Adam Hunt

Wow Phil, that's pretty hostile. You are obviously a very angry person. You seem to genuinely hate me for some unknown reason, but I don't think others here would consider me an 'idiot' just because we may not agree on every issue. I was trying to discuss the definition of filmmaker. I presented my view on it. Something I thought was a fair characterization of what defines a filmmaker. So far only one person has presented a counter argument. And it seems there was confusion about money somehow being a factor (which was actually something Marty misquoted me about rather than something I actually said). If you think my definition of a filmmaker is wrong Phil, then tell me WHY it is wrong, and what YOUR definition of a filmmaker is. Don't attack me personally. That will only backfire in the end and make you look like the idiot.

Can I make it clear again that neither my definition of filmmaker nor my definition of musician has anything to do with how much money they make? I have never said that. Please see the definition I laid out above. It clearly has nothing to do with budgets or income.

Yeah, nobody said it was easy, but I know I'd still take it over a 9 to 5 job any day. You don't put up with the long erratic hours unless you love this job.

Doesn't Britain have a pretty good film industry?

I don't follow. Aren't you in Britain?

Amen.

I want to know how he got 6 million bucks being a first time filmmaker, and with a script this utterly terrible. And imagine the reaction of the investors. Remember the story about the exec who had a heart attack after seeing the finished cut of 2001? He was worried they had spent all that money on nothing. Imagine seeing this film after sinking millions into it. I would die on the spot. As it turned out though, the film was so bad it became a cult hit and has probably made it's money back.

Not at all. Michael Bay is a filmmaker. He may or may not be a good one depending on your assessment of his films, but he does fit into the guidelines I laid out. I said it was about intentions. The directors of Transformers, Amadeus, and The Rock all had intentions of making a good standalone work with professional quality. Wether or not those films or their directors were 'good' in any objective or subjective assessment, or wether or not they appealed to you personally, they are indeed films and their directors are indeed filmmakers. That's why I said it was about the intention of the work not the result. The quality of the results are largely subjective. And just because someone is a crappy filmmaker does not mean they are not a filmmaker at all. Even Tommy Wiseau is a filmmaker. They are not. Performers, entertainers: yes. Musicians: no. There a plenty of musicians whose music I personally think is awful, but I still consider them musicians. My point about boy bands was that they are a construct and not artists. That does not mean that they are not performers and capable of entertaining an audience. The style of music or my opinion of it has nothing to do with them being musicians or not.

Get some cameras. HD and 35 milly. You can always choose later, so why be silly! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kx-Fc0iVF2A

Also, as stupid as shooting two formats simultaneously is in this case, Oklahoma! (and possibly some other films) were shot in both 65mm Todd-AO and 35mm simultaneously. In that case however because of Todd-AO's 30fps there actually was no way to make 35mm prints from it back then.

Some of my favourite utterly stupid moments in the film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQ4KzClb1C4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S9Ew3TIeVQ

Can we resurrect this thread? I discovered the absurdity that is 'The Room' about a year or two ago, and it utterly fascinates me with it's unintentional weirdness. Anyway, the version of the film that I have seen (and I think most clips of the film floating around) are from the 35mm version. The film is just really terribly lit and shot, so it looks like what you would expect from a no-budget amateur film shot on video rather than a film that had the money to shoot 35mm. I heard an interview with Wiseau from several years after the film was made where he still seemed to confuse the difference between HD and film. He seemed to still think that back then (2003) there was no way to transfer film to HD or HD to film, so the decision seems to have had something to do with being able to show it both on 35mm in theatres and on video. In that same interview Wiseau he blabbed for several minutes about how much better HD was than film, then indicated that the Blu-ray was being rescanned from the 35mm version (which according to him was not possible in 2003). :blink: Some other interesting facts: The film cost $6 million. Yeah, that's right. Don't ask me what they spent it all on because it sure wasn't the actors, the sets, or a talented DOP. Also, Wiseau purchased both the HDX-900 and the BL4 (apparently because he did not know you could rent cameras). There are some other weird decisions here like why you would shoot a whole bunch of roof scenes 100% greenscreen when it seems like this would make things more difficult than shooting on an actual roof. Also, I know this is off topic from cinematography but did anyone else who has seen this film feel that it is possibly the most misogynistic film in history?

As to the whole what constitutes a filmmaker thing, I have already said a lot in the other thread and I don't really want to type it all again, but let me see if I can sum it up in brief. For me the definition of a filmmaker is all about intentions. A filmmaker is somebody who makes and audio/visual work with the intention of it being just that: a standalone work. It's central purpose is not to advertise a product (like commercials or corporates), or to document something for a very limited audience (like a wedding video). A film is made as a work to stand on it's own, to be seen by an audience, most of whom don't have ties to the filmmaker himself. This definition applies nicely to narrative film, documentaries, art films, and creative visual works. It does not apply to corporate video makers, wedding videographers, commercial directors, etc. Music videos are a grey area. Technically their central purpose is too sell a product (the band, the album) but in my experience they are not approached as such like a commercial would be. The idea is usually to create a cool piece of art that gets people's interest and just provides a cool way for them to hear the music. Combine with that that music video directors and DOPs have more crossover with actual filmmaking than any of those other categories and I think it's safe to call music video directors who approach music videos as a work of their own filmmakers. I also think that in order to call yourself a filmmaker you have to approach it with a certain intention of professionalism. What I mean is you should either already be a professional at it or be doing work in aspiration to being a professional. We got into a bit of a discussion about YouTube. I think this aspiration towards quality and professionalism is what separates filmmakers posting work on YouTube from YouTubbers. YouTubbers video tape their cat, or do something crazy on camera with the sole purpose of getting lots of views (and therefore the perception of personal popularity), but they never aspire to create a quality work or move beyond YouTube. A filmmaker however creates a work with either professional skill or an aspiration towards professional skill and approaches YouTube as one of several mediums to get that work to an audience. The two have very different intentions. As for your musician analogy: I am not excluding musicians that don't bring in $200 a ticket. I think that's a very unfair characterization of my views on what constitutes a filmmaker. That would be a fair analogy if I had said your budget or popularity makes you a filmmaker. But that's not the case at all. The billionaire rockstar and the kid with a guitar in his parents basement are equally musicians as long as their intention is to create a quality work that can be appreciated by themselves and an audience. A closer analogy as far as musicians would be that both Lenny from down the street and somebody like Paul Simon are musicians, but the members of an artificially constructed boy band like N'Sync is not. Boy Bands are the corporate videos of the music world. But extending that further, that's not to say that the member of a boy band could not, in some special cases, become a musician. But he would have to prove himself to be a musician before being called that.

First of all thanks for linking to this new thread for me :huh: I just found it now by accident. I have noticed that industrials/news is actually myopic in the way you suggest. I applied for some editor/assistant editor jobs doing corporates when I first moved to t.o. and they wanted nothing to do with me, even though I had some experience doing what were basically commercials/corporates for an ad agency I worked for. I was involved with narrative film so therefore I wasn't one of them. They are myopic. But they are narrow-minded business men and a completely different type than people in the film industry (even snooty studio execs). I don't find it works the opposite way at all. In my experience people in the 'film biz' don't give a crap about your background. I have never been asked where I went to school, or if I worked in other fields before. Occasionally they want a CV with the credits of productions I have worked on, but that has become so rare (mostly because they just look you up on IMDb). Usually all they want is a reel. Often they may not even ask for a reel if you come highly recommended by somebody they know. The point is, all they care about is can you do this particular thing they want. If you want to direct, show me something you have directed. If you want to write, show me something you have written. If you want to edit, show me something you have cut. That's all there is to it. There is no branding at all. None in my experience. From the sounds of it Marty you are hitting a brick wall because you have stuff to show them in many other fields but not the specific one they want. Unfortunately that other stuff is worth zero to them. You are in a lot of ways starting at square one in their eyes. But that's not to say your other experience is not useful for transitioning to a new field. It's probably worth a lot in fact. But worth a lot to you not them. What I mean is you have to turn the experience that benefits you into something that will get their attention. You need to use that talent to build a DOP reel geared towards drama or music videos. Go to LIFT, rent their Konvas for $45 a day and a light kit, get yourself some short ends and shoot. That's what a friend of mine did. The guy used to be an actor, but decided he wanted to be a DOP. Nobody would of course hire him as a DOP based on his acting experience so he went out and found a way to shoot a reel on 35mm out of his pocket, on the cheap, without looking cheap. And he shot a reel. Just individual shots. But shots that looked like they belonged in a dramatic film or a music video. You cut them together with some music and you got a reel. Now he's working constantly doing a mixture of music videos, shorts and features. He was a talented guy from the start, but nobody took him seriously until he had a reel to show them. But can you blame them? You have the advantage of knowing your way around a camera. You don't really need to learn anything technical here. You just need to demonstrate your knowledge and creativity in the context they want to see. How many interesting and varied shots do you think you can bang off in a weekend when you are not making a film but just setting up interesting shots? Get 'em all processed on Monday. Get a transfer session at Technicolor Wednesday (I bet you can spend less than an hour in the suite and be out of there on minimal cash). Then beg a favour from a friend with Final Cut on Thursday (if you don't have it yourself). Pad it with some material from your commercial/corporate reel that could be passed of as belonging in film, and by Friday you are handing DVDs to people with exactly what they want to see on it. I know I'm making it sound easy, and I know it's not just a walk in the park but it's doable. Like I said I know people who have done it. Don't worry about this myopia stuff. If you show them a reel that demonstrates what you can do for narrative film they probably wont even ask about your background. Go to some parties and make some connections. I used to (and sometimes still do) carry around those little 3" mini-DVDs in my pocket to parties where I know I will meet industry people instead of business cards.

LIFT is a great place. Not just for the equipment but the people. It's a really good place to meet people in t.o. indie film. I would recommend going to some of their barbecues, screenings or other events like that. Their workshops are great as well, I have taken a bunch and taught one myself for a while. And yeah the t.o. music scene is amazing. Lots of great artists here.

Yeah, Kodak seems to raise the price on stock every once in a while by some change per roll, nothing drastic. A DOP told me that if you take into account inflation stock actually costs less than it used to, but I haven't done the math or anything so I don't know if that's true. If you are actually planning to shoot film at any point in the future, there are some good places into Toronto to get verified short ends.

Last time I investigated it it was for a traditional film to film finish, so it was frame accurate A and B rolls. But I'm sure flash to flash would be an option. I don't see how that would save any money though compared to just doing selects from the lab rolls.

KeyKode, pull and assembly lists. As long as you have good timecode and a match list, and/or keykode in your Final Cut or Avid EDL they have a very clear list to work from.

You are in Oshawa right? So we have access the same post houses. Have you priced lately? Yeah, transfers are not free by any means but the prices are much better than they used to be. They have most certainly not gone up.

I said nothing 1.85:1 uses anamorphic lenses. Lots of people shoot 1.85:1 or 1.78:1 with Super 35.

If you say "we are shooting scope" people would generally assume you are talking about full 4-perf anamorphic 35mm: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cinemascope_4_perf_35_mm_film.png It has a projected aspect ratio of 2.39:1 but the image is squeezed 2x horizontally by the lens when it is recorded on the film. Several decades ago the standard frame size was just a little bit taller and yielded a projected image of 2.35:1 so you still hear a lot of people refer to it as that even though in most cases it would actually be 2.39:1. Some people also call it 2.40:1, but it's the same thing. Generally anytime you hear 2.35:1, 2.39:1, or 2.40:1 they all refer to the same thing that is actually 2.39:1. Anamorphic lenses are bulky and can have some drawbacks as far as ease of use so Super35 was invented. It used a slightly wider area on the negative and had an aspect ratio close to 1.33:1. A center (or sometimes slightly offset) area matching the 2.39:1 ratio was cropped out of the 1.33:1 image and converted to an anamorphic image for projection. This allowed cinematographers to use spherical lenses while still getting the wider 2.39:1 image. It does however come at the cost of some added softness and graininess and longer depth of field compared to true scope. In recent years 3-perf Super35 has become more popular because you can still crop 2.39:1 out of it's centre but it has less "wasted image area" than 4-perf Super35. 2-perf is becoming more popular for 2.39:1 now as well, but it has a slightly reduced image area compared to 3 and 4 perf. And just to clarify, no variation of Super 35mm is ever used with anamorphic lenses and neither in anything yielding 1.85:1. It is only true 4-perf "scope" 2.39:1 that uses anamorphic lenses. So generally if you hear "we are shooting scope" they are shooting 4-perf 2.39:1 with anamorphic lenses, although some people do use the term to refer to anything that ends up as a final image with an aspect ratio of 2.39:1.

I disagree. Yes there are a limited variety of core stories, but there is always a way to tell it in a new way. No filmmaker is a blank slate, and therefore all films are built on and inspired by films that came before them. But that does not mean they are copy and paste. Yes, unfortunately "copy and paste" aptly describes a lot of films especially indie films, but it is not true for all films. There are skilled filmmakers out there who know how to take inspiration from both life and cinema and weave them into something original and fresh.

HD transfers are dropping in price. The book rates just aren't dropping. But the final price that you can haggle to is much less than it used to be.

I think this is a problem that applies to all filmmaking, both Hollywood and indie. I wouldn't say there is nothing though. You still see great films both Hollywood and indie, it's just extremely rare compared to several decades ago. It's due to a lack of good screenwriters. There are people out there with good ideas, but few have the actual skill and practice to weave a good compelling screenplay out of said ideas. I'm hoping skilled screenwriting will make a comeback. There are guys like Robert McKee out there trying to do just that. If more aspiring filmmakers picked up his book the quality of the stories would surely improve somewhat.

Since this section is for honest feedback I will be honest. The trailer doesn't really tell us what the story is about. I really have no idea what this film is about after watching it. Yes it is hard to judge a film by it's trailer, but in this case the performances are very obviously weak and that comes across even in the trailer. Obviously you can't recast it now, but maybe you can edit around some of the weaker bits at least for the trailer. The lighting is really uneven and varies from unnatural to non-existent. Obviously you can't do the film over, but a better colour-grade might help a bit. There is a lot here you can learn for next time and improve on. I agree with others that maybe you took on too much. You need to delegate things to skilled crew members. Let a skilled DOP shoot it, a skilled editor cut it, etc. The performances may have benefitted if you had focused more on directing your actors rather than doing all the technical stuff yourself. I know this is probably not what you want to hear, but experience says that criticism is more beneficial than accolades.