Some questions I have about “Hugo”

Posted on December 14, 2011 by bill
  1. Why was the Inspector chasing Hugo at the end? Hugo had been introduced to the Inspector as Isabelle’s cousin, so why pursue him?
  2. Why did Hugo climb out on the clock arm? Where was he expecting to go?
  3. Why would you say to two orphans, one of whom is your goddaughter, that they don’t understand what pain is?
    1. Actually I understand this one, because that’s pretty clearly how Scorsese feels: that this man’s film being destroyed is worse than the children losing their parents. Parents, after all, can be replaced by kindly old people.
  4. So like, Hugo’s uncle never told anyone that Hugo was coming to work with him?
  5. What happened to Hugo’s uncle’s pay during the months that he was dead. No one thought it odd that he didn’t pick it up?
  6. At the very end, Hugo is almost killed by the train which is traveling very fast and has to apply the emergency breaks. My question is, since the train was heading into a dead-end stop in a crowded train station, wouldn’t it be traveling much slower?
  7. And why was there a dead-end stop in the train station? Wouldn’t the train have to back out to a switchback to move on to its destination?
  8. Méliès says that his films weren’t popular after WWI because the audience had seen “too much reality,” or words to that effect. I find this reductive and absurd. In times of hardship, people turn to fantasy more than ever.
    1. I realize that was not a question.
    2. While we’re here, I want to note that the Inspector was supposed to be a villain, a buffoon, a tragic figure, and a romantic lead.

In short, I don’t think Hugo was as well-made as you think it was.

Special thanks to my friend Zoe, who articulated the point about orphans.

Posted in Movies | Tagged | 2 Comments

A letter to Al Franken

Posted on November 17, 2011 by bill

Al,

Your campaign has written to me on a number of issues, so I hope you might not mind if I call you, or rather the unpaid intern who has to sort through your email, “Al.”

I’m writing, Al(s), because I’ve been told that you support SOPA, and I really, really don’t. I understand the goals of the project, as someone who works in entertainment (though I don’t make my living solely by doing it), they’re trying to protect their income from illegal online sharing.

But the tools that are part of the enforcement of this project, namely the blocking of websites by the government to protect the commercial interests of private industry, are too broad and frankly Un-American. In addition to the fact that the MPAA and RIAA have never demonstrated any sense of restraint, the fact that the US government is giving itself the power to create a Great Firewall of America lends it sell far too easily to gradually increasing that power to other sites it deems unsuitable.

Al (both of you), I know you have a lot of friends in the entertainment business. I’m sure you’ve heard the stories about how their livelihood is in danger, and how piracy is affecting not just the very rich, but the working men and women on the lower end of the industry. But this bill is goes too far in giving the government the ability to censor the Internet.

I ask you as a constituent to withdraw your support for this bill.

Warmest regards,
Etc.

Posted in Open letter | Tagged | Leave a comment

Macbeth: the Video Game Remix (2011 MN Fringe) post-mortem

Posted on August 16, 2011 by bill

What went right:

Pre-production

  1. I went through and altered bits that I thought didn’t work in the original production.
  2. We got all of the original cast to be in the show (despite the fact that they all had other Fringe shows to be in). Sharon took over my parts so I could focus on directing and restaging the play for the Thrust.
  3. Pre-show buzz. We got mentioned everywhere. Multiple news sources (including the Wall Street Journal) used the title “Macbeth: the Video Game Remix” when talking about the variety of shows at the Fringe.

Production

  1. The cast knew the show so even with an abbreviated rehearsal schedule, we were able to pull together a tight show.
  2. The Rarig Thrust is a great space that was perfect for our production. I dread to think what would have happened if we were in the Proscenium; you need to be close to a show like this. Being in the Rarig never hurts to pull in audience members. Also, being at the Big Kid’s Table in the Thrust raised our visibility.
  3. Our press was uniformly great. We got a “must see” from the Pioneer Press, and glowing reviews from City Pages, Vita.mn, and TC Daily Planet. The only one we missed was the Strib, but after two Fringe shows with no press at all, I’m not complaining.
  4. The audience also loved the show. 4½ Kitties.

Post-Production

  1. Sharon was asked by another theater company (out of towners) about production rights.

What went wrong

  1. Because everyone else (with the exception of Sharon) was in another show, scheduling rehearsals was problematic. As I was freaking out, however, it was pointed out to me that this is a remount with the same cast, and they’d pull it together. Which they did.
  2. Despite amazing reviews from both press and audiences, we never filled the house. We had solid attendance in a large venue, and had we gone medium we probably would have had multiple sell-outs, but still. My rationalization for this is that:
    1. this was a remount, and a lot of the people in our potential audience had already seen the show
    2. Arlo is a new company, even though Matthew and I have been doing Fringe shows for years
    3. the glut of nerd + Shakespeare shows at this year’s Fringe.
  3. The postcard thing. After a conversation with a volunteer about her friends who work for a video game magazine, we gave her a postcard for the show. Two days later while Googling for press, I find a blog post where the writer trashes the show based on the ad copy on the postcard. He objected to my use of “n00b” and “pwn,” and said that the show sounded terrible. How I dealt with that:
    1. I responded in the comment section of the blog, linking to the positive reviews of the show
    2. Explaining my rationale for using those words
    3. Inviting the author of the post to come see the show, free of charge
    4. Emailing him the next day to reiterate that I was serious about comping him in
    5. He didn’t come to see the show, but updated his post with my response, adding that he was “admittedly harsh.”
    6. Lesson learned: I do not see how I could have anticipated this, other than not giving postcards to people I think might be interested in the show, but I think my response was the best one.

 Overall lessons learned:

  1. We did a good show, got great response, and now have a reputation to build on.
  2. I’m thinking the age of postcards might be over. They’re useful for raising awareness of the show before the Fringe (we had them ready for CONvergence, for example), but at the Fringe, they’re virtually worthless, lost in a sea of four-color. I don’t know what’s going to replace them, other than Facebook invites.
  3. The best show I saw at this year’s Fringe was raw, visceral, and original. And only a handful of people went to see it. Make of that what you will.
Posted in Post-mortem | Tagged | 1 Comment

“HMS Pacific Princess Boat” Post-mortem

Posted on May 9, 2011 by bill

What went right:

1. The cast was extremely positive and threw themselves into the script with gusto.
2. The director loved the script. Everyone brought a lot of energy to the work.
3. We got a lot of press for this show, landing on the City Pages A-list and an article in the MN Daily.
What went wrong:
1. I started with a faulty assumption: that The Love Boat is a cultural touchstone. This is not true, as we discovered in rehearsal when two actors informed us they had never seen an episode. I was making reference humor to something that people had no frame of reference for.
2. Continuing on that theme, the script was paced too quickly, trying to make use of TV-ish montages. It is extremely difficult to do montages on stage–that’s a function of editing, and outside our realm–and this script was made up almost entirely of montages, which were further harmed by, again, the idea that everyone knew what I was making reference to. The play starts, in fact, by announcing that it’s the second part of a two-part episode.
3. Looking back at THACO and Macbeth: the Video Game Remix, there are little bits of exposition and jokes that clue people who aren’t gamers in to what’s going on. HMS lacked those.
4. As my wife pointed out, “You were working through some things here.”
5. The show is frantically paced, with multiple costume changes.
Lessons learned
1. Structure, structure, structure.
2. Reference humor only works is someone knows what you’re talking about.
3. Theatre time is different that movie time. People need to spend time with characters. Theatre is word-based, not image-based.
4. If a TV show is not in reruns, it does not exist.

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Frame Rates For Victory!

Posted on April 12, 2011 by bill

So the new thing for professional filmmakers is shooting in high frame rates: 48 fps. Jackson is doing it for The Hobbit, and Cameron is doing it for Avatar 2. If these films are successful—excuse me, when these film are successful, expect to see more blockbusters moving to the format, and probably charging you more for the pleasure.

Now, Crunch Gear has an excellent explanation of what this means in terms of how film works, how TV works, and how the new high frame rate works. If you’re curious on a geek level about why frame rates are the way they are, you should read it. There’s one bit, though, I want to pull from this:

The negative reaction to high framerates is also associational. For decades we’ve watched cheaply-produced TV shows shot on video tape or transmitted live at an end framerate of 60i. Flat lighting, bad production in general, and small screens have for our entire lives associated high framerates with low quality.

Here’s the thing. I (or rather my cinematographer, who owns the camera) shoot on high definition video. Because that’s what we can afford. There are a lot of tricks and plugins and processes that we can run that high def video through to make it look like film, which means that we’re trying to degrade the video to make it look more expensive.

I know, right?

Now! Two of the biggest directors in the world are working on the most hotly anticipated movies, and these movies that are going to “break” the look of what a blockbuster film is. They are not going to look like films you’ve seen before, they’re going to look like video. And this is going to cause some cognitive dissonance for older audiences. And then people will get over it.

Except.

Except that once Hollywood gets audiences to accept that shooting at high framerates doesn’t register emotionally as “this looks cheap,” then they’ve undermined the major obstacle between Hollywood Films and amateur filmmakers. You’ll still have to worry about depth of field, lighting, Mise-en-scène and all the stuff that truly separates a filmmaker from someone shooting a home video, but the last stronghold of “Film” as a piece of celluloid that runs through a shutter will have been breached.

Think about this: amateurs like me, film students, independent filmmakers; we won’t have to process our digital video to make it look like a 35mm camera that was invented decades ago, because professional movies will be made to look like digital. The mountain came to us.

Posted in Video | 1 Comment

“Re: Your Brains” post-mortem

Posted on April 4, 2011 by bill

So, 28,000 hits later, it’s been an amazing weekend. It’s true, what they say, refreshing the YouTube page every five minutes when you know they only update the page every hour is a completely different experience when it’s your video and not Maru.

What went right

Pre-production: Rather than storyboard (which I hate doing, but know is absolutely necessary to force myself to think visually rather than verbally), I did a pre-visualization video using stock photos. This allowed me to set up shots in my head and more importantly time the shots to the music. “Re: Your Brains” is 4 1/2 minutes long, and I was really worried we would run short of bits. The pre-visualization also made it much easier for me to explain to the crew what I wanted. It’s much easier for me to edit video of stock photos than to draw, as I get embarrassed by my doodling.

The Shoot: Beyond just having incredibly talented, patient people to work with, some behind the scenes stuff:

  • Amanda Kudalis, our producer and production manager, broke down the shot list that we had discussed and checked each one off as we got it on tape. This was absolutely essential because at the end of the day, I was getting tired and just wanted to go home. But as I learned on our previous shoots, when you’re in editing, either you have the shots you need or you don’t, and with this project there was virtually no way we could go back for reshoots.
  • Changes made on the fly: Originally I had planned for the vending machine bit to be done with a glass-fronted machine that sold potato chips. I was planning on doing the glass shatter and blood on the chips as a digital effect. Honestly, that effect is probably beyond my skills at this point, so when I saw the pop vending machine, I decided to go with that, and do the blood splatter as a practical effect.
  • Coverage. Thanks to the pre-visualization video, I planned out the coverage I wanted (close-ups, etc.). This has been a problem for me, as a director, to remember, and me-as-an-editor really hates that.

Post-Production: Once I got the footage pulled I realized, much to my happiness, that I would probably have more footage than I needed, especially since we shot several takes of the zombies singing the chorus while improvising at the desks. Again, the pre-vis helped tremendously getting the first cut together.

Second, I used Bleach Bypass from PHYX Color to desaturate the video and give it a real horror movie feel. If I had to point to the one thing that I did that really helped this video look great, it’s the color processing.

Bleach Bypass also gave the blood a crustier, dried look.

There were a couple of shots that we had to get in one take (most notably my lovely (and tolerant) wife Sharon getting blood shot all over her face). We got really lucky, and it looked great.

Distribution: I was initially going to post the video on Friday, April 1st. Sharon, who is much smarter than I, pointed out that the ‘net was going to be awash in April Fool’s Day pranks, and I should put it out on Thursday. She was, as usual, right.

As we got ready to release the video, I sent links to the actors and other friends to get them involved with spreading the word. I let them know when the video was coming out, and sent another email when we had posted it publicly.

What went wrong

Sound: Since this was a music video, we were able to dispense with sound for almost the entire shoot, which made it a lot easier to shoot, especially in the cafeteria, where we simply could not have unplugged the refrigerators.  The only bits we needed sound for were the very beginning where you hear the footsteps. Unfortunately, as we captured that sound at the end of the day, no one was on headphones and there was a loud electronic whine that ruined every second of it.

I tried to foley the footsteps myself using my Mac and Snowball mic, but the consensus on that was that it sounded fake, was the worst part of the video, and since it was at the beginning, it was bringing the great bits down. So, we re-foleyed the footsteps using our good mic. My good friend Olga also gave me advice on how to use sound to help enhance the visual image.

Craft Services: I want to mention this only as a matter of shooting on a low budget. Since I promised to feed the actors, I decided to save money by buying pizzas  to cook for them in the office cafeteria. When we got there, however, I discovered that the “oven” was a small toaster oven, the kind you’d use to warm a sandwich. I ended up ordering pizzas to go which not only cost more money, but took me away from the shoot to order and meet the delivery guy.

Lessons learned

  • Always have someone on headphones when doing sound.
  • When you ask people you trust for advice, listen to that advice
  • If you hate drawing, use stock photos or other ways to think visually
  • If there’s a part of a job you hate, find someone who wants to do it. They’re out there. Don’t torture yourself by half-assing something you don’t like to do.

Addendum: after discussing it with a friend, I’m told that point #2 above would be better phrased as “”I often ask for crticism in the hope that they’ll tell me what I know needs to be fixed doesn’t need to be fixed. I am always wrong in this.”

Posted in Post-mortem, Video | Tagged | 3 Comments

Re: Your Brains video

Posted on March 31, 2011 by bill

Song by Jonathan Coulton

Produced by Moontalk Productions

Written, edited, and concept by me.

Posted in Video | Leave a comment