Menu 

Join Now!

It's Free and Easy

Login

Join To Bookmark

Introducing Vimeo On-Demand – A DIY distribution platform

Vimeo On Demand is direct-to-fan distribution done the Vimeo way — with all the power of Vimeo’s best-in-class video player, easy-to-use tools, and passionate audience. Creators of all types can distribute their work online, find and connect with audiences, and make more money with a 90/10 revenue split.

Vimeo On Demand gives creators unparalleled flexibility and control: creators can showcase their work on beautiful, highly customizable pages; set their own price; and sell their work from their site, from Vimeo, or from both. All On Demand pages are built into Vimeo’s worldwide creative network that reaches more than 90 million viewers.

Learn more here

Join To Bookmark

The Career of Paul Thomas Anderson in Five Shots

Tracking a journey of camera journeys from Hard Eight to There Will Be Blood, Kevin B. Lee wonders if the director has put away showy things.

Thinking on what sets The Master apart from Paul Thomas Anderson’s earlier films, what strikes me most vividly is a marked difference in camera movement and staging. I wouldn’t be surprised if a proper cinemetric analysis found that up to half of the film’s running time consists of close-ups with little to no camera movement.

This is a far cry from the run-and-gun days of Boogie Nights and Magnolia with their stunning array of sweeping Steadicam shots, push-ins and whip pans. But upon surveying his career film by film, one can trace an evolution in his technique. This video essay examines one signature tracking shot from each of Anderson’s five previous features, showing how each epitomises his cinematography at each point, from the flashiness of his earlier films to a more subtle approach that favours composition over movement.

While The Master offers a couple of swirling tracking shots in a department store, and later a pair of straight-line lateral tracking shots to match the onanistic thrill of motorcycle joyriding, the film settles more often into shot/reverse shot dialogues in cozy interior sets. It seems that Anderson’s camera strategy here has less in common with Scorsese, Altman or even Kubrick (with all of whom he’s frequently compared) than with Jonathan Demme. Indeed, in the DVD commentary of Boogie Nights, Anderson expresses a profound emulation of Demme, though Demme himself couldn’t recognise a shot from Boogie Nights that Anderson claimed to have blatantly derived from him.

BFI.org | Read the Full Article

Join To Bookmark

The Quality of Light: Hard vs Soft

The understanding of light is the most fundamental skill in cinematography. In this 3 minute film lighting tutorial video, watch and learn about the two basic types of light used in filmmaking and photography; hard and soft. Hard light creates a sharp solid shadow; while soft light creates a rounded gradient shadow. We break down these concepts and show you how to harness their power to improve your lighting.

Join To Bookmark

Premature Burial of Film

Many people consider 35mm film dead, John Bailey (Groundhog Day, As Good as It Gets, The Way Back) says otherwise.

In the midst of doom and gloom regarding the future of 35mm and digital cinema overtaking the movie industry, I received a press release from Eastman Kodak several weeks ago, boasting that six of this year’s Best Picture Oscar nominees were shot on Kodak film: Argo, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, Django Unchained, Beasts of the Southern Wild, and Les Misérables. (The publicist added, “In the 84-year history of Oscar, no Academy Award-winning best picture has ever been made without motion picture film.”)

INDIEWIRE | Read the Full Article

Join To Bookmark

How to Succeed in Screenwriting Without Even Trying

Susan Kouguell explains how to increase the chances getting your screenplay actually read.

Now that I’ve caught your attention with a spin on this infamous Broadway musical title — I must make a confession.  This title is wishful thinking.   How to succeed in the screenwriting world is not all about trying. It’s so much more than that.  It’s about doing.  And it’s about being brave, tough, having good manners, not being lazy or having a bad attitude. It’s also about perseverance, which is one major key to unlocking the film industry gatekeeper’s door.  And the other major key to gain entrance into the industry?  Write a great screenplay!

Succeeding in the screenwriting world requires dedication to your writing — and it demands rewriting your script and marketing package until they are the absolute best they can be.  You must be diligent; follow the industry trade publications to learn who is taking on new clients, which company is accepting new projects, and then submit your work to the appropriate companies, agents, and managers, and script competitions that are the right fit for your project and for you.

How do you increase your chances of script success? 

KNOW YOUR CRAFT: Crafting a successful screenplay means understanding and conveying a compelling storythat will prompt the reader to turn the page; a solid structure (this holds true whether you are writing a traditional 3-act structure or nontraditional narrative); a consistent genre (follow the rules of the genre conventions);dialogue that rings true (stilted and dull words does not an attention-grabbing script make); and empathetic characters audiences will care about. Audiences must care if your characters win or lose, and the (narrative) voyages they embark on to reach their goals.

Script.com | Read the Full Article

Tropfest NY 2013
Join To Bookmark

Ang Lee on How The Technology Behind Life of Pi Changed His Filmmaking

“Thank you, movie god,” Life of Pi director Ang Lee said when accepting the Oscar for best director at the Academy Awards. But movie worship is a polytheistic practice and many deities preside over the making of a film. For Life of Pi, Lee said he shared the award with “all 3,000″ with whom he created an entire virtual world.

To film what was largely thought to be unfilmable—a philosophical novel that revolves around little more than a boy and a tiger on a lifeboat—Lee and his crew struggled heroically for a solution. Ultimately their prayers were answered by technology in the form of visual effects and 3D filming.

“It was a tough one, but really worth it,” Lee said at a screening of the special features included on the film’s Blu-ray 3D, Blu-ray, and DVD release. “I’m not just talking about the Oscar but the whole journey. It was really worth it.”

Lee said bringing Pi and the tiger to the screen was difficult, but constructing a visual representation of a philosophical abstraction was even more so. “But five years ago when I was asked, it was tempting; I got seduced,” Lee said. “I realize lately that the projects I choose are those that I could not stop thinking how to make it. I was possessed. Then after about a year of hesitation, I said, let me give it a try.”

PC Magazine | Read the Full Article

Join To Bookmark

5 Critical Tips for Travel Photographers

Joey L. shares some battle-hardened tips from traveling abroad on assignment or personal photography.

My first tip for traveling photographers is to protect your gear from theft. There are theives in every part of the world, not just developing countries. They know how much your pretty camera can fetch for on a black market, and they will risk a lot to steal your gear. When traveling, I make it a point to make my camera look crappy and old. I cover it with duct tape, carry it in a normal, dirty backpack, and make sure all recognizable logos such as “Canon” or “Phase One” are hidden. A nice looking camera case is also a red flag. I prefer typical “consumer” travel packs or using older weathered bags that have seen better days. ??

When I travel with ugly photography equipment, attention is diverted away from my stuff. A potential theif may determine that stealing my camera is not worth the risk of being caught. After all, they can’t sell an old hunk of junk for the price of a “new camera.” Let the theif go after the next unlucky traveler.

??Other than theives, there are other people looking to give you a hard time for your nice looking camera- I’m talking about airport customs officers in foreign countries. In fact, I have a lot more problems with these often uninformed, egomanical workers than theives. This is even more true for developing countries who are not used to living around this kind of expensive looking photography gear.
??I’ve been to many countries where the customs officer at the airport takes one look at my photography gear and gets very suspicious, even if I have a legal work permit for a shoot or letter from whom I’m working for. Is this guy working in the country illegally? Is this guy a spy or photojournalist with bad intentions? Is this guy going to sell the equipment here for profit? A trashy looking camera in a old dirty bag doesn’t look valuable, so it’s easier to get it by with less hastle.

?Thinking of customs officers sends a shiver down my spine, which brings me to my next tip for travel photographers…

Joey L | Read the Full Article

Join To Bookmark

Organizational Tips for FCP X

Oliver Peters offers some tips for staying organized inside Final Cut Pro X.

The beauty of Apple Final Cut Pro X is in its power to organize media. When editors take advantage of these tools, FCP X can prove to be a very fast way to cut. I’ve covered some of these concepts in previous posts on “Rethinking NLE Design”. Here are some tips that will help you get more out of FCP X. Click on the thumbnails to see an enlarged image for an expanded view of each of these tips.

Projects and Events. FCP X organizes media and sequences into Events (source media) and Projects (edited sequences). These divisions correspond with matching data files and folders at the Finder level. Unfortunately a colossal oversight was the lack of any way to organize these within the application. All active Events and Projects are open and accessible when you launch FCP X. The solution is Event Manager X from Intelligent Assistance – an essential tool for working with FCP X. This handy utility controls the location (and visibility) of Events and Projects by automatically moving unneeded files between the active and “hidden” folders.

Oliver Peters | Read the Full Article

Newer Posts
Older Posts