11 FILM INFLUENCES - BORROWING FROM THE BEST!

Lets talk influences. The films you see shape in many ways what your visuals (as a Director and DP) look like. What your "style" will be. Its a great school in many ways...

Most of the truly great directors learn from the past and "borrow" from the styles, camera angles, editing choices, etc, of great films.

Certain films from my past have shaped my style of shooting and actually saved me in times of trouble on a set. I can always go to my "mind" bag of tricks, tricks I learned from these films.

I could name the usual suspects, the classic films everyone knows, "Jaws", "The Shining", "The Godfather"...but no...I always tended to explore and look for more obscure films.

Give these a try, you won't regret it!

ALTERED STATES (1980) Ken Russell

This one blew my mind and still does. Great editing and use of simple but killer visuals to portrait "hallucinations" on screen. Plus it introduced William Hurt as a force in Hollywood.

A great example of intelligent Science Fiction.

DON'T LOOK NOW (1973) Nicolas Roeg

A fantastic film that uses "color" as a symbol of tragic things to come. In this case, the RED coat on a little girl. Great use of locations (Venice) and a great script.

DOCTOR ZHIVAGO (1965) David Lean

If you want to learn to frame for 2:35 aspect ratio, this one is one of those to see. Plus beautiful lighting all around. I could also mention "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Bridge over River Kwai" from the same director, but this one did it for me.

BLOW OUT (1981) Brian De Palma

When it comes to set pieces, framing and blocking, Brian is one of the few masters. You could see most of his films in MUTE, because the imagery is so expressive...it tells the story perfectly.

This one has excellent examples of widescreen framing and the use of silence in a scene. Watch also "Carrie" and "Dressed to Kill" by the same director.

VIDEODROME (1983) David Cronenberg

David always tells dark and twisted stories, like this one. He likes to use the same 50 mm lens most of the time. Everyone of his films has that one visual that stays with you, just like Kubrick...there is always amazing ideas at play, no matter the budget. Watch his entire filmography!

SUSPIRIA (1977) Dario Argento

The film that basically taught me to use color in film. A masterpiece of operatic horror, Italian style. An example of the "bigness" one can achieve by knowing how to use the 2:35 aspect ratio canvas. A must watch.

DEAD CALM (1989) Phillip Noyce

3 characters and a boat, and lots of thrills. This one, just like "12 Angry Men" by Sidney Lumet and "Lifeboat" by Hitchcock, taught me tricks on how to keep things interesting visually with few props, only a few characters and ONE location. Phillip Noyce, just like another great Australian Director, George Miller, knew how to make things low budget look huge.

SATYRICON (1969) Fellini

Only Fellini can make films like this. Symbolism everywhere, insane ideas a studio would never touch today. This film blew me the hell away, its a little twisted and very "Italian". Fellini was always creating a world of dreams and ideas, this is the perfect example of that.

LETS SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH (1973)

This is a gem. A ZERO budget wonder that I only saw a few years ago. An eerie atmosphere is created very simply and great performances by an unknown cast elevate this to a new level.

For fans of slow and evolving terror and not the current crap-fest we call "horror".

EXCALIBUR (1980) John Boorman

John Boorman is a "maestro" of framing. His films always look amazing, cinematic. The use of production design, costumes and framing in this is still awesome. THIS is a film I always borrow from. But also from him, watch "Hell in the Pacific" and "Deliverance".

MAGIC (1978) Richard Attenborough

This one is a great example of pacing, atmosphere and cutting between actors during a scene with 2 characters, one of them being a puppet!

Anthony Hopkins gives another magnificent performance. This freaked me out as a child.

Not perfect, but still a must see.

Feel free to COMMENT below and name key films that have affected you and REMEMBER:

TRY DIFFERENT THINGS, OLDER FILMS ARE A GREAT SOURCE OF IDEAS AND YOU MIGHT BE SHOCKED TO FIND SOME AMAZING THINGS.

AS A FILMMAKER, DON'T JUST WATCH WHAT JUST CAME OUT, GO OUT AND DIG AROUND AND FIND THE GEMS THAT WILL HELP YOU IN YOUR CAREER.

Jose!

Did Twitter Kill Bruno?

After Bruno's opening day on Friday of $14 million, how could the movie just end up with $30.4 million for the whole weekend? That's not nearly enough to cover all the lawsuits filed against Sasha Baron Cohen.

According to Richard Corliss at TIME, “‘Bruno’s box-office decline from Friday to Saturday indicates that the film’s brand of outrage was not the sort to please most moviegoers - and that their tut-tutting got around fast. Bruno could be the first movie defeated by the Twitter effect.”

Based on word of mouth, Twitter in particular, has been providing audiences with instant and quick reviews of films from friends or other trusted sources. All that translates into box office dollars.

So if you guys thought Twitter was just about telling your friends you're eating a hamburger, think again. Twitter, Facebook, MySpace & LinkedIn can also be thought of as money, big money. It can make or break a Hollywood film at the box office even with a huge advertising budget.

Or it can make your independent film go to places that it would normally never reach. It's an exciting time for independent filmmakers.

You CAN make a movie and you can make money off it too. See how we do.
Follow our tweets.

The 2009 Florida Film Incentive is doubled by Charlie Crist to 10.8 million

Attention Florida Filmmakers! Now is the time to cash in on your movies. Beginning July 1, 2009 and ending June 30, 2010 you are able to get cash back for film & television projects that shoot here in Florida.

This year, 10.8 million dollars are up for grabs. That number is double last year's 5 million. It's clear that Crist wants to boost the local entertainment business by trying to attract filmmakers from all over to shoot in our beautiful state.

Here's a quick view of what rebates are offered with various budgets:

1. General Production- TV, Commercials and Music Videos
$625,000+
Eligible for 15 - 22% Cash Rebate

2. General Production - Multiple Commercials and Music Videos
$500,000+ combined / $100,000+ per production
Eligible for 15 - 20% Cash Rebate

3. Independent Florida Filmmaker
Indie Florida Feature Films or Documentaries 70 minutes or longer
$100,000 - $625,000
Eligible for 15 - 17% Cash Rebate

4. Digital Media Projects/Interactive Entertainment
$300,000 or more
Eligible for 10% Cash Rebate

Florida’s incentive is a cold hard cash reimbursement. The producer will receive a check for the full amount listed. You have 180 days to start principal photography after your application date.

For more info on submitting an application visit: Film Florida

5 Tips for Making your Micro Budget HD projects Look Like Film

Here are a few tips, if I may and if you are interested, for making your micro budget projects look a little bigger, or at least very close to the film format. I know its very generic, but these are just general tips:

1) D.O.F
Shallow depth of field, shallow depth of field!, even if you are a fan of deep focus, when shooting digital shallow depth of field is a way to make actors pop more on screen, to direct the audience's eyes towards them and it simply looks very cinematic.

-Try to shoot with your iris WIDE OPEN
-SEPARATE talent from backgrounds (walls, set).
-use longer lenses, it helps.

You'll discover that the lens your camera has is more than enough. I see kids getting all these extra lenses, for what?, you want a 50mm?, then move back 10 feet and zoom in some more. yes, the D.O.F in digital is a tad different than a real film lens but its really very close.

2) 24 frames per second is truly 24 frames per second if your SHUTTER IS RUNNING AT 1/48th of a second!!!!!!!!!!!!!.
Most digital cameras need to have the shutter placed at 1/48th of a second!!!!!!!!!!!. that's the aproximate amount of time the film gate/ shutter stays open when the negative gets exposed at 24fps on a film cameras...

yes! HD is motion picture, pictures ARE moving, you want to avoid the cheesy motion "blur" that you see in digital?, want this thing to look like film?, then switch shutter to 1/48 second.

3) Lighting, lighting lighting. I don't mean expensive gear....most indies can only afford a crappy light kit or work lights ,,,THEN start directing the lights the right way. If the light source comes from where the camera is, then its going to be FLAT!, what you see most of the time is what you get. Light as things look in real life.

-If you are outside, don't let SUN LIGHT fall on actor's faces frontally, place the actors so the sun is backlighting them.

-Windows are great, they can be the main source of light, no need to fill anything.

-I remember a group of filmmakers blasting a living room set with tons of light, it looked like a freaking Alien Abduction, I asked..."does a living room look this bright during the day?"...that's all it took. LIGHT FOR REALITY, AS THINGS LOOK IN REAL LIFE, WHAT YOU SEE MOST OF THE TIME IS WHAT YOU GET.

4) I've said this so many times I am sick of it....
WATCH OLDER FILMS, WATCH OLDER FILMS, YES, THEY ARE NOT BORING, YES WATCH STUFF THAT HAPPENED BEFORE 1995, YES THEY ARE NOT BORING, BE DARING, DISCOVER STUFF. WHAT IS THE ONE THING THAT MOST AMAZING DIRECTORS HAVE IN COMMON???? (drum roll please...)....THEIR SENSE OF HISTORY AND A HUGE BAG OF TRICKS THAT THEY TOOK FROM OLDER FILMS!!!!!!!!

CRAP IN= CRAP OUT
you are what you consume, vary your diet of films. It will help you be at least a productive filmmaker.

5) here is a silly one....if you are shooting in 16x9, try cropping the frame to 2:35/1 aspect ratio. its better ( at least for me), to frame with a rectangle than a square. Also, it adds a sense of "bigness" to the whole thing...



I am not a god at what I do, but I am more than capable in a pinch to provide a Director or Producer with a lovely, right for the moment - shot or image....and this is because of little silly tips like the ones above.

Anyway, these are simple thoughts, I'll add some more later on.

Film/HD

I have been watching some amazing indie film clips on YOUTUBE and VIMEO, truly cool stuff. I congratulate these fellow filmmakers, they are out there doing it, and that is a wonderful thing....

Sometimes, because of budget problems, or simply because some camera people are just too eager to shoot without studying a bit of the cinematography craft ( no problem there, I was the same), the imagery suffers and the project truly looks low budget.

First of all, right off the bat, lets clear the myth. yes film is a better format, but HD can compete and sometimes even look better (yes, I've done it). I am a film guy and for most of my career film has been my bread and butter.. BUT its time to RESPECT BOTH formats, be open minded and start shooting, no matter the format.

Film and HD are B O T H great, most of the time HD stuff looks crappy because the operator IS crappy.

THE CAMERA IS NOT THE THING, THE PERSON BEHIND THE CAMERA IS THE MAIN THING. JUST BECAUSE YOU HAVE A CAMERA DOESN'T MAKE YOU A CINEMATOGRAPHER, YOU HAVE TO LEARN THE CRAFT!

I keep hearing things like " I got the RED camera and stuff like that"...The RED ain't going to make your project "pretty", YOU ARE.

So go and study the craft, be a true Director, DP or Editor, or whatever, study the craft.

It is an awesome time to be a filmmaker!!!!!!!

ME and FILM

Just finishing up a long day promoting the last film, SECOND COMING. At this point I have to go back to THE SACRED, the new film...

What a pain in the behind my friends....

I am humbled by the experience of making a film. Years ago, when I was riding high as a DP, I always made fun and looked down at producers and sometimes at Directors. "they don't know what they are doing...", "Oh, this is amateur hour"...I used to say.

I really didn't know how hard it was for those people to get to that moment where I was, to get the machine started, to get the funding, to pre-produce it, to carry the project to the very end.

I, as the cameraman, shot the thing and left at the end of the day with a fat paycheck....I didn't know about the sacrifice these people, these crazy people had to do. Well now I know. Now that I have decided to create films myself, now I know how insane but in the end extremely amazing making films is.

And it doesn't end with the year long battle of getting it finished, its just the beginning, its just phase ONE.

Then you have the DELIVERABLES..., the dreaded deliverables, the place that most filmmakers forget to think about during budget time, the place where you will bleed most of your budget sometimes.

This involves the master of the film, both in 16x9 and 4x3, trailers also in various formats, sound mix in various formats, all of it, Also each element has to go through a lab where they do a "quality control" check or QC. Each QC is like $700 and the almost 15 to 25 elements you have to turn in have to have a QC...

If you don't do this, you don't get distributed..., then you have the insurance (what they call E&O insurance), which is like $10,000. But wait...we haven't even dealt with finding a distributor!!!

That takes weeks and lots of cash preparing quality screeners, complete with artwork, dealing with bull shit from people who want your film and want to screw you at the same time...

I realize I am not gay ( not that there is anything wrong with that), because I have been screwed in my behind so many times and I still get no pleasure out of it!

In short, its a pain in the culo.

All of it so in the end some punk ass kid with a website, no clue about filmmaking, no history (for most of these creatures anything before 1995 is old and boring), and no university degree, calling himself a CRITIC reviews your film and sometimes you get lucky and you get a good review, sometimes not.

BUT in the end, its the audience. We filmmakers, just like most artists, want to be loved, and want to leave something behind.

I enjoy the process, I love filmmaking like my first love, Music. I cannot imagine doing anything else.

I've sacrificed love, relationships, friendships, so much...for this, this crazy thing, this insane dream, and you know what?...I don't care, I LOVE IT. I realize I am lucky to know what I want...so many of us don't know this, so I am blessed. And I am lucky to have realized my dream of shooting with the best (sometimes with the worst). I dreamed it as a kid and I went out and freaking did it.

Creating an image, seeing an actor take one of your lines to amazing places, creating something out of nothing will always be a blessing, a privilege and the most kick ass thing I've ever done.