BackPack Film School™ an open forum for low-budget and no-budget digital filmmakers

Digital Filmmaking: An Introduction is undoubtedly the best 101 textbook covering all the basics of making DV and HD movies. I confess to being prejudiced. I coauthored some other books on the subject with Pete Shaner. He wrote this one on his own, taking everything we did to the next level, and although I commented on the manuscript in draft, this one is entirely his show. The book is full of rules to live by, which, taken together, I call Shaner Doctrine. The paramount rule is to have a reason for everything you do. Since the director’s job is primarily to be a decision maker, you’ll go a long way if you learn to challenge your reasons. If you don’t have a plan, if you don’t have a rationale or a theme or a skill set or a clue – it will show up in one way or another on the screen or in the track.

There’s a companion DVD with the book. It’s better than any number of lectures and only slightly less useful than a hands-on tutorial with Shaner himself. Also, the example movies and lesson clips reinforce the book’s chapters and teaching points. Particularly noteworthy as instruction – for lighting design, see “Hollywood Lighting Exposed,” for cinematography “Alan Smithee’s Hollywood Tips,” and for sound design and production, “Microphone Demo.”

Mercury plans to release other books in this instructional digital filmmaking series. Shaner is the series editor, as well, so watch for those and expect miracles on the screen!

[Cross-posted on Goodreads.com]

In the jargon of Hollywood, a “backdoor pilot” is an indie short that gets picked up as the concept for a TV series. These days, any YouTube entertainment submission with enough clicks will draw attention. But although access to digital distribution is easier and cheaper than ever, so is competition in the marketplace of ideas that much greater. Indie filmmakers who have made the effort now know what thousands upon thousands of garage bands have known for years – you either hype yourself or you die of obscurity.

Short Film Distribution by Backpack blog contributor Jason Moore is a just-released guidebook for what to do after you get your genius idea in the can. It comes with a DVD that’s worth the price of admission.

When a colleague said you can change focus after the shot, I assumed this technique was like HDR on my iPhone 4, consolidating multiple conventional exposures. But the Lytro technology appears to be a whole lot more, a potentially disruptive development.

Someone on the Independent Writers of Southern California (IWOSC) Yahoo Group asked today about how to handle cover art for ebooks. Here is my (cross-posted) reply:

For Amazon as well as for Bowker ISBN listings, you must upload RGB color Web-resolution cover art that will be shown on catalog pages. (Remember you should have a different ISBN for the ebook version.) It is also permissible, but not mandatory, to embed the bitmap of the cover in the HTML text. For Kindle, the cover is displayed on the device as monochrome, but you need not convert it, since some of the Mobi devices can display color. On most of the Kindle titles I’ve seen, the cover art and front matter (if included at all) are actually at the tail end of the file.

When you publish a PDF ebook through Lightning Source, you can embed the full-color cover in the PDF file. You want to do that, and make it the first page, because that’s what Adobe Digital Editions displays as the thumbnail in its library.

Ebooks published through Smashwords.com do not have art inside the text file, as of now. They can publish in a variety of formats, including Sony Reader, EPUB (Nook and iPad), and Kindle. As with Amazon, you upload the cover art separately, which is then displayed on the catalog page. Smashwords pushes books out to Apple, B&N, and other online distributors. The Apple specs are more stringent than the others, so do read the online help at Smashwords.

Regard all of this information as wet clay. There aren’t any rules that apply equally to all formats — yet. The self-pub sites, such as Lightning Source, Kindle Direct, and Smashwords all have how-to guides online, and you should always consult those for the latest specs before uploading anything.

The Abobe Portable Document Format (PDF) has been around for quite a few years. Unlike most of the other file formats for ebooks, PDF always preserves the appearance of the original printed page – just the way the book designer intended. Formats such as Kindle and EPUB, however, are “reflowable.” That is, just like Web pages, the layout of those e-pages adjusts automatically to the display characteristics of a particular device. That’s how it’s possible to fit a scrollable page neatly on an iPhone, for example.

[For more information on the Adobe PDF ebook release of How to Lie with Charts, click here: 'How to Lie with Charts' Now Available As an eBook]

For plain-text books, including most narrative fiction, reflowable text is a good, one-file-fits-all solution. But it’s a different story when you try to cram an illustrated textbook onto just any mobile device using reflowable pages. Even in the simplest books, it is very common for the picture to appear on one page, the caption on the next. And the more complex the illustrations, the messier the situation becomes.

Old-fashioned as it might seem, PDF is now a ready solution for nearly all e-readers but the smaller-screen phones. That’s because recent availability of third-party apps has made it possible to view a PDF on just about every e-reader made, as well as on general-purpose computers, laptops, notebooks, and tablets.

PDF page from 'How to Lie with Charts' displayed in Adobe Digital Editions

For more information on the Adobe PDF ebook release of How to Lie with Charts, click here: ‘How to Lie with Charts’ Now Available As an eBook

The Los Angeles media scene is abuzz with the news that public television station KCET will divorce from the PBS network, effective this coming January:

LA Times commentary on KCET’s separation from PBS

I’m thinking that here’s an opportunity for the Democratization of Video to take a leap forward. Although emerging filmmakers now have unprecedented access to the tools of production, the result has been a glut of product. Ideally, an arts organization like Film Independent could forge a relationship with the station and become a conduit for movies and series.

For this concept to succeed, it can’t just be another Sundance channel, on the festival model.

No, much of the programming will have to be family-oriented and in some sense educational.

If the programming truly serves the community of viewers, the community of artists could benefit.

Times are tough.  Many people are out of work.  As owner of a post facility in Los Angeles I have the occasion to read many resumes.  These typically arrive cold and are from every strata of audio experience.  I am also the proud owner of my own resume, and proud owner of my own feelings related to sending that resume out in hopes of gainful employment.  This post is meant as practical insights “from the other side of the desk” and is not meant as a knock to anyone desperately seeking a job.  I qualify this because I know how hard it can be to get a foot in the door, but some of these submissions do make me scratch my head.

This post is for those who are out there looking for work and are not having any luck.  It’s simply my point of view so take from it what you will.  A lot of this advice is, what I consider to be, simple, common sense.  However, seeing the same things over and over again maybe it’s not as common as I may think.  Here’s a rundown of a few things that consistently come up.  You can make your own determination about them to see how you might react if you were at the other side of the desk.

The Approach:

There is a reason that in high school writing classes we are taught to correspond formally.  Typically a letter will have the recipients name and address, a date, the senders name and address and a salutation such as Dear X,  -

Email and texting has completely changed the way many people communicate with one another.  Nothing wrong in and of itself of course, but it has carried over into the workplace. Causal notes or emails will not get much traction.  Here is an example -

“hey – cool studio. looking for some work.  I do it all. resume attached.  later”

Or:

“Qualified engineer.  Loads of experience.  The real deal.  Call today.”

Or:

“Just graduated with a degree in sound.  Foley, ADR, sound design specialist.  Give me a shout.”

Or:

“See attached resume.”

Something that any potential employee must understand is that every communication from phone calls to query letters to resumes must inspire confidence that you are going to be a great asset to the team.  What a potential employer sees in your dealings with them is what they will project as to your dealings with their clients.

The Interview:

Read the rest @ Woody’s SOUND ADVICE

Watchful readers of this blog will know that I described some of the challenges in mastering separate DVD and VOD versions of my seminar for distribution through Amazon CreateSpace. Here’s what it looks like at the end of the tunnel.

News Release

(Santa Monica, CA – July 26, 2010) LaPuerta Books and Media today launched a new series of DVD training videos aimed at business students and professionals. The first title is How to Lie with Charts, a live interactive seminar based on the popular book by Gerald Everett Jones. According to LaPuerta marketing director David Drum, “Gerald’s been doing seminars for corporate clients based on this book, which over the years has become a kind of chartmaking bible for b-school students…(read the full release)

View the DVD Product Page

Here’s the result of cropping the 4:3 project described below and then rendering to the (new) YouTube 1280×720 standard frame. Since the graphics were edited in as high-rez bitmaps, the up-rez is a noticeable improvement for them.

I’m preparing a DVD of my seminar How to Lie with Charts for distribution on Amazon/CreateSpace. I thought I’d share some of my challenges and results of tests with you fellow wizards.

Nice footage but letterboxed in-camera (no-no)

OK after a lot of futzing, this is what I *think* I know:
 
To recap, for reasons I won’t bore you with, I have the less-than-optimal situation of a 16:9 image inside an NTSC 4:3 frame of my seminar. I cut in my PowerPoint slides, which I also made 16:9 to match. Result is horiz black bars top and bottom in a 4:3 frame.
 
So… render the DVD MPEG-2 in 4:3 at NTSC DV, which is 720×480, stretch to screen and mark “do not letterbox.”
 
Compose and prepare the DVD VIDEO_TS files as NTSC *Widescreen*, which is also 720×480, but makes the DVD menus in the 4:3 frame match the appearance and aspect ratio of the DV letterbox footage. Since the DVD is just plugging the MPEG-2 in, the prepare process doesn’t seem to mess with its aspect ratio. It stays 4:3 with the horiz bars top and bottom, with no pillars added at the sides by the DVD prepare.
 
On regular NTSC playback in a 4:3 frame, you see the black horiz bars top and bottom, no pillars on the sides, consistently – without having to adjust the screen width on the set. It also seems to do nicely in computer playback, same result, although it can depend on the player. Apple doesn’t show it right unless you do Full Screen, but then looks as just described. I haven’t been able to test what happens on an NTSC player with an HDTV set. I suspect I may get the pillars but I doubt I can do anything about that, and this is the smaller percentage of the audience (for now). I suspect that, depending on the set, the user can pick a widescreen setting manually that will work.
 
As to YouTube, it’s a completely different game. Everything gets converted to 16:9 now. So if I uploaded the MPEG-2 as I described above, I’d get those nasty black pillars on the sides, with a smaller image.
 
So here’s the solution from my test, although I have yet to upload (won’t upload the teaser videos until the DVD is actually in release): In the editor, crop all scenes to actual 16:9 by unlocking the 4:3 aspect ratio and bringing the top and bottom borders in. Black bars disappear on preview. Then render the clip as HDV 1280×720 29.9p. Save as WMV 9, which YouTube says they accept. Playback of the WMV9 looks surprisingly pretty, and graphics are noticeably crisper.
 
Now, within days I will get my DVD proof copy back from Amazon CreateSpace. I don’t know how picky they are. I suspect that they only care if the mastering has a fatal error. GIGO, you know. But we shall see.

I’ve already learned that a comparable Video on Demand (VOD) product can’t be the DVD because it has a menu and the VOD must simply stream. So you set the VOD (if you want to offer one) up as a separate product.
 
I think it’s going to be a nice product no matter what, but best foot forward!

Gerald Everett Jones
gerald@lapuerta.tv
 
Author of the Rollo Hemphill novels
- in paperback and ebook -
www.boychiklit.com