Vital Butinar

Yeah I can imagine. These days all shoots are small crews. On our last shoot the producer doubled as a sound guy! 😉 I really loved the two opening shots. The one on the porch and the one of the house. I've been wanting to do a shoot with a house in the forest back light like that but haven't found the opportunity to do it. Also I have no idea how we'd go about lighting a scene like that. I'm lucky because my DP is my girlfriend and our writer is her sister so we always develop the projects together. Anyway congratulations again. Love it. 🙂

So a band that we work with all the time tasked us with making them a new music video at the end of the summer. Thankfully the corona situation was in check at the time so we were able to shoot and we still had a hard time because there was a 30 people limit so we had to keep the crew and cast numbers really down. One solution was to shoot in a biker club and found some really cool bikers who brought their families along so they could be in close contact with each other and then layered the groups to make it look like there was a lot of people even though there were less than 20 people there. There were two challenges that I wanted to do in this video. The 1st was that I wanted the beginning shot to be a steady cam, traveling, following shot and wanted to have a little bit more of a complex action happening to make it interesting. So we got the bouncer to throw the band's biggest fan out of the door when the lead actress walked towards the door. The 2nd was to have a non linear story line and I think that I was able to pull that off also. I was really happy that I got some help from my ADs, with whom I agreed that one would corral the bikers to perform the background actions to make it look like a full blown biker club and the other AD kept people in the frame so that it looked busy in every frame. So the only work I had was to work with the band and the three main actresses in the club. Anyway here it is

Wow @AJ Young it looks amazing. I love the color and texture! 🙂 Congratulations! On IMDB it says that the budget was about 70000 grand. Is that in the right ball park or was it overstated a little? What was the process like from how you got involved and then forwards?

Hi guys! Well my significant other and I are considering a change of scenery since the film scene was dead here anyway now with the whole corona stuff happening it's not even rising from the dead anymore and since I've always loved Vancouver, I thought it would be a good place to relocate to. It's not that the video business here is dead, far from it, in fact in the last couple of months we've worked our asse off with shooting stuff, but some how I just don't see the potencial for film here in Slovenia. Even though we've been shooting stuff here for some time and we're in production of two TV series pilots somehow I feel that it might be time to go somewhere where there's more chance to do something. Anyway anyone on here from Vancouver or general area? What's the film/video business there like? Anyone know of anyone looking for two good and knowledgeable filmmakers? Regards to everyone and hope you're having a good day

Thanks Daniel for replying. I actually know M disk and I've even used it last year and I think it's a great idea for storing long term stuff. I did actually store finished projects and things like accompanying art, documentation and even edits on the M disks but unfortunately they're too small for raw footage because in some cases I can't even fit one clip onto one disk. Once upon a time before going into filmmaking I had a successful IT company and had a bunch of servers running at my office and even archiving stuff to LTO tapes. So I've been looking into that now that we're expanding our filmmaking a little but at the same time wouldn't want to go overboard since servers use a lot of juice and tend to run up electric bills fairly fast if they're running for no reason. I've been looking for a small NAS with 4 to 6 bays and just using that but when I calculate the cost compared to using a server that I've already got and just changing the drives I get discouraged again and start thinking I'd do that. But then again I start thinking what about the noise and the power consumption and I get caught in a loop again. If I knew that a year from now we'd be editing a bunch of stuff and having three to four people editing regularly and shooting projects all the time I'd go for a full storage system but since it's just a two person operation for now I'm torn between what to do. I do love the ability to have the editing database on a server which is great for backups also. And what amazed me was about two weeks ago I plugged an old sata hdd into a usb 2.0 hub and edited a project shot in braw last year and the thing worked flawlessly. I couldn't believe it and started thinking again that maybe all this could work over the network.

Hey guys! Here's a question for some of you that might work on bigger projects and handle your own footage. How do you store your footage long term. Until we bought the Pocket 4K I used to store stuff that we had shot on external drives. But lately we've had so much to edit that external drives just aren't cutting it anymore and I've been thinking of implementing a storage system with around 48TB of storage (RAID 5) and an PostgreSQL database to hold the footage and the database (Davinci Resolve db) of the projects so that more than one person can work on the same project at the same time. How do some of you handle these things? Am I going along this the wrong way or am I thinking in the right direction? Regards to everyone, hope you're doing ok

That's really interesting. I've noticed that the blue channel is usually the nosiest and just worked with a Sony camera this weekend and had to scroll trough the menu to change the white balance to 5500K. But never knew the reason why it was this way.

Well I can tell you from my own experience as a director that I've been guilty of this in the past but as I and my team move to bigger projects the more I've learned that if I prepare well in preproduction the less I have to worry about and manage things during production. It helps that my significant other us my DP and that her sister is also my AD. But after a few a little more challenging projects behind us I've noticed that they trust more and more in my abilities as a director to come up and peace together the grand picture but let other people pitch in how to get there. As you said I've noticed the same things happening on other sets where people do not delegate enough to people in their crews. I find it very calming when I've thought everything trough and planed everything with all the key people on my crew so when we get on set all that is left is to make final adjustments and maybe figure out a couple of things that maybe we didn't plan for. Much easier that figuring out everything. I've done the same workflow from my first small project until now and haven't found it to not work. I do understand why people work on the fly. Because it seems easier. You don't have to do any work before but you have to work three times as hard on set. I guess that knowledge comes with time and experience. So maybe you can't change people or help them in this way because they have to figure it out for themselves to become a professional at something they do.

I actually tried this about two weeks ago on a shot where I was the B cam operator and was shooting just so that they might have another vantage point when editing while the A cam was shooting the main action. I once hear that when you want to make a nice stop at the end you've got to find a relaxed position and then twist in the direction where of the beginning. Like a spring or some thing. The main thing was a good stance in a relaxed position. It actually worked quiet well because I was able to pan slowly towards character B but then whip pan back towards character A for a reaction shot or reply. It did take me two practice takes to learn the dynamics of the dialog and get the feel how the two actors reacted to each other but in the last couple of takes I was able to consistently between the two and catch a nice frame without missing the main reactions. I think they decided that they would use my shots more than what camera A was shooting.

Hi guys. A good sculptor friend of myself and my girlfriend achieved a remarkable thing and wanted to create a short document that showed how everything happened. Well since he had no idea a couple of years ago how everything would go we were unfortunately unable to have footage from the initial stages and also some footage would have been impossible to get so we were forced to use some footage from other sources along with shots that we made. There are some things that I wish we could have done differently but in a documentary I guess you don't always have a luxury of that. We're already working on a short documentary for the new work that he's working and so we'll have a chance to be there from the beginning.

Well I remember back in 2015 when my girlfriend sent me on my first audition where I actually got the part and walked onto set. Until then I had never thought about filmmaking since I was a kid and we shot films with my dad's cameras. Except for college where I had photography and film as courses and remembered what I wanted to do as a kid. But the moment I came onto set I remembered everything and when I came home and started explaining to my girlfriend what I wanted to do she of course encouraged me to start learning about filmmaking and we both actually got started that way. So to learn more about it we started filming short stuff. Soon we realized we needed material to shoot and since we were both dancers and we started shooting our own dance videos. Soon after that we got some of our friends who were also dancers as clients who wanted some dance videos. From there we progressed to music videos and slowly to short films, documentaries. A few weeks ago we wrapped up shooting a pilot episode for a TV series that is getting picked up by a local network. My girlfriend and I started out with my old Nikon dslr and my student subscription Adobe so that we could edit. Last year we bought the BM Pocket 4K camera and some basic sound gear and we've got a couple of lights. There's a hell of a lot you can do with some basic gear and knowledge of a good editing software like Resolve. But the thing is that gear is not the answer. Yes knowledge of filming gear and software is important but what I've leaned in my short time is that learning about storytelling is really the most important thing. I do that all the time and on every project there's always something new that we have to try. Either try to tell the story in a different way or something. Basically this is what gives me one part of fulfillment for me is that I always try to upgrade something that I did in a previous project or try something more complicated like a more difficult shot. For example in a recent music video that we had shot I shuffled around the story in a way that doesn't revel things in a linear way but still makes sense. We also added a complicated choreographed steady cam shot at the beginning. These were the two things that I wanted to try and do on this project and I'm very glad that they worked. Anyway I hope you find what drives you and gives you inspiration. Filmmaking is basically something where you can always find something new to play with that will make it interesting. Good luck 🙂

No problem. In fact I just got handed a screenplay for a simple little short we'll probably be shooting soon in a dark room with one light, a poker table and two actors. Anyway good luck with your project. 🙂

My advice would be, don't be afraid to try something and I've seen this on many shoots that haven't been directly in my domain, where directors and DP's take the easy road and just go for a wide angle and then two close ups and that's it. What I usually do is sit down with my DP (thankfully she's my wife) and talk about the screenplay and what I imagined happening in the final film. That's where we usually figure out all the shots we're going to need. I like to shoot with a single camera vs. multi camera because I believe that it makes for a better looking frame than multi camera where one frame may be ok and the rest not so much. Anyway the good thing is I trust her completely and while creating a shot list of the shots I envisioned she usually leaves a side some time for shots that we hadn't thought of and she sees them on location while we're shooting. These are usually things that she sees the actors doing like touching an object or doing something with their hands or something because these shots can be used in different way to cut the dialog. So I usually love these shots because they're the ones that make the whole edit stand out. Some DP's I've worked with sometimes take a lot of time preparing and lighting the scene and then they have a problem with the camera moment, what I love with mine is that she usually tries to find the best location that doesn't need that much tweaking and only adds light where needed making the whole process easier because we can change setups fairly quickly because the scene looks good either way. The last thing I really hate is sound and I've had situations where we got really bad sound and it's a nightmare. So if you get good sound you'll be doing yourself a huge favor. But most important thing that I've done is cast right for the role and then let the actor explore their character. If it doesn't work at any time talk with the actor and ask them what their character would do or what they personally would do in a situation like that. Even if it's not the solution it usually presents with a way of solving the problem. On one of the last projects I did I almost felt useless as the director because there was so little for me to do while shooting with regards to the actors because we cast right and rehearsed like crazy and got a great result almost every time so sometimes we got away with only two to three takes. If you run up agents the wall and something is really not working like you've tried 8 or 10 takes already and it just keeps getting worse then it's time for a little break and the problem usually is because everyone is getting stressed because it's not working. So talk to the talent and find a way for them to relate to the theme. The problem is usually that their own personality is interfering with what the character is supposed to be doing so the acting is not credible. If you can find a way for them personally to understand why they would react the way that their character is supposed to then you'll get the result you want. As you get to the edit I usually throw away the hand book and we try a few thing that shouldn't work but sometimes do and just for the kick of it we then edit the same thing by the book just to see how what I had in my head works better. Also don't forget about reaction shots they're just as important if not more as what the other person is saying. Thankfully my wife is also the editor so we can work together most of the time. In the end you'll have something that works like a good narrative. But don't forget to test the edit a few times with people who don't know what it's about and when you're doing that don't watch the film but watch the persons reaction to the narrative and if you notice that they fall out of the story at one moment as in try's to talk to you or starts looking around the edit isn't working and then try to ask them why at the end. Then you can fix it. Best of luck to you and I know how exciting these types of projects can be! 🙂

Well I have an extensive library of locations and it's located on our local server. I do it really low tech but I've been thinking of upgrading to something a little bit more searchable. But for now I create a folder with a name and inside put a text document that contains the location, contact information and any additional information. Then a couple of folders with photos and/or videos. Sometimes I create another document with shot ideas for that specific location. I also have an excel spreadsheet that contains the basic information about the locations and where additional information is located. I've been thinking of using something like wordpress or something to create a searchable catalog but I'm looking for a way on how to make it a catalog for other things as well like shots and ideas which are cataloged in a similar way as locations for now.

I would abide by the same guideline. Although I'm usually in the roll of the director I do appreciate a hint on things that I might miss. For example a couple of weeks ago we were shooting a pilot episode for a TV series and the crew and cast was very light. Our producer served as our sound guy and our cast helped out. Sufficed to say that most of us knew each other well and honestly I love working with the people that were on set this time because they all love filmmaking and enjoy the process even though we had to squeeze 4 shooting days into 2. But as I said I always appreciate advice or a notification from most people that I've worked with on something that I might have missed and I also allow the talent to explore their character withing the confines of the story. So if they say that they feel that this character would do something differently and it aligns or at least doesn't conflict with the complete picture that I've envisioned in the end I have nothing against it. But sometimes this leads to the inevitable outcome that everyone wants to chip in as it also did at one moment as I and a cast member were trying to figure out a better way for them to say their lines for a particular scene. Of course with everyone trying to chip in it soon became impossible for myself and the talent to even thing what was written in the screenplay much less how it could be altered, so I decided to leave the set with the talent and move to a more privet place where we got the lines turned around in about two minutes. At the same time the producer was smart enough to notice that I had become a little frustrated and wasn't able to do my job (which is their job) so while we were working with the talent he politely asked the crew to pipe down a little and that we needed to stay focused or we wouldn't be able to make the day. Everyone got the message and we finished ahead of schedule even though it was packed anyway and everyone still had a nice time on set. And my point being that I've always tried to keep in not only good relations but great relations with the crew and cast because it's important for us to work as a team who wants the project to succede but at the same time I've always had great producers who have always been tuned to the way I work and have kept the few people that there ever were in check. In essence being a bad guy so that I don't have to be. Literally the only time I've sent people off the set was recently on a music video shoot where we were shooting the talent changing behind a bush and of course the whole band and every guy that was there wanted a sneak peak of her getting undressed. Which of course made her a little uncomfortable, so after the first take which was perfect incidentally since the uncomfortable situation made her more authentic I sent everyone that wasn't essential to the other part of the set but in the end decided to cut the second take short since it was not working and ended up using the first one anyway.