Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog.

A couple of weeks ago, Joss Whedon released his superhero musical "Dr Horrible's Sing A Long Blog" on the internet. The 45 minute show (actually three 15 minute episodes) was notable for a number of reasons.



1. It's high quality content. Maybe not to the standard of Whedon's work for movies and TV, but certainly stronger than a lot of online content. While it makes reference to it's online status (i.e. the self conscious to camera video blogologues), it could probably be shown on TV without noticing the low budget too much, though it's very obviously shot on an unused and underpopulated LA studio backlot.

2. It doesn't fit the expected webvideo formula. It's long for a short film. (received net wisdom, your video should be 5 minutes or less, ten if you've got REALLY compelling content).

3. It's a hit. This is helped by the fact that Whedon has a peculiarly big and supportive fanbase (for a TV writer/producer). It;'s not clear how many people have watched the show so far but the numbers in are that it's being watched by millions. there are already paid for downloads and there will soon be a DVD available and even if it sells only tens of thousands, Whedon will recoup his small (low six figures of below six figures, depending where you read) investment.

4. It's by Hollywood pros but it's an independent production. Whedon paid for it himself. This is not a studio or production company side project, a la Quarterlife or the All For Nots, and it's not some small wannabes using the 'net to break into the mainstream Lonelygirl15 or Four Eye's Monsters style (or say someone trying to forge a presence from the ground up in the new medium, like Ze Frank. It's also not some faded star propping up his career in the new medium (e.g. Weird Al Yankovic), This is the writer producer of Buffy, with a new TV show due out in the autumn.

The most interesting thing is that Whedon felt able to go directly to the internet as a distribution source. While in the past

Originally it was streamed for free for just a few days before being released on iTunes. Subsequently it has been released on Hulu again with adverts, apparently, though they're not appearing on my stream, maybe ads are US only. The Hulu time is stretching, first they said a week, now four months.

Anyway this project could open up for more adventurous projects on the 'net. While we're way past the point where studios, producers and creators take the internet as a platform seriously (after all that's what the WGA strike was about this year) but not audiences, beyond porn and virals. This is the show that could change that.

HDV indies: - In search of a Midnight Kiss

Having sullied this blog in a recent post with a mention of a Jason [spit] Statham movie, I'll attempt to claw back some indie cred by flagging up a proper low budget HDV independent movie currently doing the rounds - In Search of a Midnight Kiss is currently released in cinemas and is still doing the rounds in the regions. According the the IMDB it was shot on the Sony HVR Z1.

If you can't handle the full ninety minutes of romantic slacker quirkiness (yup it's THAT kind of indie movie) than you can at least have a look at the trailer (up to 1080p!) on the Apple Movie trailers site.

Big Budget HDV filmmaking.

Another feature film is being shot with standard prosumer HDV cameras: The sequel to the 2006 action thriller Crank is being shot right now Canon XH A1 camcorders. The first Crank was shot on HDCAM Sony F950s, and the co-directors have recently completed a movie using the Red One camera system. Unlike previous HDV movies, like Searchers 2.0 or Once, which were low budget, independent productions that used HDV cameras for budgetary reasons, Crank: High Voltage is choosing the system for aesthetic reasons.

The point was not trying to emulate film: says co-director Brian Taylor, "[...] This is an A.D.D. movie, so we should have A.D.D. cameras. So, you know the idea of moving the camera in outrageous ways and being able to destroy cameras without blinking an eye is more important to us than, you know, sort of having this filmic image."

More info here: www.collider.com

Found via freshDV.com

Celtx reaches "1.0"

Celtx Software is a widely used freeware screenplay formatting/pre-production suite of programs that independent filmmakers might like to have a look at.

It's been around a while but has finally made it to release 1.0 status. I've used it on and off since it was first making a name for itself. It's useful but annoyingly (at least until recent versions) shies away from following industry formats in favour of its own "Our web-aware ways are better" (e.g. for breakdown sheets) approaches which makes it difficult to use if you've been brought up with other systems. It's also built around models that work well on computer screens and not so well when printed out on aper (and even low budget productions get through enough paper to account for entire acres of your average forest).

To this end, they've introduced tighter iPod integration (gee, thanks, just what I was waiting for). I'd have to see if the screenplay formatting and script import/export is as buggy as it used to be. I seem to remember a lot of fighting to get slug lines and dialogue to format properly that I wouldn't have with, say, MS word and a bunch of macros. However it is a very useful tool if you're prepared to abandon some of your Ralph S. Singleton ordained habits. If I have time I'll play around with it and and try a review.

If you have Microsoft Excel, I can also recommend you have a look at the (not free but cheap) filmmaker software package for budgeting and scheduling (areas that Celtx has been weaker on in the past)

Searchers 2.0

Alex Cox's HDV western, mentioned in an earlier post, will be broadcast in the UK on Monday 16th of June on BBC4 at 10pm. The movie was shot with Sony Z1s in 1080i mode and premiered at the 2007 Venice Film Festival.

Alex Cox has apparently recorded a special "Moviedrome" style intro for the film, as well as for some other classic westerns showing this weekend.

Demystifying camera specs,view in online flash

FreshDV has been given permission to host the Panavision/Canon talk I mentioned earlier. The films are lower (but still good) inline flash movies you can easily watch in your browser. Some of the detail if the powerpoint presentations is lost but it's still worth a look

 Watch online here. The first five videos are online, the next two to follow later this week.

Walter Murch on editing, continued.

The final parts of the Walter Murch interview I featured before are now online. Murch continues to discusses his move from film to NLE editing, particularly his early experience with Avid systems, to his decisions to move from the industry standard Avid, to adopt Final Cut Pro for all his films so far since Cold Mountain (his next film, he maintains, will be edited on FCP).

Part 4

Part 5

Open Cut 1.0

Maybe you've heard about the infamous Red One camera. If you fancy getting you hands on some Red One footage to edit, you can enter the opencut editing competition. They're presenting it as an "open source: film project. Basically the winning cut gets to be the official version to the world and the winners will be listed as the official editors. They've released it under the non commercial share-alike attribution version of the creative common's licence, so intheory once you find out everyone who helped make the film you could convievavbly re-edit it and send it out yourself.

Sign up, (registration is $25) and send the organisers a 160GB hard drive and they'll send you back  the footage in 4K HD. You'll need Final Cut Pro 6.0.3 (no other editing system is Red compatible at the moment) and a pretty powerful computer to edit it on.

Demystifying Digital Camera Specifications

Found this via Mike curtis' new Pro Video Coalition blog. It's a presentation given by Larry Thorpe of Canon and John Galt of Panavision (the direct link to part one is here) and a lot of the terms regarding digital imaging technology and what this all means. The big sentiment of the talk seems to be to debunk the idea that a camera's pixel resolution equals its imaging resolution.

Beware the download is a monster, It's been broken down into seven chapters, you can get each in 480p. 720p or 1080p but the server doesn't seem to be very fast. It would have been nice if Panavision could have release these clip's on Bittorrent so those interested could grab the movies from peer to peer and watch at their leisure.

It's actually a great primer on image and optics and how video imaging video systems work, so worth the work of getting it down, especially for ANYONE interested in cinematography.

Feature film making in HDV

ALex cox's latest film Searchers 2.0 is a comedy road movie, with nods and references (as usual with Cox) to Hollywood's past, especially westerns. It was filmed in Monument valley, but most interestingly was made in 50i HDV on a sony Z1.

The budget for the film was a measly $175,000 (less than £100,000) but this was a fully professional production, with veteran DOP Steve Fierberg head of the camera department, in a production that was backed by the BBC and low budget legend Roger Corman, and produced Robocop/Starship Troopers producer Jon Davison.

An interview at DV.com with Fierberg and gets the lowdown on why the Z1 was chosen over other more glamorous cams like the JVCs and Canons, and how the Z1 performed (quite well, apparently to the DP's surprise). One useful tip, to judge exposure, Fierberg set the zebra stripes to 105% and then tried to get everything under that, skies were darkened with a polarising filter and the final show was colour corrected in Avid Nitris. Cox also spills some of the beans on the production in an interview on his own website. He also talks about the production on his blog, though there are no links to the relevant articles, so you have to scroll down articles around mid 2006 and ending about 2007 for the relevant entries. One encouraging quote on the film's 2007 Venice Film Festival showing, "The screen is huge, and our film - shot on my funky Z-1 video camera - is in perfect focus, and the film sounds ten times better in the larger space."

Fierberg has also written about the film in the April 2008 edition of American Cinematographer, though the article is not available online.

The BBC will broadcast the movie this June, as it's a BBC co-production, hopefully it will also be available online via the iPlayer.

Another feature shot on the Z1 in 50i was the Irish low budget (€100,000) hit Once.

Walter Murch on the History of Editing

A fascinating interview: apparently, film editing was invented in Brighton, and non-linear hard disc based computer editing was in use in 1969!

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

I love the sound of his still image gallery database, a frame selected from every set up taken in the film, and then printed out, while also stored in a database and cross referenced to other edit log notes (you can see this in use in the documentary The Cutting Edge.) Someone needs to add this feature to Final Cut Pro or Avid, and SOON! How about a tool that allows you to output poster frames from QuickTime to iPhoto (soon to be on PC too), where you could then send them off to be printed by your local photo developing company of choice.

Extreme Indie Small Crew Filmmaking.

Two stories here about some low budget feature films with one-person crews. The first is on new animated Sita Sings The Blues, a strange blend of 20's American Blues and Hindu mythology. The 80 minute long film was animated entirely by one artist, also the writer , producer and director Nina Paley. After six years of production, for a budget of $200,000, the film received its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. The film was made mostly in flash with some hand painted images scanned an animated in After Effects. The project started on a lowly Powerbook Laptop, but was finished (in HD) on a Intel Mac Pro (story via www.wired.com).

While obvious it is a tremendous achievement to design and animated a feature length film on your own. Sita is made with the necessary support of voice actors, a sound designer and a composer. The Lone Filmmaker on the other hand is trying to make a film entirely on his own: writing, acting, directing, costume design, makeup, cinematography, editing, composing. While one can't doubt the commitment and enthusiasm of the filmmaker, Robert Hindle, this seems a pretty cart-before-the-horse project.



Inspired by the video-blogging success of Four Eyed Monsters, the gimmick of a true one man feature is designed to garner attention on Youtube rather than produce a really great film. (also, one would think it advisable to make a normal film first before embarking on this extreme sports filmmaking style project). Four Eyed Monsters started as a film and became a blog about distributing the film. It seems the films that his girlfriend is making about him are the starting point for this project (Some have already hinted at a Lonelygirl15 style fakery). Unfortunately his audience in the regard is dropping off. After getting around 400,000 views for his inaugural video post, his subsequent video views have dropped to around 15,000-30,000 per video.

That said there is a lot of useful info buried in these blogs for those not on such a low budget, low manpower project (like what insurance cover you can get), though it often is swamped out by some rather cringey LG15 style goofing around with his girlfriend.

Previous Single Handed (or as-near-as) productions of note are the very professionally produced Lisa Gerrard documentary Sanctuary and the truly bizarre experimental animation We Are The Strange. by M.Dot.Strange.