TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome to the Lights Film School video on ISO

Before we begin, let’s talk about what ISO is.

An ISO setting is the digital equivalent to Film’s A.S.A setting. Simply put, your ISO is your camera’s sensor sensitivity to light. The higher the ISO speed, meaning the larger the number, the more sensitive your sensor will be to light. The lower the number, the less sensitive your camera’s sensor will be to light. Your ISO setting combined with your aperture and shutter speed work together to give you your correct exposure.

However, when shooting in low light environments, better light sensitivity doesn’t come without a cost. Let’s take a look at this image at night in the park for example. As you increase your chip’s sensitivity to light you also increase the amount of “noise” in your image. “noise” is a sort of digital degradation within your image. It manifests itself in different ways in different cameras but it has a general characteristic as a sort of digital grain.

Besides your ISO setting, heat and sensor size also impact the amount of noise in an image. There are also different types of noise. For example, “fixed pattern noise” may be caused by long exposure times. Next, “Random noise”, which is seen in this image, is the type of noise most filmmakers struggle with, and is caused by high ISO speeds. Lastly, “banding noise” which plagues some cameras more than others, may be caused when the shadowed parts of the image are lightened.

All of these different types of noise look slightly different but they all share 1 common characteristic: They degrade the picture quality of your video. Noise is usually identifiable by a bunch of flickering or moving pixels on a surface that should otherwise appear smooth.

Again, look at our park image and notice how “noise” manifests itself throughout the different parts of the image.

Now let’s look at two shots with roughly the same exposure but shot at two different ISO speeds. Notice how there is virtually no difference between the image on the right and the image on the left.

But let’s look again, and closer this time, at what happens when we zoom into the image on a larger screen. The image on the bottom-left shows a noise free image. However, the image on the bottom-right is suffering from some pretty sever noise. However, if you look above at the images those close-ups were taken from, both images seem almost identical and noise free.

This is because image noise is often subtle when viewed on small LCD screens on the back of your camera. In fact, it’s often not until you’re watching the footage on a larger monitor that you uncover the problematic issue of noise and image deterioration.

Of course noise has an impact on the small videos as well, but for any filmmaker out there with television or theatrical ambitions ISO and noise will become increasingly important for you to be aware of. As soon as you enlarge your image noise will become substantially more noticeable. So be aware of your ISO settings when you’re capturing your raw footage to avoid problems later on in editing.

ISO ‘sweet spots” are another thing you may need to be aware of for your specific camera brand and model. For instance tests, show that different ISO speeds handle noise differently. For example, on some Canon DSLR’s there is actually less noise in the ISO setting of 160 than there is in the ISO setting of 100. These are technical details you need to look into for your own particular brand of camera..

Every image has noise, but for the most part in lower ISO images, noise will appear less noticeable. The Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR or S/N) is the universal way of measuring the relative amounts of signal and noise in your shots.  High ratios will have very little visible noise while low ratios will have lots of noise.

Noise reduction software also exists to help you get rid of unwanted noise. For example, Neat-Video offers a great solution for both MAC and PC users. Again, it’s advisable to get as strong of a raw image as possible, but noise reduction software such as Neat-Video can help you salvage otherwise useless footage. Again, here is our footage shot at a high ISO setting of 6400 and here it is again after being run through Neat-Video noise reduction software.

One of your goals before you hit the record button should always be to ensure you obtain the best image quality possible using the lowest ISO possible.

Hello Lukas and thank you for creating and sharing your film “OTEC” (Father) with us. The first thing that strikes me is that you don’t have any other videos on your Vimeo or IMDB page. Most filmmakers experience a sort of gradient of professionalism in their work. They start off by doing some satisfactory work before moving on to doing more precise work. But for a first film you’re out of the gates really strong. If this is your starting point I’m incredibly curious to know what your end point is. Was it really important for you to do a strong first film? How did you practice to get yourself to this level of cinematic precision and understanding?

I started to study film studies in 2005 – at first I studied documentary directing at the Academy of Arts in Banská Bystrica, Slovakia. Later, I transferred to the Film and Television Faculty at the Academy of Performing Arts Bratislava, Slovakia. The film “Father” is actually my graduate project, which I ended my studies with in summer 2009. The time spent at school was the best time of my life. I met a lot of people there who have influenced me and still have an influence on me – amongst others my former teachers, Slovak directors, Stanislav Párnický and Martin Šulík and the Czech dramaturge Jan Gogola. Their patience and humour taught me not to take everything too seriously, to rather objectively observe life from a distance as beautiful as it is. Their approach was in accordance with my character which is rather introvert and spiritual. These people are one or two generations older than me and therefore their experience is very valuable.

Slovakia lies in the heart of Europe. However, our history has been influenced by the ideology of the former eastern bloc. We, as the Slavs, are a thoughtful nation who can give a lot to the present world. We actually are a kind of a link between the western and eastern ideology, in spite of the fact that we ourselves have our own problems (not surprisingly) connected with human greed and egoism.

Until the fall of socialism, the censorship was trying to limit the influence of the western culture, which meant that our cinematography has been labelled as eastern European cinematography. However, this isolation meant the exact opposite. Film directors such as Tarkovsky, Kieslowski, Wajda and others became respected and valued filmmakers throughout the whole world. Their films were not made to earn money, as it is today, but they were and still are valuable works of art. The film, thanks to its universal language, is the best bearer of higher ideas – it lets life, however cruel it might be, to stand out and gives hope to people in this way – hope for a better world. This is what I value the most about films and I would like to contribute to this through my work. Whether it is my first or my last work of art, it has to have a common aim – to celebrate life with all its inevitable contradictions. However, my film “father” who has had the biggest influence on me and thanks to whom I have decided to study film studies, paradoxically does not come from a country from the former eastern bloc. It is Terrence Malick who I hope to meet one day.

You shot this film on the RED ONE camera. Why did you make this choice?

My original intention was to shoot the film Father on film material – with a 16mm camera. In 2008, shortly before the shooting itself, I got into contact with the camera RED ONE. Considering our low budget (30,000 EUR) and the shooting style (together with the director of photography, Ivo Miko, we did not use the story-board and to a great extent we let ourselves be influenced by the surroundings and situations resulting from it) we finally decided to use digital shooting in 4k quality with 35mm lenses. The film material would cost us much more and therefore our choice was clearly rational. The FilmPark company, who we rented the camera from, became a co-producer and so we paid only for one day instead of for 14 shooting days for renting the camera. Therefore I would like to address my special thanks to them, because they clearly did not do so out of economical reasons.

You’ve created a beautiful opening shot. What did you use to stabilize the camera for this shot?

The introductory take is quiet simple. We used a classic, approximately 10-metre dolly on which the camera was at a 90-degree upward position. The night changing into the morning was finished by postproduction. We neither had time nor money for other technologies. We have put a lot of effort into postproduction. Before the shooting, we spoke to the advertisement postproduction studio Framehouse, which did a very good job for a symbolic fee; if they had charged us a standard fee, our whole budget would not be sufficient. Today I can say that we were lucky to work with unselfish people who had decided to help us. This film therefore is dedicated to them as well.

Your shot around 2:40 (above – mother in boat) is very atmospheric and well lit. Are you using only natural light for these shots? Did you plan on having the subtle fog in the background? It seems like such a beautiful and rare environmental moment (the backlight, the stillness of the water, the fog etc) that it seems like you must have planned this shot around these specific conditions. Did you need to wait for the right day to shoot this scene? Same with the shot at 10:52 (above – lake) and 34:45 (above – walking through fog). Was this fog real?

Concerning the atmospheric conditions and weather, we were extremely lucky. Neither could we afford to postpone the shooting, nor to wait for ideal conditions. The film was shot mostly at the end of August and the beginning of September at a sea near Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. We used mainly natural light for the day exterior shots. The mild fog surrounding the boat was natural; we shot the scene with the mother and little Adam early in the morning when a mild mist was floating over the sea. This as a result makes a magical impression and emphasizes the retrospective sequences of the father and the adult Adam. The next scene with the sea and the rising sun had to be finished in postproduction because the sun was hidden by clouds the day when we planned to shoot it. The result looks natural which, of course, I am satisfied with. The scene in which we see the father walk with his dead wife surrounded by fog was for a change a trick realized on the set. We used a sulphur powder which when burning and under fair weather conditions creates a feeling for a while that one is in a magical forest. By this I wanted to emphasize the transcendental, higher reality in which the character of the father found himself at the end of the film. He was with his wife in his memories and dreams all the time. He has never left her.

You walk a very fine line as a filmmaker having some of your shots meticulously well designed and romanticized with perfectly executed compositions, movement, lighting and styling. Yet, other shots are much more naturalistic. For example, your opening sequence is very photographic. A large part of your efforts went into the framing and choreography of that shot, then once inside the fathers house you seem a little more “loose” with your compositions. How much of your film is actually designed though? For example the shot at 31:20 (above). Were the curtains, chair and the rest of the furniture already there or did you conceptualize all of this and work with a designer to create this world?

The world we created was not complicated. This applies to costumes and the production design itself. The house in which we shot was completely empty, so we had to furnish it completely. We had to repair the electricity, install lights, put curtains on the windows etc. My main condition was to use natural materials and old rustic style furniture. I wanted to have the impression that the character of the mother furnished the cottage with all the details and little things that only women can make up. That is why the interiors were furnished by women, who had not had much experience with film, but they had sense and big imagination – and that was enough for me. I applied the same principle on the costume. We used mostly our own clothes or clothes borrowed from friends.

The biggest problem for us was the boat. We were trying to get a wooden boat for several weeks; we did not have money for a new one, so we went to fishing settlements and tried to persuade the local fishermen to lend us one. Finally we found a fisherman who sold us two old boats for chicken feed (150 EUR). But here’s the rub: One of the boats had a hole and could be used only for scenes on the lakefront. The other boat…had a hole too. That happened two days before the beginning of the shooting. Finally we managed to repair it somehow. However, the boat was floating only for about 20 minutes then it would go down. Water was getting in it the whole time. I could not sleep at night because of it. We had to risk it and shoot despite all the potential risks. Fortunately, nothing bad happened to anybody.

I noticed at the end of your film you included the line “dedicated to my father”. I’m assuming this story is something that you hold very dear to your heart. As filmmakers we’re always putting parts of ourselves into our stories, but often filmmakers try to hide or at least disguise their own involvement in their stories. You explicitly state at the end of your film that this is a story that has relevance in your family. “Father” really moved me. In fact there was a moment just before the the climax that brought me to tears. I can’t help but feel that there is a strong current of honesty running through this film. Without asking you to share your personal history, can you tell us a little bit more about what made you want to tell such a personal story?

I grew up in a beautiful but poor region in the north of Slovakia. The most important thing for both of my parents was to support the family and survive another month. When one is alone and is not responsible for anybody else it is easy. But when one has two little children, the responsibility is incomparable. My brother and I got the best upbringing we could get. We had just a little but nevertheless we had so much. Our father has brought us up to be honest and responsible and our mother taught us about feelings and love. Both of them dedicated their whole lives to their children. That is the biggest sacrifice one can do – to give up your life for someone else. To dedicate a film to someone is nothing compared to it. It does not cost anything. But I have to admit that the biggest motivation to finish the film after 3 years of shooting was the idea of how my father would read the subtitle “dedicated to my father” at the end of the film. And it happened. It is called being overwhelmed by being overwhelmed. But now I have to dedicate a film to my mother to keep balance .

How long did it take you to write the script?

The writing of the script, or better said of some versions of the script, lasted more than two years. I have torn it into pieces several times because it always seemed stupid to me after some time. Finally I have managed to write the final version thanks to my pedagogues. The film has been cut totally different as it was written because it simply would not work as it should. This is the hardest part in the work of an artist – to leave your old idea, which is strongly anchored in your head and let a new one form.

The shooting itself lasted for one year. Because of the finances we had to divide the shooting into four sections. We managed to shoot most of the film in summer; we shot the summer interiors of the cottage in fall, the final part of the film in winter and then the summer interiors of the apartment in spring. We cut the film in about ten days in my friend´s small apartment; the sound postproduction together with the recording of the sound was finished in about two weeks. The hardest thing was to get money for the final trick postproduction which we needed 1,000 EUR for. The bank was not willing to give any loan, as I was a student and I had already owed money to my friends. Most of the millionaires and businessmen who we met have sent us away with a smile on their faces or they did not even pick up the phone. After several months of desperate searching we have found Mr Kováčik, owner of a big production company, who has paid for the postproduction. After three years the film was finally finished. However, we were paying back the debts which we had after this film for another year. Since then I have been claiming that persistence and patience are the most important characteristics of a filmmaker.

How big of a part did wardrobe play in your film?

The costume designer Katka Žgančíkova and I were trying to show the life of the main characters as realistically as possible. Although we focused on the characters which had been defined even before the shooting, we adapted to the typology and nature of the actors. But as I have already mentioned, the world we had created was not complicated. It is based on what life has offered us.

I love the shot at 11:39 (above). I notice you like being high with your camera. Can you explain that decision? Also that shot was one long take! What rig did you have your camera on?

First and foremost, the film is a visual experience for me. I love silent films which are able to tell a story without using a dialog. When watching a film as a viewer I like to put the film as a unit together and surmise more than is said – according to Tarkovsky – it is the only way which in the process of the perception of a film puts the viewer on the same level as the artists. I do not like when the viewer is treated as if he was stupid and when every little thing is explained to him, otherwise he would not understand the film. Other examples are the mise-en-scene or long scenes, which the viewer subconsciously studies and reveals important information for him. In this case I wanted to tell something more about the surroundings through this whole scene, but also about the characters and their relationship. It does not only seem real, it is also a challenge for the actors who have to focus not only on the acting but also on the movement of the camera. And this is not easy. The scene was shot with an about 8 meters long Jimmy Jib.

The location at 12:00 (above) is very iconic. When I think about your film these trees come to mind. Can you tell us a little about your location scouting philosophy? How do you look at space?

Our task was to find a beautiful cottage at a lake. It was not easy because most of the cottages we had found were not suitable. Besides, none of them were close to the lake. In the end, the surrounding of the forest and the beach with the roots of the trees persuaded me. When we had found it, I knew this was the right place. We managed to find the owner of the cottage and agree on a low rent. During the shooting most of the crew slept in the interiors of the cottage, some on beds, others in sleeping bags on the floor or in tents outside. I slept in the bed of little Adam where one could neither lie nor sleep properly. Besides, the whole cast and crew sat at the fireplace at night after the shooting, we had something to eat and drink and talked for a few hours. It was pleasant but unfortunately sometimes also painful in the morning. All the other locations were in Bratislava which is very suitable for shooting a film. We chose visually interesting locations but in the end the price we had to pay, was the most important criterion. But we were lucky and did not have to pay for most of the locations. This is the proof that still there are people whose only and foremost motivation is not money and this makes me happy because this is how it is supposed to be.

“Father” Is a very thinly scripted story. How did you communicate with the actors or other crew who may have a difficult time envisioning the narrative thrust of the story? You use silence a lot and that can be difficult for some people (both in front and behind the camera) to interpret. How did you effectively communicate the arc of these scenes with your cast and crew? It’s so well put together that I can see all of the different elements working together making the same narrative point (everything from movement, performance, lighting, design, atmosphere, sound etc). Therefore I know there was no confusion about what the point of each scene was and how it fit into the larger context of your story. I’m just curious to know if you found it challenging communicating these points?

The script was originally much denser as it can be seen in the end result. In the final cut about a third of the dialogue and several beautiful takes were eliminated – it was hard for me to say goodbye to most of them. In the process of cutting one sometimes has the feeling as if one would be killing his own child. Suddenly, one has to get rid of situations and scenes which one likes just because they slow the development of the story or reveal too much. I talked to the actors (who were also working for free) about the story and my idea of it several times. And because hardly anyone had known me as a student, a good script was the only thing I could offer at that time.

The acting is incredible. I was never pulled out of the believability of your story for even a second. I was totally captivated the entire time. Can you tell us a little bit about your philosophy in regards to working with actors? What do you look for in a performance?

Eighty percent of a good acting performance is about the right casting. When you manage to suitably cast a character, which you have invented or copied from life, you have managed the hardest part. The rest is only about communication and the humanity of all the participants.

Thanks to TV series, which I do for a living, I know a lot of (not only) Slovak well-known and beginning actors. However, I like to work with those who put their hearts in their work. What I appreciate about people is when their job is their hobby. I am motivated by the idea that I rehearse with an actor who gives me suggestions and thereby co-creates the character. Every director needs to co-create the character no matter how conceited he is and denies it. More than eighty percent of the communication in the life is nonverbal and this is also what acting is about. The film is able to reveal even the smallest emotional glimpse with a detailed take. This demands big emotional (and intellectual) self-control from the actor. This is why I do not like working with shallow people – if we are not able to connect on the emotional level, further cooperation is not possible.

We applied the same principle in the film Father. Together with the actors we talked abut the characters, who is who and why it is so. We talked about the fictive past of the characters, about the motivation which led them do what they did but also about feelings which the viewer should feel in the end. We soon find out, with the help of our instinct, whether the actor thinks about the character correctly and whether he acts naturally. There are no instructions. If you are not satisfied with the process of rehearsing, a cruel and merciless exchange is necessary, of course only if it is possible. There is much more than only one´s good reputation or a long-lasting friendship with the actor that is at risk.  Your film project, which you dedicate several years of your life, is at risk. A wrong cast or bad acting can spoil every even a genially constructed story. Neither can a good actor save a bad story. It is about the balance, which is necessary and there is nothing worse than a tormented actor or an unsatisfied director.

Do you give the actors room to improvise or are you pretty strict about sticking to the script?

I take the script only as a helping scheme. Nevertheless, I do not like schematism as such. I like freedom, which has to be based on the openness towards unexpected events. In the case of a low-budget production you have to improvise partially, otherwise you will not be satisfied. And this is what I do not like. The script is only one step of the film development and what is the most important fact, it is not the last step. The final version of the film will always be the last step. It is not important whether you stick to the script exactly. I perceive it only as a useful guide how to proceed in the development of the story. However, there are certain rules which should not be changed for the sake of dramaturgical logics. It is the same when working with actors. If an actor shows me with his improvisation something better than I wanted, I would be insane not to accept it. Rehearsal before shooting has its advantages – work is then more comfortable and time and energy is saved. This is also about repressing one’s own personality, which always thinks that nobody else is better. But reality is different. In real life, one has to step back only for the sake of the thing.

Your choreography of movement matched the energy of your scenes perfectly. Everything integrates really well together. I can tell you had a sense of how you wanted to edit this together before you even started editing. For instance, 16:56 to 17:08 – The movement is in this scene is subtle, slow and follows the energy of the story. Or for example your water shot at 18:01 that merges into the fish tank scene at 18:10 which then transforms into a restaurant scene at 18:19. This is a really smooth transition into two totally different environments. In fact the editing of the entire film is incredibly well done. Do you consider yourself a good choreographer of energy?

One of the best aspects of the film is its atmosphere. From this point of view I perceive the film as a musical symphony which has been formed rationally, but has a clearly emotional experience. When I needed to reach a certain emotional state of a particular scene when writing the director script, I was listening to music with a similar atmosphere during the writing. Music is a proof of the existence of a higher reality, its vibrations can get a person into various emotional states. When connected with picture and symbolic speech, the film creates a specific atmosphere – for me, a film is dead and not interesting if it does not have this atmosphere. The viewer has to be absorbed by the fictive reality of the film during the first 10 minutes. When this happens, the story which is revealed on the screen becomes his only reality. Then it is possible to talk about a good atmosphere. It can be reached by various means; each one is based on the sense of aesthetics of that particular director and the director of photography. My aesthetic taste was inspired by filmmakers such as Terrence Malick or Andrej Tarkovsky. I like when the camera is in motion and reveals the story to the audience gradually and without unnecessary dialogue with the help of symbols and situations which the viewer can read subconsciously until the last catharsis.

Film, in the first place, has to show a believable life also with its archetypal essence – so that everyone who watches the film could find a piece of himself in it. Besides, nowadays we will not invent better stories than people did in the past. The Bible, Greek, Egyptian and Indian myths have told everything about the humans. There is nothing better. Human deeds and sins repeat constantly. Is there any more “serious” murder than the murder committed by Cain? In the end it is about one´s vision of the world which is unique in its subjectivity – and that is what one can offer to the others. Who is not able to accept it, is not able to give it to others and that is all.

Looking back, if you could do anything differently what would it be? What is the single most important lesson you learnt while you shot this film that you’ll carry forward to your next project?

One of the most important things I have learned when filming Father is that one has to be patient. It is not possible to accelerate the natural pace of things, not even when you want it too much – that is when you cause distress and you are unhappy. One has to be patient and determined. Besides, film production is a collective work – one has to work and get along with a big number of different (and also problematic) people. That is why it is important to learn to listen to people and try to get into and understand their inner personality. This applies not only to film production.

What project are you working on next?

My next film is the film called Piargy: Antichrist Reborn. It is a poetical story from the beginning of the 20^th century with a mysterious, even a frightening atmosphere and it is something between a drama, romance and horror film. Due to its outer plot line it resembles faith or a metaphorical picture of the biblical Sodom and Gomorrah about the destruction of sinners by a natural catastrophe. Instead of a huge stone city there is a small out-of-the-way mountain settlement. Instead of sulphur and fire, a destructive avalanche comes. Collective guilt and the following punishment express the idea of a total disruption of the society. The story is a reflexion about human suffering and its meaning. It is trying to answer three basic questions about life: What is suffering? Why is it in the world? And what attitude should one have towards it? The most important mission of the film is to emphasize the fact that the meaning of human life is not material happiness and welfare but the growth of soul and unselfish love. The project is in the phase of development and financing – its premiere should take place at the end of 2014. I am also preparing a short unnamed low-budget project from the surrounding of the Chinese community in Slovakia to fill the years of waiting and I would like to distribute this project through the internet.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and ideas with the Lights Film School blog readers. We all truly appreciate your insight. Best of luck!

Lights Film School chatted with  Director Ben Briand (Twitter) about his beautiful short film entitled Some Static Started. You’ll find the 8 minute film and our in-depth interview below. Enjoy!

Hello Ben and thank you for creating the short film “Some Static Started”. It’s a beautiful, brave and inspirational short film that I was totally overwhelmed with when I first saw it. You have a growing body of impressive work under your belt, including your previous short film “Apricot” which won the Vimeo audience award for Best Narrative Film. Your ad spot “Soccer Can” also recently won Silver in the Young Director’s Award (YDA) at Cannes. “Some Static Started” has also already had you nominated for the Australian Director’s guild award for Best Short Film. These are huge accomplishments and we all thank you for taking the time to chat with our filmmaker audience about your creative and technical processes. Let’s jump right into your brain.

Out of the gates you hit your audience with some pretty suspicious images. The man’s reaction seemed totally disjointed from the physical reality of the environment. he sits calmly in a blood stained room. At this point I knew I was in for some type of twisted ride. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Can you tell us a little bit about your story and where it originated. Also, I noticed that both “Apricot” and “Some Static Started” rely on dreams and memories as the main narrative thrust while using the present as a tool to move your story foreword and provide some context. This gives you creative permission to do some pretty bizarre things. Is the adding of that sort of supernatural element what excites you most as a filmmaker? The ability to break the rules of logic and space?

One morning I was thinking about cutting off my beard (that’s me in the film) and I just caught the idea of a bleeding man talking to me as I did it. Why would he be talking to me and why would I be cutting it off? Well maybe I had done something to him. Then the rest of the idea simply flowed from there. Some Static Started was the most pure film making experience that I have ever had. I wrote it one morning and then acted very quickly to get people together, who all came on board with no fuss and were excited about making something that was quite simply an experiment. There was nothing at stake when I made Static, so I had a wonderful sense of freedom. I paid for it (with my fee from Apricot) and cut it in my own time. That freedom can be felt in the narrative, I didn’t know where it was headed, but I trusted that it could end up somewhere interesting because of how it had been set it up. I often use the themes of memory and identity not as a gimmick but because I believe they are what makes us all individual. That subjective experience defines how we navigate the world. The way my films are to me are how if feel the world might really operate, with information, past, present and future all sliding over one another. It’s a very intuitive process on my part feeling my way through it, interviewers and critics seem to be able to intellectualize the way the films work much better than I can.

What’s interesting is that even though you don’t seem to want to be confined to reality, you nevertheless shoot in very real environments. This is one of the things that I think really helps you stand out as a filmmaker. Even though your film is very designed, it never detracts from the narrative element. Of course this happens because your narrative is so engaging and interesting, but it’s also because you “rough up” your design to make it look a little more natural and lived in. Do you find walking this thin line between romanticizing your images while at the same time keeping your audience in a physical space they are familiar with difficult? I sense you have a preference towards classic and nicely designed scenes (both location and wardrobe). How much of this is painted, designed, propped etc. For example the shot at :46 (above) really stood out to me. I feel like the color integration is perfect . The wardrobe matches the environment. Everything from the blanket on the couch, the way the colors integrate with each other, the way the wardrobe interacts with the furniture and the texture of the background. It all seems meticulously planned to me but at the same time it doesn’t draw unnecessary attention to itself or overshadow the more importune part of your film: The story.

I don’t think about walking that line too much otherwise I will kill it. I like a unifying aesthetic where everything feels like it belongs together and if something doesn’t then there should be a reason. Giving credibility to the world on film is absolutely important otherwise the delicate story will fracture and shatter. I have worked many times with wardrobe & production designer Alice Babidge who is Australia’s best designer in my opinion. She mostly works in theatre and has been snapped up by Cate Blanchett and Sydney Theatre Company as her resident designer. Her eye is impeccable and we sync very well. That is often why I get her to be across the whole aesthetic of the film rather than simply one department. We like worlds that have a petina to them, that feel lived in and have a history to them. Those motel rooms had great potential so it was a very careful series of choices to amplify what was already there and a few things were changed, such as the bed sheets and propping. We both became obsessed with an old tea bag that had we found had been used weeks before and left in the room, all dried up. It just perfectly explained the lazy cleaning job done on the motel room and what kind of place it was. If you look really close it is in the corner of some of the frames.

You’ve done fashion work in the past. Can you talk about the influence of fashion on your films?

I find most fashion imagery vacuous. However I am drawn to the abstract nature of it, as I am in films. Fashion references film all the time such as Terrence Malick and Days Of Heaven, Fellini, Lynch’s muses and almost every Godard film and these are the film makers that interest me so I see why they loop back on each other. I think ‘fashion films’ are the new ‘music video’, a perfect storm of art and commerce. My fashion work is never polished, it is about the inclusion of imperfection. Flawlessness is very off putting to me.

Your locations are beautiful. Can you talk a little bit about how you look at space. What did you look for specifically when you started your location scout for a motel room? Is that really a motel room or did you just design it to look that way? How close was the actual environment with the environment you had envisioned in your mind when thinking about the story?

I really start making the film when I begin location scouting. I am always interested in how the light falls across a location, be it natural or the fixed lighting such as lamps etc that already exist in that space. To me location is about texture and texture is defined by the light that it interacts with. My first choice of location originally in the script was actually an empty town house, but after looking at it the texture of the space didn’t suit where my head had taken the film, so I began down the motel path. I think it’s good to stay open to potentially better options right up until the last minute.

Another highlight of this film was the acting. The actors were spectacular. Where did you find such a talented bunch? In Apricot as well you had an incredible cast. Can you tell us a little bit more about your casting philosophy and what you look for in an actor?

Sam Smith (The Bleeding Man) is the only professional actor in the film, and I had worked with him in my MTV film Hammer Bay. The bearded guy is me, the girl, Tess was a model I had met in an few commercial auditions and the ‘handsome men’ are artist and photographer friends who simply had a look that felt right. My process with casting is that I look for strands of the character in the actor themselves. I also think it is important to be flexible on the day, if a character organically heads to a certain place and it works, then i think that it is important to adapt to where it is going. All too often performances in short films don’t work because the director is trying to force a square peg into a round hole.

Beautiful lighting at 1:03 (above). Do did you light this shot?

No, just natural light coming in through the window with some fill bounced back on Sam’s face. Cinematographer Hugh Miller is remarkably fast and incredibly effective with a kino, piece of poly and a black. That was pretty much the kit for the film.

Side question: Did you tile the washroom to add color to it, or was it already tiled (above)?

Exactly how it was in the location, hence the extended time for finding a location with such authenticity.

Again, I notice your beautifully angled light for your exterior shots. For example at 2:16 (above) and 2:20. Did you chase the light on this film as well? It’s not uncommon for filmmakers to like side-lighting and back-lighting, but on indie projects it’s often more difficult to organize because you’re rushed for time.

We just left 30 mins at the end of the shoot to pick up some observed Motel shots and those are what we got. It’s all a matter of good scheduling and that comes from many years of working on commercials too. I believe the more times a director can walk on set the better. It blows me away when directors make a feature after having only made one or two short films, because it took me the last 10 years to really feel comfortable on a set. Also, because I worked with natural light for many years at University (a lot of the time on corporate and doco style work) I learnt to observe how and when the light falls on the location when there were no lights or gaffer trucks. This observation happens mostly during location scouting. There was only one light on Static, and that was a simple 4 light kino bank and a single C stand.

Speaking of, how long did this film take you to shoot?

I think we shot it all in about 8 hours.

How long did it take you from script development to publishing?

I wrote it one weekend and shot it 2 weeks later. Apricot had a very long gestation period so Static was very much about ceasing the moment and the thread of an idea. I didn’t want to over cook it by thinking too much about it.

How many locations did you shoot in? Were all the rooms and hallways in the same building or did you need to travel to different locations and then stitch the images together to make them look like the same location?

The whole film was shot in a 15 meter radius, the rooms were right next to one another. I would never really do something like travel to another location for the hallway shots, because the integrity of the location was consistent and intact already so there was no need to screw with that.

Referencing the shot at 3:21 (above) – What a beautiful shot. Can you explain your lighting setup for us? How much control did you exercise over the styling of this shot (wardrobe / bedspread etc). You’re also great at ensuring a nice sense of depth in most of your shots. You seem to always be looking for a nice foreground, middle ground and background. is this second nature to you now or do you still need to remind yourself to look for these visual elements?

We only used the kino as a bit of back light on Tess and a little bit of fill. Hugh Miller (DOP) threw up a black behind the camera. Everything else was already the actual lighting state in the room, the fluro lights and the sunlight from the window was already doing the job. Again, I went for that location because of the authenticity in the function it needed to perform. I needed a cheap motel that would be found on the side of the highway for the film and that’s exactly what the location was, so I didn’t feel the need to disrupt that. I like the way Kubrick didn’t score his films from scratch, most of the latter films such as The Shining, Clockwork Orange and Full Metal Jacket he used pre-existing music. He thought what was the point in making something up when there was already so much great music in the world. I sort of feel the same way about locations and their light, they just have to be found.

As for the foreground, mid and background elements, it is second nature to me now. I even do it when I don’t have a camera near me. I tend to frame things in my mind as I go about my daily life. I’ve heard of compositors and retouchers doing the same thing, fixing the world as the move through it. I am sure DOP’s like Arkapaw and Miller are relighting cafes and bars in their head 24 hours a day.

Did you have a particular color palette in mind before shooting this film?

Muted earth tones and aqua blue and green. You see that in the bathroom vs the browns of the room. That was all decided on once the room was found so that the world stayed intact. Apricot was striving for a feeling of bright beauty in the light and design as it was about something becoming very clear to the characters, Static is much more about diving into the darkness, so we were interested in something a little muddy. Black also features heavily in the wardrobe.

Referencing the shot at 4:30 (above) – This is kind of a side question but is the exit sign a prop? Is the mirror a prop? Can you tell us how you lit this scene?

The whole shot is lit and propped as it was found. The mirror and the exit sign were there. The light was spilling in from outside. Sometimes I find it important to ask if anything actually needs to be done to the space and in this case it was a choice to leave it alone. I originally had Tess’s character coming from the other end, but in that moment I caught sight of the other end and simply saw her character standing at that end in my head, filled with dread. Hugh Miller (DOP) is wonderfully generous and will give anything a try, as long as he could get some kind of exposure he was happy to run with the dark and muted look of the film.

Great sound design at 6:20. Was this thought about during the pre-visualization process or did you find this sound idea in editing? (her putting her hand over her mouth and further muting the sound?). This really helped you punctuate your point.

This is an example of being malleable when filming and looking for the interesting things that can come out of problems on the day. I originally wanted her to scream her lungs out. But when it came time to roll, we realized that we would have been thrown out of the location, because there were guests in all of the adjacent rooms. As far as the motel was concerned they were happy for us to shoot there, but they weren’t going to have a woman screaming at the top of her lungs for an hour. So I caught onto the idea that it could be even more effective if when Tess’s character screams, that nothing came out. Basil Hogios (who scored and sound designed both Apricot and Static) and I like to talk about aural ideas very early on so that sound is integrated into the telling of the story, not simply added as an after thought. He has a great ear for spacial textures and we played atmospheric music through the entire shooting of that sequence and as a result Tess slipped into the vibe of the sounds. So when it came time to score the film the atmospherics were taking a lot of of cues from her performance. It’s interesting how it all feeds into each other like that.

You also wrote this film. Can you tell me about your writing process?

Some script ideas are suddenly hot and alive (Static) and others are refined over and over (Apricot). I think the more a film driven by a feeling, the less I like to overcook the script writing process. This often makes for more ambiguous and abstract work, but I think there is not enough of abstract narrative cinema in popular culture anymore and there is definitely a place for it. Whilst it may put some off, it seems to really excite others from what the response has been and it help me to stay fresh. But with all of the scripts, including the feature film I am developing at the moment, the ideas arrive to me as a whole. They seem to just appear in my head, with a beginning, middle and an end. However, they are often murky and with every pass of the script, it is like scraping away a layer of mud, revealing what the story could be in the next layer. It’s a very sensitive process for me and I think of it like a boxer, training for a fight who watches their diet and what they put in their body, except I monitor the films and music I consume during the writing process. It’s not a conscious thing, I just get thrown easily and it makes it hard to listen to that little voice inside that is telling you to trust certain things that you have set up.

Your team is unstoppable. You have great photography, great costume design, great music and sound design, great hair and makeup, great casting and great editing. How do you assemble such a strong team? What advice would you give to other filmmakers who are just starting out and are looking for others to help them bring their film ideas into the world?

I have worked with many different people in order to find the personalities and working methods that suit the projects. Commercials and the low budget music video world helps that because you can learn very quickly what you don’t like as well. I believe that likeminded people move in similar circles and so often you don’t have to look very far. If you are looking beyond your ‘back yard’ or pool of associates, then you are probably going to be barking up the wrong tree because chances are that person approaches and thinks about things in a different way to you. Taste is a big factor as well. That common ground is really important. Also, realize that if your vision is strong enough and you loose a member of your team, then it isn’t the end of the world. If your DOP drops out, trust that your ideas are good enough that someone else will do an equally great job with another interesting point of view.

What did you shoot this film on?

RED with some 7D second camera shots. (Same as Apricot)

What did you edit on?

Final Cut Pro

What lenses did you use?

Cooke Master Primes

Your camera work for “Some Static Started” was incredible. Can you talk to us a little about what you wanted your camera movement to communicate to your audience. How did moving the camera (or not moving it) help you tell your story. If you could give an example or two that would be great.

Static uses thriller motifs, so I wanted you use that language more than I had in Apricot (which uses Horror and Fantasy camera and editing language). To me, when you have no money and no time with a thriller, it is about what you can’t see. Nothing that I could ever dream up and write could be more horrific than what that female character sees in the bathroom at the end of Static. So why try and show it? The audience does a better job in their own minds and it is much cheaper. I wanted the viewer to be begging the director to just show them a little more so that they could piece things together a little easier. So that is why the frames are so rigid like at 1.29, because I never wanted the audience to think that there was a chance the camera would simply drift across and reveal some huge piece of information. If the viewer was pretty sure the film language wasn’t going to give that to them, then they would have to stay on their toes, and if they stay on their toes they become more tense, greater tension means a more effective film.

What was the budget for this film?

$2000 and a lot of favours.

What sound equipment did you use?

A cheap shotgun mic hardwired directly into the camera

What did your lighting kit consist of?

A small 4 bank Kino, a piece of poly, a black and one C Stand.

You never went too wide with your compositions. I never felt like your film was claustrophobic but I wondered if it was very intentional not to bite off more space than you can chew. Is the use and design of space something you are conscious about? How do you look at space?

I think about it very intentionally and if it is a large room, then I like darkening it down, for example this commercial I did a couple of years ago. The space felt right in texture, but wrong in size, so DOP Hugh Miller and I shut it down with darkness. Static on the other hand was shot in tiny rooms that could only fit a few crew members, so i was very happy to be able to see everything in the space, almost in the hope to open it up.

You had support for this film. At the end I see mention of “first cut” “definition films” “China Heights”. How do these organizations help you?

I would have a difficult time making my personal works without First Cut, Definition Films and guys like China Heights Gallery. Firstly these they are my friends so creatively there is respect and support and secondly they do what they can, if they can. Basil Hogios’s audio collective First Cut have worked on paid, semi paid and non paid jobs over the years and the same with Dave Gross’s post production and camera hire at Definition. It’s such a positive feeling when people offer to work on things for little or no cost, it shows that they believe in the project and that is such a strong force behind having the confidence to make these films.

Thank you greatly Ben for sharing your ideas about filmmaking with us. We’ll be sure to continue following your progress. We expect great things from you. No pressure of course

White Knuckles Interview Questions
Writer / Director / Producer Kevin K. Shah

1. Your script was developed in a very non conventional manner. In fact, it would probably make traditionalists cringe. Can you explain what your “scroutline” is?

What is a Scroutline?  I’ve never head anyone else use the word as it sounds mildly offensive… but it’s actually an outline that has moments that are scripted in it.  It’s really the only way I know how to develop a script — and I’ve written several this way.  There’s no real magic to a scroutline — it’s just the beats of the story, with the scenes that inspire me first completely written out with dialogue so that I  can begin to hear the voices of the characters during the outline phase.  Often one needs to write a whole draft of your script before you find the voices and must begin again.  The scroutline saves time for this otherwise necessary process.  There’s a short sliver from the scroutline on the White Knuckles site — it’s interesting to see how the words on the page transformed as it passed through William (played magnificently by Larry Strauss) on set.  I’m currently working on a scroutline for A Falling Rock, a thriller — and it is roughly 88 pages so far, which means it is time to script.

2. I’ve heard other filmmakers mention that not having a script is by no means to be confused with less work. Having a deep understanding of the story and characters is essential if you want your film to work. But how did you maintain structure and tension?

Even though the films we make at Sabi tend to go off script entirely (and in the case of White Knuckles and Heart of Now were designed to ‘lose the script’ during the 2nd act and create as much as possible in the moment) — I actually feel like you need / should  have some semblance of a script to begin with.  A script is how people understand step 1 of a film, and without it there are several other steps that need to be taken before getting to step 1.

That is to say that even with an improvisational film having a script saves having to get a huge number of people up to speed on what the project is (and what the project can potentially become with everyone’s interdependent involvement).  We’re famous for having a ‘crew-read thru’ instead of a cast table read so that the crew (who all play a part at the read) know what it is we’re doing.  It ensures that the director gets to hear it on its feet at least once, the crew gets to bond and know the story at the same time, and the team gets to talk about what it means to depart from the script — and how we can create an environment for the cast to fell safe in doing so.  We couldn’t do this without a final script.

Conversely, our very first feature film (made with a collaborative named Unica) called Blue in Green (co directed with M. David Melvin & Zak Forsman) did not have a script — which is how we were trained.  But in the case of Blue in Green, we worked with the actors in intensive rehearsals over 6 weeks before we started shooting to ensure everyone understood the characters and the dynamics needed to create structure and tension.  For that film, we only had a 2 page beat sheet going into it and no real 3rd act — much of the rest was successfully and painstakingly created in the edit & with re-shoots (which is also a part of our process).  At Sabi Pictures, we learned on that first film we worked on long ago, that there’s just not the luxury of time for most cast & crew — and so the script is ultimately a quick springboard upon which the dialogue and creative input can ensue.

3. Would you direct another film using the same story telling methods?

I spend my days on studio sets doing behind the scenes for several notable directors so I’ve seen how it is traditionally (and very successfully) done with slightly more conventional methods.  I also have seen directors like Gus Van Sant and George Clooney use a lot of our methods refined for their own work & process.  I can say without hesitation that this to me — is making movies.  Making films interdependently is creative, exciting, filled with fun and surprise & intensely collaborative and creative in every sense of the words.

4. You’ve mentioned that you need to come up with a script for the purpose of sides, scheduling, and other such tasks. How long did your scriptwriting process take? What was your writing routine?

Scripting takes about a month or two — but the Scroutline phase as described above takes a year (or more).  In the case of White Knuckles the scroutline started about 5 years before scripting — as I was just formulating ideas and story elements & asking myself questions:  How can a woman poison her own husband?  How does she get the idea?  What would motivate her?  The routine that follows that (which the scroutline is locked) is pedal to the metal writing — often this means become reclusive for the time it takes to get a first solid draft out.  Revising afterwards is fun, as the script gets to people that will help make it better with each new pass.

At some point, however — all scripting stops, the project is greenlit — and casting begins.  After that, there will be one more revision for the actors that will play the roles (and the ideas they have brought) before we lock the script to begin shooting.  Often, only the director and producer has these revisions.  Shortly after that — we lock schedule and begin shooting.  And not longer after that, we toss the screenplay entirely.

5. How did you go about casting for the film? Did you use union? Non-union actors? How many actors did you see in total before you made your final choices?

Casting Heart of Now and White Knuckles used both Union and Non-Union actors.  Two of the leads in both films were Non-Union at the time.  However, we made sure the stars as well as any of our smaller roles were treated as if they were union, with the proper attention to financial needs, safety, comfort & professionalism.  Every role in our films have a feature length story attached to them — so we treat everyone with respect.  2 of the characters in Heart of Now are also in White Knuckles — as both films are different but from the same universe.  Simply put — we at Sabi love our actors.  They make everything happen and the most important collaboration happens between them and the director on set and in the moment — so we try to erase titles and distinctions as soon as we can & make it so that everyone is equal.

There are a lot of non-uniuon actors out there that are golden, it just takes patience to find them and cultivate them with our process.  In the case of both films we saw hundreds of people for all the roles and weeded through thousands of head-shots.  I recall that we had roughly 700 submissions (both union on Non) for lead actress age bracket 21-27.  Whew.  Marion Kerr got the role and was perfect as Amber in White Knuckles & Heart of Now.

6. You mentioned your “gut instincts” when referencing your casting process. This “gut feeling” is often a director’s most valuable tool. Have you been able to find any insight into what triggers it for you?

I’m not quite sure but it has something to do with the eyes, and if I can believe what is happening through their eyes.  There is so much that is said with eye contact, I’m looking to make sure the actor is truly ‘in the moment’ and not self-directing or floundering with intention that needs to be adjusted or shifted.  It’s a process — so often if I don’t have the ‘gut feeling’ we try things out until something pops rather than move on right away (either in casting or on set).  Sometimes the gut feeling is so strong it can stop or start everything.  I remember talking to Zak Forsman before we locked Martie Ashworth to play the role of Julie — and saying that if she couldn’t do the film we’d delay the schedule until she could.

7. White knuckles is beautifully shot. What camera did you use?

White Knuckles was shot by cinematographer Addison Brock III on  two HVX 200′s without lenses.  To create depth of field we often pushed in and put the cameras on glide-cams.  It was an amazing & intimate (and fast) way to work and the imagery is stunning.

8. What did your lighting kit consist of?

We had Several China Balls of various sizes, 4 Kino Flo 400′s, a huge number of practicals (we love practicals) and of course the sun.  We made sure that we experienced the light and time of day for each scene in each environment before we shot there for Heart of Now as well as White Knuckles (and our short films).  It’s important to see what the light is doing before you begin shooting in a space.

9. Fill in the blank. I wish I had more ___________ to shoot this film.

Behind the Scenes Still Photographer

10. After you were done casting how did you go about your rehearsal process?

Rehearsals were meetings with the director and other pertinent cast members where we’d discuss the characters, the intentions for the scenes, and talk about how the story might change before the end.  There was very little focus on the lines or the screenplay apart from answering several questions from the actors (which tends to happen with the provocative nature of our material).

Then, before we “officially” begin shooting — we do a full-on shoot (which Sabi Pictures calls “pre-shoots”).  With White Knuckles it was complete with the leads, entire crew, on camera / with sound & lighting.  During pre-shoots, we capture some scenes that could very well be used in the story — but could also be cut of things go wrong/need to be ironed out.  It’s actually a rehearsal for the entire company.  This gives us a running start for day 1 of principal photography.

11. How long did it take to shoot White Knuckles?

White Knuckles had a production schedule of 23 days including re-shoots, pre-shoots & b-unit.  It took just over a month.

12. How long did it take to edit white knuckles?

Roughly 15 months all-told.

13. What is the budget (est) of the film?

It’s hard to say because we absorbed so much of the cost in our own post-production facility and we deferred all the top-line pay (Director, DOP, Editor, Co-Producer, etc.)  Our catering and crafty budget was in the thousands, so that’s something.

14. What is your distribution strategy for the film?

We’re creating our own VOD portal through cinefist.com – which will be the distribution hub for the film.  We will make it available on DVD along with an intensive behind the scenes about our process.  We also are submitting to festivals but intend to screen the film theatrically ourselves in limited release across the US.

Coffee houses, screening series, film schools, local independent arthouse theaters are all part of the game plan.

15. Many of our film students are aspiring to be feature film directors. If you could give aspiring directors three pieces of advice, or three areas to focus their energies on what would they be?

1.  Erase the big deal from your strategy and focus all your effort on Plan B – which should be doing it yourself.

2.  You will be (at the beginning and at the end of the process of your film) the single person keeping the flame of it alive.  This is a huge responsibility and takes great sacrifice, financially, physically, mentally, spiritually.  The more you are willing to sacrifice for your passion project, the better it will be.  Most of all, you need to find a team that is willing to do the same (to reasonable limits).

3.  Push yourself forward creatively, and get yourself out there using the new tools we have available via the internet.  Let us know what you’re working on & how you’re making it happen.  There is no longer a way you can exist in the changing landscape of motion pictures without effort in this regard.

White Walls

Over the years we’ve been asked by our students what the “1 thing” we think they need to improve in order to make their films stronger. Well, usually when mistakes are made in film or video, it’s not just 1 mistake that’s made (especially when you’re first starting out).

There are thousands of possible mistakes to be made in each area of development. For example, if you cast poorly then your film is dead before you start filming. If you use an unskilled DOP (Director of Photography) to shoot your movie then your production value will be compromised and you’ll have a hard time getting audiences to sit through the mess that you put up on the screen. If you don’t work with a good producer you risk finishing your film, but then having it sit on a shelf with no distribution deal.

The point being, there are countless mistakes you can make during the entire filmmaking process. At Lights Film School we’ve always encouraged our students to start building with a strong foundation. This is why our first lecture is on the art of storytelling and screenwriting. This benefits both fiction and documentary filmmakers alike.  A great story and a great team (both behind and in front of the camera) are the two pillars of any great film. Without these two elements your film will have weak legs and will likely fall apart by the time you get to the end of the post production process.

That being said, there are 5 problems that we’ve noticed keep popping up in independent films time and time again. Working on correcting these 5 problems is a great start to helping you add a stronger sense of production value to your independent films. This is by no means a comprehensive list. Not even close to it. But it’s a good start!

5 Common  Mistakes Independent Filmmakers Make

1. White Walls

Production Designers are hired for a film to help create the environment for the actors and the story. Many Hollywood productions are shot in studios so the entire set needs to be built from the ground up. In this scenario production designers, set decorators and art directors are all needed to help build the world the characters will inhabit.

Independent filmmakers don’t usually work in the studio environment. Instead they use natural environments. For example, a independent horror film may use a conveniently located forest for one of their chase scenes. Or an independent romance film may use one of the actor’s living rooms for one of their love scenes.

Using natural environments is a great way to add a sense of realism into your film. It’s also a great way to save money. That being said, natural environments need to compliment your story, your film’s color palette and your design preferences.

Allow me to take this moment to invent a filmmaking phrase:

“Not every living room was built to be in your movie”

Not a great phrase, no doubt, but it communicates the point. It’s important not to be lazy with location scouting or set decorating.

In the realm of production design there is a lot that needs to be considered. However, one of the biggest issues I notice repeatedly with independent films (the lower the budget the more common I find this practice), is the use of white walls as a backdrop.

White walls are infinitely boring. They lack texture, they don’t hold shadows well, they lack a strong emotional element and audiences subconsciously associate white walls with bad filmmaking.

You need to design your background. Add mirrors, curtains, coat hangers, paintings, wallpaper (you can put it up with double sided tape so you don’t ruin the paint on the walls). Nurse your background into a life of it’s own that compliments the mood of your scene. At Lights Film School our students need to study color theory so they can actively think about a color palette for their set which complements their story.

One of the world’s best filmmakers, Wong Kar Wai, is a great filmmaker to study from a production design standpoint. Watch his films and notice the attention to backgrounds. I would recommend you watch the films “2046″ and “In the Mood for Love”. He uses both natural environments and studio environments. In both cases he incorporates his love for color, design and texture. Watch the following video  to see an example of how to design interesting backgrounds using nothing more than color, texture, lights, curtains, painted walls and wallpaper.

Continue reading about common film mistakes below:

2. Lack of depth
3. Lack of design (makeup / hair / wardrobe)
4. Weak story
5. Camera movement

If you’re shooting indoors or in a studio, the basic 3 point lighting technique is a favorite amongst filmmakers. It fully exposes the facial expression and emotions of your subject as well as isolates them from the background and hides unwanted shadows. The 3 point lighting system is the professional standard and it’s really easy to set up.

Your back light creates a nice highlight around your subject’s hair, shoulders and face that help separate them from the background. The key light is the main lighting source casting directional lighting and shadows on the subject’s face and body. The last light in this setup is called the fill light. The fill light is a softer light that helps fill unsightly shadows created by the key light. You will want to play close attention to how the fill light fills in the shadows especially around the nose and eye area.

You can get creative with the backdrop by using different colors, cookies to add texture or coloured lights to spice up your composition.

It’s also worth mentioning that you should light your documentary subject from upstage rather than downstage. The lighting that falls your subject’s face and body will be much more desirable. To light your subject from upstage simply ensure that the key light is positioned on the other side of your subject to where the camera is positioned. For example if the camera is on the right side of the subject than the light should be coming from the left.

1. It exposes story structure
2. It exposes the technical attributes to the film / video
3. It exposes compositional elements to the film / video

Today we have deconstructed the Bjork music video entitled “All is Full of Love”. It was directed by music video director genius Chris Cunningham. We hope you find our music video deconstruction helpful. The video can be viewed below:

Below, we’ve outlined how we’ve deconstructed the video. We’ve counted locations, scenes (i.e. edit points), we’ve identified the color palette, the length of each shot and the compositional attributes to each scene (i.e. whether the shot was a close up, medium shot or B-roll). It should be noted that some numbers needed to be estimated or rounded for simplicities sake. However, we’ve tried to make the numbers as accurate as possible. Enjoy!

Number of Shots:
There are a total of 60 edits points. The entire video is made up of 60 clips fitting within 4 minutes and 10 seconds.

Camera movement:
8 of 60 shots (roughly 13%) of shots are moving. The remainder (roughly 87% of shots are static).

Color palette:
There is a strong color palette composed of blues, whites and blacks with small highlights of oranges and reds.

Number of locations:
There is only 1 location with camera coverage from different angles

Length of each shot:
The shot length ranged from less than 1 second in length to 24 seconds. There were only 6 scenes that were over 10 seconds long (roughly 10%) and only 4 shots over 20 seconds in length (roughly 6%).

1 second in length: 20 shots (33%)
2 seconds in length: 14 shots (23%)
3 seconds in length: 8 shots (13%)
4 seconds in length: 3 shots (5%)
5 seconds in length: 4 shots (6%)
7 seconds in length: 1 shot (2%)
10 seconds in length: 6 shots (10%)
20 seconds in length: 4 shots (6%)

Composition of shots:
This music video uses great pacing and editing. The composition of shots is normal for a music video. Many interesting and artistic cutaway shots were used. We refer to these shots as “b-roll”. This includes shots of the equipment moving, the liquid hitting the floor etc. Most of the “b-roll” in this video is of the robotic equipment moving and really showcased depth, lighting, texture and movement.

8 close ups: (13%)
18 medium shots: (30%)
8 wide shots: (13%)
26 B-roll shots (mostly close ups / abstract etc): (43%)

We hope you find this exercise in  deconstruction helpful. As filmmakers it’s rewarding to watch the works of your favorite directors, DOP’s (Director of Photography) and editors to see how they design and structure their films and videos. It’s a time consuming exercise but you’ll learn a lot from the experience.

Best of luck on your future music video projects!

It is said that the sound team on a film has the most important job but at the same time one of the most thankless jobs. You never hear film critics praising a film for its sound mixing or sound editing or audio tones. However, the critics are the first ones to attack a film if the sound is bad. As a filmmaker you only get sound recognition if the sound is bad. If your work is good, all you can hope for is that people don’t even notice it.

The reason I thought that a 3 page blog post was not possible was simply because audio, like video, is such a massive subject. I would need to discuss issues such as sample rate, bit depth, mono, stereo, gain control, equalizers, frequency, microphones, room tone, editing, ambient noise and acoustics and recording space to name on a few issues.

However, what I’ve decide to do instead is focus on a few major areas that independent filmmakers consistently make mistakes time and time again. If you would like to know everything you need to know about audio as it relates to your video and film productions then consider enrolling in our online film course.

The three main areas that filmmakers have difficulties with are:

1. On-camera mics vs. off-camera mics
2. Audio Tones
3. Sound editing.

On-camera mics vs. off-camera mics

We will not discuss the different types of microphones for your video and film productions but we will discuss the differences between on-camera vs. off-camera microphones. Unfortunately many filmmakers are intimidated with incorporating off-camera microphones into their independent films. Sound is an afterthought. “We’ll fix it in post” they say. If only it were this easy.

The fact is, you need to capture the highest quality audio from the original sound source. You can’t make bad audio sound great in post production. The best you can do is slightly fix it. You can however make great audio sound even better in post production. It’s the difference between making audio compromises to fix something that is broken vs. enhancing something that is already beautiful. Capturing the best sound and visuals from the source is a must with independent filmmaking. NLE (Non Linear Editing) systems are not magical devices that make technically inept filmmakers look good.

Recording sound using an off camera microphone is a must because on-camera microphones are simply technically inadequate. They offer a decent “run and gun” solution if you’re a 1 man team, but they lack proper microphone positioning, audio sensitively to certain sound directions, and optimal audio recording for certain sound frequencies.

1. Camera placement:

In camera microphones can’t change their positioning. If your actor changes their distance to the camera the amplification of their voice will change slightly. Similarly, if you are shooting with 1 camera and you change your camera position you’ll have troubles matching up the sound levels in post. If either your position or your actor’s position changes so do the sound attributes such as volume, directional sound, ambient noises etc. The result is a jarring audio transitions that immediately labels your film as a low budge production. You need to consider audio continuity just as you would image continuity. You need both image and audio continuity to create seamless and flowing scenes. If you lack either one, or both, your scenes will be jarring, mechanical and unprofessional.

2. Audio sensitivity to sound direction

Your on-camera microphone lacks the manual capability to pick and choose their audio focus. For example, if you’re shooting outdoors and you’re filming your actor running across the street while he’s talking to someone on the phone, your on-camera mic will make a series of adjustments based on the sound volume at the time. At times it might focus on a car driving past, and then if your actor starts talking it might focus on his voice instead if there are not other primary sounds in the background. However, in this case your automatic audio setting will become confused and audio adjustments will be noticeable as your in-camera mic tries to make the necessary compromises to capture all of the loud sounds in the scene as it attempts to figure out what the sound focus should be.

However, you don’t always want “loud” to be the focus. You might want to focus your attention on a quite conversation happening close to a highway while dulling the sound of the traffic in the background. This would be impossible with an on-camera mic that are often “omnidemensional” (Sometimes called “omni mics. They respond equally to sound coming from all directions). In this situation you may need to choose a “super cardoid”. These microphones are the best at isolating the sound from one particular spot in front of the microphone. They are often called “long tube shotguns” or just “shotguns”.

Sound design is an incredibly important part of the filmmaking process. Just as lenses help you control the visual design of your film, different microphones allow you to control your sound design. If you’re using an on-camera microphone you completely loose this ability.

Audio tones & the ability to record at certain sound frequencies

Sound frequencies are important because they control the “weight” of the sound of your audio. Sound can be “heavy”, “light”, “deep”, “bassy” etc. These sounds are controlled by the frequencies that the microphone is optimized for. In-camera microphones are often manufactured to be a good “one size fits all” solution. However, dialogue is often recorded at too high a frequency in these cameras.

Before you buy a microphone you will want to look at its frequency response graph. Ideally the sound frequency response graph would be level all the way across showing that it responds to all sound levels equally. However, most have some bend in them and many filmmakers prefer microphones with specific graph trends. For example, they may want a microphone which favours the midranges to help enhance dialogue and give the audience the feeling of being there.

Alternatively if you’re going to be recording narration and you’re going for the sound of a male’s deep voice then you’ll want a microphone that will be able to handle those lower frequencies to help recreate the actual sound of his voice. Obviously, if you’re shooting with an on-camera microphone you lost the ability to control any of this.

Sound Editing

Editing sound is another major area for error. When you’re editing you will want to overlap sound and video to create a more harmonious and less mechanical sound environment. This is particularly important if you’re going to be shooting with one camera.

For example if you are filming a basic dialogue sequence with two people talking, you might choose to shoot a series of OTS (Over the Shoulder) shots. You might have one person ask a question and then the other person responding. Instead of editing the sound and video at the same point, it’s often beneficial to keep the audio continuing from shot 1 slightly longer before introducing the audio from shot 2. This allows you to create a very professional, less mechanical and more flowing conversation between people.

Now get out there and play with your microphones!