Next 48hr movie coming up soon!

It's almost that time again!
and hopefully we will redeem ourselves from our last project.

my goal is to get a good story out and not worry too much on the technical perfectness.

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my goal is to get a good story out and not worry too much on the technical perfectness.

Bad idea, IMHO.

Of course a good story is paramount, but "Technical perfectness" is just as important. Why have a good story if it looks like crap? Prep wisely if you are Shooting / Posting it yourself or recruit the help of folks that will.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

> Of course a good story is paramount, but "Technical perfectness" is just as important.

I disagree.

Joe has a point, but good story is a lot more important than technical perfection.

People will shell out money to see a well told, well acted story that looks and sounds grungy (eg. Clerks, The Blair Witch Project, 28 Days Later, Hoop Dreams), but nobody will shell out money to see a shiny, technically perfect piece that says nothing and has horrible acting (eg. Gigli, Battlefield Earth).

Especially since, in your last couple of works we've seen, you've worked on coverage, choosing angles and lighting and improved them greatly, but acting and story were still very erratic.

So I'd amend the statement like this:

Story and acting are much more important than technical polish. But that doesn't mean technical polish is unimportant.

The goal isn't to sacrifice the last for the first two; the goal is to achieve the first two first, and then achieve the last as well.


www.derekmok.com

I never saw "Blair Witch" (honestly) and it was filmed by UCF students right here from Orlando. I couldn't watch that camera work. Home movies make me dizzy bordering on puking.

Keep in mind, though...a "low tech look" is sometimes intentional. That's not what I mean by "technical perfectness". I am talking about obvious mistakes in technical prep & shooting...like booms in shots, camera reflections in windows, auto iris opening & closing, interlacing not correctly interpolated, blatantly incorrect scene lighting, crossing the line where it doesn't work, on & on.

Technical polish applies to grungy projects as well. You are associating the word "polish" with "shiny". Not what I meant at all.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

> You are associating the word "polish" with "shiny". Not what I meant at all.

I'm more associating "polish" with perfectly stable camera moves, line readings exactly as the producer has in mind, obsessively matching action, whether the coffee cup is half full or 3/4 full, etc. The single-take master-shot approach of Clerks would sound off alarm bells for most editors, but it works for the film.

It's a fine line. What Joe's listed are the really deadly technical mistakes that fall in the "unacceptable by any standards" category. But I've also seen producers and directors who ruin a good scene in the cutting room just because the best acting take has a camera bump in it. That's the kind of thing that falls in the "let it be rough" category.

And then there are real grey-area issues like changing exposure within a shot. You do it in House, M.D. and you're dead, but you do it in The Shield and it feels organic. Auto-iris "wavering" between settings is a deal breaker, but not necessarily auto-focus wavering. And conversely, House loves dissolves, but The Shield has a style that basically outlaws dissolves, transitions and any showy editing technique.


www.derekmok.com

Whoo hoo!!! Tonight begins the 48 hr movie thingamahoozy!!

I have a credits question. Since all of us on our team do a little bit of everything in putting this thing together, with the exception of the writing, does it matter if more than one name is listed under the credits for Producer, director, dp/cinematographer, etc...? Does it look more or less professional? I think one time we had at least 4 names for everything...

Dude...if it's not a union flick, nobody cares who gets what credit & how many names are under what title. Give all your peeps proper credit. If your dog contributed by licking your face when you read the script to him, put a paw print up there It's not a union flick.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Coool!!! That was easy!
Now to find a dog...

Everything is politics when it comes to credits.

One mistake amateur directors often make is to just do the credits without asking the crew. If it's a professional shoot, the credit will be in the contract. If it's a semi-professional shoot, it's a matter of courtesy to run the credits by the crew, allow them a chance to proofread. Nothing is worse than inviting the crew to a screening where they find out their name is wrong.

Also, it's often annoying if the director did multiple jobs and insists on putting his/her name too many times on individual cards (eg. "Costumes by John Smith", "Casting: John Smith", "Edited by John Smith", "Story by John Smith, screenplay by John Smith", "Directed by John Smith".


www.derekmok.com