Comments (1)

By Frank, 13 December 2005 8:07 pm

Tips on filmmaking are always welcome. If you have some time to spare, why not take a listen to this recent Cinema Minima podcast about Learning How to Make a Visually Compelling Film.

Comments (0)

By Frank, 13 December 2005 11:37 am

I love accents and regional dialects, so I was enthralled to find IDEA, the International Dialects of English Archive. There are some interesting samples available, but unfortunately they seem to have a somewhat harsh view on what you can do with them. There also seems some confusion on what rights they give out. The above “copyright” page states:

You may play an IDEA recording or text file in a lecture, class, training session, or workshop directly from the internet, or your students may do so from their own individual terminals, without obtaining special permission; but distributing copies of them either by disc or by digital file, requires special permission and the payment of an appropriate fee.

Yet the front page of the site states:

Once you have chosen a recording to download, simply click on it and save it — at no cost to you!

And when you get to a page of samples it states even more forcefully:

**IMPORTANT** In order to properly play these soundfiles, you must first save them to your hard drive! Please right-click on the desired sample and choose to save it to your computer. Our server does not support streaming audio at this time.

I leave it to you to work out what you actually may or may not do.

Via Complications ensue.

Comments (0)

By Frank, 7 December 2005 10:58 am

The always thoughtful Robert Nagle (a.k.a idiotprogrammer) has just published a detailled and useful review of Digital Video Hacks by Joshus Paul from O’Reilly.

I’ve been meaning to take a look at this book for a while – I’ve thoroughly enjoyed some of the other books in their “hacks ” series. Robert’s review not only waxes enthusiastic about this book, but includes a bunch of useful references and comparisons too.

Comments (2)

By Frank, 7 August 2005 10:00 pm

Just a note of a bunch of useful-looking video tutorials.

Read more at: Wrigley Video Productions – Adobe Premiere Tutorials

Comments (1)

By Frank, 17 July 2005 10:01 pm

Wow. I didn’t realize that Amazon had articles as well as books and stuff, until I was pointed at this one by Robert Nagle. It’s a neat little article covering a bunch of useful stuff on low-budget filmmaking.

Read more at: Amazon.com: So You’d Like to… make an ultra low-budget film

Comments (1)

By Frank, 16 July 2005 2:56 pm

Can’t write dialogue? Want to make short movies that get shown anyway?

Try the 2nd No Words Short Film Festival

From their rules

deadline: 1st August 2005

REGULATION NO WORDS 2005

• Films/videos produced 2003, 2004 and 2005 that have not participated in previous Editions of this Festival can be submitted. The work’s subject is free. The running time of the films/videos cannot be longer than 30 minutes, titles inclusive.
• The application to this festival is free of charge.
• FICTION, DOCUMENTARY, ANIMATION and EXPERIMENTAL works are accepted, as long as they do not have dialogues or subtitles. In this competition, the film/video must be understood thanks only to the strength of the images. Music, sounds, environment background noises, etc. are accepted.
• For the selection, works must be sent in VHS, Mini DV tapes or DVD in PAL. This material will be not returned.
• Films must be sent together with the filled out application form that can be downloaded and printed from the festival website (download: www.operenuove.it). The deadline for entries is 1st August 2005. Entries must be sent to:
  CINEFORUM BOLZANO – VIA DANTE 12/c – 39100 BOLZANO – ITALY.
  The festival management is unable to accept packages which do not have the full postage paid.
• All entries will go through the selection commission of the festival that will decide which films to screen and to present to the Jury.
• The festival management will publish the selected works on the official website of the festival.
• A screening copy in Betacam SP PAL format is required from works that have passed the selection. The deadline for submission of the screening copy is 1st October 2005. If the screening copy arrives later the film will be excluded from competition and from screening. Betacam Sp tapes of the selected films will be returned.
• The festival management is not responsible for the loss or damage of the films and attached material during the shipping and during the festival.

Comments (0)

By Frank, 15 July 2005 11:53 am

When I first decided that I wanted to have a go at “film-making” rather than just recording events as they happened, I knew that one of the key things I would need would need would be a script. However, I’d never really looked at a script before, and didn’t know what should be in it.

I’m somewhat embarrased to say that what I produced and gave to my actors was not really a script at all. What I gave them was just the dialogue, with no indication of what was happening, or why. Naturally the actors found it very hard to work with such vague information. If I had not been both writer and director, it would never have happened at all.

To avoid mistakes like that, it’s important to read lots of scripts. It’s also vital to practice writing the stuff that goes in between the dialogue (known as “action description”) so that everyone involved gets the same feel for what the production is all about.

Derek Haas at The Blank Page has some useful tips on how to improve your action descriptions. Read more at The Blank Page: Fatal Mistakes: Boring Action-Descriptions.

Comments (0)

By Frank, 12 July 2005 9:47 am

Nerissa Oden (”the video queen”) has another site and blog dedicated to making video. She’s recently put together what looks like a really useful collection of resources and links in several categories including video, photos and audio. Definately worth a look.

Read more at: Free Media Guide: A Video Lover’s Dream!

Comments (0)

By Frank, 11 July 2005 11:33 pm

Robert Nagle (a.k.a “idiotprogrammer”) is also cruising the web taking note of useful stuff for video. Today I spotted that he had collected some useful links about Audio for Video Production.

Check it out.

Comments (0)

By Frank, 11 July 2005 8:22 pm

If you want to write a script, one of the most valuable things you can do is to read other scripts. Read lots of different scripts, and study them to see what you like, what you dislike, and makes them tick.

The trouble is, scripts can often be hard (or expensive) to come by. So I was impressed to find Simply Scripts – Free Movie Scripts and Screenplays. A web site all about scripts and scriptwriting, with a huge collection of scripts and transcripts to choose from.

Read more at: Simply Scripts – Free Movie Scripts and Screenplays.