Film Making: World of Visual

I was going through some of my old stuff , like photos and videos. And i found some old rushins. Which i(we) shot for a competition, when i was animation student, but that shoot was for live action short film. A professional film maker, who came to give us insight on film making and editing, asked us to make a short film, shoot it in 6 hrs and edit it and show him. Now there were total four team, all consist of creative and talented people. So when time came to show, we were with incomplete film. We had shot the whole film but it was still to be rendered . So we showed our film directly from software. Guess what despite being having crapy print of video(it was recorded from mobile cam) and incomplete film we were judged as best film. So I asked him why did he did so? And his answer is the reason why i am writing this post.

The reason he gave was, even with incomplete film , people really enjoyed the visuals and they were able to connect with it. Suddenly it made me realize, that I(and most of people) do judge good film in this way but, have never considered this as a rule.  And that's what film making is about. Its about the visual story and it doesn't mater whats on screen, all that maters is viewer getting hooked to it. A film analyst once showed in his research that film with good visual content are often liked by people. With good visual content, i mean, the way character in film portray story without dialogues and sound. He experimented this by watching a good movie(and some bad movies) in full mute mode. He watched movies like Finding Nemo,Titanic, Roadside Romeo etc. Try yourself watching a good movie and a bad movie in mute. You will know what i am talking about. Even majority of good short film seldom have dialogues. A movie with good visuals attracts all types of viewers, and suddenly their genre choices vanishes.

I will end this post with good film example. "No Country for Old Men" is film which has no background score for most of time. But then also mouse and cat chase was so nicely showed nobody felt it was missing.

Stereography

something i am studying by my self.

Film making: Stereoscopic(3D) film making

Recently someone marked me for my 3D madness. I asked myself , is it just me who like 3D with madness. Well, little investigation explained the reason behind lost interest in 3D. Suppose you wanted to eat a nice cheese cake, but you happen to enter in wrong bakery for cheese cake and your cake suck. Does that mean whole idea of cheese cake is wrong. Of course, not.

First, lets understand how 3D works. I won't go in details you can read about it in Wikipedia. For picture to be in 3D, there should be two picture on same screen , one for each eye. I mean to say, one picture for left eye show the object the way it looked from left eye prospective, another one for right eye which shows object the way it looked from prospective of right eye. Then viewer brain is forced combine both which give a 3D view.

If you didn't got it do not worry, you can read on. So to show movie in 3D you need to have two movies from two different prospective view. So when you shoot movie in 3D you need to shoot it from two cameras at same time with help of some suitable rig. This increase your movie budget. But, some intelligent guys found an alternative to this expensive procedure. That is to shoot in 2D and convert it in 3D. This is done with help of rotoscopy. But, does that solved every problem, no. movie converted to 3D are seldom good. Also while shooting director had no idea what he is shooting in 2D, will it look good in 3D. This ruins whole idea of making movie in 3D. Its like cake which taste like cheese cake,but its not a cheese cake.

Look at following video clips to judge yourself(you will need red cyan anaglyph glasses).
clip with original 3D
Clip with converted 3D

Also, what 3D mad people don't realize, not every movie is made for 3D. You can't pop out things and expect viewer to like it. There should be beautiful realization of depth like in movie Avatar. Also certain types of scenes in 3D movie strains viewer's eye and ruin concentration. So, director should know, if he is shooting movie in 3D, what type of scene should be included so that viewers enjoy it. In short, 3D is not for every film maker/film and you need brain to use it.

3D is very good for movies, specially for animated one, it adds a kick, if done properly. So avoid converted movies and don't take it on 3D if you did't like a movie, never kill your madness for 3D(and cheese cake) if it suck at some places.

Film making: Editing challenge

If you are sitting in editing room, with your rushins, then probably all challenging work is done. And, even if some rushins doesn't fits it will either be re-shooted or gets cutout. Editor seldom faces challenges of technicality, most of the time, if there is any, challenges will be creative. But, I always feel, that there should be some challenge in one's task to develop oneself.

Recently i found an interesting task which not only put you on technical challenge but also on creative challenge. Here's the detail of task:-

Go to one spot, don't move the tripod but you can pan, tilt, zoom camera. Hit record and don't button off for ten minutes and try and get as many varied shots as possible.

 Then take the shots, edit it and make an interesting video.Few heads up, always pick a spot with lots of activity happening around. Here is example of Philip Boom taking up the same challenge, for the video on vimeo click here.

It always feels good to do something like this, even if you are not into editing, this will be a good exercise for film making.

Film making: Screenplay and Acting

Last week i posted, how important story is in a movie, and every thing else doesn't mater if you have eye groping story in a movie. Here in today's post i am showing an example of how important acting and screen play is in movie. Here is short Tamil film called Dharmam, director doesn't have any punching story, but what he do present is masterpiece of screenplay and acting. Do observe his way of introduction of each characters. He has almost no camera movement and non manipulative setting of story which gives movie seriousness. He never leaves viewer in doubt, but in question.
Dharmam- Short Film

Film making and film story

Film making is slowly reaching place where realism maters most. With the advancement in digital process and intermediates, films are able to show audience which was, otherwise, impossible to shoot with realism. There are now, even success story of movies which got recognition just because of their computer graphics achievement like Avatar, GI Joe, Transformer Trilogy, Avengers etc, and today no movie hit the screen without hitting DI process first. Visual effects(Fx) has now become heart of  movie. So does that mean if you thinking of making any film or short, your DI process is must, do you need to get in touch with great Fx studio to show realism in your movie?

Well the answer to your all questions is no(not necessarily).I think good story always score. Now if i ask you to make a short movie on clones trying to save earth from dangerous comet. What will you do, how would you make movie. Here is a example, what i am going to show you is short(type of) movie made by Wheezy Waiter. Though, he used very heavy DI, but that's not the heart of his movie, his story is wonderfully written and has been masterfully executed.

Click on the following link as short movie divided into 6 parts-

Part1 :  http://youtu.be/eBys_KE6s3g
part2 :  http://youtu.be/zrnL3RDZOF4
part3 :  http://youtu.be/XfKg6Wcd6sQ
part4 :  http://youtu.be/Fm2nsCxxspk
part5 :  http://youtu.be/mizzmTMMH10
part6 :  http://youtu.be/OpbvL9Pxoio

please do watch and leave comments.