Episode 39

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Top 7 Articles from February 19th – 25th, 2012.

7. Steven Spielberg Watches 1976 Oscar Nominations

Here is your front row ticket to The Oscars as you’ve never seen them before. Watch a young Steven Spielberg lose out in his first of many nominations to be Best Director.

6. The end of movie theaters?

Movie attendance has been declining, with 2011’s box office the lowest in 15 years. But the trend may be changing. Could the movie theater as we’ve known it survive? Tracy Smith of CBS News considers the prospects.

5. Coming soon! The evolution of movie trailers

In a world of hyped-up movie advertising comes one video that dares to tell the truth about the history of coming attractions. David Morgan of CBS News reports.

4. The “Student Film” Awards

In case you missed the original broadcast, College Humor recapped the 2011 Student Film Awards. There’s still some major controversy over the “Hands Deepest in a Hoodie” category…

3. 31 Kickstarter Films to Premiere at SxSW

Over Kickstarter’s first two years, Film & Video has been the dominant category, accounting for $50 million of the over $140 million pledged. This year, 31 Kickstarter-funded projects will screen as official selections at SXSW 2012.

2. Writing Exposition: 5 Helpful Techniques

“Show it, don’t say it” is a good mantra to follow. But sometimes, for economic or timing sake, you have to get the audience up to speed and the only way to do that is to just have a character say it. That’s called exposition and it can be bad filmmaking if its overused. Here are five techniques to deliver exposition while making it not look like exposition.

1. SxSW: Best Film Title Design 2012

Need some inspiration? South by Southwest Film and Music Festival released a list of the finalists in the Title Sequence Category from Film and Television productions. The final awards will be present on Tuesday, March 13 at 8pm.

WTF Post of the Week

Robert Downey Jr. Pinup

Story Snacks

There are lots of story creation tools out there – imagination joggers, mix and match machines. I’ve tried some, and found them pretty useless. I guess they’re okay for shaking things loose in the mind, but I’ve never seen a truly great idea come out wholly formed from one of these toys.

I find I’m much better off browsing a bookstore, scanning Netflix, or perusing a compendium of plot synopses.  I especially like books with stories from ancient B-movies.  Quite often these movies contain brilliant idea nuggets cleverly concealed behind poor production values.

Easy Moviemaking | Read the Full Article

Part I

…Once a collection of siloed channels with their own unique agendas, media formats like paper books, DVD movies, websites, and online video are now evolving and blending together, with end users increasingly making less distinction between the media types and platforms that are now woven into our daily media routine.

This fundamental shift in consumption has given rise to the idea of transmedia: stories told and delivered in a platform-agnostic world, blending story elements seamlessly between various engagement points.

— Video-Commerce.org | Read The Full Article

Part II

…As we discussed, with transmedia’s multi-platform outreach approach, people can engage with your story on a deeper level than any single platform allows, opening the door to a more immersive, collaborative experience. That’s because transmedia takes advantage of the way we live and communicate now, crossing freely from one conversational medium to the next, engaging and sharing in different ways within the daily flow of our digital lives.

With a thoughtfully architected transmedia experience, we’re no longer forced to leave our favorite stories behind when moving between devices, screens or locations. Rather, we can carry our stories with us from platform to platform, adding layers of engagement at each stop along the way.

— Video-Commerce.org | Read The Full Article

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Show Notes

Attention – do I have your attention? Can I at least get you to watch my movie/screenplay?

Interest – can I keep you interested?

Desire – can I get you to want to find out more?

Action – can I get you to indentify strongly with my characters?

IQ Weekly Wrap-Up (7-3-11 to 7-9-11)

Speaker calibration for Film and TV Sound Mixing
This tutorial shows how to calibrate your edit suite or home studio to 79db, a standard reference level for audio work for film and television.

The Sound of Transformers: Dark of the Moon Speaker calibration for Film and TV Sound Mixing
Director Michael Bay and Producer Steven Spielberg return this summer for the third film in the Transformers franchise, Tranformers: Dark of the Moon. The amazing visual effects in this film are complimented by the talented efforts of the sound team including Re-recording Mixers Greg Russell and Jeff Haboush, and Supervising Sound Editor and Sound Designers Ethan Van der Ryn, and Erik Aadahl.

Create Glowing Eyes with After Effects & Mocha
In this tutorial you will learn how to use Adobe After Effects CS5 and Mocha to track, create, and render glowing eyes.

Werner Herzog and Errol Morris
This hour long discussion between Werner Herzog and Errol Morris took place at Brandeis University in 2007. The two documentary filmmakers talked about their friendship, the making of documentaries, and other interesting and strange subjects.

The Face of Cult Cinema
This video essay by Mike Miley uses clips from more than 40 cult classics to demonstrate the essence of a cult film can be found in the power of its close-ups.

AMP HDR Video Production System
AMP is a new camera technology by Contrast Optical that captures three simultaneous images and produces real-time HDR video. It is currently scheduled for end of summer 2011. However, the AMP Gen II cameras will not be available to the public, due to the limited production run.

The Future of Story
Jeff Parkin, filmmaker and Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre and Media Arts, Brigham Young University, discusses the power of transmedia stories in reaching wide audiences and his experiences in creating the Webby Award honored webseries, The Book of Jer3miah.

Subtleties of the Clapboard
An insightful look into the extraordinary skills of the best clapper loader in the world, Cam with Inspiration Studios.

Seagull Steals Camera
In Cannes France, be careful where you set down your video camera… the seagulls there have taken up filmmaking and are always on the look out for new gear.

101 Great Filmmaker Quotes
Today we gathered together a collection of inspiring, thought provoking and humorous quotes from great filmmakers of the past and present. There is nothing I’m going to write this late at night that will compete, so on with the show…

What are the Job Prospects for Film School Grads?
Think a film degree from USC, NYU or UCLA will land you that coveted film job? The Hollywood job market is becoming increasingly flooded with graduates all fighting for the same scraps at the table.

Turn Your iPhone into a DSLR
With the iPhone SLR Mount from Photojojo you can turn your iPhone into a DLSR using real SLR lenses. For the iPhone 4 it costs $249.00 and $190.00 for the iPhone 3.

Timelapse – Eight Hours on a DIY Film set in 221 seconds
John Hess gives us a timelapse behind the scenes look at “Treachery in Three Dimensions” shot mostly in his garage studio.

Nation Somehow Failed To Predict Terrorist Attack By Michael Bay
The FBI says the warning signs that Bay would eventually carry out a terrorist attack were startlingly obvious in retrospect.

WTF Post of the Week

Every Michael Bay Movie In Under a Minute

…At the dawn of mankind our ancient ancestors huddled around campfires and told stories to entertain each other. But the smarter ones realized there was a way to make the stories more effective for the audience. And that was the origin of storytelling technique.

Any artist wants their work to be appreciated. And most artists want to leave a lasting impression. In order to do that, you are either naturally gifted and can do that through your instinctive performance, or you can do it through an understanding of the driving forces that make it happen.

— Big Hollywood | Read The Full Article

…Aristotle 384-322 BCE, in his seminal treatise ‘Poetics or Poetica’ concluded there are seven golden rules of successful story telling. These rules or principles in his days pertained to ancient Greek theatre. Incredibly, today the same seven elements are essential to writing successful film screenplays. Whenever I asked film graduates at NYU if they could guess the seven principal elements of good story telling, they would between them quickly answer correctly the following six elements, which Aristotle prioritized as:

— Pavand.com | Read The Full Article