Of all the interviews about micro budget digital film making that I had done the one that
is closest to my heart is the one I did with Travis Bain about his film Throwback that was shoot
entirely using a Canon HV 20. The HV series of cameras were and probably still are my favorite
camcorders and to shoot and release an entire creature feature using one of them is an amazing
achievement. I still hope to do something similar with my HV 20 someday. I know that we now live in a Dslr world, but those camcorders do offer advantages for digital film makers on a budget. Some of
which are the their ability to record sound, their battery life and storage ability. Most camcorders can give you at least one hour of recording to tape right out of the box. If you would like to read my complete interview about the making of Throwback you can find it by clicking here or you can read it in my book on digital feature film making. Here is the final trailer for ThrowBack.
Now I would like to highlight their campaign for their next film. It is low budget sci-fi.
The title is Starspawn and you can still get involved by donating or by spreading the word.
I would now like to highlight a crowdfunding campaign for a film that I am looking forward to seeing. Many micro budget film makers imagine that if they had been born in a different era that they would have worked in the grindhouse genre. Masters of the Grind looks like to be one of the film making documentary that we will be watching and talking about for many years to come.
The last project that I want to look at is a horror film being filmed in Nebraska. The movie is titled Endor and you still have time to donate.
Thank you for visiting my site. Good luck with your projects and please take a moment to share this post on Google Plus.
The third part of my interview with Travis Bain is ready. I would
like to first than him again for the time that he has given me and
the information that he has shared. Digital filmmaking is a process.
No one is born a filmmaker. There are born painters and singers, but
film making is a learned skilled. Sure there are those with more
talent for the game than others, but I believe that hard work and the
willingness to keep trying again and again is what will get most of
us from the planning, to the page, to the set, to the screen.
The lesson that you need to take from the making of Throwback and
other filmmakers that we will be introduced to over the next year or
so is that you do not need a boat load of money to be a film maker.
You can make a micro budget film with a few thousand dollars. I have
been told that features have been made for less than a thousand
dollars. It is mostly a matter of deciding to do it and not giving up
until the film is finished. Do not let any excuse stop you. It is
okay to slow down and make sure that you are not going too fast or
making mistakes along the way, but do not stop until your digital
feature film is done.
Okay The third and final art of the Canon Hv 20 interview.
First I forgot to ask about sound last time. What did you use to
record sound. Did you go with an add-on mic or did you record
external sound and sync later?
For most of the movie, I just recorded audio straight into my
Canon HV20 with a Rode Video Mic mounted on the camera. Rode is an
Australian company and they make excellent microphones at reasonable
prices. I’d highly recommend their products to any indie filmmaker,
especially those on a tight budget. Their Video Mic is a very
directional, compact shotgun mic which has provided me with very
clear location audio. In a handful of situations, though, we found
ourselves filming in noisy locations due to gushing river water, so
on those occasions we recorded backup audio into a second Canon
camera (an XHA1) using wireless lavalier microphones. I'm hoping to
use wireless lavs all the way through my next feature, in conjunction
with the Rode Video Mic. That way, I can either just use the best
audio source in post or blend the two together. We didn't use a boom
swinger on “Throwback” because we couldn't afford one, so it just
seemed quicker and easier to just stick the mic on the camera and
operate it myself. There'll be a little bit of wind noise to remove
in post, but not a whole lot because we used a furry "dead cat"
windsock on the mic throughout the shoot, which attenuated most of
the location wind. I think we've done pretty well considering that
the entire movie, except for one scene, was shot outdoors. The audio
is remarkably clean, although I do want to use wireless lavs more on
my next feature, and maybe a digital field recorder as well. There
are some cool ones out now which record a safety track that's about
20db lower than your main track, so if there's a sudden audio spike
like an actor suddenly yelling out a line at the top of their lungs,
you can use the safety track rather than your clipped main track.
Luckily we didn't have too many cases of that on this film. Whenever
I knew an actor was about to shout, I'd simply lower the recording
levels so they wouldn't clip. That's one of the reasons I shot the
movie on the Canon HV20 and not a DSLR - you have full manual control
over your audio levels. We'll probably only have to re-record a small
handful of lines to replace ones tainted by background noise.
Otherwise, about 95% of the dialogue you'll hear in the movie is the
original dialogue. I always prefer to use the original dialogue if
possible, because you can never truly replicate the actor's
performance later on. When they're on location and in the moment,
that's when you usually get the best material. I never used
headphones to monitor sound on location, I just watched the audio
levels on the LCD screen and made sure nothing clipped. I’m using
some good-quality Sennheiser monitoring headphones in post, although
lately I’ve mainly been using them to rock out to Led Zeppelin
while I cut action scenes. “Achilles’ Last Stand” is great for
keeping you awake and motivated at 2am. I’ll do the sound mix later
when the picture edit’s locked off. It’s important to use proper
monitoring headphones for your sound mix because consumer headphones
that are made for iPods and so forth usually boost the bass and do
other funky things to your audio, so they don’t give you an
accurate reproduction of your soundtrack.
The subject of post production is overlooked by many first time
film makers thinking that they will cross that bridge when they come
to it. Did you have post in mind before you started filming?
Absolutely. You have to have a post-production plan in place
before you even shoot a frame of footage. You have to set up your
workflow in advance and practice good media management otherwise post
is going to be a haphazard mess. In a way, a movie isn’t made
during production, it’s made in post, so it’s crucial to start
planning your post strategy even at the script stage. For example,
knowing that we were going to film “Throwback” almost entirely
outdoors, I deliberately wrote the script to have as little dialogue
as possible. From the outset, I wanted to tell the story visually
rather than through endless chitchat. They are called motion
pictures, after all. My opinion is that if you want to watch actors
talk for two hours, go to a play or a Tarantino film. Otherwise, I’m
in the Hitchcock camp: I believe in telling the story visually, with
camera angles, action and montage, and defining your characters by
their behaviours rather than boring exposition. There have been a
number of recent Bigfoot movies where the characters blather on about
their relationships and their emotional issues. Nothing sucks the
life out of a horror movie faster. I went in the opposite direction—I
wrote “Throwback” to be a lean, economical, fast-paced suspense
thriller with an action beat every five to ten minutes. With minimal
dialogue, your sound mix is easier because you can build your
soundtrack from the ground up with a mixture of canned and foley
effects. There is character development in “Throwback”, don’t
get me wrong, but like “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, we get to know
the characters along the way, as we get swept along by the action.
Having minimal dialogue also helps your movie’s chances in
non-English speaking countries.
Do you get others
involved in producing the final product? Do you outsource sound work
or the soundtrack?
On this film and my
last, “Scratched”, I’ve followed the early-Robert Rodriguez
model of pretty much doing everything myself. When you’re on a
tight budget, the best person to do post-production on your film is
yourself. You are your own best possible employee. You know that
you’re always going to turn up, never slack off or call in sick.
You’ll work for free, and work tirelessly because you feel
passionate about the project. Plus you know the material intimately,
so you never have to say “I want it done this way.” On my future
films, as the budgets increase, I would love to delegate more tasks
to people who know more about these things than I do, but right now,
I’m dong all the post on “Throwback” single-handedly. I haven’t
outsourced anything as yet, apart from my animated production company
logo and a couple of CG smoke shots. As Rodriguez has always said,
it’s great if you can be both creative and technical at the same
time, because it’s really empowering. Best case scenario is that we
get picked up by a distributor and some money becomes available for a
professional sound mix in a proper facility. But until that happens,
I’m just trying to do the best job I can on my home system.
What about audio
effects?
The vast majority of
the sound effects in “Throwback” are coming from Sound Dogs, a
great US company you can buy sound effects from one by one, which to
me makes more sense than spending thousands of dollars on a huge
sound effects library you might only ever use a fraction of. So I’m
mostly using Sound Dogs, but if I need a basic sound effect like a
simple splash of water or something, I’ll just foley it myself and
save money.
When making a horror movie there are a lot of little things that
have to be done in post. Did you plan on that ahead of time?
Yes. There were a few
shots where we knew there'd have to be a digital effect added later,
so we'd film it in such a way that when the effect is added, it’ll
blend perfectly with the background plate. You’ve got to plan ahead
with your audio, too, by recording ambient sound you can use later to
fill in any gaps in the soundtrack.
Do you plan on test screening the rough cut before doing your
final cut or will it be straight to final cut?
I generally try to
avoid showing people rough cuts unless they’re within my “inner
circle.” When I screen my work, I prefer it to be as complete as it
can possibly be so it's as close to my vision as possible. I don't
want people to see a half-baked version of my film and judge it based
on that. When people start seeing the movie at preview screenings in
a few months’ time, they’ll be seeing something extremely close
to my final cut.
I do not know what distribution is like in your country, but
the options have grown here in North America. For a micro budget film
many of us look to Video of Demand (VOD) and itunes rather than
considering theatrical release. Did you have distribution in mind
before you started production?
Definitely. The whole
reason for making a genre film in the first pace, apart from the fact
that I love them and they’re fun, is because they’re the easiest
types of films to find distribution. Horror movies sell well, and
they probably always will, because there’s a huge market for them,
so it was kind of no-brainer to make one as my second feature. I
found out the hard way, from making my first feature “Scratched”,
that modest little comedy-dramas shot on Mini DV with unknown actors
have basically zero chance of finding a distributor.
What are the distribution plans?
The first phase of
our strategy is to hit the film festivals. We want “Throwback” to
tour the film festival circuit and be seen by audiences and generate
buzz. Film festivals offer great exposure, so that’s our first port
of call. We’ve already had interest from two of the world’s
biggest ones, which is really cool. After a few festival screenings,
if the movie is received well, we hope to be in a position to sign
with a sales agent, who can then pick up “Throwback” and run with
it, and hopefully help us sell it to some distributors around the
world. I’d love to be able to sell the film to every major
territory around the world. It’s a very Australian film but its
also got universal appeal as an action/adventure story, and because
it doesn’t have too much dialogue, it would be quite
straightforward to subtitle or dub for foreign territories. A
theatrical release would be a dream come true but we’re realistic
about our chances. It’s very expensive to release films
theatrically. Sometimes even movies with well-known stars go straight
to video, or if they do go to cinemas, they only make a few thousand
bucks. To be honest, I’d be more than happy just to see “Throwback”
released on DVD and Blu-ray. A multi-platform release would be ideal.
VOD is an interesting new market, but I don’t want to limit the
film’s chances to just that market. I think the vast majority of
people still prefer to watch movies at home on DVD o Blu-ray, so in
that regard, I would love to see “Throwback” end up on shelves in
places like Blockbuster and Target. Our 1080p imagery is going to
look beautiful on the average HDTV. With the success of Fincher’s
Netflix series “House of Cards”, I think VOD is a promising new
outlet for long-form TV series, and I myself am very interested in
getting into mini-series down the track, but for feature films, I
don’t think cinemas or optical discs are going anywhere just yet.
People love to watch big movies on big screens, plus going to the
cinema is a fun social experience. As long as morons with mobile
phones don’t spoil it.
What is next?
I’m developing a
slate of projects for different budget levels. So if “Throwback”
is a success and someone offers me a million dollars to make a movie,
I have a script we can do for a million, or if they offer me five
million, I have one we can do for five million. It’s a bit of a
mixed bag. One is kind of action/horror inspired by Lovecraft,
another is action/sci–fi and another one is a remake of a classic
adventure story. By the same token, if someone offers me some other
project to do, I’d definitely consider it. There are also novels
I’d love to adapt, like Richard Preston’s “The Cobra Event.”
I’d love to remake John Boorman’s film “Hell in the Pacific.”
Even a big-screen version of an ’80s TV show, like “Battlestar
Galactica” or “Knight Rider” would be great fun. What film I
make next will depend entirely on how much money’s available and
who’s willing to back me. But I’ll be aiming for the stars, so
even if I fall short, I might still hit the moon.
Do you plan on specializing in one genre?
No, I want to mix
things up like Kubrick or Fincher or Danny Boyle. I'd love to bounce
around different genres. I'm very keen to do action, sci-fi, fantasy,
crime, horror and blends of those genres like action-comedy and that
sort of thing. I want to take my films to conventions like Comic Con
and mingle with my fellow geeks!
You know once you do a horror film or sci-fi it is hard not to be
classified as a horror film maker. Ridley Scott has done almost every
type of film, but people hear his name and think Alien or Blade
Runner first. The only film maker that I am aware of who ever managed
not to be classified as a type was the great Robert Wise. He did
everything from The Day the Earth Stood Still, Run Silent Run Deep,
West Side Story, The Haunting to Star Trek. Is it possible to do any
type of film you wish? Or do you look forward to being the master of
a genre?
I think if you get enough clout you can do any movie you want, but
even then it’s not always guaranteed. Apparently Michael Bay, one
of the world’s most successful filmmakers, had to make the third
Transformers movie so he could do his own personal project, “Pain &
Gain.” You’d think a guy like that would be able to just pick any
project he wanted, but I guess not. Even in Hollywood, money’s
tight these days. Mind you, though, I don’t have any deep desire to
do un-commercial, experimental films anyway. At this point I just
want to make a variety of genre films right now, whether it be
horror, sci-fi, action, fantasy or some sort of hybrid. That’s what
I love about John Carpenter’s career—he’s never gone and made a
boring Thomas Hardy adaptation or whatever, he’s jumped around
between horror, sci-fi and kept it fresh. I remember seeing “Big
Trouble in Little China in 1986” and thinking, “Wow, what is
this?” And I’m sure people felt the same way when they first saw
“Halloween” in 1978. As for “The Thing”, well, people just
didn’t know what the hell to make of that back in 1982. It was
ahead of its time. So yeah, if I can make another genre film after
“Throwback”, I’ll be extremely happy. There are lots of new HD
cameras out that I want to test. I don’t even care if I can’t
afford an Alexa or a RED, I’d be happy to shoot my next movie on a
Panasonic GH3 or the new Blackmagic Design 4K camera. If I can shoot
cool shit and get paid for it, that’s all that matters to me.
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Most film makers never get enough of technique
answers. Robert Rodriguez teaches that even if you are creative you
have to learn to be technical if you want to be a modern film maker
and it is in that area that I wish to go into with the next few
questions. Okay lets talk about editing. What type of computer did
you use to edit?
Up
until late 2011, I used an off-the-shelf Dell Dimension PC for all my
post-production work. It was great for Mini DV editing, but cutting
HD on it was sluggish and it crashed a lot.Then,
in December 2011, I got hit with a very bad virus which forced me to
nuke my entire OS. Rather than reinstall everything on my ageing PC,
I decided to upgrade, so I built my own new PC from scratch. I'm
running Windows 7 Ultimate with 8GB of RAM, a GTX570 GPU, a Core
i7-2600k CPU and a solid state system drive plus a 1TB hard drive
which Throwback's 40 hours of rushes are residing on. I can now edit
HDV smoothly at full motion, with no stuttering or crashes, even with
effects added.
What kind of
software did you pick?
I use
Adobe Premiere Pro. I've used Premiere since the late 1990s and see
no reason to switch to a different NLE. It does everything I want it
to do and I'm used to it and comfortable with it, so at this stage I
have no desire to jump to Avid or FCP or any other NLE.Were
you happy with the results?
Very
happy. Now that I'm using a powerful enough PC, Premiere basically
never crashes and I never have any glitches. It edits native HDV as
easily as if it was Mini DV. The export options are also great and
there are a lot of cool plugins available. Working on a PC instead of
a Mac, you also have more codec options available. When I create
intermediate files, I use the Lagarith lossless codec so there's no
loss of quality whatsoever when you go through multiple generations.
In fact, I usually export all my digital negatives as Lagarith .avi
files before transcoding them to DVD or Blu-ray or whatever their
final distribution format is going to be. If
you are considering an upgrade, to what software would it be?
My
next computer will be even more powerful because I'll want it to be
able to edit 4K down the track. I know my current PC can't edit 4K
because I've tried and it just can't keep up with the frame rate. I'm
not looking at jumping into 4K in the next two years at least, but it
is something I'm looking at for the long term. I just want to wait
for the technology to develop a bit more and for prices to come down.
I love the look of the new Sony F55 camera with its global shutter,
but it's way outside of my price range at the moment. But hopefully
in a couple of years, you'll be able to pick up a decent quality
prosumer 4K camera for a couple of grand. If someone brings out
something similar to the low-cost JVC handheld one but with a larger
sensor, I'm there. I understand
that you directed and edited your film yourself would you recommend
that to other film makers?
Definitely.
Having to edit footage you've shot yourself is a great way to learn
what works and what doesn't, and it helps you shoot better material
next time you go out in the field. Knowing what sort of coverage an
editor needs to make a scene work is essential for any director, I
think. I'm sure there are a lot of Hollywood editors out there who
are handed great-looking footage by big-time directors and it just
doesn't cut together, because the director has no real understanding
of montage. It's great for directors to know how to work with actors
or what lenses or lights to use, but without knowing how to "shoot
for the edit", as Michael Bay termed it, it's all for naught.
Going forward, I may not always edit my own films, but when you're on
a low budget, you kind of have to to save money.
From
the trailer it looks as if your movie is heavily dependent on
standard special effects rather than computer generated effect. I
think that the old school approach to visual effects looks better. So
many film makers are grabbing what they believe to be as cool piece
of software and adding a CGI creature into their film. In a Hollywood
style blockbuster these creatures look good, but at the micro budget
level they usually come out looking like characters from Wreck It
Ralph. Nothing spoils a creature feature faster than a killer bear or
T Rex from a playstation game. My favorite movie going experience of
all time was when I got to see the US debut of The Descent at out
local film festival. I got to see it in a packed theater that rocked
from opening scene to last. The creatures in that film are all makeup
and lighting with only a small amount of background CGI(the wall
climbing scenes). So the question is would you have gone CGI if
your budget was larger?
No. Even
if we'd had a huge budget, I wouldn't have wanted a CGI monster. I
probably would've commissioned a kickass animatronic costume from
Stan Winston Studio or Jim Henson's Creature Shop. I think CGI has
been grossly overused in the past decade or so, and we're really
seeing a backlash against it, as evidenced by the failures of "John
Carter", "Battleship" and "Jack the Giant
Slayer." I think the backlash may have started as far back as
"The Phantom Menace." Like many, I mourn the lost arts of
miniatures, matte paintings and practical effects. Granted, CGI is
essential for some types of movies. I don't think Roland Emmerich's
"2012" would have been quite as visually impressive if it
had relied solely on practical FX. But when I see CGI gophers,
scorpions and monkeys in the fourth Indiana Jones movie, I just want
to shake my head. So no, I wouldn't have used a CGI monster in
"Throwback." There's no substitute for a good old-fashioned
man in a costume. If you film him the right way, with careful
lighting and camera angles, you can get some great results. We've
taken the "Jaws" approach for Throwback in that you only
ever really get glimpses of the creature, you never see him full-on
in broad daylight. I prefer this approach. It's scarier, because when
you can't see the monster properly, your mind fills in the blanks.
Even the creature's glowing red eyes in this movie were done
practically, using special LED lights. I was determined to avoid CGI
as much as possible. There is a little bit of digital FX work in the
movie, but it's restricted to gun muzzle flashes and things like
that, because we couldn't afford blank-firing guns and all the safety
requirements and red tape that go with them. We've done all our gore
shots practically, with prosthetics and fake blood. Moviegoers can
tell the difference. Even if I get to work with bigger and bigger
budgets, I think I'll keep insisting on doing FX practically, as
"old-school" as possible. I have an idea for a pulp
adventure story featuring a lost city and dinosaurs, and if I ever
get to do it, I want to create the dinosaurs with stop-motion as a
tribute to Ray Harryhausen and the animators he inspired like Phil
Tippett. I know stop-motion is out of vogue (except for films for the
younger crowd like "Paranorman" and "Frankenweenie"),
but I'd rather do my dinosaurs with good stop-motion than lousy CGI.
I think audiences would respond well to a revival of stop-motion for
a retro fantasy adventure. Here's hoping "Throwback" is
enough of a success that I can afford to commission Laika to do my
dinos for me.
I'm glad you mentioned "The Descent."
It's one of the best horror films I've seen in recent years and I'm a
big fan of Neil Marshall's. He's clearly inspired by John Carpenter
and "The Thing", which for my money is the best horror
movie ever made. Marshall even uses the same font for his titles as
Carpenter, which is a cool homage.
The final part of this interview will
focus on post and distribution. Please take a moment to stumble us
on stumbleupon, bookmark this post and to share it with a friend.
Final note for today. For those of you who only use Youtube could you
check out Vimeo. The traffic is not as good as Youtube, but the
video quality is great. Also if you post your work at Youtube there
is no law that says that you can not use Vimeo as well. You will be
reaching a larger audience if you use both. Part of being a successful digital filmmaker is to go out and find the audience. Finding the audience for your digital film is sometimes taking advantage of every possible chance to reach them.
