Mark Allen

I have, but thanks.

I think maybe it's a matter of context and/or semantics. In this context, I'm saying play the emotion verses the result - the expression. It sounds like you're saying the emotion is the result. If you think of an emotion as the expression of that emotion, then... I'd agree with you. In the context I said it, I was using it as a shorthand in reference to a rehearsal established keyword summarizing the moment. About Stanislovsky. Most of my early training was based on this, but I will say that for myself, I became a much better actor when I started studying with a teacher who emphasized imagination verses sense memory. But all actors are different. Something I saidin my first post. You shouldn't force any technique onto an actor. Here's one of my favorite quotes from one of my directing teachers (Michael Gordon (1910-1993), member of the original Group Theater in New York btw): "A director's job is to be a mirror and a friend to the actor." And while I'm sharing his quotes, here is another: "Imagination is the rearrangement of memory."

20 years ago the answer to this question was ther Sennheister 415 (or 416?). It was the mic everyone used as the workhorse for recording location sound in a variety of situations. I am going to be working on an extended shoot where purchasing makes more sense than renting. I'm going to rent a mic next week and I'd like to rent a mic which I would be purchasing for the longer shoot. This is for feature, dramatic material. Under 1000 is the price range, the lower the better of course. But quality matters. What are some recommendations and what would I expect from the mic? Locations will be... offices, hotel rooms, restaurants, parking lots, parks. Next question... sometimes lavs can be a great back up which also can help add body to voices in combo with the boom mic. What is a recommended lav package? Thanks in advance.

I'm not really in the cinematography industry, I'm here to suck information from the pros. :) Well, as an actor, you probably know from doing transition exercises that usually the moment of transition is the most powerful moment in a performance. It's the moment when spielberg likes to put the music swell and the dolly-in. I've found you can use these moment of transitions pretty much whenever you want and can. You never "play" oscillation - you play the emotions on either side. Is "hatred" hard to play? Well, I was using that as short hand, in theory - during the rehearsals the body of "hatred" has been established and so on set you say "play the hatred" and it is defined (which is another reasonf for rehearsing). But, yes, "hatred" would need to be much more specific for most actors. The theory is that you aren't watching the actor on camera oscillating for 20 seconds, you're just catching the moment. "hesitation" is actually an oscillation. You see a candybar and you want to eat it. But you're trying to lose weight. You are oscillating between the desire for the candybar and overwhelming insecurity and self-hate - but that makes you want the candy bar even more - so you reach - and then you hate yourself for reaching because you're so weak and miserable, so you take your hand away... but, damn it, YOU'RE in control of your life and you really WANT that chocolate bar - and so on and so on... So oscillation + escallation. It's a great trick to make actors come to life on screen.

First off - accept that all actors are different and want and need different things... but... somet thoughts: You do want to rehearse your actors - if nothing else you need some time to understand how they work, what they respond to. Don't worry about missing the prime performance. It never happens on the first rehearsal. On the first take, maybe. Generally the rehearsals are to make sure the actors are all on the same page. They're all in the same movie. If you don't rehearse you run the risk of an actor surprising you on the set having a totally different idea of what you thought the scene would be. Don't make the very common director mistake of talking too much. They won't hear it. Speak simply. Focus on things that are tangible for them and are very present to this moment. Your job is the whole movie, their job is living the moment. Don't try to explain everything about the movie - just deal with this moment. Actors mostly just want to know: where they are coming from prior to being here, where they are headed, what they want in this very moment (i.e. why they are in this scene) Here's somethigs you can say to an actor: "You just spent 5 hours working in a field, it's 110 degrees outside, you're hot, sweaty, coming inside for a glass of water. You get inside and your wife is playing bridge with her friends. You want to strangle her, but you don't want to scare her friends. Oscillate between that hatred and trying to cover it up." That's just a moment - and that's about as complex as you want to get until they ask a question or you see what they're doing. By the way - oscillation is something actors can do - and directors rarely ask for. It works, it's very live. Notice that that quote did NOT go into a big diatribe about marriage or their marriage or her friends or anything extra - stick to the basics. Something not to say: "You walk in and you're looking very intensely at your wife and then you try to cover it up." Why? Because "intensely" doesn't mean anything but a phoney expression. Tell your actors what they WANT - but never tell them their expression. unless.... it's the third take and you just gotta move on. Another thing - be open to how actors read lines. If you try to make everything exactly as you hear it in your head. Sometimes the actor's way is just as good - just not what you'd imagined. As long as it sounds like a reaction and there is intention (vs. intensity, very different) behind the statement - it will work. When you're rehearsing... your goal is to make sure the actors are in the realm... break down what is going on in the scenes - what the characters want from eachother, share those beats and work the scene. That's a starter at least. (Just FYI, I wasn't a film major, I was a theater major and began by directing theater and I still host improvisation workshops and coach professional actors for studio auditions when they come up...)

so... at 1080... I thought it was not able to do 60p at 10080 does that mean it would do 30p at 100 Mb/sec? and therefore 80 Mb/sec at 24p?

at 1080, in theory the HVX does 100mbits. This interests me because I need to shoot some GS and while I've done keying with DVCPRO50 - It wasn't quite enough. I'm thinking the extra 50 would solve the issue. That said, I have a concern. A respected colleague has told me that, in fact, at 30p, the data rate is 50mbits, at 24p it's 40mbits. When is the data being encoded? is it at the end of the stream or the top? is it really throwing away the data after it has spent its data bandwidth? That would be... really poor design. How can I get the 100mbits out of this camera? My end product is Standard Def, but I don't mind shooting HD and shrinking down - that always does decent things for a key as opposed to the other way around of course. Does anyone have the link for this information or know the answer? Thank you.

They have already said they will not have anything but their intentions to share. Specifications and plans.... and a price. Nothing but vapor and enthusiasm and a lot of funding which gives them an edge. Do not expect a RED prototype until at the earliest 2007 NAB or maybe... even later... This sentence is my own not official news... that will come in five days.

Notes of interest: Hosts banter casually that it will be $15k range - but the RED person did not. RED person implies that they want to bring the technology down from cameras which would cost "a couple hundred thousand" down towards the consumer range which implies to me under $100k. So there's the pre-NAB price target, 15 to 100 thousand. Lenses will be PL mount.... which implies that you will choose how much money your lense will cost? Sounds like various codecs will be options to record. Focusing on Wavelt Based Will use Digital Magazine Drives as a recording option. Mentioned something about "a year from now what we're looking at..." [may change] - so don't look for the camera within a year. probably 12 bit per pixel - possibly more, at least 10 bit quality with all the codec. They want better dynamic range as anything on the market. First showing at NAB is just showing developement of design and workflow. They will annonce RED and AJA link. booth SU1401

There's a recent interview with employee number one of RED at www.hdforindies.com In a week it will be much more interesting to speculate about the camera as some details will be revealed. Oakley isn't known for making the cheapest products - but it seems they intend to make products for the consumer who want the best and are willing to (sometimes) pay multitudes more for it - ten times or more for sunglasses (oakley vs. rite-aid for example). I would imagine that this is maybe where the camera is going to be aimed. I just think it will take a lot of time before it comes out and hope that people like me who get tempted easily by new technology don't post pone anything until the camera goes into production. There's just such a long road from here to there. If it takes too long, the rest of the industry will catch up though.

Check out the Texas Shootout recently held in...... Texas at: www.hdforindies.com

Not a CPA or tax attorney here, but in general the IRS doesn't care about your time at all. Your time is not worth anything as a donation or as non-paid researcher etc. Just like you cannot write off your time for a charitible donation, you cannot write off your time for doing research for a project. You can write off classes, books, perhaps even required travel for that purpose though.

I am coming to this late, but being someone who does has done a crazy amount of Greenscreen stuff I will say... those reflection that you'll capture live on the set of the actors are what will sell your shot. They key just fine in any real keying application. Without them, the BG will look like a cut out. There are two ways to fake it. 1. shrink down your live image and put them in the window - sometimes people won't realize for a quick shot that they are not really seeing a reflection. Don't recommend it though. The other is to shoot a reverse of the actor's from the window's perspective immitating their exact motions. Don't recommend that either. HDV is going to be not fun to key at all.

The specs and price will (reportedly) be announced at NAB. I will be very curious to see them. The D20 and Genesis are very expensive cameras. There is an enormous chasm between the 6000 HVX and the ...what 500k (I don't know) priced existing cameras it sees as it's competition. Will it be 300k? 100k? If they came out with a 50k camera at the Genesis / D20 quality - they'd own that market (and maybe a few others would spill in as well). Would that be enough market share to lower the price? Hard to say. Something worth keeping an eye on, but there are a lot of iffy steps between announcing specs and announcing production. Will be a while.

David (and Tim), I've been using Safari on OSX 10.3.9 forever on this forum and had no problems. Anytime I do have problems with forums I switch to Deer Park (the beta version of Firefox... Firefox works just as well) and that solves some issues. But haven't had any scambled text or such on Safari here. That said, I'm switching to Test Skin anyway to see if I notice something new.

You're assuming that being "good with people" means treating them nice and respectfully and that, strangely, is quite often not the case. If that were the case, many people who work in movies all the time wouldn't be working in movies at all. Uber confident people can tap into other people's insecurity and make them want to be "cool by association." Vincent is an uber confident person and that combined with his good looks and actor's presence makes him a great salesman for himself. He also did make one good movie - Buffalo 66. That's a good film. Brown Bunny needed to be a 10 minute short, in my not so humble opinion.

Especially for documentarians, but for all filmmakers curious about public domain and rights materials, here is a neat comic book from Duke Law which helps answer common questions about rights use. http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/comics/digital.html

Whent he awards were set up, the producer was considered the author of a movie. The director was more of a laborer. Filmmakers like hitchcock were the exceptions to the rule - directors who started providing their own vision. Yes, Orsen Wells. Again, exception to the rule. However, keep in mind that this took a long time to fade out. How many movies did Ray Harryhausen actually direct verses how many movies is he credited for? Corman was somewhat of a holdover to the old system as well. So, that's why the producer gets the award for best picture. Not sayin' it's right or things shouldn't be different, just sayin'.

Once you've been to a few Academy events the award results won't shock you as much. It's a club like any other club. If EVERYONE got to vote, we'd end up getting the lowest common denomonator - so I'm not sure that'd work out either. I think that's why it's not so bad having specific awards like the independent spirit awards. There are various groups with ethnic focuses who give major awards. Environmental groups have awards. There are the Razzies. The Academy is just another social club. Only they have the advantage of getting a tremendous amount more media attention than any of these other organizations could dream about. And, to their credit, a lot of the voters really do work in the movie industry. Will they last forever? Be interesting to see what happens in the next 30 years. You know what awards I'd like to see? Awards to the artists and technicians who made the most difference with the least resources. Let's see the true value awards. Sure, give someone 50 million dollars and they may come up with some cool visual effects for you - but what about the guys who did just as many shots for 500,000 - and they STILL look cool. How about those guys? How about the DP who shot the movie in 2 weeks with 3 lights and a crew of two people and yet told the story beautifully? Give that guy an award! I don't think it's realistically possible to have that awards show, but would be one I'd go to a friend's house to watch! And then I'd keep notes and hire 'em all! :)

Good to note that these are all digital stills. I'd be interested in seeing the post-telecine equivalent still shots.

I loved that the film was offering something *different* and I think it's success should be a sign how audience are starving for something different. Had the script and plotting not been so weak (for the context of a film) and some of the acting been so inconsistent (on the weak side... I'm thinking in particular of the scene on the wharf performed so blandly by great actors), the film might have been legendary.

I've been pushing for this in all seriousness to get into the general conscious for a couple years. as for "If you want the best cinematographer, you call one of these nominees" I don't think it's as offensive as it is just a lame thing to say at an awards ceremony and I do think that you wouldn't say "if you want the best actor, you call one of these nominees." - but mostly it's just offensive for being empty banter. And... just to add to the noise noise - yeah - be a tad more lenient on speeches. I don't think the winners realize when the clock starts on their speeches - I don't know if there is a big clock for them to watch the timing down or not. It is very unsatisfactory to see people get cut off.

I can't believe I didn't say Robert McKee's STORY as a book. That would be the very first book on writing I would read.

You know, I actually respect the poster's desire to direct someone else's story. I think a lot of times ego betrays education and I think it's quite mature for a high school student to think to direct existing material. It's a completely different and very educational process. I'm not sure Syd Field's book is still such a del facto standard as there are tons of interesting screenwriting books. There's also a couple fantastic sites like www.wordplayer.com and www.scriptsecrets.net and www.thewritersstore.com which offer tons of articles and tips (a book worth at each) for free. Books by Lew Hunter, Richard Walters, How To make a good script great, on and on and on - so many. Adventures in the screentrade will teach you just 3 things - but they are invaluable. Currently I'm reading a book which suggest the entire 3 act structure is wrong - interesting book! Can't recommend it yet though because I'm not finished. One of the best books I read recently which was aimed at directors but definitely applies to writing was David Mammet's On Film Directing.

Since it sounds like you are doing this for practice and not for commercial purposes, I would recommend looking into scene books for actors. There are hundreds of them. Check your local bookstore or library for acting scene books and browse until you find one that matches what you're lookng for. These will be scenes focusing on the interactino with actors which might be a good place for you since you're avoidig action. It will give you a chance to see what you can add to the scene with your direction as well. Good luck.