never too many zombies

Here's the extended cut from all the cameras on the course, courtesy of Amoeba Films.

What I did for Halloween

A fun time was had by all: the Zombie 5k Run and fundraiser in downtown Charlottesville.

some real progress

Now that John Burns has composed some wonderful music for the film, it's time to release some of it to the world. This one's gotten the full treatment: full resolution original recaptured; color corrected; Motion created titles.

17th Annual Spirit Walk

Whoa - it's upon us already. Once more into the breeches.

This year I'll be playing the ex mayor of Charlottesville, VA accused of strangling, bludgeoning, and shooting his wife.

l'enfant

The fictional film work of the Dardenne brothers is a direct trajectory of their years of documentaries. Inheritors of the neo-realist stylings, they have become critically acclaimed at Cannes and other international festivals. Their new film, The Kid With A Bike, recently played the current New York Film Festival. Utilizing the sparest of production designs, no music, and mostly hand-held camera work that accompanies the protagonists wherever they go, their stories of morally compromised youth acutely observed in their quiet desperation are compelling and authentic.

L'enfant especially presents us with children playing, killing time, refusing to join a society that doesn't want to make room for them, but reluctantly assuming adult responsibilities of raising their own children. They sleep in abandoned garages or riverfront warehouses, and traverse a landscape of no mans land terrain between the places the privileged classes inhabit. Dardenne characters struggle to find their way in less than ideal circumstances, pushed by economic realities over which they have no real influence.

a little time - a whole lotta diggin'

Some time later...

The "jack it up" methodology was ill informed. But we got 'er dun.

When's it going to start sinking again?

a matter of timing

The internet is a fine place for the restatement of the obvious. Obviously. Consequently, mental midgetry is given vocalism:

Video editorial technology still has me in its thrall. The ability to simply duplicate a scene - without duplicating the original media on which it is based - and then recut the material with an adjustment for pauses between reactions of performers, or a different ordering of the pieces of imagery, is a fabulous advancement. This, possibly more than any other reason, is why the world of nonlinear editing has taken over the editorial world. Only archivists still use flatbed editing machines. Even large features shot on film originals have moved away from literally cutting work print film copies. Why would you when the tools to do this electronically are so ubiquitous, so subtle, and so relatively easy to use?

This adjustment to the timing of images is something that can't be attended to with still images, unless you're working with a slide show. But certainly not within the realm of a book or a gallery of online images. These media have their own aesthetic appeal, and rarely depend upon the performances of actors to impart their power of expression. Many recognize the importance of captions for still images, which becomes something of a narrative device. But there is still no way of shaping the meaning of a sequence of images through the prominence given by their timing, meaning the specific amount of time that each image is presented, and the pauses between vocal interactions.

As this pertains to my current editorial activity, as I create alternative versions of scenes, the earliest are the most leisurely, the most contemplative. The later versions are faster, more to the narrative point. But I feel nonetheless that I'm falling victim to the ever increasing insistence upon the need to sharpen and propel the narrative, something I'm decidedly conflicted about. The question becomes at what point to leave alone the awkward pauses and mispronunciations in order to impart a feeling of awkwardness.

The quest continues for the correct balance between the non linear animal brain gut feeling of here and now, and the delineation of a thematic concept. Wish me luck.

no easy way out

To those who believe there are easy fixes to life's problems, I offer these photos of a project that has been put aside for months, maybe even years. No big deal. Nothing some money and a little time can't solve.

Just jack it up, the optomists suggested. It's been sinking for ten years. What's to keep it from sinking again? Which is why we end up with this bathtub sized slab of concrete:

"Just jack it up!"

the contrarian

When I can't, that's when I want to. When I can, that's when I want to procrastinate.

storm passing

A walk in Earlysville Forest after the rain ended yesterday morning.

meanwhile, back at the ranch

Several days later, and we seem to have reboarded the roller coaster ride.

The final scene of "Roscoe" - who is going to get his named changed - was a brief period of agony at the completion of shooting. Instead of really relying upon my imagination, I got lost in details. Thinking that it could be saved in the edit, I stumbled through the performance hang-ups, and focused on a need to finish. As it turns out, the battle cry of editors 'round the world: Coverage! was not heeded, and I'm now left with limited options.

So from Thursday's peak of excitement, I'm now screaming down the steep slope of depression at my limited imagination. How noticeable is a forty-one second shot on one character in a thirteen minute piece? This is why I've been dreading working on this scene. All the words are covered, but in such a limited manner that the static nature of the scene really becomes obvious.

In fact I can make a case for leaving the scene as now cut: something about a need to see the uninterrupted emotionalism of the Professor, unmediated by editorial caprice. If only the visual wasn't so fucking static! Dare I leave it alone, in all its barren awkwardness? This would certainly be a bold decision - that still smacks of making pathetic excuses for what is lacking. OTOH, there are always little pieces of unused takes that can be dropped in at judicious moments to distract from the inherent awkwardness of this lengthy shot. Door #1 or Door #3? Or Door #2: get a few people together and reshoot the closeup of Roscoe. I need to make a decision about this fairly soon, before the leaves change and drop off.

What else is there to do at 4am, when sleep is nowhere to be found, other than obsess about the defective nature of the current work?

in which some excellent progress is made

Amazing how much can be done when one applies seat of pants to seat of chair. After a rather considerable period of reading too much news and going hither and yon such that I didn't apply myself to the task of editing "Roscoe" footage until 3:30 or 4:00 in the afternoon, finally in the last 15 hours I've knocked out pretty complete versions of three scenes. Admittedly they are simple, short scenes. But having all the material there, with a variety of alternatives to work through, is a wonderful thing. It truly is possible to have the picture mostly edited by the end of this week. Only one scene to go: the killer Eighth Scene, in which the Truth is revealed, but Nothing is known for Certain.

The wonders of computer video editing. It is possible to have several working clips, or shots, open in windows called Viewers, at the same time. So the master shot gets loaded into the Timeline, and then all that I have to do is go back and forth between the close up inserts and drop pieces of my two actors  into the master shot that's already on the Timeline. With a little tweaking to the sound to drop out any cue lines that might appear from off screen, add some ambient "room tone", and the thing is pretty much assembled. So much simpler than agonizing over what pieces to use in a documentary. This is feeling pretty good right now, and I'm looking to do this fictional short thing again. Let's not wait another twenty-five years this time.

king corn

a feature - not a bug

homage to Shepard

When was the last time you used a piece of software that had a feature that the documentation described as doing exactly what you needed to do? And then when you used the feature it did EXACTLY what you expected and wanted?

Such is the joy of the first usage of a filter in Final Cut Pro 7 called "SmoothCam." Admittedly, it took ten minutes to analyse a piece of video 3 seconds 19 frames long - apparently it has to look at the entire clip from which those ninety-one frames come. I didn't ask the software to do much - simply smooth out a camera that bounced a little from actors walking across the floor.

This is going to be my excuse for why there isn't much movement during this interior scene: if I'd had them walk around, the floor would have been bouncing the camera in a totally uncontrolled manner. The 7D should probably have been mounted on the Steadicam instead of a tripod - or some mount attached to the ceiling instead of the floor. (Which reminds me of a stereo installation from the recesses of my past where I suspended the turntable from the ceiling of the room, since I knew that walking across the room would make the tone arm bounce unacceptably. I don't think the landlord was too keen on the holes left in the ceiling when I departed.) Or maybe several thousand pounds spread around the floor to dampen out the movement. You would think that the several thousand pounds of machinery already in the shop would have done the trick, along with the massive shop bench included in the master shot.

Rarely does a filter work the way I want it to. Nice to see that software can come to the rescue of a shot that would have been eliminated without the filter.

on the other hand

Boston in July? Why not?

We'd never been, but it wasn't on a whim that we travelled this far into foreign territory. Months ago, after acquisition of one of motion picture technology's most favored devices - a Steadicam Pilot - it was recommended by one and all that a workshop should be included along with the Steadicam. The workbook is a great start, but the hands-on approach is a quick way to vault up the learning curve. At the time, the Boston workshop was the closest time wise as well as geographically.

In the few months between signing up for the workshop and actually attending in Boston, I've been able to get in a good bit of practice, find various balance combinations that do or don't work, and employ the device in the production of a short film, the self produced "Walking With Roscoe."

While the location of our hotel was less than ideal for direct access to famous tourist sites in Boston (it was chosen to be within walking distance to the workshop), public transportation in the Boston area is superb. The CharlieCard, which can be purchased in all the subway stations, permits access to the subway trains as well as the buses. It keeps an electronic record of the fare paid initially, rides deducted, and can be replenished electronically as many times as desired. Something this intelligent is bound to help immesureably with getting people to use public transportation. Which the Boston area residents surely do. Buses and trains are nearly always full, and they run on a frequent schedule.

It would seem that all the classes and workshops I take I already have a fairly good grasp of the material prior to arrival. This seemed to be the case with this workshop as well. At least I know the theory. The practice requires A LOT more practice. What our instructor, Director of Technical Services at Steadicam, Peter Abraham was particularly emphatic about is learning to use the Steadicam to carry a camera in a manner that truly emulates how a human witnesses the present. Or at least be aware of the manner of human presence, to create movement that contradicts the smoothed, rounded corners, short cutted way we travel through life.

Day 1 was theory and basic movement.

Day 2 was practice operating three different shots designed by Peter that permitted us to branch out and work in various spaces around the Rule/Boston Camera facility. Shot 1 was with the Panasonic AG-AF100 Micro 4/3 camera on a Pilot rig, and utilized a Don Juan move in the middle of the shot. Shot 2 used some large Panasonic video camera & lens on the Zephyr rig in low mode, camera flipped upside down and the monitor up top. A lot of gear to move around, it never felt very comfortable. Shot 3 was with a Sony PMW F3, a Zeiss 18mm CP2 prime, on a Scout rig. This was our Grand Prix shot, the only one recorded during the weekend. In fact, everyone looked pretty good.

And it was pretty nice to return home and be able to offer some Steadicam work to someone else the following day.

& then there was 1: roscoe day 6

 photo by Alex Morgan

Even though the work had proceeded fairly steadily and without any major difficulties, I was still ready for it to be over and done with. But there was one more scene to finish off - the major revelation of the story. We had been rained out the day previous when attempting this scene. Cast and crew assembled one final time, on a Thursday morning.

Once again I decided that there was no reason to drive ten minutes away and subject ourselves to the unknowns of an open field location. It's not substantially different than what was planned, and the edit will expand the field of view to include the original concept. But I still feel as if I took the easy way out, and probably should have pushed myself a little harder. Second guessing now has me wondering if this was the right decision to make. OTOH, the "finished product" will not feel significantly different than if we had taken the trouble to troop into the field and get a location with "views".

The image maker in me was at a loss as to how to simply conclude our experimental "trip." I told myself that the editor was going to have to rely upon the power of the performances to make the piece work. With that directorial abdication of responsibility, I was able to push onward and continue in the vein that already had been worked steadily: the master shot/medium close up/close up progression.

I must have been anxious enough to get done with this portion of the enterprise that I called a wrap before we had completed the final shot - which is numbered differently, and encompasses a slightly different set of actions. Fortunately my collaborator C. MacDonald returned within minutes to remind me that we lacked the final scene. This is why I need someone watching over what I do, to remind me to finish all the parts in a timely fashion, so that bits aren't left out with the need to gather everyone again at a later date.

As with anything, practice. It's disappointing that these kinds of short gatherings can't be done on a more regular basis. It's only through frequency that techniques can improve. Time to get moving on plans for the next one.

A huge thanks to cast & crew. This stuff definitely can't be done alone. Upward and onward with editing.

roscoe day 5, pt 2

Studio

Green screen

Unknown talent

A new sound recordist

Swing Dance class next door

15 minutes of passing coal train

Don't forget to turn off the air conditioning

Be sure to turn the air conditioning back on

5 hrs - more or less - start to finish

But does it fit in the film?

The editor will decide.

roscoe day 5

 

By this point we had completed everything in the script except for three scenes. It looked to be a long, complicated day of exteriors, followed by four or five hours in a studio where I'd never worked before. Realizing that there was a good chance of not being able to finish on what was scheduled to be our final day before the camera, the producer in me decided to change locations to somewhere eminently more manageable: our back yard.

The scene in which the Professor balks at going any farther went from getting his coat snagged on a branch to jumping through some tall grass across a hidden trickle of water. A better solution, and much simpler to execute, was to use the small channel on our side yard. It's one of my favorite locations anyway, and have been photographing it off and on for the past four months.

This compromise was an improvement I feel good about. The scene was completed with no wasted time or undue effort, no need to drive to another location, and set up multiple times in an inaccessible field. The equipment then got transfered to a new location a minute away and 100 feet from the back door of the house. As I was considering where to set the camera again, the precipitation that had held off so far began. We moved everything to the breezeway and waited. Ralph and I have been through this waiting game many times before, so this was nothing unusual. After 30 or 40 minutes of steady rain, and checking with everyone present that they could return the following morning, I cancelled our afternoon schedule. It's still a wrenching call to make, especially since I knew the rain would probably cease within an hour.

Which of course it did. But by then everyone was long gone. It would have been too long a wait to ask everyone to sit through. Instead it gave Craig and me some time to search for props and pick up the wheel chair for our evening interior.

roscoe day 4

Already the inevitable "When's it going to be done?" rears its head.

Merely another step along the way, the production phase, or "shooting" if you will, is the most obvious manifestation of one's intent to proceed towards a goal. But the goal - my goal - is not to have an end product, despite the desires and needs of the consumer culture. As Mike Chisholm has pointed out here (scroll down the comments), viewers may not care one jot how much trouble someone went to to obtain an image. All they care about is the power of the final product, whether it be a print in a gallery/museum, or a book, or online. Or more specifically, a finished film to watch. Because really, who cares about my process of becoming a more accomplished image maker? That's something internal to me, of no consequence, except what products I create along the way that are evidence of my process.

My goal is to find out what combinations of talent, personnel, and technology I am capable of.

"Roscoe" will probably be done when I finish working on it. Sharing will come slowly.

roscoe day 3

 

It's all over now, baby blue. But I'm going to rehash it for those of you who weren't here anyway.

Despite his hesitancy to participate in a local event, and even be photographed doing so, our trained professional gamely agreed to march in the Earlysville Fourth of July Parade. Maybe the scene is not in the script. Maybe no one would have consented approval. It was too good an opportunity to pass up.

I strapped on my vest, and used the Pilot to follow our Professor as he weaved his way across the street, through the parade, to try to find access to a locked office on the far side. On the first take of this cross parade move, as I was walking backwards in front of Craig, I nearly backed into a news camera set up on a tripod. That would have been a sight to see a camera and tripod go down with the operator of a fully rigged Steadicam. I got a last moment warning that directed me away.

At the far end of our progress into the parade, after passing numerous pedestrians and vehicles of various ages, one driver opined loudly, "Is he a Republican or a Democrat? Do I need to take him out?" At that point it became clear to me that the Professor, in his jacket and bow tie, looked much like an undeclared candidate.

All in all, some wonderful material that will fit nicely at the head of the piece. It would have been an entirely different thing if both characters had been in the parade, as I originally planned. This works better in fact.