Low/no budget filmmaker blogs daily on subjects like video production, HD cameras, screenwriting, etc.
I must admit I’m a bit obsessive at times. This time it’s Bear Grylls’ Man vs Wild show that’s aired on the Discovery channel.
Check out this bit from a survival episode in the Alps. He jumps into a frozen lake to demonstrate how to survive if you ever get into one.
Now, talking about indie moviemaking (and documentary-making), this is one talent you’ll need to develop - getting a cold shower every so often. Think about what it takes HIM to do a half-hour show.
Apparently, the much anticipated (not!) premiere of Postal, has made Uwe even more beligerent. An unfavorable review by Wired had him sent this email to the reviewer Chris Kohler (read the whole drama here)
chris
your review shows me only that you dont understand anything about movies and that you are a untalented wanna bee filmmaker with no balls and no understanding what POSTAL is. you dont see courage because you are nothing. and no go to your mum and fuck her …because she cooks for you now since 30 years ..so she deserves it.
people like you are the reason that independent movies have no chance anymore.
uwe boll
PS: POSTAL is R RATED . The MPAA understood the satire — you not — you dumb fuck
In a totally unrelated story, Uwe Boll has gone to Blizzard with an offer to purchase the movie rights for a World of Warcraft movie (source: WoW Insider).
Uwe himself quoted Blizzard’s response: “We will not sell the movie rights, not to you…. especially not to you.”
I wonder if Uwe had the brains to ask for the Diablo movie rights? Blizzard have just announced Diablo 3 (btw, you can download Diablo 2 cd keys), so maybe that’s why they don’t Uwe to spoil it for them.
There’s an improvised trailer from the upcoming Rambo 4 (officially John Rambo). It’s not an official Rambo trailer but I think it’s worth your 2 minutes.
Most of the Rambo fans who’ve seen it are raving about it. After all, it has the right mix of improvised weapons, blood & gore, and of course Sly Stalone! With the production over, the movie should be out by Christmas.
I like Lars von Trier’s new direction. The movie is a closer to The Idiots than Dogville, and I liked The Idiots a lot.
The premise of the movie is also close to my heart: the IT industry and how a potential acquisition can sour relations. The plot is straight-forward:
The owner of an IT company wishes to sell it. But, for years, he has pretended that the real boss lives in America and communicates with the staff only by e-mail. That way, all the unpopular decisions can be attributed to the absentee manager, while all the popular ones to him directly.
But now, the prospective buyer insists on meeting the big boss in person. In a panic, the owner hires a failed, over-intellectualizing actor to portray him, and the actor proceeds to improvise all his lines, to the consternation of both the buyer and the company staff, who finally get to meet their ghostly boss.
I’ve never seen any of the actors before, with one notable difference - Iben Hjejle. The acting is OK, granted you have Dogme sensibilities. I especially loved the two guys from “Iceland” who were a perfect match of ice and fire. Excellent performance from the lead character as well.
A few observations that really question Lars’s “growth” since the Dogme days. First, the narration attracts attention to the director, while Dogme postulated that the director should remain uncredited. Second, I couldn’t escape the feeling that some of the random compositions - sometime cutting faces in half - were done on purpose, to mock this style of “indie” shooting.
Lars never claimed he would stick to Dogme. In fact, this movie “patented” a new mathematical formula and a process he called Automavision. Here’s what he means by that:
This entails choosing the best possible fixed camera position and then allowing a computer to choose when to tilt, pan or zoom. “For a long time, my films have been handheld,” he explains. “That has to do with the fact that I am a control freak. With Automavision, the technique was that I would frame the picture first and then push a button on the computer. I was not in control - the computer was in control.”
I think THAT explains the erratic camera motions. Anyway, if you have a chance to see the movie, go and check it out, especially if you’re IT!
Rocky Balboa is out in high definition Blu-ray.
Rocky’s last installment (Rocky Balboa review) is “just” $38.95 at Amazon. The video itself is encoded at 1080p/AVC MPEG-4.
On the down side, there’s no “exclusive” content on disc.
Personally, I’m not that big of a fan of Rocky, so I’m not going to shell 40 bucks on it.
If I’m going to watch something on HD, it better have more “cinematic” qualities.
According to a post at the Long Tail, it would seem that Hollywood is doing its best to hide the fact that blockbusters are few and far in between.
I first posted about Hollywood’s plans to produce fewer movies last year. Now it seems they’ll also be massaging the numbers as well.
According to post (a reader who requested anonymity said):
I happened to be riding to work with an exec from one of the major studios this morning, and he mentioned that the studios are increasingly making deals with theaters to inflate opening numbers. In particular, they will give the theaters very high revenue share for the first X days of the movie (he mentioned 100% for the first 3 days), incentivizing the theater to maximize the number of screens the movie’s shown on, inflating opening numbers.
The particular example of Superman and Pirates were actually the ones he brought up - that Superman’s decline was partially due to the theathers’ incentive period running out.
I have no idea how true or prevalent this is, but something you might want to look into. This would be done for movies which the studio considers potential “hits”, increasing discrepancy between them and normal movies.
Funny, I don’t think I heard Bryan Singer mention it in his Superman interview.
I’m still hopeful that the explosion of user-generated content will severely erode the blockbuster’s share of the pie. Remains to be seen if Google Video will finally launch their marketplace for indie producers.
A friend of mine recommended The Devil’s Miner and I definitely plan to see it. It’s a documentary about Basilio Vargas, a Bolivian child miner. It’s like a cross between citizen journalism and gonzo journalism. Kief Davidson, director, says:
The challenge for THE DEVIL’S MINER was finding a young boy who could carry and narrate a feature-length film. We hired a former miner and local guide who introduced us to a dozen families. The Vargas family was the first on his list and we were immediately captivated with Basilio’s positive energy, intelligence and articulate speech.
From a filmmaker’s perspective, there were some important technical challenges like lighting and cameras. I’m still trying to figure out from the photo if they are using an HD cam or not. It looks like a Sony FX1 with some accessories :
In the claustrophobic tunnels, we shot with a small-format digital camera. Anything larger would have been impossible. The miners’ open-flame carbon lamps were used as the main source of lighting…
You can visit The Devil’s Miner official site where there’s a trailer and plenty of information about the documenary. You can also order the DVD.
With DVD sales flattening, Variety re-examines the big studios. Most of the executives interviewed requested to remain anonymous, a clear sign it’s time to face some unpleasant realities.
DVD sales have been the engine for studio growth in the last 5 years but in the last 12 months the DVD market is flattening. There’s some new distribution channels on the horizon: like Sony’s Blu-Ray DVD (or Toshiba’s alternative HD-DVD) and even the new video iPod (limited to tv series or ipod torrents). These new markets are not mature enough however to compensate the overall decrease in revenues.
Although the major studios are facing different problems, the majority of studio executives agreed on several points:
In terms of the mid-budget movies, Variety quotes a COO at a major studio:
If you look at the $40 million to $70 million budget film, they are so difficult. They rarely have top box office stars, and they’re such risky territory because you have to spend $25 million on P&A, so it’s a huge investment. It’s really hard to get that back.
It’s still debatable if this spells GOOD news for indie producers. If the market continues to contract in the next year, studios might need to find ways to market smaller and cheaper movies. They could plagiarize the NASA motto: faster, better, cheaper.
A few examples that Hollywood could take to heart: Russian-made The Return (Возвращение) was produced for under $500,000 and made over ten times that. Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation also resulted in 1:10 ratio: a budget of just $4M resulted in revenues in excess of $40M internationally. Of course, a profit of a few million can’t plug in the holes made by a disaster like Zathura…
The official selection for the 2006 Sundance Film Festival is now public. There are 64 feature films in four categories. A total of 120 films will be shown at the festvial, 48 of those are done by first-time filmmakers.
What amazes me is the the competition. Indie producers should take note - there were 3,148 entries this year which is about TWICE the number form last year. I’m listing the movies by in the Dramatic category:
Dramatic (USA)
Dramatic (Intl)
Enjoy! I know I will… despite Sundance not being that indie anymore. If it’s good cinema, I don’t care if it’s indie or not.
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