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We just hot-swapped in a new design.  We are still working out some of the quirks.

I’m sure this one is going to get around the blogosphere pretty quickly. Some of the most influential DIY filmmakers on the net have gotten together to make what might be called the film festival 2.0. It’s called From Here to Awesome and features many of the online social networking principles that have been employed to do successful DIY film distribution: youtube, myspace, blogs, and audience control.

The masterminds behind this project are:

• Lance Weiler - Lance is the founder of The Workbook Project, a fantastic resource for filmmakers. He wrote and directed Head Trauma and The Last Broadcast
• Arin Crumley - Arin’s feature film Four-Eyed Monsters was distributed with an extensive no-budget marketing campaign that used just about every online social networking tool out there.
• M dot Strange - (real name: Michael Belmont) M made the internet sensation We Are the Strange, an animated film that premiered last year at Sundance.

Some relevant Videos:

• Lance Weiler talking about “truly independent” production in general and his film Head Trauma in particular:
• Trailer for We Are The Strange:
• Arin Crumley’s preview for Four Eyed Monsters. That’s Arin playing the lead:

The films of David Lynch are not for everybody (Lynch on IMDb). I am often hesitant to share his films with friends unless I know that they appreciate what might be called “the aesthetics of the weird.” That said, I think he’s really brilliant, especially when it comes to creative an immersing experience. Here are a few videos of Lynch giving his opinion of some trends in movie viewing and movie making. Both are really funny.

Also, going along with our previous post on ideas, here is David Lynch’s take on ideas.

Music is a perpetual problem for indie filmmakers.  Over at Rhythm Creation, they’ve got a great list of 10 great sites for getting free music and sound samples.  Most of the sites offer the music royalty free.  Some are only royalty free for non-commercial projects.  I checked out several of the sites and they look pretty good.  I especially recommend Sample Swap.

People always ask Neil Gaiman where he gets his ideas. The popular author of several books and screenwriter of the recent films Stardust and Beowulf has a lot to say about answering this question. His short answer:

‘I make them up,’ I tell them. ‘Out of my head.’

But before, you go and read his essay on the topic which I highly recommend, stick around here for what I think is the most effective tip for coming up with (and keeping) new ideas.

Here’s the short answer: write them down.

Sounds too simple to be the killer solution doesn’t it?

Maybe, but here’s the truth, writing down ideas eliminates a block to having them. If an idea has to hang around in your short term memory for a long time in order for it to get written down, that’s a serious stress on your brain. Your brain is not going to generate ideas if it’s just going to mean more stress, more work, more things to remember. When you write them down, you get them out of your head and then your brain is free to come up with more ideas, new ideas, better ideas.

Get the right tools

Personal productivity mavens will be familiar with the term “ubiquitous capture tool.” That’s a fancy term for a notebook and pen that you always have at hand. Ideas come all the time. Be ready.

I recommend choosing a notebook format that you like and stick with it. You will be surprised how fast you fill them and need to line them up on a bookshelf somewhere. Personally, I am a fan of the Circa notebooks from Levenger because I can rearrange the pages like its a binder but it doesn’t have the clunky metal rings. I know a lot of people swear by the Moleskine, also a good option. For the budget savvy, there is also the Hipster PDA (which I also use when even a notebook is too cumbersome). A Hipster PDA is just a stack of 3×5 index cards held together by a binder clip. You’ll find this has all kinds of other useful side effects. Any way you go, having a system makes a huge difference.

Okay, now go read Neil Gaiman’s essay on getting ideas and after every bit of advice he gives, add the words “and then write that idea down.”

As part of our New Year’s cleaning effort, my wife and I finally got around to organizing our bookshelves.  In the process, I found several great books that I had forgotten about.  Here’s my list of the top five film books that I forgot I owned.

1. Film as Art by Rudolph Arnheim - This book goes way back.  The author goes so far as to argue against new-fangled ideas like sound and color.  Regardless of whether you think all films should be B&W and silent, Arnheim does a stellar job of identifying the way a filmmaker puts his artistic mark on a film.
2. Film Form by Sergei Eisenstein - The classic collection of essays by the Russian montage master.  He really makes you think about what meaning is added to a pair of shots when they are edited together.  I also think his writings on rhythm are essential for any filmmaker.
3. What is Cinema? by André Bazin - These essays by the French film critic, André Bazin, do what only the best criticism can - explain why films are good rather than why they are bad.  Great lessons for filmmakers.
4. In the Blink of an Eye by Walter Murch - A quick and insightful read on what make a good cut, written by a master editor.
5. Rebel Without a Crew by Robert Rodriguez - This book chronicles Robert Rodriguez’s rise to fame with his first indy feature, El Mariachi.  This book probably inspires more young filmmakers to go for it than any other out there.

Although most of these are pretty old, they contain a lot of great insights that could be helpful to any filmmaker.

The time-lapse sequence has become quite popular in how-to videos to replace the old cooking show stand-by, “Here’s one I prepared earlier.” The explosion of DIY videos on the internet is really great but often the time-lapse sequence of the thing being built is not all that interesting. The key to making a worthwhile time-lapse segment is the same as the key to a good camera move:

Make the middle interesting, otherwise use a cut.

If all that matters is the before and the after, use a cut or transition. You wouldn’t want to use a long, slow pan from one item of interest to another if the area between them is visually uninteresting. The same holds for the time lapse; if it’s just people moving around really quickly and you can’t tell what’s going on, you probably can just cut to the chase.

The best time-lapse footage comes from something where you can see a long arduous process come to life, like a building being erected in a couple minutes or a pumpkin rotting. Here’s a great example from my friend Clay.

The term “pulldown” has been around, and implemented since films were being edited on videotape. It is only now, with almost every prosumer camcorder on the market having the ability to record in 24p format, that pulldown has entered into conversations among amateur filmmakers. Before discussing pulldown, a few basics about the NTSC video signal.

In the United States, the National Television Standards Committee (NTSC) has defined a standard for all analog (non HD) television systems to operate which is based on a 60Hz frequency of alternating current. A video image is made up of 525 horizontal lines of information. An electron gun inside your television scans a single frame of video twice in 1/30th of a second. Each scan is called a field, and this process is referred to as “interlacing”. It starts from the top line, called the “upper field” or “odd field” and alternates fields (1, 3, 5 etc.) until it finishes at the bottom. (This process occurs in 1/60th of a second). The electron gun then returns to the top of the screen and scans the “lower fields” or “even fields” and completes the image. This process produces exactly 30 frames every second. This was true for black and white television. As many of you know, however, todays television signal is now slightly slower running at 29.97 frames. This was a side effect of the invention of color television, and a phasing issue between the color carrier, and the sound carrier. Thus the color carrier was slowed .03 frames per second creating a very complicated scenario for todays filmmakers. Okay, now for another equally confusing topic… pulldown.

Film cameras, and many video cameras, as mentioned before, are capable of recording at 24fps. Pulldown is a process of eliminating frames created during the telecine process (film transferred to video) for computer editing. This allows an editor to edit a 24fps project without having to worry about making a cut on a “fake frame”, a frame created in telecine which does not exist in the originally shot film material. When a film project is completed, an edit decision list (EDL) is created from the computer, which is then sent to a negative cutter who uses the list of cuts generated from the computer to make an actual film spliced version of your movie (yes the process still occurs). If you did not pulldown your video when capturing your material into the computer, every edit has a 1 in 5 chance of being a “fake frame” thus making your EDL incorrect for the negative cutter. (The telecine process adds 6 frames of video to your film material creating your 30fps).

2:3 pulldown is the most common form of pulldown, which means that the first frame of your film is represented by the first 2 fields of video, the second frame of film by 3 fields of video, third frame, 2 fields, fourth frame, 3 fields and so on. Take a look at the chart.

Telecine machines are also capable of transferring material for a 3:2 pulldown. All this means is that digitized material must be set to first capture at a B frame, rather than A.

All this being said, what does pulldown do for amatuer filmmakers utilizing 24p technology. Nothing — unless of course, your material is being transferred to film or another playback method capable of running at 24 frames per second. The final playback method of your finished project should be considered at the time of acquisition. Although it may be tempting to shoot in 24p, the filmmaker should remember that if the final playback ultimately will be for DVD/TV that run at 29.97 fps, so will your movie.

I am a big fan of Indy Mogul (indymogul.com) but I was a little disappointed with one of their recent episodes of Q and Erik, their weekly filmmaking question and answer show. In response to a reader question about achieving a film look, Erik claimed that frame rate was one of the two big factors differentiating the film look and the video look. He suggested looking for a camera that shoots 24P, or 24 progressive frames per second. This is a commonly held misconception about video and I’d like to try and clear this up a little.

Film cameras in the US run at 24 frames per second. Television and video runs at 30 frames per second. So, what is the difference? I’ll explain.

One of the ugly downsides to the video image is what is often referred to as “the video edge.” The edges of objects seem perhaps too crisp or hard, especially around bright areas. The video edge has two main sources, one is loosely related to frame rate and the other is not.

1.  The charge coupled device (CCD) in the camera, the chip that registers the image, is divided into distinct pixels that are isolated from one another. If light hits one but not the other, the edge between them is very distinct. Film does not have this problem.  The light receptive molecules on a piece of film are scattered randomly and they overlap. Also, light can pass through the film emulsion and bounce of the back of the film to expose nearby areas of the film. This is called halation and is the reason for the “glow” around bright objects in a film frame. Different film stocks will halate differently. Pro videographers will often use a filter such as a Tiffen Pro Mist filter to soften video’s hard edge.
2. The common misconception, (promoted by video manufacturers who cannot solve the first problem) is that the video edge comes from a lack of motion blur. It makes sense that more motion blur could soften the video edge. The fewer frames per second, the longer the exposure of each frame, and thus the more motion blur. That is the party line. Is it true? Not exactly.

A film camera has a shutter shaped like a disk with a pie piece cut out of it. It rotates at 24 times per second to give 24 frames per second. During the time when the pie piece cut out is over the frame, the film is being exposed. The time when the film is not exposed is used to pull the next frame into place. Generally, shutters use a 180 degree cut so the actual exposure time for a given frame is 1/48 second. An ordinary consumer video camera recording 30fps will actually record 60 interlaced fps. Because there is no film to pull through the gate, the video camera doesn’t need to use a shutter and thus can expose each interlaced frame for the full 1/60 of a second.

The above is a naive generalization of the issue. In reality, video cameras do have an adjustable shutter speed to cut down on light and film cameras also have adjustable shutter angles. There is a distinct difference in the look of a short shutter, but it’s not the thing that separates film and video. For example, do you think Saving Private Ryan looked like it was shot on video? No, but it did have that sharp crispness to the image because of a small shutter angle.Good video cameras today can shoot 30P, or 30 progressive frames per second. The exposure can be set to 1/30 of a second which is even slower than a film camera do, but it doesn’t eliminate the video edge. 30P is a better choice than 24P for most videos. But here is the real killer…

The 24P camera will stretch your 24 frames into 30 frames by interlacing the progressively shot frames, thus counteracting the fact that it shot progressive frames in the first place. Interlacing probably contributes more to the bad video look than frame rate so why would you add interlacing just to lower the frame rate?

If you bought a 24P camera, don’t feel bad. It probably shoots great video at 30P.

My Conclusion: 24P is a gimmick. Shoot 30P unless (and only unless) you plan on getting a film print made, in which case, shoot 24P advanced (Google this if you want to know how it differs from vanilla 24P).