My Rode Reel: A Competition of Shorts

    Making a film for a festival is intimidating. For me, I didn't know where to start. And unfortunately, this meant that I ended up trapping myself into a corner. What I did was go backwards. I started with the question: what would a film festival want? And while it's not a bad thing to ask yourself, it shouldn't be the reason you decide to write anything. Because then your writing isn't yours, it's what you think other people want it to be.
    And then there was the issue of "ten minutes." Ten minutes was the hypothetical limit. To me, that was not nearly enough time to express a whole story. But I suppose that's why it makes the perfect challenge. Ten minutes. Ten minutes to tell an entire story. To the unexperienced, that seems impossible. To the foolish, that seems too easy. But to the truly skilled, that was just enough.

   My Rode Reel was a competition set up in partnership with the Rode microphone company. The rules dictated a short film, that had to use one of their branded mics, and a behind the scenes video. They had nine winners, all who received an insanely decked out cinema package. The categories stood as: Judges' choice, People's choice, Behind the Scenes, Cinematography, Soundtrack, Documentary,  Sound Design, Non-English, and Location. The film above is the Judge's pick.
   But the reason I point any of this out is because of the content that came out from this challenge. Hundreds of entries popped up from all around the world: all of which told a story in under ten minutes. Just when you thought you saw something you were positive would win, another video pushed its way to the front.
    And that why you should check out these films from the website. Because these are people who can tell a story. It doesn't take a lot to add things, but it takes a lot to know what needs to scrapped. The above movie, The Tale of Benjamin Sawyer is a perfect example of this practice. While it's not perfect, and relies heavily on exposition to get its story through the backstory (something arguably needed), it shows that even five minutes can begin and end and entire story. The behind the scenes themselves show just the process that its director, Ronnie Bingaman, had to go through to do this. And his is not the only film that should be looked at. All of the winner's have a remarkable twist on storytelling that begs to ask the question: if they can do it, can you? And hopefully that answer is yes.

   Te minutes used to seem like too little. But regardless of whether our stories go beyond or below, it's a limit that shouldn't be looked at lightly. Ten minutes is more than enough to tell a story. If anything, it's an art.

Rode VideoMic

Anymore sound can be recorded directly onto the camera however most DSLRs have a very poor performing on-board mic system even on cameras like the 5DMII and III. Audio is something most people take for granted while in reality a lot of the time audio makes or breaks the film. The most common thing said about student films is that there sound is the worst part. There are a lot of ways a beginner can get good audio though without dishing out thousands of dollars for a Tascam and a nice shotgun microphone. One of the most renowned onboard shotgun microphones is the Rode VideoMic series.

This is the best comparison video I could find. The main difference between these two models are the size. The Rode VideoMic costs about $150 and the VideoMic Pro is about $230. There is now a newer model of the VideoMic that has fixed the wobbly shock mount and is the same price.

(Newer model of the VideoMic)

 I hope to invest in the VideoMic within the next few days. I plan to use the microphone for interviews for short documentary and feature type work. I'm on a limited budget and this is part of the reason for not going for Pro version and in reality I don't really believe that the $70 dollars is worth the size difference which is the big difference between the two models. Eventually I hope to invest in some lavaliere microphones  and eventually a zoom H4 recorder for this type of work. But for now I believe this will suffice.

A functional audio interface, perfect for a college student

A popular audio recording app, Rode Rec, just got completely renovated and revamped. Rode Rec is an app for your ipad or iphone(currently unavailable to android users like myself), that turns your phone into a fully functional audio interface. It comes with options and abilities that professional audio interfaces have.
Rode Rec 2.8 gives you the ability to:
-Record at various sample rates
-Choose stereo vs. mono
-Control of your input & output signal
-Versatile compression and expansion controls
-Extensive "Rode Rec" equalizer
-iZotope presets for various scenarios
-and more

After you finish recording your audio, Rode Rec even has a built in sound editor. The sound editor program seems very in-depth for a phone editing program, but I'm sure it can not compare to any industry standard programs. Regardless, it would probably work in a pinch. With the Rode Rec editor you can:
-Edit with a trim tool
-Create basic or complex fades
-Create markers and regions
-Share directly to sites like Dropbox and Soundcloud
-Export in 9 different file formats

Rode Rec also sells lavalier mics that are made specifically for this app and your iphone which can be found here. In combination with the mic this app seems very practical. The biggest problem I see is that, depending on the situation, it will be very difficult to monitor your levels while you are recording, but there are ways to work around that.

I love that the industry is creating affordable alternatives that will produce a competing product, for simple use right on your iphone. I am excited to see what similar apps will be released in the near future. Here is a video directly from Rode Rec to learn more.



Introducing RØDE Rec 2.8 from RØDE Microphones on Vimeo.

(I tried to embed but couldn't get it to work with vimeo)