I am up right now, past way past 6am, because of a strong-held belief. I may end up being wrong about this, but I am sticking to my guns because I don't think we have the luxury to do anything else.
Let me explain: these days, a lot of independent movies are made using a Digital Video camera. The upside is obvious - the cameras are cheaper, the DV tape is compact, reusable and instantly viewable, and you can shoot as much footage as you want. The downside is, obviously, that your movie looks like it was shot on video. Really good video, sure, but it's still video.
The DV movies you have seen at your local art house don't look like TV video (you know, a show like "Home Improvement" or something) because the DV has been transferred to 35mm film, thus giving you that "film look" - that familiar flicker, the depth, etc.
But if you haven't transferred to film yet, what are you supposed to do? Have your indie DV film look like a Mexican soap opera and just hope people don't notice?
This is where I have differed with some of the other Pink House people - I am a cynical bastard, and I don't think audiences, even ones that claim to be cinema savvy, can imagine "how good this film will look." I think you have to spoon-feed them applesauce with a blunted spork.
This movie is a comedy, and that also makes a difference. Something about the film look makes things funnier. "Friends" and "Frasier" shoot on film because they can afford it. Film also deepens the emotional response an audience has with the story - think about the difference between "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" or "The Nanny" (shot on video) versus "Murphy Brown" or "M*A*S*H*" (shot on film) - it's not just content, it's an emotional discrepancy.
There are other theories about this. Some biopsychologists claim that the "flicker rate" of film (24 frames per second) instills a "alpha wave" in viewers, allowing them to relax and become involved on a deeper level. Video (roughly 30 frames per second) stimulates an "beta wave," which has the opposite effect. At least that's how I remember it.
Anyway, there's a little trick you can do to your video footage to make it resemble film. Entwine your fingers together, and you have a good metaphor for video: it is an image that is a bunch of lines interlaced. So, you can "de-interlace" the video and suddenly it looks an awful lot like film.
There is a great program that does this, called DV Filmmaker that we have been using to great effect. The problem is, this time I forgot to remind everyone about it, so the final cut of the movie is still stuck in the world of Video-Looking Land. Most everyone else felt as though the version we had was plenty strong enough, but I pitched a fit and had Tessa, Tod, Jessie and various dubbing houses working overtime to get this movie treated.
Will it have been worth it? I don't know. I may be full of shit. All I know is that the film-looking version of our movie just makes me feel better, it comforts me by allowing us to put our slightly-better foot forward. If that foot happens to get in a door somewhere, then perhaps tonight's misery will end up proving worthy of all the ill will I've caused.
Posted by at October 1, 2003 11:07 PM