Jim Keller

Congratulations! Do let us know when you can so we can watch it (a few months behind on this side of the pond).

Frankly, most trained cats come from the Humane Society. Now, that doesn't mean you can go in, pick up a cat, use it, and take it back. That means congratulations, you've got a new pet, and you will love it and care for it for the next 10-20 years. But training cats is quite easy if you identify a cat that has a tendency toward the behavior you need anyways. (Need the cat to stay put, find one that you need a shovel to get to move. Need the cat to climb? Find one that tends to climb. Need one to cuddle? Find one that's cuddly. Etc.) If you teach the cat a signal to do the desired behavior and reward it for doing so, you should have it performing the trick (reasonably) reliably in a couple of weeks. You will never teach a cat to perform a trick it doesn't do naturally. A hyperactive cat won't learn to sit still, etc. Generally, the wranglers who adopt from the humane society will walk in and look for a cat that is attentive, and tending to do the sorts of things that will be needed (making noise, keeping quiet, reaching, jumping, etc.) The good ones are always honest with the staff about the fact that they're wranglers (or filmmakers) but assure them that the animal will have a loving home, not kept in a cage when not performing. And, if you take this approach, you've got the added advantage of having saved a life.

I've never seen a job description that requires certification in a piece of software. And I work for the government. If we don't need to see a certification, no one does. The ability to demonstrate that you can use it is far more important, and for that a reel is your best bet. If you're just starting out and don't have any way to create a professional looking reel, the certification is better than nothing, but getting a reel together needs to be your top priority.

That does, of course, depend on the relationship you've got with your sister. :P I picked the term up from the unions (I started out as an actor and stage manager), but, yes, a body check is a common enough practice that the unions have specific rules for how to deal with them. Most of them are common sense, and the basis of my "don't" list. If you're working with an experienced casting director (and if you can afford to do so, I strongly recommend it -- many excellent ones will work very cheaply on shorts or someone's first feature to build the relationship, and I can recommend a couple when you're ready), he/she/it will have a body check procedure down cold. The reason I like to do it up front is something I learned from All I Need to Know about Filmmaking I Learned from the Toxic Avenger by Lloyd Kaufman, James Gunn, and Roger Corman (a book I strongly recommend for anyone who has studied film). In their films, the nudity is vital to their ability to sell the project (they are, after all, exploitation films). They've had problems when they've waited until the end with performers getting to the end and then refusing to do the nudity (or demanding a much higher wage to do so). It can seriously harm their product when that happens. Since I'm of the opinion that if the nudity isn't essential to the film, you shouldn't do it (which goes with everything, not just nudity), I fall into the "get it over with" camp. But, yes, ultimately it's the variety of opinions you get here that makes these forums so useful, so you should never take what I say as the word of God... (when was the last time you heard a producer say that?)

They just announced a new showrunner... can't be all that done... :)

First a few Don'ts: Don't ask for nudity as part of a first audition. If a body check is needed it should always come at a callback, after the performer has been auditioned as a performer. Never touch a performer (or allow anyone on your team to do so) in a manner that could be even vaguely construed as sexual as part of the audition process. Don't let the audition process turn into a spectator event. Only the people who need to see the performer should be in the room. Don't surprise anyone with the sexuality and nudity. Declare it up front in the breakdown. First of all, make sure it's someone you're going to be comfortable working with, and will be comfortable working with you. If the two of you are immediately comfortable together (I always describe is as feeling like my sister just walked into the room) there's a good bet she's going to be fine to work with. If either you or she are tense, or if she's trying to negotiate her way out of the nudity, she's the wrong choice for the project. Secondly, and most important, make sure she's right for the character. Don't go for the hottest actress. Don't go for the one most open with her body. Cast the right person for the role just like you would for a non-nudity role. And, finally, if you're concerned, at a callback do a body check to make sure she's comfortable with the nudity and to be sure that she doesn't have a huge inappropriate tattoo or somesuch. Bear in mind that even the most comfortable actor will be a little out of sorts (some will be tense, some will get silly) at a body check, because unlike when they're acting and they've got the part, they know they're being judged on their body at the body check, and, let's be honest, even the most beautiful woman in the world has her insecurities. I wouldn't audition the sex scene. That would be very unprofessional. Rather I would do callbacks where I pair actors to see who has chemistry. If you cast the actress first, ask her if she'd be willing to come to the callbacks for her partner to read off them. If you're casting both simultaneously, try to schedule as much overlap as you can and mix up the pairs as much as possible. If the performers have good chemistry, work well together, and are comfortable with one another in an ordinary dialogue scene, there's nothing to worry about in the sex scene. Absolutely! That's why it's called acting! And one final piece of advice: Shoot the nude/sex scenes first. That way if after all this there is a problem, you can recast without losing all the footage you already have in the can.

Yes, obviously all those choices are made based on other considerations. I just mean that they're unrelated to the "static filmmaking" problem. Since I work on digital and overwhelmingly with talent with very little experience, I find it useful to shoot everything, including rehearsal, looking for the moments where people's guard went down and I got something good, and it costs me nothing. Working on film with professionals would lead me to be very stingy on the footage and very strict with sticking to the plan.

One of the biggest things that leads to these types of problems is simply a lack of comfort on the part of the participants. Especially on student films -- where people are unsure of their own abilities, desperately hoping to get their big break, wondering if they can ask to be excused to feed the meter -- people get tense and aren't able to relax and do what they do well. When you watch someone who is truly great at something -- no matter what it is -- they make it look easy. I was remarking on this just yesterday watching old footage of Liberace. I play piano. I know how hard what he did is. And yet he makes it look easy. When you're really thinking while you're working, you're not comfortable. And it won't look easy. When you're worrying about if you're doing it right, you're not comfortable, and it won't look easy. When you're trying to impress that really cute guy/girl over there, you're not comfortable, and it won't look easy. You have to make it look easy. Now, that's easy (sorry, couldn't resist) for me to say. We can't all be Liberace. So how do you get comfortable and make it easy? Well, the answer, I think, is in preparation and planning. If you've thought it through, if you know you can pull it off, and if you have a backup plan for anything that might go wrong, then you can relax. You don't need to worry. You can trust in your planning and your abilities. So, when you're making your movie, whether you want to stick close to the script or improv doesn't matter. Whether you want a lot of movement or actors tied to chairs doesn't matter. Whether you want to rehearse it to death or shoot "raw" doesn't matter. What matters is encouraging everyone to trust in their abilities, to relax, and to just do it. Because, really, if they can't do it relaxed, they can't do it tense, either.

I'm of the opinion that the very best way to direct an actor is not the one you find in the textbooks, and it's simply this: Share your analysis of the scene. You see, every actor will use a different technique. Learning to act is like going to the eye doctor. The eye doctor puts a lens in front of your eyes and says, "Is that better or worse?" An actor will try a method acting class and if it makes his acting better, he will go that route. If it makes it worse, he may find a Chekhov class, or a Meisner class, etc. And to make matters worse, I've never met a professional actor who uses one and only one technique. Most study them all, taking a little of this and a little of that, depending on what works for them. Unless you wanted to make a detailed study of all of them, and then ask the actor what unique combination of all the above he uses, you're simply not going to be able to talk to an actor in "his language." Remember that most of the "how to direct actors" textbooks out there are written by frustrated actors, who seem to think it's the director's job to know how to act. It isn't. Your job is to unify the work of all the artists working on the project, and you can correctly expect them all to know how to do their job. "Action verbs" will work great for someone with method training, but will make an English technical actor roll his eyes at you. Describing what you need the actor to do physically may work great for the technical actor, but the method actor will stare blankly, with no idea how to make his body do that. But, if you can sit down and say, "Here's my interpretation of the scene, and these are the beats we need to hit," any competent, professional actor should be able to then translate that into his or her own personal technique. Saying "I need you sad" doesn't work because it's devoid of the analysis. Sad how? Sad why? Doesn't matter the technique, the actor is still shooting in the dark. But if you say "I think his transition from happy to sad is in this part of the scene, and it's probably linked to his speech on page 23, where the author makes the point about personal responsibility and establishes that it's an issue he's always struggled with" you've started a discussion with the actor in very concrete, script-based language that you can both agree on. He may be a technical actor who will say, "So, you're thinking a subtle change in facial expression?" or he may be a psychological actor who'll say "So, he starts remembering his childhood?" -- then you know more about what sort of actor he is and can decide how to answer him. Either way you're now engaging him in a way that makes him feel like you're speaking his language, even though you're instead using the universal language of script analysis.

This is probably what you want: http://www.panasonic.com/business/provideo...and-updates.asp

It's quite possible (though more difficult) to key out an unevenly lit greenscreen. But it costs you in the palette you have available elsewhere. In our studio here, we don't have the space to light the greenscreen correctly, and as a result I rarely shoot my blonde talent against it, because I find myself keying out their hair if I'm not careful. All that said, I have never bothered to look up how the accomplished the invisibility cloak. May be another process altogether.

It won't look the same as an in-camera effect, but it's quite easy to create the "bright spot" effect in post. Just overlay a black solid with the transparency set <0 but >100 (at whatever level you like best) and then put a mask on that layer over the actor's eye. Final Cut Pro, After Effects, and Motion should all be able to do this pretty easily. It (or the reverse) may work for the "beam of light" effect, too. Experiment a little and see if you can get something you like.

I was cleaning out my filing cabinets last night and found that I actually have photocopies of an old manual for each of the cameras, which I plan to include as well.

Overall I think you've made a good start, but I'm feeling that it's running a bit long. I'd try to tighten it up about 10-20%. Most of us in this industry have very short attentions spans. I think leaving out sync sound and using music works best (because if the sound isn't perfect, it creates an unconscious impression that your photography isn't as "polished" and, really, that's not what it's about). I think your current music choice is good. But remember, it does create an impression about your work, so make sure it's music that you think is really you, if that makes sense. I get an impression about the "tone" of your work (and you as a person) by what music you lay down, and that will color my hiring decisions. (I say all that with the caveat that I do personally like the music you've chosen.) Also, since you're organizing by project (not a bad choice overall) I found myself wondering by the sixth or seventh shot if you'd only done one film. You can prevent that by using less footage from each project (not ideal, since you want to use your best work regardless of project), organizing it some other way (involves finding another story to tell with the editing), or by creating a quick montage/composite/etc. of many projects to go with/under your title at the beginning (assuring me that there are several projects featured before I see the first one). Just my $0.02. Hope it helps.

I feel I should jump in with the caveat that it can be very hard to find lamps for those older projectors, though I say that never having attempted to find one for that particular model.

My top five at the moment: 1) Tak Fujimoto 2) John C. Flinn III 3) Gerald Perry Finnerman 4) Eric Alan Edwards 5) Dion Beebe #5 was a tough call, because there are so many good DPs out there and it's really only for one film (Chicago) that made me rave and normally someone wouldn't make my list until I'd loved his/her work many times. But he's shown he's not afraid to use the right tool for the job (often using theatrical techniques to achieve a film effect), so he's as good a choice as any. #4 makes the list for his ability to deliver stuff that looks and feels so real I forget it's been deliberately designed and shot. His work on both Kids and Another Day in Paradise left me speechless. #s 3 and 2 make the list for their ability to create very interesting looks on very tight schedules and with very limited budgets (frequently in defiance of convention). Best television DPs ever, in my opinion. And #1 makes the list because, well, he's Tak Fujimoto!

You mean you bother with the can? I'm notorious for "bare bulb" pars. :P

Thanks! I appreciate that!

Fascinating! I'm pretty sure the "X" is in Sharpie, though... :)

Hopefully these show what you're interested in. I'm afraid I'm not up on the Arri II line enough to know what changed over the years. Looks like a 180 degree shutter to me, but I didn't take it apart to look closely and couldn't get a good photo, but that's a different question. As you can sort of see in the last picture, someone for some reason drew vertical lines and a big X on the ground glass. I'd forgotten all about it until I took the picture. (What can I say? I was born with the producer ability to ignore anything that will cost money to fix.) Obviously, ground glass isn't that big a deal to replace if it bothers you.

Sure. I'll shoot one when I get home this evening.

I'm actually still shooting with my old D100, and for testing purposes it would be more than adequate, and is truly a workhorse. It doesn't have the pre-shooting controls that the D200 and D300 have, but shooting in RAW mode you can still do an amazing amount, and you can get them used for under $500.

Oh, and I should say, price is always negotiable -- especially if you would be willing to give me a screaming deal on the photography if I ever do get my next feature financed. :P

The most important thing to remember is that you're producing for the camera, not for the live audience. So when it looks right through the camera is when it looks right, no matter how ugly it is in person. Having taped a fair number of live performances, always bear in mind that the camera will see the differences in lighting intensity much more than you will. Personally, I would be inclined to have every light in the hall turned on, and use the lighting gear to brighten up the band just a little bit over the ambient light, and then stop the cameras for the band. But, that said, it's hard to say without seeing the space and looking at the monitor.

Though I should add that if you *are* compositing anyway, a popular trick to make the stars "shine" is to make a duplicate "stars" layer, pump the curves so that only the brightest stars have any light value, run a blur filter on it, and then screen it back on the original stars layer. (Easy with stills ... requires good gear for motion pictures.)