12/10/03
Operation Get Back Up On That Horse™ began in earnest today, as we took a field trip to Technicolor at their new digs on Leroy Street in Greenwich Village. This is where you take your film, no matter how crappy, distressed or odd it may be, and they froth up magic in their electronic blenders, giving you a gorgeous movie in return. The movie post-production business in NYC has been devastated by the post-WTC attack fallout, but in a way, it has taken all the major players and assembled them under one roof. Kind of like the All-Star NBA team of film finishing.
When people say they made a feature film for $50,000, they're either lying or being semantically creative. The truth is that there are three things your movie must have before any other human being can watch it without rolling their eyes in disgust.
1. Color correction. Say you're shooting a scene with two people talking. To keep it simple, you'd use two over-the-shoulder shots, and a master of both people from the side. Problem is, unless you have two cameras, those shots will be filmed at different times in the day – and in the case with our film, some of them were shot a week later.
(side note: there is one scene in the movie where one of the main characters answers a question that was asked – in real time - a year before. I dare anyone to find it...)
Anyway, the entire palette, color, sun, and film stock might change in the time it takes to set up the next shot, so the sorcerers at Technicolor tweak the image to make them look the same. They can make the sun come out. They can give you a rainstorm. They can change the color of the room. This process happens with every shot in almost every movie you've ever seen, and it is painstaking.
2. Dialogue sweetening. When I showed by brother Kent an early (2002) trailer we made, he liked it, but said, "um, but it doesn't sound like a movie." This was before we spent weeks in the sound studio, pumping the dialogue to 3X the normal volume, and giving it bass, and expansion, and paprika, and tarragon, and whatever the hell else they do to Make it Sound Like a Movie. And yes, this too is done with every line in almost every movie you've ever seen.
3. Optics. This is super-confusing, because "optics" actually refer to any words that are written on screen, like titles, or every time the scene changes in "Law and Order." Without good optics, you have credits rendered in video, and it looks like a 4th grader's handicam science project on papier-mâché volcanoes. (see "comments" on how I screwed this up - future ian)
I swear to god, the second you wander back into the look of Video-Land, you will lose fully 2/5ths of your audience. There is something about the look of video vs. the look of film - even if it is fake - that bears some serious psychoanalysis. Housewives admit a passing concern about the characters on soap operas (video) but will fling themselves off a bridge if anything bad happens to one of the "Friends" (film).
There's a thesis in there somewhere.
There's a book in all of this.
Perhaps I've already written one.
Posted by irw at December 10, 2003 11:07 PMThe whole 'sounds like a film' thing is fascinating to me. There are some scenes in 'Sex Lies and Videotape' where they very obviously use location sound without sweetening, and it's a jarring effect.
Most film sounds like everyone is wearing a noise cancelling close microphone, with sounds from their environment sparingly dropped in for versimilitude.
I know you can go on and on about the look of film, but I sincerely hope that we can either find a new aesthetic, or improve the technology, because the next revolution in cinema is going to be when people can make movies for a few thousand dollars and get taken seriously.
The real problem, as an enthusiastic moviegoer, is that the qualities a person has to have to get a film made aren't necessarily the ones that get great films made. Just because someone is tenacious and good at social engineering doesn't mean they can make movies, just that they can assemble the necessary financing and manpower that's a necessary prior condition.
Which explains, among other things, Gigli and Big Top Pee Wee.
I love it when Ian explains the technical side of movie making... It's a window into a fascinating world that I will probably never get any closer to than this blog or my local cineplex. I think a book about the experience of making films with lots of side trips related to the psychology behind aspects of it would be fascinating. Would it sell well? maybe not, but I'd buy a copy if Ian wrote it.
Michelle - maybe a usb keyring drive would work well for saving your work... It's small, holds a lot of information, and you can keep it in your purse or on a keyring easily... Just a thought!
here's a link to one I bought - I found it on sale for $30...
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?sid=3FD7B3804034617F&product_code=306019&pfp=cat3
Actually there is one thesis/book on the Pink House experience that I know of - one excruciating, poorly written one which helped me graduate from UNC with honors in Creative Writing...I will say no more.
Anyways, sorry to hear about this latest setback. I'd give you and Tessa all the money you need if I didn't make $25K a year.From - A former Pink House popsicle/soft drink caddy. (Group shot - first row standing, 2 from L)
I agree with Kent. Live theater has none of the same audience potential, but since we can say what we want to say for a coupla grand and we can make that coupla grand back, it's really easy. The digital revolution seems to have helped music recording become more possible to the Plebes than making movies. I love that people have "recording studios" in their basements. That should, and hopefully will, happen with movies.
Caroline! You wrote a thesis on the PH shoot? We'd love to read it, and I promise not to be judgmental. Your PA skills - esp. the caffeine - are half the reason we survived.Sean - one is able, I'm sure, to do all the "dialogue sweetening" and other sound work in a basement using Pro Tools or the kind of stuff Kent has. The problem is just having the talent to do so.
I think the main problem with the $$$ of movies, once you get past everything you can do in your basement, is just the sheer number of people you need for physical labor. Our movie had 62 speaking parts and 37 locations, and each person needed to be carefully miked, and each shot took the combined effort of at least 15 people to set up. People also need to man the production office, etc... it's true that you can get some people to work for free, just to get movie experience and join the fun (like sweet Caroline), but all of your key personnel (lead gaffer, grips, DP, AD, etc.) will need to be paid. There just SO MUCH stuff you can't do yourself.
Ian,
About two months ago I was talking to Jody Kuhne about you; then I happened upon The Pink House site and then saw two fellow Tarheels making the thing and took a link to your blog. A few things I know-- strange things happen on this orb-- paths cross-- I read your review of The Truman Show back in '98 and we wrote, hung out in Cary, NC once (Walmart), never saw each other again. Tessa and I had two classes together under Jim Seay at UNC and then on 09/20/2001 I saw her documentary on Showtime and emailed her the following morning about 20 minutes before the terror attacks on the World Trade Center and have worried ever since that she might have been killed that day. I married in 2000, have a 20 month old boy named Wyatt and have another kid on the way. I live in the Pisgah National Forest now where, with grant funds, I help mountain farmers develop their business and marketing skills. I generally feel good about what I do, even though I make almost no money and 'round here there ain't much hope for more than poverty and clean water. I'm sure things are hard with the funding fiasco; but it's all relative. From where I'm perched you all look glorious. I am so proud of you and I can't wait for this movie! Good vibes to you and Tessa, the two most talented people I ever had the pleasure to know.
Michelle Wyatt Mrozkowski, Hot Springs, NC
Greg- thanks so much- that might be a great idea.
Ian- call me back, dammit.
Anyone in New York: back in five days!!!!
Everyone else: I, too, am fascinated by the effect of film. Why do we care about the kids on Friends, why is it so much more real to us, to me, when the characters are on film? Is it that any other medium is too real? There is something truly magical, for me, about seeing a movie, that seems directly related to film. I become Jane Q. Averagemoviegoer 90% of the time the minute I walk into a theatre, or pop in a DVD. The same transformative, spaced-out, drooling effect does not happen when I see anything on any screen that is not film. Why?
Michelle: A lower-tech solution to the writing problem might be a portable sound recorder. (e.g http://www.jandr.com/JRProductPage.process?RestartFlow=t&Section_Id=&Product_Id=2757011&ProductPageTab=Details )
Hi All. First comment. Exciting.
Sorry to be such a stickler for the rules, I think Ian means "opticals," which don't actually refer to titles but rather to composite effects -- fades, dissolves, wipes. Any time there are two images overlapping on screen you have an optical. Titles are titles. When the title is over picture (think opening credits over a scene in progress) they are referred to as an optical but the term refers to the composite rather than the title itself. For example, Woody Allen titles, white text on black cards, are not opticals.
The way opticals are created have changed with the introduction of digital tools but that is whole other discussion.
And, in answer to Michelle's (Williams) question... well, there is no answer. Part of it might have to do with dimension. Video is flat. Film has dimension. Plus it is really pretty. But the people hard at work on HD technology will tell you that the average veiwer can't tell the difference now between digital and celluloid. There is another theory about alpha and beta waves, but again... long-winded.
Hi Michelle (Wyatt Mrozkowski)!!! Great to hear from you. Sorry I never answered your Sept. 11th post. I don't remember getting it. It was, obviously, a confusing time. But really great to see your name today.
Tessa
Good to see you have your love of the game back. I am not one to quote sacred texts, let alone the eastern, but a great line, no doubt butchered, from the Gita has stuck with me for twenty years - you have no right to the rewards of the work only to the work itself. That has given me moments of happy reflection during a hack soccer game, a rainy November day shoveling up the last potatoes, in the thinking moment in court, late night bottling hundreds of bottles of ale. That glow that the joy your work gives you makes how you describe it so interesting. The rest will come.
There are two reasons I am addicted to checking Ian's blog every day. The first I won't bore you with (a link to similar sensibility while living so far from home, blah, blah) and the second is, so many interesting, funny and sometimes wise people contribute comments. Alan is one of the wise (and frequently funny) ones. His Gita-based comment was spot on.