Boyd McCollum

I was rereading some of William Goldman's Adventures in the Screen Trade last night. Really interesting story he tells about the making of A Bridge Too Far. Anyway, he mentions in that story that the absolutely toughest job belongs to the director. He said that the director is under enormous stress and pressure, from day one, and not day one of shooting, but starting with the writer and going all the way through post production. He said Attenborough slept for 3 days after the shoot wrapped. On top of all that creative pressure and intense focus for months and years at a time that the director deals with, comes all the responsibilites of the director, including all the handholding and coddling of the writers, producers, cast, crew, etc. The director is not a master on set - he's the ultimate servant. He works in service of everyone, trying to give them everything they need to do their best. Then on top of it all, he's expected to be the ultimate Fonzie - calm, cool, collected, and never wrong, at all times. So there are times when you go 5 hard hours down the road, telling the actors to play it one way then change your mind. Definitely not the ideal, but a million times better to deal with the stress of chucking that work away, then to put up some crap on the screen. There aren't any do overs when it's being projected at the theater. And don't forget, many directors are as sensitve and tempermental as any actor, and are as open to being in the moment creatively as it happens as actors are - they need to be to be a good director. I don't know the director, and I don't condone his actions, but I don't condemn them either. In several of the clips you can hear him say "I'm trying to help you" so it's probably as frustrating for him that he can't help as it is for Tomlin. And he's trying to get the right performance from all the actors, and that makes the film better and the actors look good. I guess my point would be to cut the guy a little slack. And maybe with this out on Youtube, he'll try to temper himself a little on his next film. just my $0.02 worth. Boyd McCollum Director/Editor

Hi Michael, the new reel wouldn't work for me - it told me I was missing some type of component for it - and I have QT7 Pro. I tried downloading it directly and it was only 49K. I checked out the lower res version - I thought it looked great overall. Nice choice of music, textured while still uptempo. Transitions were pretty nice also. I thought your work was pretty solid. One shot I didn't like was the rack focus from the guy in the foreground to the woman then back again - it wasn't focused on her long enough, then comes back to the guy, but never refocuses on him. There's also a shot right after that with a guy in a hospital bed or something - looked a little washed out. I'd need to see a higher rez version to make any other comments. A couple of comments on your site. I like the style of it. I like that you had one picture on your homepage, then a different picture on your other pages. I think it would be more effective if each page had a different picture of you. For your resume, I'd clean that up a bit. I would lose the GPA stuff. Grades don't mean anything - it's all in your reel. I'd also drop where you had previous course work. This should only be one or two lines -School, the degree you got (BA, BFA, etc) and the Program. Listing the degree implies you've graduated, so you don't need to mention that. I'd just leave the year and leave out the semester. I'd move your Work experience to the top and clean it up a bit. You use all bold text for everything so titles formats and roles all blend together. You should create different sections for your work. Start with DP/Cinematography - then list underneath the productions, titles, etc. Plus list the director of the project as well. Don''t forget to put in the year that each was completed. Then you can list in another section your AC work. I normally list my stuff with the most recent/current work, then followed by older stuff. If any of the projects you worked on have a website, or the director/producer has a website or an IMDB listing, I would make those hyperlinks and link to them. Mention any awards they have as well, or if they were accepted into any festivals - that speaks to the quality of the productions. You can then have a section afterward for your College stuff, or it might be better to blend them all together. With the year listed (and knowing when/where you graduated from) along with the descriptions you provide, folks will know if it was in school or not. It really doesn't matter, because it's the quality of the work in your demo reel that sells you. The one think I'd make clear on your resume and on your reel, is if you were also camera operator. You had some really nice camera work in there and you should highlight that. The other thing I would drop out of there is your non film-related work. It's good to have a day job (or night job) but on a DP site, I wouldn't list that. The last thing I would do, is either write a one or two paragraph bio and put that at the top of the page, or change the title from Biography & Resume to just Resume (since you don't actually have a bio there yet. :D The nice thing about doing a bio, is that it's another opportunity sell yourself - to actually talk to the person who might want to hire you. You can discuss your passion and approach to your cinematography, highlight anything that was special or stood out from everything else. After 15 years, I still list one of my student films in my bio, because it rocked (not because I think so, but from what others, beyond my mom, have told me. :) ) Anyways, those are my $0.02 worth. Regards, Boyd McCollum Director/Editor

I've found some interesting stuff in the Apple Pro Training Series. Check out Advanced Editing Techniques in Final Cut Pro 5 by Michael Wohl. Also, the Alex Van Hurkman books, Advanced Color Correction and Effects in FCP and Encyclopedia of Color Correction/Field Techniques in FCP, are great. I just picked up the latter and it's got a lot of useful, real world stuff. Another book to check out is Larry Jordan's Final Cut Pro 5 Hands-On Training. It has a lot of good information and is presented in a different format that's a nice break from the Apple books. I don't have it in front of me right now, but I recall one thing I liked were the easily identifiable sidebars with tips/tricks and other useful information. He also has a newsletter you can side up for (whether you buy his book or not.) These books are usually available at Barnes & Nobles/Borders/Etc and you might want to check them out before buying them. Often it's a case of "I know that, I know that" then you come across something and go "I did not know that. That's cool." And that pays for the price of the book. Beyond FCP, one book I like to glance through now and again is Bryce Button's Nonlinear Editing: Storytelling, Aesthetics, & Craft. There are also a couple of good on-line forums on FCP that you should check out, including the Creative Cow, LA Final Cut Pro User Group, and 2-pop. Also check out Ken Stone (www.kenstone.net) - lots of indepth articles on specific topics in, and related to, FCP. I'm sure I'm leaving out some excellent resources, but these are the ones I use. Hope it helps! Boyd McCollum Documentary Filmmaker/Editor Boulder, CO

It seems as if there are as many ways to do reels as there are reels. I think a short 30-60 sec montage of your best stuff can be a nice way to start. After that I think it is best to cut one segment at a time. Either before or during those individual segments, you should also indicate exactly what you did on it. I see so many reels where you don't know if the person was operating, dp'ing, both, etc., not to mention if there are motion graphics or other effects going on. And when they are all mixed together, you don't know if scenes are from the same or different pieces. For commercials, I think you should be able to show them in their entirety. For narratives, I would recommend a couple of scenes from different parts of the film that shows how you handled different parts of it. You don't necessarily need to show a complete five minute scene, but enough to show how you handled a master shot, CUs, reverses, etc. Also, I'm personally beginning to lean against reels that just lay down a music bed against images only. That's great if it's a music video, but for most everything else, it's not. It's a reel to demonstrate your ability to use cinematography to tell a story, to expand on a theme, provide suspense, reveal character, etc. and it's important to get a real feel of the piece itself - what the dialogue is, what the action is, so the person watching your reel can actually see how the cinematography was used in the film. A great way to choose might be to pick the ones where you go "that 'insert great cinematographic element' really worked for the scene." Obviously, put your best stuff up front, and I think it's okay to spend a little more time up front with your best work, then shorten the subsequent segments. I'm not sure what the best total number of segments should be, maybe 4-6 segments in total. On a DVD you can also provide a scene index that allows the viewer to quickly jump to specific works. On my demo reel, I've listed the titles and running times of each segment, including on the back of the DVD case, so folks know what to expect. Anyways, just my $0.02. (I just spent a week working on my demo reel and really thinking about it and researching what others have done, so I hope my conclusions aren't too strong for those that take a different approach :) ) Regards, Boyd