbiter Interview Part 4: His Second Tragedy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMHW2Vl4nmQ

The Sharkbiter Interview Part 5: His First 150 Million Dollars http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM6yEzfL0IM

The Sharkbiter Interview Part 6: His First Big Business Success http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCYpHv5p41Q

The Sharkbiter Interview Part 7: His Departure From Bunko, Ponzi and Cheatem. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO9lhHj1krQ

The Sharkbiter Interview Part  8: The Precise Detail Institute of Micromanagement http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQ6hfhgoOns

The Sharkbiter Interview Part  9: His Public Service http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u18X074KX0o

The Sharkbiter Interview Part 10: The Final Days of PERV http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ez5jxI9VSvs

The Sharkbiter Interview Part 11: His Political Career http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aczw9bT6hwE

The Sharkbiter Interview Part 12: His Political Reforms http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKkVx5YOCDw

The Sharkbiter Interview Part 13: His Advice http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9OUlTFR4IM

The Sharkbiter Interview Part 14: The Secret of His Success http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKSmjo2T5ug

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog