Waiting 2B Scene

Tag: Film

  • Video Montage: Walk With Me

    ‘Walk with me.’ It always seems like such a nonchalant thing for a character to say – whether that be in a movie or a TV series.

    Well, maybe that isn’t fair. Perhaps my appreciation of the walk and talk as a clever cinematic device simply wasn’t honed enough to pay any serious attention to it. Don’t get me wrong… I LOVE seeing a quality oner thrown into a piece (despite the subject matter, I think the shot from True Detective remains very close to being my favourite oner/long shot).

    Cue a 6-year old montage that I recently stumbled on that shows just how ubiquitous the walk and talk is as a cinematic device. The time spent choreographing these things amazes me… yet there is an important reason that they remain a go-to feature: namely, they give the scene an opportunity to burn through a whole bunch of detailed information, and they can do it in an interesting manner.

    If you really want to drill down into the nuts and bolts of why these shots are used, then let me suggest that you check out this comprehensive article on the topic.

  • Video Essay: See What Happens When Scorsese Goes All Quiet

    In our age of twenty-first century cinema, we’re awash with wondrous visual stories and their corresponding soundtracks (though this is no given! Check out our post on how music coming out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is actually all kind same-same in the sound department).

    It is because of a ubiquitous big-ness of many soundtracks that I would suggest we actually take more notice when a director decides to do things differently. For example, putting in the necessary effort to deftly craft out a film’s sound design with an absence of musical underscoring.

    Cue this amazing little video essay by Every Frame A Painting on the work of Martin Scorsese. Yes, the man is known for his incredible use of music – however, this essay explores his use of silence throughout his 50-years of cinematic experience. So click away, and check out what happens when Scorsese goes all quiet.

  • Top Ten: Best Character Reveals

    It’s time to indulge in a guilty pleasure… a little top ten action! To be fair, this list has been very cleverly done and you will find it quite informative. So it is not nearly as guilty watching some of the stuff you can get over at WatchMojo.

    We have all seen them play out in our favourite films haven’t we? The director teases out the introduction of one of the protagonists: a glance here, and hint there. Until finally, boom – there they are, larger than life.

    Well the team at CineFix recently released a pretty great top ten collection of the best movie character reveals, and it’s 15-minutes you won’t be disappointed you watched.

  • Video Essay: How to Suck at Soundtracks… Otherwise Known as The Marvel Symphonic Universe

    Okay this one just has to be shared and re-shared amongst movie goers, videography aficionados, and anyone who has a passing interest in good soundtrack scores in any form of moving picture.

    For better or for worse, music shapes what we see on screen… cinema, TV, or otherwise. It is an integral element with which a viewer can be seduced into rapturous emotion of various sorts. I do not remember watching the film The Exorcist as a child (thank goodness my Dad had some sense in that regard). Nevertheless, to this day I cannot hear the opening 8 notes of Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells without having The Exorcist spring immediately to mind.

    Likewise, you will find it is true of many of our favourite films and TV series (Star Wars, Superman, Indiana Jones, The X-Files, and Saiyūki – otherwise known as Monkey in English – are some great examples).

    Now here’s a question to be asked: can you confidently hum a tune from any of the ubiquitous Marvel Cinematic Universe releases that have been released over the better part of the past 15 years? Nah, I didn’t think so. Well, it has not gone unnoticed by the team at Every Frame a Painting either – and their video essay on the topic is must see viewing. I hope you enjoy it.

  • Montage: What’s Worth Fighting For?

    Most guys – and plenty of the womens too – will agree: what is not to love about a good old fashioned slobber-knocking action flick? There’s action sequences, there’s crap getting blown to smithereens, there’s inspiration pep talks and cheesy one-liners… so much goodness!

    So I was thrilled to find an action film montage made by Rasika Chomkwang this morning. Honestly, the self-titled “hobbyist editor, artist, animator and wannabe film maker,” has made a piece that pretty much hits all the right buttons. You’ll enjoy this one!

  • Blog: Dissolve – Expand and Narrow At the Same Time

    When Dissolve hit the market, I – along with many other online content creators – was excited by the potential of having access to high quality stock footage that wasn’t the run of the mill stuff we’ve seen hiding out in every other stock site out there. It was fresh material, and prices began at a pretty amazing US$5. To top things off, you could also get access to three free clips a month if you were a member. Finally, there was some stock worth celebrating!

    Fast forward through to 2015, and somewhere along the lines you will have seen Dissolve change tact. Whatever the impetus, the high quality stock marketplace went higher with their pricing overnight. One day, the cheapest Dissolve footage was US$5. The next, there was an almost 900% increase with the cheapest footage priced at US$49!

    The silver lining was the fact that they continued to offer three free clips each month. Interestingly though, how they did that changed too – they began to process the free clips as an ‘order.’ If I’m being honest, that always felt to me like a little bit of a slap in the face: “Hey, we’re including the full price of these clips just so you can see how cheap you are being by not actually purchasing the footage otherwise!”

    Now today was the first opportunity I have had to check out the latest offerings from Dissolve this year – and yes, that very much included perusing their free clips. Well, it would have except for the fact that they’re now offering just the one free clip a month. That puzzled me a bit. Last year they announced that, “Quality is the focus as company expands into multi-billion dollar market segment” – so why do they seem to be narrowing their target market while expanding their business? Surely that is not mutually beneficial. Well, I have a theory.

    In this example, Dissolve have a Saudi Arabian aeroplane taking off from Heathrow Airport. Pricing for this 14-second clip begins at US$400. We are already talking an increase of 7900% on their original clips (to be fair, this was not necessarily one of those US$5 clips). If you intend to use it in an indie-released feature film though, that increases to US$3,000.

    Now $3K for what is essentially beautiful filler is most likely beyond the scope of the average joe making a YouTube or Vimeo clip, right? So who is it priced for? The official line says that, “Our aim is to empower today’s video storytellers with footage from the world’s most exciting and relevant shooters.” Sounds wonderful! But who are these story-tellers? I think the Dissolve About us answers that question quite succinctly: they license, “stock video clips for use in commercials, television shows, documentaries, and feature films, and licenses stock photography for use in design and creative work.”

    Ah-ha!

    In short, Dissolve burst onto the scene with their great product, and lots of people bought in. But it seems like they were not necessarily attracting the right people. In order to bring balance, pricing was dramatically increased in order to right-size the average story-teller out of the Dissolve equation. That way Dissolve’s apparent understanding of what constituted “video story-tellers” could be more readily serviced with their empowerment.

    What about the rest of us though? Well, we can pretend we’re in the money and occasionally buy these high-priced clips – in the same way that you might fork-out to buy an Armani suit. Otherwise, we may just have to write blog posts of lament over diminishing access to quality stock content until something new comes along once again.

    Le sigh.

  • FF: Quentin Tarantino’s Best Visual Film References… in 3 Minutes!

    FF: Quentin Tarantino’s Best Visual Film References… in 3 Minutes!

    Welcome to the very first Flick Friday post for 2016 – a series that will motivate you, supercharging your creativity as we delve into cinematography and videography together. Today, we’re sharing a great video montage by Jacob T. Swinney on Quentin Tarantino’s Visual References.

    There is lots to be said about this great montage, but we will leave it to Swinney himself to entice you: “It is a well known fact that Quentin Tarantino is a self-proclaimed cinephile. But the writer/director’s love for cinema is most obviously expressed through his own films. In addition to showing his characters spending a great deal of time discussing cinema, Tarantino’s films are jam-packed with homages and visual references to the movies that have intrigued him throughout his life.

    Many filmmakers pay homage, but Tarantino takes things a step further by replicating exact moments from a variety of genres and smashing them together to create his own distinct vision.”

    With over 30 of these visual references to be had, in a word – it is simply brilliant.

    https://vimeo.com/148955244

  • HIMM: A Quiet Long-Take Champion (Zhou)

    A long take – this is simply a shot that doesn’t cut away to other shots, but is a continuous shot that usually follows the action of the scene as it plays out in real-time. Even if you have never heard of the term, I’m sure you have seen one in action (anything that has top-ten style list dedicated to it is probably something which falls into the category of stuff you have seen)!

    In the early years of cinema, it was normal to shoot with long takes – it made production both a little easier, and a bit cheaper. As cinema developed cinematography became more complex, and consequently the pace of editing increased. In what seemed like almost no time, the long take was either done away with altogether, or it directors wielded it as a stylistic badge of honour.

    Let me ask you this then: what if you were able to incorporate the long take into your work without drawing attention to the fact? How would you do it?

    With 55 directorial credits spanning four decades, Steven Spielberg knows how to. The Hollywood giant has used this classic technique so frequently that it is definitely a signature move – yet many of us may not have realised it.

    While other purveyors of the long-take usually parade the shot, Spielberg has managed to have many of his ‘oners’ fly under the radar – allowing audiences to become immersed in the dramatic energy of a scene without noticing the technique being used. Love him or hate him, that is a rare cinematic skill that ought to be celebrated – if not emulated.

    So today on How It’s Made Monday, I want to share an excellent video essay on the Spielberg ‘oner’ by one of my favourite online commentators, Tony Zhou. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

    https://vimeo.com/94628727

  • Top 25: Most Horrifying Non-Horror Movies

    I have followed Taste of Cinema for a while now, and one of the fun things they do is bring out lists of films of varying genres and such. Most of the time, I’m happy just to enjoy the list and move on. Today’s list has a certain je ne sais quoi about it though: horrifying films that are not horror? What an idea!

    I won’t spoil it for you – but let me at least tease it out by saying that the list includes the likes of Kubrick! 🙂 So here is today’s share: The 25 Most Horrifying Non-Horror Movies in Cinema History.

  • News: Kenyan Film Made on Mobile (BBC)

    It is really easy to think that we need to have the latest and greatest kit to make movies and videos. And I mean really easy (#firstworldproblems). But I read a wonderful story today that was a timely reminder.

    While there are DJI Osmo‘s out there, or Lily, or the BMPCC – or whatever else takes your budgeted fancy – these are all just tools in a filmmakers/videographers arsenal. And much like a toolbox, sometimes you just need to pull out something that can get the job done… like a mobile phone.

    When was the last time you tried to make something videographic without all of the bells and whistles we are used to? Maybe this story will inspire you to think outside of your box this week.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-35075188