The documentary of Ken Berns:

The Atlantic: What inspired you to explore storytelling as a topic for this film?

Sarah Klein and Tom Mason: Everyone loves a great story. Stories teach us things, move us emotionally, and form the basis of the way we understand the world. As filmmakers, we’ve been telling stories for a while now — but at a certain point we realized that it’s actually really hard to explain what makes a good story. We know it when we see it, but the recipe always proves elusive. Ken Burns has been telling incredible stories for decades, and we thought that if anyone would have a thoughtful perspective on this, it’d be him. So this project started as our own exploration to figure out what that magic dust is that brings his stories to life.

It takes guts to make a documentary about one of documentary cinema’s most iconic filmmakers. How did you approach it?

We were definitely nervous about it. Ken Burns has defined documentary for our whole lives. We both remember sitting with our families watching The Civil War series in awe. We came to this project with a lot of questions and very little idea where they’d lead. He was incredibly patient, and brought his own curiosity and open mind to the conversation about how he tells stories and why. The first time we sent him a cut, we both poured a couple glasses of bourbon and crossed our fingers. Luckily, he liked it.

The Atlantic | Read the Full Article

Episode 51

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Shownotes

Articles on Sessue Hayakawa:
IMDB.com

Gold Sea Spotlight on Asian Americans

Watch the entire 1915 film “The Cheat” by Cecil B. DeMille

Top 7 Articles of the Week

7. Deconstructing the Lighting of a Scene

StillMotion demonstrates three lighting set ups for different moods and how and why they used the lights they did.

6. The Future of Cinema according to Douglas Trumbull

Harry Knowles (Ain’t it Cool News) sits down with film legend Douglas Trumbull who created visual effects for films like “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” and “Blade Runner.” Together they cover the evolution of film and the state of film projection today.

5. The Two Take Minimum Theory of Filmmaking

J. Ott asks for a second take and explores why you should almost always shoot a second take even if everything is perfect the first time around. How many takes do you generally ask for?

4. What’s new in After Effects CS6 in under 6 minutes

VFXBro runs down what’s new in the latest iteration of the popular compositing software from Adobe.

3. To Kill a Canon 7D…

How durable is the Canon 7d? DigitalRev TV dares to put the question to the test by hitting it with a car, dropping it down some steps on a wheelchair, freezing it, soaking it, and setting fire to it.

2. DIY: How To Make The Best Helmetcam Ever

The DakaKin team shows you how to create the best Helmetcam ever.

1. The Engineering behind CCD cameras

Bill Hammack takes apart a digital camera and explains how its captures images using a CCD (charge coupled device). He also shares how a single CCD is used with a color filter array to create colored images. This video is based on a chapter from the EngineerGuy team’s latest book Eight Amazing Engineering Stories (Learn more at http://www.engineerguy.com/elements)

WTF Post of the Week

NSFW: Gilbert Gottfried Reads Fifty Shades of Gray

And yes, this is NSFW. Unless you work someplace that likes vulgarity. In that case, play away.

REPUTATION IS ALL YOU HAVE. In a business where much of the deal-making and negotiations are verbal, your word and your reputation is EVERYTHING. The film industry is small. Everyone who is established can easily make contact with anyone else or can get the straight scoop by making a few calls. How much you are paid, your title on a project, how hard you work, how honest you are, how you treat people— there are no secrets. The business is populated by talkers. Even “enemies” communicate all the time. There is no place to hide. If you are seen as creative, reliable, capable, and easy to work with, you will find luck. If you are seen as difficult, a primadonna, high-strung, or irrational you will be known that way even by people who haven’t met you. No one cares that you’re tired or have had a rough day. With no track record, it won’t matter how talented you are. When it comes to a decision as to whether or not to work with you, the decision will be negative. They will say, “Life is too short.” If you promise things and don’t come through, that will follow you and you will have damaged your credibility. Delivering what you say you can deliver is key. Extenuating circumstances don’t count. You’re trying to break into an industry of impatient people. Rationalizations won’t work. These people have seen it all and maybe done it successfully themselves.

Indiewire.com | Read the Full Article

Episode 50

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Shownotes

Vidblaster: Multicamera editing on your desktop.

My Copter Crashing videos:

Real Life Rocket Engine:

See the rest of my photos on my album on Facebook

Top 7 Articles of the week

7. Trippy Demo of Focal Length and Spatial Distortion

This quick little gif demonstrates the difference between focal lengths and how they stretch or compress the sense of depth.

6. Star Wars – if it were made by the Internet

Star Wars Uncut is a website that asked people around the globe to recreate a scene from the 1977 film. The Director’s cut, the full feature length recreation below, is the final result.

5. Exploding Photographers, Disappearing Clothes and the Development of Film

Roger Cicala journeys into the 19th century and weaves a tale of explosive cotten, synthetic fabrics and how it all culminates in the true purpose of photography – capturing images of scantily clad women.

4. Making the Most of Long Exposure Handhelds

Shoot steadier handheld DSLR shots using techniques used by marksmen to steady their rifles.

3. The Three Basics of Photography

Matthew Gore of LightandMatter.org explains the three parts of getting a proper exposure: Aperture (or Iris – for us video folk), Shutter Speed, and ISO.

2. 2 Techniques for Writing the Masterpiece Genre

John Truby discusses the Masterpiece Genre. Learn two key techniques to master this Genre as well several questions and point to keep in mind while writing.

1. Damnit Jim – I’m a Filmmaker not a RED Camera Propagandist

No camera on the market today sparks as much fan boy bullshit spirited debate as the RED line of digital cinema cameras. Now I present you latest dust-up between RED camera pioneer Jim Jannard and Zacuto’s Steve Weiss.

Spoiler alert, these are the kinds of comments you will hear in my film: I asked 9 ASC cinematographers, if they had to pick between shitty picture or shitty sound what would they recommend to the director if in the situation you could only have one? Every single cinematographer said shitty picture. There reason: You can tolerate shitty picture but shitty sound is intolerable.

I asked a cinematographer if he would be willing to live with a take where the actor didn’t hit his mark and isn’t in their eye light but the performance was better then when they hit their mark and his answer was an astounding yes.

This is what DP’s in a collaborative effort do and I felt it was important for people to hear this as well as well as see what camera are capable of…. If all you want to see is a raw test, they are out there, although, I’m not sure how fair and accurate they are. My film is the hows and whys of how to make your camera look great, plus a lot more. Actually, to be honest, I’m not totally sure what my film is yet because I haven’t even really started it prior to getting the comments from the screenings.

WTF Post of the Week

Actual Cannibal (Shia LaBeouf)