FilmmakerIQ.com » Filmmaking 360

How do you make a documentary about Ken Burns?

John P. Hess — Wed, 23 May 2012 16:32:11 +0000

Making a short documentary about the iconic documentary filmmaker is a tall order in itself. Sarah Klein and Tom Mason sit down with the Atlantic to discuss how they approached the form and how they found b-roll for lofty ideas such as “1+1=3″.

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

François Truffaut – The Man Who Loved Cinema

John P. Hess — Tue, 22 May 2012 18:19:32 +0000

He was suspicious of directors who had hobbies… he couldn’t understand how you could love two things in life. He loved only one… cinema.

12 Key Traits of the “Indie-Friendly” Director

John P. Hess — Thu, 17 May 2012 16:50:48 +0000

If you’re looking for a studio quality, I can tell you I don’t have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you.

I’ve now worked with twenty different directors on mostly low-budget indie projects–some of whom I’d like to work with again and again; others, never again. By now, I can tell when a director is lying, even if he or she doesn’t realize it–”it’ll be 70% handheld,” “we can just run and gun it with a skeleton crew,” “all I need is an extra half day for second unit stuff.” Yeah, right. Most of the director foibles I’ve dealt with are due to inexperience and will likely resolve themselves with time. But sometimes, I wonder if some people just weren’t meant to direct–at least not low-budget indies.

So what are the traits that I think make a director “indie-friendly” (and more generally, “producer-friendly”)? Besides the usual traits that all directors should have–passion, confidence, focus, a high E.Q., a collaborative spirit, a sense of humor, the ability to command respect, an openness to feedback balanced with decisiveness–here are the traits that are especially important when working with limited resources:

1. Fast Writer

I’ve worked mostly with writer-directors, which offers an efficiency that’s often missing when the writer and director are different people. So much rewriting is done not just during development and prep, but also during production. Some of my directors have had to rewrite whole scenes minutes before shooting them. There is probably a lot more production-directed rewriting in the indie world since we are constantly trying to figure out how to stretch a budget. Development periods are also a lot shorter for us because they have to be–typically, no one gets paid during development; we only get paid if we’re in production. As such, it’s nice to work with speedy writers who can discuss, digest, and incorporate notes quickly to produce a shoppable draft.

IFP.org | Read the Full Article

How to Build Creative Confidence

John P. Hess — Thu, 17 May 2012 16:05:09 +0000

David Kelley suggests, creativity is not the domain of only a chosen few. Telling stories from his legendary design career and his own life, he offers ways to build the confidence to create.

The Six Things You Must Know to Make it in the Film Industry

John P. Hess — Mon, 14 May 2012 21:49:20 +0000

Barbara Freedman Doyle offers some tips on how anyone entering the film industry can make sure they stop themselves from saying what they really think and stay in the good graces of those with the power to hire.

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

How to make a Behind-The-Scenes Video

John P. Hess — Wed, 02 May 2012 20:14:53 +0000

A really good behind the scenes video can be a great marketing tool to help engage your audience and make them feel like they’re a deeper part of a production. Riley Hooper breaks down the elements of what makes a great BTS video.

It’s always interesting to hear the story behind the story — the inspiration and motivation that led to the ultimate creation. Often exploring this side of the story can lead to the interesting anecdotes and surprising details that audiences love to hear. Covering the who, what, where, when and how is important, but the “why” is often the most interesting part of the story. A good BTS will cover the motivation behind the project, explain what came before and preview what may happen in the future. This is most often and most easily done by interviewing the project’s creators.

Vimeo Film School | Read the Full Article

Exploding Photographers, Disappearing Clothes and the Development of Film

John P. Hess — Tue, 01 May 2012 18:07:54 +0000

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.

The very first cameras, of course, were Daguerrotypes and the images they made were positives on silver plates coated with Iodine and developed using fumes from Mercury. You can probably already tell this had a few drawbacks. Positive images can’t be reproduced so one picture was one picture — if you wanted a copy for Aunt Bessie you had to take another picture. Silver is silver, so each picture was rather pricey (up to a month’s pay for a working man). I guess inhaling mercury fumes in the darkroom all day didn’t exactly lead to a lot of healthy old photographers walking around either.

Not long after that, the albumin process was developed. This let photographers make negative images on glass plates coated with albumen. Glass is a lot cheaper than silver, which helped make photographs affordable. Since the images were negatives you could make as many prints as you might like from a single photograph, so things like picture books came into being. Images on glass could be projected in ‘magic lanterns’ so risque images of ladies ankles and such could be projected at the gentleman’s clubs of the day. So the albumen process made it possible for photographers to achieve the same goals they have today: getting published in book form and getting pretty girls to pose partially undressed.

Albumin had it’s drawbacks, though. The process was difficult and time consuming, requiring the plates to be prepared fresh just before each photographic shot. Carrying around a few hundred glass plates got rather heavy, and glass breaks. And the major source of albumen, in case you don’t know, is from egg whites. Photography became so popular that it actually led to egg shortages. As many as 1,000,000 eggs a year were used for photography in England alone.

LensRental Blog | Read the Full Article

John Cleese on Creativity

John P. Hess — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 10:30:22 +0000

John Cleese pontificates on creativity in this video from Video Arts circa 1991.

Overcoming Rejection: Stop Letting Others Decide Who You Are

John P. Hess — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 09:56:35 +0000

Who decides what label we apply to ourselves? And just when does an artist become an artist? Creative Inside Out explores these ideas.

Few professions are as subjective to the opinions of others as creative ones. Perhaps because artists are usually self-proclaimed. Yes, you can get a college degree in your artistic field, but that doesn’t make you an artist, does it? Usually not. You’re an artist when you decide to be one.

The only problem is we don’t trust ourselves, enough, do we? And we fall into the trap of validation. Or rather, letting other people’s opinions and job titles decide whether or not we really are artists.

Creative Inside Out | Read the Full Article

Amazing Stop Motion Video: The Shins “The Rifle’s Spiral”

Dennis — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 19:21:18 +0000

Director Jamie Caliri’s beautiful stop motion animation video for “The Rifle’s Spiral,” a new track by The Shins. Caliri observes: “It’s now more like the years before MTV, when music videos did not have a formula. You can be expressive and idiosyncratic.”