Fun Videos for Filmmakers

It's Monday... so here's a fun distraction!


Alright, alright so we've all heard of this "Sh*t [insert name here] Says" thing that's going around the internet, right? (If you haven't... where have you been?) As a short blog post today, I present to you my two favourites so far. 


First up, we have "Sh*t You Never Hear On Set", which is absolutely hilarious for anyone who has ever worked on a film set. Even if you haven't been on set before, you'll probably still find this entertaining, and a fun look at how things work (or don't work) on a working film set. 

Isn't it great? :)


Next we have "Sh*t VFX Artists Say". This is for anyone who has ever spent endless hours on computers working on VFX shots, or ever wondered what it was like to do so... I learned the joy of this last semester, when I spent many, many hours with AfterEffects layering and rotoscoping and doing all kinds of simple VFX work for my film, which starred a ghost. The experience taught me great respect for the VFX artists who do this full time... it's a lot of work!

Alright then that's all for now! I hope these videos helped lighten your Monday.


PS - Have you heard of the documentary that Matt Tingey (the director of the first video) has been working on? It's called "My Other Me: A Film About Cosplayers" - check out the trailer on Youtube: http://youtu.be/dF64evU0AZI

Vancouver: The Best Place On Earth (for Film Students)

Thoughts on the Vancouver Film Industry and Some Advice for Beginners

I’m feeling the need today to express my love for my hometown. I know so many people who have negative feelings toward their own hometowns for one reason or another (or more), but as for myself? Vancouver has really been a great place for me, and I’m now going to explain why.

For starters, I’m just going to clarify for anyone who doesn’t know, I’m talking about Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Yes, Canada. Not Vancouver, Washington or anywhere else. I mean the city that hosted the 2010 Winter Olympics; the city with a [mostly] cool Skytrain system (it’s a train! in the sky! like the Disney monorail but for mass-transit!); the city nestled between the Salish Sea (formerly Georgia Strait) and the tall coastal mountains; the city at the mouth of the mighty Fraser River; the city that’s home to beautiful Stanley Park with its towering trees; the city that is - yeah, I suppose you get the point now.

Why "Knowing" is an awful film.

Even the poster is rather awfully Photoshopped. 

I was reading through io9 today and came across this article: “In which our critic confesses to loving the end of Knowing” (http://io9.com/#!5797215/in-which-our-critic-confesses-to-loving-the-end-of-knowing). The review argues that the film isn’t great, but Nic Cage mostly makes up for it, and it attempts to make some kind of point about something but doesn’t quite get there.

Sure. I can agree with that. I’m sure there was a point buried in the nonsense that was never quite uncovered; still, I would never, ever come close to calling Knowing a good film in any way. I didn’t even like it, at all, and I’m a big sci-fi fan who is very accepting of even mediocre sci-fi, or spec-fic, or whatever. I love the genre so much I’m willing to forgive a lot and even if I recognise it’s bad, a film can still be enjoyably bad.

Not so with Knowing.

Ah, the life of a student filmmaker.

I have a confession.

I have been negligent in my blog-posting duties. I must apologise for this disgrace, and promise that I will be much better in the future!

The reason for my absence from the blog-sphere is, naturally, life as a student filmmaker. End of term hit like a freight train, with exams, papers, excessive studying, and - of course - the last few weeks of editing this year's film for SFU before the big deadline (the sound mix at Sharpe Sound) and the second big deadline, Tuesday's film screening.

But now everything is coming to an end, and suddenly I have some free time that did not exist before! My blog will prosper once more, and rest assured, I have many ideas for interesting blog posts (much more interesting than simple colour correcting, I promise - that post didn't seem to get as much attention as the Riese or Sharpe Sound ones did, and I can see why).

To begin my return to this blog, I will post a rant I wrote on my other, slightly more random, Tumblr blog (myriadthoughts). It is in response to an article I read on the very awesome website, io9.com, about the film Knowing - a train wreck of a film if ever I saw one. Surprisingly, I've discovered there is a lot of love and admiration out there for this awful film, and I felt compelled to write my own thoughts on the subject. I hope you find it entertaining!

The Awesome Magic of Colour Correcting

It’s one of those little things that I’d always taken for granted, one of a list of settings in Final Cut Pro that I had generally ignored, because I had never really seen much use for it... or rather, I had, but had not realised it was this that I needed.

Colour Corrector in Final Cut Express

What is it, exactly?

The little widget that I am now going to praise with a dedicated article is the fantastic Colour Corrector, also sometimes used as the 3-Way Colour Corrector. It is the tool that can miraculously change the image of a video from a bland colour palette to a vibrantly colourful one, or vice versa; it changes contrast, it adjusts saturation, it manipulates the image in such subtle but impactful ways - or, if you would prefer, not quite so subtle. 

I have recently discovered the joys of colour correcting, and thought I’d share.

Talking about 'Riese', and developing a project from idea to production and onward.

This week in my film class at SFU, we had Galen Fletcher, one of the producers of Riese, come talk to us about his experiences in the film industry and the evolution of Riese, as well as give us advice. His talk was compelling and very interesting, so I thought I’d share some of what we learned.

Riese & Fenrir

If you don’t know Riese, here’s a quick primer for you. Riese is a Vancouver-based, steampunk-influenced web series (created by Ryan Copple and Kaleena Kiff, produced by Galen Fletcher and Nicholas Humphries) about a wandering princess (Riese, played by Christine Chatelain) and her wolf, Fenrir, who are fighting to reclaim her throne from the Empress Amara (Sharon Taylor) and the evil Sect, who murdered her family. A number of well-known actors who often work in Vancouver have roles in the show as well, such as Sanctuary’s Ryan Robbins and Emilie Ullerup, Smallville’s Allison Mack, SGU’s Patrick Gilmore and of course Amanda Tapping, who lends her voice as the Narrator. There are currently ten episodes, each about ten minutes in length, and the entire series is divided into two “chapters”. Picked up by the SyFy channel in the U.S., the episodes debuted online in October; in Canada, the series has begun showing on the Space Channel website (www.spacecast.com) and will be broadcast as a TV movie on Space within a few weeks (when I have an exact date, I’ll update this). 

Adventures in ADR

Often when making a film, you reach a point in your editing process where you realise that some fixing needs to be done. Sometimes that fixing relates directly to the image, and other times it is the sound. You then have several options: re-shoots (which can be costly and impractical), manipulation in the computer, or, for sound, you can do ADR.

An Enlightening Tour of Sharpe Sound Studios

This week, I had the great opportunity to visit Sharpe Sound Studios in North Vancouver, BC with my film class from SFU. According to the website, it is “Western Canada’s Premiere Audio Posting Experience”, and one of the best sound studios in North America. After the tour, I have no doubt that this is true; the tour was so awesome, I just had to take it twice!

The best books on screenwriting I have ever read.

I have always been a writer.

For as long as I can remember, I've wanted to tell stories; in kindergarten, I drew "picture books" since I didn't quite have the vocabulary necessary to write the words I wanted. By grade two, I was well on my way to writing chapter books; I finished one novel by the beginning of grade seven (which now I read and think it is absolutely atrocious and would die of embarrassment if ever anyone else read it), and in the summer between grade nine and grade ten, I finished a second, much larger novel (nearly 400 000 words at last count, currently into its eighth round of revisions and re-writes - what can I say? I'm a perfectionist). 

However, it is filmmaking that is my greatest passion, and I want to be able to write good screenplays. There are significant differences between novels and screenplays, as I'm sure is obvious, and for some time I had been at a loss as to how to properly go about translating the stories in my mind to script form. 

Then one day, I found a book.

AGORA: stunning, intellectually and emotionally profound tragedy of intolerance.

I can’t stop thinking about this film. Apparently, many people online cannot either, and I feel a need to respond to the things I’ve read and make my own opinion known.