Archive for the 'filmmaking' Category
Posted by Mat on 5th, 2009
Welcome to the DOJO!
The number one problem for every indie or guerilla filmmaker out there is: “Where the heck do I find a distributor for my low budget film so people can see it?” In other words, “will I make enough money to pay off all those damn credit cards I ran up to make my film?” Yup, the age old question of what to do with that film after you’ve finished shooting and editing it.
And you thought making a film was the hard part?
Well, like a lot of you, I’ve asked myself those same questions a number of times and have even taken the dreaded path of self distribution. Over the course of following that path, I ran into a very cool little website, Caachi.com, that offers an interesting take on digital or online film distribution. You may be surprised by what I discovered.
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Posted by Mat on 29th, 2008
Welcome to the DOJO!
Woooo! It’s time again for a new bit of wisdom from the Film Sensei. Now that the holidays are over and the in-laws have all gone home and left the DOJO quiet and peaceful once more I can get back to the important things in life…enlightening to unlightened.
While I do make fun of my wife’s family from time to time, one of the benefits of the holidays is a chance to hang out with her cousin, Cousin Frank. You see, Cousin Frank is a wannabe indie filmmaker — and I use “wannabe” in the best possible way. He loves film and is incredibly interested in the entire filmmaking process — from low budget, indie or guerilla filmmaking all the way up to the $100 million Hollywood films. He buys DVDs just for their behind-the-scenes featurettes and is the only person I know to have scoured the internet for copies of every season of Project: Greenlight — heck, he’s probably reading this post right now!
Cousin Frank’s problem (aside from a receeding hairline he hides by shaving his head) is that he wants to take his passion to the next step but doesn’t know where to start. He works fulltime and doesn’t really have the money for film school…even if he did, he’s read far too many articles online telling him that film school is a complete waste for most people. Well, when I met with Cousin Frank at my wife’s Aunt Mary’s house on Christmas Eve he announced he was ready to make the leap and wanted to know what the best way to learn filmmaking — was it online? DVDs? Books? Workshops? All he knew was he didn’t want to waste the time or money going to film school.
What I told Cousin Frank was: there is no universal way for someone to learn filmmaking. For some people books work, while for others book-learning doesn’t. Same for DVDs or online courses. But, I did agree that film school really wasn’t the best place to learn — the best place is to get out and work on some sets and then to put together your own indie or guerilla films. However, if he wanted to learn the how tos of filmmaking, then one of the absolute best courses I’ve had the pleasure to come across is the Digital Cinema Filmmaking DVD course by Rush Hamden (also called the Digital Filmmaker’s Training Course DVDs). Full Story →
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Posted by Mat on 4th, 2008
If you are just starting out as an indie or guerilla filmmaker and you are completely baffled as to where to get started in regards to equipment and gear, you are not alone. We’ve all been there. Don’t let the guys on the various indie / DIY/ DV filmmaking forums try to convince you other wise, no one starts out knowing everything about shooting an indie film. However, the information on what is the best equipment can be a bit difficult to come by.
If you do frequent the indie filmmaking message boards and communities, then you know that even attempting to ask a basic question will get you flamed, harassed and mocked. For some reason the majority of people on those boards are more interested in being complete dicks than in really helping…not everyone, but most. Aside from the insult responses you’ll get, the main bit of “help” offered by forum members will usually be along the lines of a very sarcastic post containing some variation of the phrase “search the archives for your answer.” Well, we all know that searching a particularly active forum can be a bit like finding a needle in a haystack. What this does is leave the majority of newbie indie or guerilla filmmakers scratching their heads on where to get started. None of us has an unlimited amount of cash to throw around and for a new filmmaker finding the right equipment for the right price is an absolute MUST…throwing away $500 on the wrong piece of gear can sometimes make or break someone.
What I’m going to be doing over the next week is going over a list of the top 10 must-have essential pieces of equipment for any indie or guerilla filmmaker looking to get started. This is the basic equipment you’ll need to go out there and put together a professional looking piece of film together. This list isn’t going to include anything on editing because that is a list unto itself. Right now we’re sticking with the essential equipment for any beginning filmmaker or someone looking to start their own guerilla production studio. And away we go! Full Story →
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Posted by Mat on 16th, 2008
Welcome to the DOJO!
As an indie filmmaker I am a firm believer in the power of digital cinema and filmmaking. I’ve owned and been using various forms of DV cameras since I shot “Bite Me, Fanboy” back in 2001. However, like almost every indie or guerilla filmmaker on the planet, I still love the look of a project shot on film. There is just something ingrained into my being that will also respond to the look of a 35mm or, as a fan of 1970s exploitation films, 16mm film. To me, video almost never looks quite right.
The rise of digital cameras with the ability to shoot at 24p (24 progressive frames per second) has helped the look of digital video, but there was still something missing. Truthfully, the main thing missing from most DV (or HD or HDV or whatever your preferred digital filmmaking format is) is creative color correction and post processing, but that’s not what I’m going to talk about today. What is missing on consumer and “prosumer” digital camcorders is the power of a great lens. Sure, a lot of the higher end digital video cameras have some very good lenses on them these days. However, they still don’t quite hold a candle to a professional 35mm camera lens.
In specific, what most dv cameras lack is the ability to change your focal length and the ability to get a great shallow depth of field. For those of you out there who aren’t sure of what the term “depth of field” means or why you’d want a shallow one, I’ll explain…for those of you who already know, I give you permission to go ahead and skip past the rest of this paragraph. Your “depth of field” is basically referring to what is in focus on screen (or in your camera). A deep depth of field means more is in focus (or everything in some cases) and a shallow depth of field means a small portion is in focus with everything else blurred out to varying degrees. You’ll notice in most films (but not all), when a character is in close-up, the background is blurred out. That statement over simplifies things, but this post is a product review and not a treatise on DOF (depth of field). All you need to know is film lenses allow you to obtain a very shallow DOF, which allows you as the director to control what your viewers see on screen and is an important part of film storytelling. If you want to know more, Google the damn phrase and leave me alone. 
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Posted by Mat on 9th, 2008
Welcome to the DOJO!
It’s another exciting week here in Southern California. And by “exciting” I mean “really freakin’ hot!” Earlier this summer I promised my beloved wife I would refrain from using our airconditioner as much as possible. It was an easy promise to make back in early May when the weather was a balmy 75 degrees. Now that it is early July and it’s hotter than Mila Kunis, I’m very much regretting that promise.
In an attempt to stave off my upcoming heat stroke, I’ve decided to start documenting the development of my next low, low, low, low, (you get the idea) low budget film. It’s a horror flick (or, perhaps, comedy-horror is a better classification) called “The Hog” (WGA #1184043), which I originally wrote a few years ago. I had been given the task of writing the sequel to a terrible little movie called “Tail Sting” — the sequel was called “Tail Sting 2″ at the time, however it was eventually released as “Stinger” in most of the world. Unfortunately for everyone involved, I really hadn’t done a whole hell of a lot of screenplay writing at that point. I had come up with the story for “Bite Me, Fanboy” and then co-wrote its screenplay, done extensive re-writing on the “Judge Dredd” screenplay for Shoreline Entertainment and written a bunch of comic books, but that was the extent of my writing experience.
Heck, I went to art school and was thankful I could even read at all! The thought of sitting down and writing out 120 pages of text for a screenplay was a bit daunting. In an effort to become more familiar and, hopefully, more skilled with the process, I decided to bang out a low budget horror screenplay in advance of doing “Tail Sting 2.” Full Story →
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