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BrainStorm

Creating Media of All Kinds

Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Good Stuff

Had a fun day yesterday script supervising on Sean Garrity's short, Double Standard. It was a tough day physically because of the unique nature of the filming. Most projects, I get time to sit down and rest or think while lighting sets up for the next shot. This shoot involved a bunch of one-takes moving throughout an apartment using a steadi-cam. Since we were shooting on video, the lighting could be set up at the beginning of the day for the whole set and then just minor corrections were needed as we went along. Brilliant, but not a lot of time to rest!

But it was a good day, overall. I hit a point as I almost always do a couple of hours after lunch, where I wonder why I thought making movies was fun. But then something always happens to remind me why it's amazing. In this case, it was the actors and getting to see some of the footage as we went along, thanks to an on-board video recorder. The actors, Avital Ludwig (who I was impressed with last spring on Chris Robert's Meaning of Max) and Nick Ouellette, showed great stamina considering the long day with few breaks for them either!

And the picture looked great - Keith Eides on steadi-cam and the ever-professional Lawrence Mardon was DP. Beautiful colours and shots.

Having just met with my sound mixer, I have to say that shooting on DV is sounding ever-more appealing, as my main concern with Coffe's sound was camera noise. Saul says it's only obvious because I know what it is, but he'll try to tone it down for me. He was encouraging about the film in general, and complimented some of my edits, which was very pleasing, as I still feel like I'm just making this up as I go along. Everyone has to start somewhere, I suppose!

So I'm going to do some colour correction tomorrow with my DP, get the files to Saul early next week, and hopefully should have a finished product in time for New Year's!

Monday, November 28, 2005

Lots o Thoughts

Friday I attended a mini-symposium on the future of New Media at the University of Manitoba. Doubly relevant for me because of my job and because I've been looking at Media and New Media grad programs for myself. The keynote speaker was Prof. Joanna Berzowska from Concordia University. She has one of the coolest research jobs on the planet at the XS Labs/Hexagram Institute researching wearable circuitry. [links, pic] I'm surprised that there hasn't been more interest from the higher-end fashion designers (or geeks like me who want their shirts to double as recording devices), though I totally see the military applications.

I'm quite drawn to Berzowska's depiction of a Chercheur/Createur. A researcher/creator. Not either/or. Can create new media and study it, reflect on it. Don't have to be an academic locked up in an ivory tower. Can seek out new modes of understanding and expression and sharing knowledge. "Innovate via artistic enquiry" as she put it. To do that, I think I'm going to need at the least "Radical Interdiciplinarity" a phrase she cited as Simon Penny's. One theme that came up in the break-out groups as we discussed this crossing of disciplines, was a desire for a "common language" to communicate between the arts and sciences. I would argue that we actually need to become multilingual. Yes, we should be able to understand multiple disciplines, as there is beauty in science and math in art. But there are certain ideas that can only be expressed in their native discipline, therefore we must be willing to learn not just the items that intersect/overlap in the disciplines (interdisciplinary) but delve into the language of another discipline, become Radically Multidisciplinary.


Friday night was the first Poetry Potluck, a monthly event I've conceived for Winnipeg poets to gather to share their own poetry but equally importantly, poetry of others that we're enjoying. Great to be exposed to poets I've never heard of. This time out, Maurice Mierau introduced me to Les Murray, who I'll definitely have to read more of. About 9 of us showed up – not bad for a first time event.


Saturday night I helped out at the Winnipeg Film Group's latest night of shorts. I'd worked on 3 of the 7 films, but this was the first time I'd seen Kevin Nikkel's final version of Juliet at 2:15 (I was slate girl). Daniel Eskin wowed us with the 35-millimeter version of his film Salt Piller – inspiring camera work and story. (already recognized at the Monterey Film Festival) Jonathan Ball's Spoony B was inspired in a very different way – a retro-silent comedy, hand-processed I believe, as was Mike Reisacher's Porcelain Dreams, which was the first film I did continuity for.

Hopefully Coffee Maker will be part of the next night of shorts – probably in February. I took Alek "Spoony R" Rzeszowski's advice and chipped away 2 minutes from my last cut. Painful indeed, but much easier to do after putting it away for a couple of weeks, as I was able to be a little more objective about what was really needed to tell the story. And it's humblingly clear that the story can still easily come through in 2 less minutes! I've always been good at editing my written work down to requested size, but there's a difference between cutting words I wrote and images that took the effort of so many people to make possible.


Meeting with my sound guy, Saul Henteleff, on Wednesday, so gotta finalize picture. I feel ready to let it go, to let it be what it is at this point and move on to the next project. I'lll hear in the next couple of weeks about the two grants I applied for, so that will help determine What Next.

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Episode One is Up

I've posted my first episode of my new vlog (video-blog). You can watch it and read my commentary about this leap into the vlog world by going to A Week in the Life.

Hadn't realized that it had been so long since I last posted. Been busy creating the vlog, working on a couple of websites, researching grad school programs, and inching my way through a final edit of Coffee Maker. Have a meeting set up with my sound guy next week, so that'll give me a deadline to wrap this up.

And I've agreed to be the script supervisor on a short shoot by Sean Garrity next week.

Saturday, November 12, 2005

Remix

Inspired by We Are the Media's "Remixoff 2005", I have remixed the first episode of my friend Ravi Jain's vlog (video blog), Drivetime. He records his ride to work, with a guest on board every week - so far 5 episodes.

Click the image below or this link to see the remix (Quicktime - 1minute 15sec, 7MB).


I'm definitely tempted to start my own vlog to get more experience recording and editing, and just because it seems like a fun thing to do. Will of course provide a link from this space when/if that idea becomes a reality!



Friday, November 11, 2005

Back to the Editing Board

Had a great editing workshop last night at the Film Group. It became painfully clear to me that I need to try to shave off at least a minute or two from my film - maybe more. I've been away from the footage for about a week now, so I think I will be able to go back in with a little bit of perspective and do the hard work that has to be done!

But it was good to find out from the guy that my basic techniques are the same things he does - he taught me a few shortcuts, but when I asked about some buttons I've never used, he said he doesn't use them either! He did show me some cool stuff in the video filters that I might try.

It's not really a surprise that editing film should be like editing fiction or scripts. Make the broad strokes and then go back in to pare down. Just more painful in film, because I know how much work went into making each shot happen. Can see now why there are director's cuts and extra deleted scenes on DVD's!

Friday, November 04, 2005

Digital Toys

Spent the last 3 nights taking a class at Video Pool on working with digital video cameras. I was very impressed with the quality of the picture from the Sony HVR-Z1U, especially in cine mode. The HVR-A1U was fun because it was so tiny. The beauty is I don't have to buy them to use them. That's the whole point of belonging to VP.

Apparently to rent either of them, I have to prove my trustworthiness with one of the other cameras first, so I'll do that over the next few weeks, as I do want to practice some of the techniques we talked about, particularly using the iris, gain, white balance, and zebra stripes. The tricky thing is each camera is so unique and has their buttons in such different places. Not like desktop publishing software, where you can usually hunt around and find what you're looking for eventually...

Was using iMovie at work yesterday and was amused that it has so few buttons compared to Final Cut - even the Express version I've been using. I only used a handful of what was available in Final Cut - found what worked for me and kept using it. Another reason to get some more footage and play with it - force myself to experiment with some of the other editing features.