Archive for the ‘film’ Category

Blockbuster Movies Without Visual Effects

Friday, March 8th, 2013

Before VFX: Blockbuster movies without visual effects.  The site at the following link has a collection of of behind-the-scenes photos prior to visual effects, hence revealing green screen etc. shots, actors festooned with CGI motion-tracking rigs etc.

Discovered via NoFilmSchool, which I subscribe to and heartily recommend for makers and enthusiasts of movies and videos etc.

It even has some shots from John Carter, in which I was a film Extra, though sadly none of “my” scenes.   I wish I could re-cut it, not only for my bits 🙂  but also to allow its climate catastrophe message to be more dramatically expressed, some of the “cutting-floor” scenes were truly emotional.  Regardless,  “all the world’s a stage” 🙁

Movie Recommendation: Southland Tales

Tuesday, December 6th, 2011

Movie recommended to me (haven’t seen it yet):

This is a dark-sci-fi (good, I like those) with observations on the post-catastrophe balance between security and freedom/rights.  The cast involves numerous famous actors, encouraged into roles beyond their normal types.

The film was drawn to my attention by someone (Matthew Roberts) with whom I was discussing the process of movie critical/constructive feedback and consequent reworking.  Apparently the above movie was a case in point:   An early (and unripe) version of it was initially screened in Cannes, resulting in some negative feedback but also support.

The moral of this story (about that film):  feedback can be priceless.  The consequent partial re- write/shoot/edit of that film, subsequently released on DVD, arguably elevated it to “one you have to see”.  Thanks Matt, I’ll check it out.

Training: Den Lennie’s “Music Video” Experience

Thursday, October 27th, 2011

I attended, working on one of the camera units.  Had a great time, learnt lots, at all sorts of levels.  Even how to make good use of the Movie Slate application on my iPhone!  Link: http://www.fstopacademy.com/

Avid Film Scribe

Sunday, August 14th, 2011

Avid Film Scribe generates Cut Lists and Change Lists (used in transfer from video edit to film edit) in more contemporary formats than EDL, e.g. XML formats involved in VFX / DPX workflows (? I am on very unfamiliar ground here ?).  It can generate such formats from a Sequence and also it can be used to translate between some formats.

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