Todd Terry
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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Yes, don’t forget sound…
Mark’s comment reminded me of something…
Earlier this week I was reading a little article about “10 Unwatchable Films,” movies that literally drove people from the theatre.
There were ones you might expect, like “The Tree of Life,” which had so many people leaving that theatres were putting up “No Refund” signs, and “Cloverfield” with such continuously-moving and shaky handheld faux-found-footage that people were literally throwing up from motion sickness.
But another film they mentioned, I had not heard of, and darn it I can’t remember what it was now (and can’t seem to find the list again). Anywho, in this movie the filmmaker wanted to maintain anxiety in the audience, so the soundtrack included an imperceptible low-frequency continuous tone that was known to make people feel anxious… and apparently it worked.
I think David Lynch does that, too… to a less-subliminal degree… many of his movies have a continuous low-pitched industrial hum as ambience that I personally find a bit anxiety-inducing.
Then again, silence can bring anxiety, too. I think a great deal of the anxiety in Hitchcock’s “Psycho” comes from Bernard Herrmann’s great score (and not just the shower scene, which Hitch originally wanted to do sans music). But conversely, in “The Birds” I think a lot of the power and anxiety comes from the complete and total lack of any music track… you keep expecting there to be a score and there never is any. It puts you on edge.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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That last post got me thinking enough to go and check, and grab some still frames…
Now, all this is assuming that the copies I own are “theatrically correct,” as were actually released…
Now, if that is true (and I’m going to assume that it is), that while “Grand Budapest” is indeed 4:3, “The Artist” is not. It’s close, but appears to be actually a little bit wider…
If that is true, then the filmmakers in that instance did buck the “traditional” aspect ratios and use something that looked right to them… a ratio that does not fit any of the existing “standard” ratios.
Bottom line, through masking and pillarboxing and letterboxing you can present something that looks like any aspect ratio you choose, for aesthetic reasons. However for technical reasons your production needs to fit on a “canvas” that is a standard ratio… and for most of us in the electronic world that will be 16:9.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Mark Suszko] ” But an observation: you don’t come out and specify what kind of archival service you have”
True.
Or tons of other things… that contract is really almost “fact free,” it doesn’t specify scads of things… what format we will be shooting on, what kind of gear we are using for this or that, editing platforms, or whatever… lots and lots of stuff.
I wrote it with really only the minimum three things to be a valid contract (offer, acceptance, and consideration), and not much else.
It’s very “bare bones” by design. In our theory, if you specify something like that, then you are bound to it. Leaving things loose allows you to chose alternate methods or ways of doing things as needs arise or change, and still keeps us within the specs of the agreement.
I’ve certainly seen the opposite, from another production company that we know well… their contracts look like a phone book, which I find totally unnecessary and just an administrative nightmare. Incidentally, their invoices are also yards long, even specifying (and billing for) how much gaffer tape is used on a shoot. Our invoices are painfully simple.
I’d say, use whatever verbage is needed to get the job done, and not any more.
In actuality, this particular contract is with a great and long-time client that we don’t even bother with a handshake on… we’ve worked with them for years and years, they’ll just call up and say “do such-and-such,” they don’t ask for a contract or usually even what a cost is going to be beforehand (and pay us by far faster than any other client we have). But in this case we needed a contract for some reason (someone at their place wanted one), and it was the first one I had handy.
Your mileage may vary.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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I’m surprised those were hard to find. But yes, take Greg’s advice and search for “sting.”
We use a number of music services, but our primary two are Omni Music and Gene Michaels Productions.
A search for “Stinger” and “Sting” with Omni gave me 1218 results.
At GMP I’m not sure of the total number they have, but they have a specific category called “SWEEPS-STINGERS-BUMPERS” that has 47 pages of results.
Good luck!
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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I don’t mind sharing the contract we use… he’s one for an automotive commercial client of ours (name redacted).
The red-circled part is what is pertinent… you’ll probably have to click on it to make it big enough to read…
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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The only area that seemed to be flickering to my eye was the blown-out spot in the background counter area.
It seems logical to me that might be fluorescent lighting there (based on the simple fact that the under-cabinet lights in my own kitchen are flos). Is that the case? It might be simple phasing coming from the non-continuous source of the flos.
You said this happens several times. What is the setup/environment of the other instances that it happens? In that same kitchen?
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Hi Jonathan…
No, no particular recommendations…
The one I use is made by Tiffen…
This one is a +3… and it’s done everything I’ve ever needed (although I’ll admit I haven’t needed it too much). As you can see the filter itself is very thin, not much thicker than a regular filter. It’s a Series9 filter so it basically just has a clean metal edge (no threads), you put it in a Series9 filter holder (the rings you see) so that you can use it with a variety of lenses with the proper mounts or adapters. Frankly, I kinda have to half-ass rig that… my lenses are real cine primes so they do not have any kind of threading or anything (you’d only use filters in a matte box). But, as luck would have it, the threads on the Series9 holder just barely (and tightly) fit inside the standard 80mm front of the cine primes, so I basically just stick it in there then put a couple of tiny pieces of gaffer tape on it to hold it in. If I used it much, I’d get a proper mount.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Well, you didn’t tell us what camera you’d be using, so that could greatly affect the choice (depending on the camera’s lens mount)…
There’s also the challenge of looking for a “great macro lens” on a pretty tight budget.
My suggested solution isn’t to use a macro lens at all. Instead I’d suggest getting a front-of-lens closeup filter. I’m usually not a fan of using a lens “add on” in lieu of using the “proper” lens to do that (such as front-of-lens anamorphic adapters or front-of-lens DoF adapters), but for this case for just a few shots it would be a good an economical solution. That’s what I do in the rare instances that I need a super-close shot. The advantage is (other than low cost) is that I can use it on any of my primes so I have a variety of focal lengths to choose from, for far less than the cost of buying even one macro lens in a single focal length. And if you are shooting with, say, a matched set of primes, then you know the closeup shots will match as well, since you’re still using your own original lenses… there’s no chance for any difference in color or contrast that would be almost inevitable with a non-matched lens.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Seriously?? I thought they were three times that. I was probably misinformed.
Nick’s story is not a singular one… about 5-10 years ago you could get a one-inch machine for nothing. You used to regularly see them listed for the price of “you come and pick it up.”
I toyed with getting one, as about once a year someone calls wanting to know if we can handle 1″ tape. BUT… they were a bear to keep running, parts are nonexistent, and I wasn’t willing to give up the considerable real estate that they take up.
The last call I got asking if we had a machine was from the local NASA center here. They were among those who had given away or simply trashed every single one of their machines… before realizing they had a warehouse full of 1″ archives that they now had no way to play.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Emre Tufekcioglu] “Any strengths or weaknesses to that workflow?”
I’d say it sounds like it’s working well for you, so that’s the way to go there.
Why do we do it the way we do? Well, the .MXF files are in the native format that the Canon C300 generates, so it just makes sense to work directly with those. To use any other format, we’d just have to convert the .MXF files to something else, which would be pointless (and probably a little bit degrading), and since our edit systems natively handle .MXF files fine, there’s no need to do anything else.
We don’t deal with any ProRes because, well, we’re not an Apple house, we’re a PC house. We can use ProRes in the occasional instance that someone gives it to us, but we don’t generate any.
For everything past shooting, in the post process we use Matrox AVI files for a number of reasons. Firstly, our machines all have Matrox guts, either Matrox MX02 or AXIO cards and accelerators, so that’s the most friendly and native format for them. We generate elements, pieces, and archival masters as uncompressed Matrox AVI files and that’s as good as it can get in our place. True, the files are useless to anyone who does not have Matrox cards in their computers, but for internal use it’s fine and allows the best quality we can work with. The combination of the Matrox AVI files on Matrox machines allows easy work, since the accelerators usually mean no rendering. I’d have to pile up several stacks of HD files and throw on a fair number of filters or such to force rendering, and even then it’s very fast. Only Magic Bullet filters are guaranteed to require rendering (which I hate, since I love Magic Bullet), but those are pretty quick, too.
Of course, our final deliverables are in whatever format and flavor the end user prefers. So while our archival masters are generally 24p (or rather, 23.976) Matrox AVI files, our deliverables are generally 60i mpeg2 files for television stations, or something like 24p H.262 .mp4 files for online usage.
I’d say if whatever you are doing is working for ya, don’t rock the boat.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
