Jaan Shenberger

in the upper right corner of the discussion box/area (to the direct right of where it reads "Low(No) budget feature, Inexperinced Filmmaker would like to hear from you.") click on the "options" dropdown and select "standard". btw, tim or whoever else, if i open more than one discussion without waiting for them to load one at a time, or if i try to scroll down before the page is completely loaded, safari crashes. i'm running osx 10.3.9. i visit other forums with the same thread system software you use and this is the only one that does it... not complaining, just letting you know in case it helps.

"dutch harbor: where the sea breaks its back"

what happened to the good ol' days when young people used to distrust the president? i guess as long as they have a playstation in front of them, the world is doing great.

it definitely is altered. but, to me it seems genuine. the black levels of the headline & photo have definitely been been tweaked (the banding in the photo make it obvious), though it is very likely to have been done in order to make them more immediately readable. there would be no shadow from his hands if you analyze the positions of the shine on his face... the flash seems to be at the standard position slightly above the lens. also, the flash seems to be somewhat diffused/softened. the reason i say that this is probably genuine is because since the black levels have been so obviously tweaked, that kind of amatuerish unsophisticated craftsmanship probably would not have been able to so convincingly recreate the distortion of the paper surface in the headline & photo, nor the highlights on the middle crease. anyone who could pull off that kind of retouching would not have made such a mistake with the black levels. so to me, logic says that it's real. but then again, the cuban propaganda machine might just be so clever as to use such combinations to fool people like me. the only suspect thing would be the lack of white area to the left of the headline, which is a fundamental aspect of graphic design/printing in order to allow for misregistration of the printing press. though it looks like the paper might be buckling inward towards his hand, so it's hard to say. you forgot to add that within a few years the people of the US, and a few other countries, will be free of bush's rule. also, there were a lot more than two communist countries to fall in the last 18 years.

though i thought it was a pretty trite plot, and the pseudo-feminist angle was a little insulting, it was definitely the scariest movie i have seen in a long time... i was consciously deconstructing the lighting and editing all throughout and it still was making me jump and gasp. very well-crafted horror/suspense. and i thought the explanation/concept of the creatures was great... but it doesn't hold a candle to alien. i saw it at a filmfest and by chance i was sitting next to a well-known, critically acclaimed actress. after a few minutes of the "chraracter developing" scene in the cabin in the first act, i could hear her making grumblings to her date and they walked out... i assume because of the dumbed down female characters' dialogue/interaction.

canada is arguably the greatest in the world when it comes to animation. though, there's no arguement when it comes to me-- it is the best.

it's ignorance and language like this that makes me feel embarrassed to be an american. apparently, you had been very well-educated on these issues, based on the inference that you previously thought israel was a "f-----g desert with a bunch of camel jockeys" rather than a modernized country. it literally makes my stomach hurt to think that your education level on the israel-palestinian conflict reflects that of a large percentage of americans.

a few little points to add... there was a huge grassroots democracy movement in iran until a few years ago. after the islamic revolution over twenty years ago, the citizens naturally started trying to move the government towards a representational democracy, powered largely by iran's womens' rights movement. of course, you never ever heard anything about it here because the US prefers to present democracy as some kind of franchise we've exclusively spread across the world, like a chain of corporate-owned mcdonalds or something, and for democracy to grab hold in an islamic country not only without any of our help, but rather in spite of the US, was somewhat of an embarrassment, since it all began with them aggressively booting out the US puppet government. the process was derailed in 2004 when 2500 reformist candidates were disqualified from elections because the islamic conservatives were scared of losing power. but if left alone, iran's democratic movement would have eventually taken hold-- it had already taken great strides and the disqualifications had spawned more motivation. of course the US has since ruined all that by throwing the threat of war into the picture and basically galvanizing iran's populace under its current retardo conservative government (gee, reminds me of my own country). this doesn't seem to fall in line with the US's goal of spreading democracy. oh, and remember when ahmadinejad won the presidency and the pentagon planted all that BS in the press trying to say he was one of the original hostage takers of 1979? that was some of the most pathetic simpleton garbage i've seen come out of the american psyops... they might as well should've just rented out billboards reading "hey america! iran president = terrorist". of course that was all reported as being "under investigation" by the news sources. umm... i don't remember seeing any of the follow up stories about how it was confirmed, or if they were wrong. that was just chapter 1 in a long string of news media plantings to gradually help justify an iran invasion. the other point is more yucky and disturbing. according to bin laden, the reason they are comfortable with killing american and israeli civilians is because we are citizens in a democracy, and have played a role in forming our governments' foreign & military policy, and have not used our political power to curb any immoral or unethical use of military power, so therefore we are implicit in any abuses of power and are justified as targets. he also argues that the majority of arabs live under dictatorships and therefore should not be held accountable or punished (killed) for the actions of their governments. also, the US's oil consumption played a key role in the spread of islamic terrorism. the saudi royal government is actually pretty progressive and western-friendly. but the highly influential religious power structure there isn't, and use their influence to sway the public against the royals. during the 80s and 90s, the islamic power structure was not very happy about the growing western relationship (ie. oil trade). so basically, to shut them up and keep them happy, the royals gave them money without really keeping dibs on where it went. a bunch of it went towards spreading wahibism and funding militant type stuff... basically it was the US's oil-buying money that funded what later became al qaeda. also, the foundation of militant islamic tactical and strategic methodology came directly from the CIA, from back when they trained the mujahideen in afghanistan on how best to combat the occupying soviet forces. most of the poop going on in iraq is almost identical to the methods taught back in afghanistan, like attacking infrastrure and especially IEDs. if you wanna know the real reason for the iraq war and potential iran invasion, just google "peak oil". and i saw this... "America, Europe and Israel have all been victims of persecution, but they've all had the courage to take action against dictatorship. That's why they are free democracies, and thriving today. Go to Israel. See for yourself. Israel is a thriving metropolis." ... and just wanted to remind you that financial wealth creates thriving metropolises, not freedom or democracy. think of imperial-era britian or spain... neither free nor democratic, but rich as hell. nazi germany was a thriving metropolis. eventually bush and his neo-con morons will be out of office and then all the expensive fence mending and patch sewing can begin. you are right on money. and i'm so glad that here in america, we don't have any over-simplified distractionary "bad guys" keeping the guy on the street's mind off important things. oh wait, i forgot, we do have those "bad guys". it's those two dudes who wanna get married.

sorry for the off-topic question, but does anyone know what the official DGA policy is regarding a film directed by two persons as a team, when referring to just one of those two persons? for example, if a feature titled "Hypothetica" is directed by Jay Doe and Alana Smithee... when someone or something in print is mentioning just Jay Doe, is it okay to refer to them as the "director" of Hypothetica, or is it deemed necessary to always refer to them as "co-director"?

it goes far beyond issues of storage and computing power-- the increase in raw render time for 3D originated vfx and the necessary increase in craftsmanship in regards to surfacing/texturing and compositing would require more manpower and more time (like being a set designer who has to change over from SD to HD), which would equate to a substantial increase in cost and/or decrease in profit margin. i'm sure that 4k becoming the standard is inevitable, but computing and storage issues will have to become so overly-resolved that it would help offset the other disadvantages.

you animate by hand, then scan the b/w line drawings into computer. hand-painting your fill colors is INSANE if you are not extremely experienced at it and if you have the option of doing it digitally. try mixing enough acrylic paint to get a custom green, for 10,000 frames...

keep in mind that if you print out each frame and rephotograph them on an animation stand, you will end up paying a lot in printer cartridges. and worst of all, i can guarantee you that there will be frame to frame color shifts somewhere in your final. and as others mentioned, it's not hard to find an affordable animation stand, since they are industrially obsolete. i've actually heard of them offered for free to anyone willing to come get them. i would suggest making a standard def dvd of your animation and hitting up local arts/film councils to try and get a grant for the filmout. they love projects like yours-- big ones that are nearly completed. and they may wanna support you since animation is a medium that is accessible to average folks. best of luck.

you should also check out "the duelists", which has finally been released on dvd.

as a professional, showing your own cut of your projects is not only common, but almost standard practice. almost everything gets watered down or stupified somewhere between the start of post and final sign off... not really any particular person/stage's fault, it's just part of the whole process. just be keen about it and try to get your own dub/copy of your footage at the earliest stage, like from the telecine house.

first to come to mind is nic roeg's walkabout. it conveys some pretty sophisticated concepts with little dialogue, and some of the most sophisticated sequences have zero dialogue.

his film from 2001, "in praise of love" features, by far, the best application of digital video in a "film" that i'm aware of (it's about 2/3 bw 35mm, 1/3 color dv). not as accessible/entertaining as breathless or band of outsiders, but full of very godardian sequences.

well, the more specific you can be, the more concise of a recommendation i'd be able to make, but here's some general points... AE is by far the most versatile of the bunch. it has the most quantitive and diverse selection of third party plugins, and the newest version has the option of working in native linear color space and floating point color (the two biggest flaws it used to have for compositing). it is more widely known (and used) for its broad and diverse animation capabilities, but it is used for compositing more often than most realize, especially in the last few years since workstations have gotten so fast. shake is the most powerful compositing tool of the three, though it's fairly limited when it comes to other uses. it has the least number of third party plugins of the three, and i believe they are more expensive. probably 90% of the time shake is used, it's for film vfx. combustion is somewhere in the middle. plugins available, can do a lot more than compositing, but not as much as AE. combustion's bigger siblings flame & inferno are intended as realtime tools designed primarily for compositing while a client sits behind you on a couch, paying by the hour. combustion can't really work in realtime, and in my opinion is really only worth learning/buying if you're looking to eventually be a flame/inferno operator. if you wanna do just greenscreen stuff in an environment with no client present, then shake would be good, though buying/learning shake just for pulling greenscreens is kinda like killing a housefly with a bazooka. also, its keyers, (both third party) keylight and primatte are also available for AE (keylight is included with the AE production version, primatte you'd have to buy). if you think you might wanna dabble into other stuff beyond just popping in a background plate and don't plan on working with stuff beyond HD res, then i'd suggest AE. also keep in mind that 99% of greenscreen mattes in bigtime projects (studio features, national ads) use some sort of rotoscoping, whether it be simple, sectioned garbage mattes or full-on roto. so if your projects will demand that kind of quality, i'd try and do some research/testing to see if you feel comfortable with the respective software's spline/mask capabilities & options. hope this helps.

the answer really depends on what you want to eventually be doing, compositing-wise. do you wanna move into compositing for film vfx, post house/broadcast/commercials, experimental cinema, live action personal projects, or lowish budget industrial/commercial work?

in school i was dp for a 40 minute film shot "cinecitta" style, nearly all MOS. this wasn't exactly by preference, since we only had free access to an mos camera and because it was hard enough to get time from all the actors and secure the locations for even a few hours at a time (it was made with no money, obviously). there were two longish, important dialogue scenes that were shot with production sound and mos camera though. i can say that there is a definite advantage in terms of set up time and shooting ratios, since you don't have to conceptualize/make concessions to your compositions/movements/blocking with the boom in mind, and you only have to get a good visual performance for a good take. and obviously there is no waiting for sound (no disrespect to audio professionals). also, if the shooting environment is chaotic and rushed, knowing that you can kinda "clean up" the performances/interactions in ADR is psychologically comforting to both the dir/dp/writer as well as the actors if they feel rushed. also, i feel like you end up being kinda liberated from the natural gravitation towards using close ups, since you're not solving any audio problems by getting tight enough to hide the boom when crunched for time. of course, these things don't apply really to productions where everyone is an experienced pro and there is ample time & resources. also, our characters/dialogue weren't very complex, which i'm sure helped hide the flaws in using all that ADR. the drawbacks are obvious-- diminished performances and more work in post... though it's usually a lot more relaxed and it's usually a situation more condusive to detailed direction (without everyone standing around waiting), so it can be a plus for less experienced actors. and even though the scenes shot with production audio in my film seemed to clearly feature better performances to me, most viewers couldn't tell the difference. whenever i see a leone film since then, it seems obvious to me that they benefitted from shooting MOS. his compositions seem more liberated (from the boom), remniscent of the visual flair of many later silent films, and the dependence on dialogue prevalent in most narrative cinema is byebye. if anyone does shoot on film mos, i'd highly suggest bringing a cheap dv camera and simple short shotgun mic and just set it up somewhere safely off camera to pick up reference audio, hassle free. later when you do ADR, you can plop each line of dialogue on an ipod as separate tracks and have the actor listen to it on loop. i used this technique recently for ADR on a different non-MOS project and in my opinion it worked better than having the actors watch their performance, which can cause all kinda problems for synch and self-awareness if your actors aren't super experienced. especially if you like the original performance's dialogue-- they can just listen to it over and over and mimic the intensity, cadence and timing. for me the results were very good, and the sessions went pretty quick.

based off the 1080 h264 trailer from the apple site, there definitely seems to some noise reduction in some of the shots, though it's hard to judge it based on that trailer, since i'm sure that h264 would probably smooth out the tonality even more (how much though, i dunno). there also seemed to be some shots with significant noise, with no or little noise reduction though.

i'm not an audio person, but from my understanding, for a film with such an extensive sound mix, it's much easier to just design the music&effects tracks with the assumption that all the dialogue of all the languages will be pristine, so ADRing any imperfect portions of the original language dialogue will simplify the process... meaning they can just put ambient/room tone into the M&E mix. i don't really completely understand this, but this was how it was explained to me. i assume that the incredibly high technical/quality standards of a production like that may also play a role in the decision to use a lot of ADR to get pristine dialogue. any sound people on here have any insight?

another key characteristic of tv is that it's usually dialogue driven as hell... rarely more than three seconds pass without someone talking. i would assume this is due to a combination of emphasis on character & writing, and rigidly structured story segments between commercial breaks. these factors also amplify the use of close-ups, since they help emphasize the characters and allow greater manipulation of runtime.

that's awesome. is this commonplace now at most film programs? for pro/veteran editors, i would assume that the "small screen" syndrome would have a minimal effect, since i'm sure they constantly keep that in mind, but i think working with a large image would make a big difference for students.

i hear some of the vfx are being georgelucas-ized.

though i completely agree that they are too prevalent, i have served as both dp & editor on narrative projects, and can see why the CUs end up dominating the edit... it's easier to control the rhythm of the scene by ping-ponging from actor to actor, and even if you just wanna alter the rhythm once and cut into a med or CU, it's hard to then step back away from the actor's "intensity" by going back to the wide once you've already used the CU, though i guess it depends on the scene. even when i shoot a scene with the intent of using primarily the 2-shot or wide, i'll shoot CUs for safety and often end up using a lot more of the CUs than planned. also, in my experience, actors almost always give their best performances when in CU... whether this is a conscious decision on their part or not, i dunno.