Tyler Purcell

I think Union rates are ridiculous and don't do anything for the quality of the film, but that's just my opinion. On a $50k feature, you aren't paying the crew. On a $150k feature, you can pay the crew, but can't afford equipment or post production. On a $250k feature, you can afford the crew and equipment, but post is a struggle. With $300k, you can pretty much do everything without too many issues. In terms of cast, SAG waiver is $135/day I believe, right around there. Schedule F (which is what low budget films would do) is $60k. So put two decent SAG actors in your film, you increase the budget by $120k, which isn't crazy. Names help sell, but if the product is crap, it's not going to help.

If I'm very careful with my metering and are forced to shoot one or two stops under, I will fix it in post. Much more then that and you're really pushing the imager's capability on scanner. You'll start to get digital noise, rather then just film noise. Anything over 2 stops, I'd absolutely push the stock to make up for it. Anything under and you'll probably be OK in DI.

Agreed... and this is something A LOT of producer and directors struggle with. It's as if they're only in the industry because they stumbled upon a job opening and took it. The worst part is, people who DO have stories to tell, are sometimes completely unable to tell them. I'm kinda in the same boat. It's hard to raise $50k and credit cards aren't the solution because who says a $50k film will ever be sold? Honestly, I've done a lot of budgeting as of recent and the minimal you can spend on a feature is around $250 - $300k. That's paying everyone, that's shooting for a decent amount of time and having the right equipment. Plus, nobody is going to give you that money without a track record. Even if it's a bunch of shorts that are good, you need to have something in the can, IMDB credits, the whole 9 yards.

Putting 3:2 pulldown into a 24fps clip is actually very easy. FCP, AE, Premiere and Avid can do it on export from a 24 or 23.98 sequence.

Fly down to L.A. and see it at the Cinerama Dome. That theater is one of three in this country designed for that 70mm anamorphic format.

Yea, like a tight rock band. On a film set, if everyone is trying to learn how each other works, the director can be side tracked with ancillary things that pull them away from the actors. So it's great to have a tight crew, that doesn't need any real guidance, so the director can focus on their actors and telling the story instead.

Which is very, very, very sad since it's one of the best movies ever made, was made at the height of the widescreen "technology" driven era. Studio's were working over time to get people back into the theaters. So they made some amazing epic films that would cost us $300M - $500M to make today. The stunts are real, there is no green screen, the sets physically existed and the imagery is unbelievably powerful. If more younger people saw some of these classic movies, they may push away from our modern green screen crap because it's so sensationalist, so over the top. 'Ben Hur' isn't over the top, it's realistic and that's just one of the many reason's it's such a great film. I mean, I'm "young" and I've seen 'Ben Hur' a lot. If you do anything in hollywood, seeing these classic films is a pre-requisite! Download the AFI 100 list and watch every single film on there. You'll be entertained, educated and understand the reasoning why a lot of our modern films are crap.

I just forwarded your links to a friend of Jay's. I doubt Pratt will do anything. Being a huge steam buff myself, I admire what Conrad is doing. I truly doubt there is another person who could take over from him and continue to do that loving work on steam engines. If I wasn't so young and eager to make movies, I'd contemplate it.

Hey Emma, So if there isn't a lot of film work, why would having a film education make you more employable? I went to film school to be a cinematographer, yet I don't have a "cinematography" degree. I just focused more on cinematography then other people, some of whom wanted to focus on writing, editing or directing. The piece of paper doesn't mean anything in the real world anyway. The only things that matter are your demo reel, IMDB credits and skill set. Cinematography is a trade that requires hands-on experimentation, mentoring and opportunity. Studying photography isn't a bad idea, you'll get the basic understanding of how a camera works and composition, but there is a lot more to cinematography. Film school kinda helps with this because you're taught the basics of cinematography, given actual projects to shoot and cameras to shoot them with. If you're constantly shooting stuff for other students outside of class (which is what I did), then you can build a pretty decent demo reel AND if one of those filmmakers shorts is seen by actual people, it could be good for you as well.

One of the things you're missing about The Black List, is most of those films which were produced, were written by people who's films were already produced. Yes, there are a small percentage of films that get picked up, but like everything in life, there are a small amount of college basketball players who wind up on a pro team, a small amount of painters who strike gold and like those difficult professions, you could be part of the 1% that make it through. However, it's such an arbitrary decision on what's being made, you almost need an inside man to tell you what the industry needs right now. As I pointed out earlier, it really has nothing to do with the quality of work, it has more to do with whether it fits what the studio's are looking to produce. So it's really by accident anyone from the outside gets their film produced. Plus... I can't get on the Black List because I'm not a DGA director. So that means, as a small-time filmmaker in Hollywood, looking for great scripts to produce, with good backers... I can't even see your work. A good piece of advice which may help is writing for television. If you wanted to be a show runner, write a killer show bible and the first season to prove how cool the show is, you maybe able to get meetings. Right now, the industry is looking for anything that's long-term, meaning a 7 season (16 episodes per season) show bible. It's a lot of work on your part, but if you could make it cheap to produce, have some great engrossing characters, you maybe able to get somewhere. Once finished, you could bang on some development people's doors and see if anyone bites. You want to be a writer/executive producer (show runner) though, you don't want to hand a script over. You won't make a dime off the scripts, they'll hire people to write YOUR show for you. However, as an executive producer on a good show, you may be able to stick around, write some episodes AND get that big royalty check for the next 30 years as your series goes into syndication. This will allow you to write feature films and make money from your TV show. I know it sounds like a hard road, but honestly most people who go into pitch meetings, don't have a show bible, they don't have a first season of scripts and aren't prepared to make the show fit whatever network they're at. If you are willing to do those things, that path may be more successful.

I wish that's how it worked. Production companies only care about making money. This is why most of the stuff in theaters today is poorly written crap. Most of the good stuff comes from writer/producer/directors, guys who get their own projects produced, not people trying to sell scripts to studio's.

The point is, you can blow 70mm up onto a huge screen and it doesn't fall apart. Plus because it's a larger negative, registration issues aren't as obvious. Even watching Interstellar's 35mm bits, optically blown up to 70mm was like watching digital projection, it was rock solid. In IMAX, the credit sequence at the end was so crisp and flawless, I had to turn around to see whether they changed projectors.

Sounds about right! :D

Dang, I guess everyone got mixed up then. Too bad. :( I mean it's good in another way, Panavision and Arri have all their 5 perf 65mm cameras on rental, so at least SOMEONE is shooting film!

http://screencrush.com/war-for-the-planet-of-the-apes-filming-photo/ Sounds like they're shooting on film to me. Unless of course you have some inside information.

The problem with Hollywood is that everyone has a screenplay or story they want to tell. Since there are so many people already working in the industry here, it's much easier for them to get their script onto the desk of someone who matters, then a random person coming in from the outside.

Satsuki hit the nail on the head.

I mean there isn't a right way or wrong way. There isn't a magic potion or some black art/skill set that gives you the work. Most of us have struggled for a decade or more, refining our art, meeting the right people, getting screwed constantly and living off no sleep and shitty food, so we can be working on securing the next gig. I think the more diverse you are as a filmmaker, the better. You've gotta plant your seeds in more then one plot of land and which ever grows fastest, you pick and eat. The plants that grew fast for me were the post production one's. So I spent over a decade sucking those sweet post production plants, instead of my trained profession which is cinematography. The nice thing about post production is that MOST of the jobs are long-term freelance, contract or salary. So you can work on big shows, get your name on credits and have a cush, relatively good paying job, depending on the position. Production jobs however... that's a whole other world, it's feast or famine. It's all about who you know, what they need and how you can help them. Do you come with a 4k camera and Zeiss cine primes? Can you work 7 days a week, 18hr days for $150/day? Well, you're hired! It's less about the quality of work today, it's more about how cheap you can shoot it on 4k. That's the new buzz word and if you don't own a 4k cinema camera, lenses, support gear and sometimes audio, you might as well give up and get a desk job. Everyone wants to work you to death for no money, use and abuse the equipment even you can't afford to own and never give you another job again. So basically, it's frustrating. Digital cinematography has only made things FAR FAR FAR worse. You need to do something over and above everyone else to get constant work. Lots of good IMDB credits. Great demo reel. A substantial boat load of equipment. Great references/movies that people know and most importantly, a rate which is extremely competitive. Did I mention frustrating? Yea... I did.

Really? I heard they were shipping next week.

I'll say this much, there are two films being shot in 70mm right now and the next Planet of the Apes, which is a remake of the original film, will also be 5 perf 70mm. So that would be four 70mm originated films to be released from December of this year through sometime in 2017. That's not bad, considering we haven't seen a narrative feature shot on 5 perf 70mm prior to 'The Master' since the 90's. I'm more concerned if studio's are going to consider it a gimmick, charge a lot of money for something that's just digitized and manipulated digitally before printing back to film. That will truly be disheartening because the whole idea is to do things the old school way and deliver something the audience can't see at home. At least 'Hateful Eight' is doing it the right way. Complete photochemical finish, no green screen, everything in-camera and best of all, the only way to see it is 70mm for the first two weeks.

Arclight is the only major theater with all it's 35mm projectors still in tact. However, I haven't seen any lists of 35mm projection available. IMAX 70mm isn't coming to L.A. right away, however 'Interstellar' did play at our local science museum after it was in the major theaters. So MAYBE a print will show up after the hoopla is over. The film was NOT shot in 3D, so seeing it in IMAX Laser 3D (the only way to see it in IMAX Digital) is going to deliver a crappy experience, probably similar to 'Jurassic world' where buildings and characters were on top of each other in some scenes because of the 3D conversion. The other frustrating part of the whole experience is the whole film went through heavy digital post processing, so even if you did see it on film, it will have heavy anti-grain filtering which makes it look like crap. This is unlike 'Interstellar' which didn't have much clean up work and had a photochemical coloring and blow up process to 70mm.

Hey Grant, welcome! Since this is the "critique" section.. I'll lay a few on ya. I did like it a lot, good imagery and story. The whole low shutter speed, motion blur thing, really makes it look like just another DSLR shoot. Ya gotta be very careful with that look because in todays world, it's like shooting on mini-dv or something, people just expect better. The black and white stuff needed to be lit differently, it was too contrasty and some of the camera moves were very unmotivated, as if that section was shot very quickly compared to the other stuff, which was much more well thought out. Coloring was an issue in some places and so was audio, but that may have not been your department. I was shocked about the poor audio in the black and white scene, that's a huge red flag, especially since some of it is even out of sync. I'm very nitpicky about that stuff, I would have ADR'd the whole scene to make it match the VO mic which clearly sounded great. Anyone who see's this, will catch that audio issue and it really drags the piece down in my opinion, which is unfortunate.

That's what everyone is saying, which is so exciting. It's unfortunate Craig won't be joining for another installment.

So they set up lights, but still shot digital. Makes a lot of sense. :shrug:

Pretty sweet. Put that sucker into a nice wooden window frame and it may work nicely. I'd also put a light diffusion curtain or something in front of it so the light isn't so hard.