Animated Shorts: Goodbye

Over the holiday break I was more happy to be reunited with my family than to stuff my face with food. Prior to break I started sketching again and working on new animations (as you all know!) but during the break I found myself watching a lot of animated shorts. I'm constantly impressed by the talent of these artist, or filmmakers. But mostly impressed by the artist ability to transform paper drawings into visual animation while simultaneously illustrating a story with meaning. That's incredibly difficult... at least that's what I think.

There was one short in particular that caught my attention, personally I found it a bit horror-like, meaning it freaked me out a bit ( I scare easily) but nonetheless the short consumes your attention and puts life in perspective for you. And to top it all off its a complete digital production piece! Wow...

Take a look at Goodbye by Tyler Russo:

Goodbye from Tyler Russo on Vimeo.

YouTube And The Independent Filmmaker

YouTube And The Independent Filmmaker

     Does YouTube have a role to play to the Independent Filmmaker? YouTube is itself perhaps the greatest global distribution platform we have on the internet ; or at least the most widely used. With over a billion viewers, 4 billion views per day, and 300 hours of video uploaded every minute youtube is teeming with creators but what kind of creator? In Independent Filmmaker?
     YouTube has a reputation of cat videos, memes, music, tutorials, poorly shot bits of TV and Movies, and things that keep you distracted from your homework but not cinema that will engage you. Those types of things (short films, web series, ect....) have pushed there way into Vimeo, Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, and other sites. But why? Why isn't the next House of Cards, or the next great short film being not only uploaded but promoted through YouTube with its vast diversity and range for audience? 

     I  think there are many problems towards when putting your work on YouTube as a main mode of distribution and exposure. One is the sheer mass of content that is being put on youtube. Another is the audience that I think youtube has created and the culture around it. YouTube stars have dominated the marketplace creating a medium of societal commentary through narration rather than a platform to share storytelling ideas. 

     Though it's not as if youTube hasn't tried to cater to the independent filmmakers in the past. In 2013 at SunDance youtube launched "Youtube Shorts @ NEXT WEEKEND," featuring the likes of College Humor, Machinima, and VICE, to show the industry of short films on YouTube. But even then these companies do not represent the individual user that uploads content on YouTube. 

     This all ties into YouTube's recent announcement "YouTube Red" which is adding for a $10 a month subscription fee to those users who want access to things like no ads, more extensive music features, and exclusive videos from YouTube creators (mainly youtube stars). There are many problems with this flawed model, including why people wouldn't just use ad block, and how YouTube creators are going to deliver the quality and quantity videos needed to sustain a "exclusive" club for people who pay the price. 

     This idea of people paying for YouTube content I think is a failure as a  model considering their audience and the nature of their content but maybe it proposes a counterpoint to Vimeo in some way and a better model for the Independent Filmmaker and the web series that are littered the internet. If youtube could tap into the market of short films, web television and convince people to pay for seeing these services I think filmmaking could make it's way to youtube. With it's great distribution and audience and short films great quality and appeal maybe it could hold a future in the world of indie films.  

Making a lot Out of a Little

Over the past semester I have started to really branch out an learn about as much independent filming as I could. I started to follow a lot of different websites such as Cinema 5D and my personal favorite Phillip Bloom's website and blog. Phillip Bloom is a British cinematographer who works on a higher professional level as well as making his own independent videos. The video I am focusing on today is "From Chicago to the Moon", one of his most recently pieces. This film was shot in 4k. 4k resolution is considered Ultra High definition. 4k resolution has 3840 pixels x 2160 compared to 1080p which is HDTV or 2k resolution. This explains why the video looks so beautiful and the reason why you may be asking your self why your videos don't look like that.

The cameras used for this film were the Sony F55 and the Canon 1DC. These two camera bodies combined cost around 40,000 dollars. Thats a lot compared to my Canon T3i which was 600. My first point I want to make is that you definitely get what you pay for. My T3i can produce awesome shots and its a great camera to start off with, however the two camera Phillip Bloom used are professional grade equipment and are worth every penny to a professional. The shots in this video are beautiful, its is almost spot on to what the human eye can capture, and thats why the equipment costs so much, quality. The quality of the shots in this video is what made it a Vimeo Staff Pick not the story, which kind of confuses me. I'm personally a big fan of using video as means of telling a story and when you break this video down, it is just a lot of B-roll. I'm not critiquing the quality or beauty of this piece of art, I'm saying is the content could have been more intriguing. However this video was shot in about 15 minutes. In the post about this video Phillip Bloom says he was at dinner and then had he saw something he had to capture but only had so much time to get the shots, luckily he had his equipment with him. Along with his two cameras he had an array of lenses including a 800m lens with two telephoto extenders making his 800m 4x its actual size. He used this to obtain the shots of the moon as well as the skyline. The shots of the moon were probably my favorite part of the film, the definition of an object so far away is just amazing. The shots of the skyscrapers were quite interesting as well, he says in his blog post that the shoot location was about 40 miles away from the city of chicago.

Overall the video is quite creative, my only problem with it is that it is getting so much reception without even a basic story line. There are plenty of ways you could bullshit the story or symbolism behind the video, but the plot should be observable to the viewer without to much effort. This video is however a great example of the mentality a cinematographer should have. Phillip Bloom saw something he like and he filmed it with what he had, granted he usually has a lot more available then you average film student but the general idea is there. If you want to be successful you should be shooting something at least once a week if not once a day, some footage will be shit, other footage will be great but thats all part of the process. The videographer of this video saw that the sun went down and he immediately started shoot the moon, thats the mindset you must have when you're shooting. There is always something else to shoot, even if it is as simple as the moon.

Sony FS-100/ Creative Video

Looking back at the old blog posts I saw a lot of movies being reviewed, I'm going to change things up a bit. In the era we are in online videos and media are becoming more and more popular. In most peoples life they watch some sort of media throughout their day, whether it is a viral video on youtube or a professional short film on Vimeo. I will be posting a few videos for you all to look at some pertaining to class others that are just really cool to analyze from a cinematographers standpoint.

The first video is a review of the Sony NEX FS100 which we will be using in class. I figured I would learn a little bit more about this camera and it's set up so I searched youtube and found this review by ProMotion. The video is done in a professional manner and is a nice beginner overview of some of the features this camera has.

Sony NEX FS100 Overview by Pro Motion


The next video is B-Roll filmed on the Sony NEX FS100. This video really got me excited. The quality of the camera is beautiful, and compared to the camera I used last year ,which is the JVC HM100, it is a huge step up. I plan to take out a camera this weekend and make a similar video and hopefully edit it with Adobe Premiere.

Pacific City Dory Fleet | Sony FS100

The last video is something I found this past summer when I was extremely bored and was on StumbleUpon. I personally think this video is amazing. I ski and I love extreme sports, I really enjoy watching skiing videos and things of that genre. This film shows four mountain bikers riding some hardcore trails, but more importantly the shots the camera man got really make you wonder how they did that. I really enjoyed the editing and content and I hope you take something away from it.

Mountain Biking Madness

I hope you all enjoyed my first post and I look forward to reading all of yours.