fiction — though rarely factual — is often True.

“oh… hi.”

“hi!”

the next thing was a pause. i know it was probably only a split-second, but it felt like an hour. as all blood rushed to my brain, i feared whatever look i must be giving her. my brain scoured for social info on how next to proceed. nothing instinctual was there.

“what are you doing here?” was all i came up with.

“…grocery shopping,” she answered, acknowledging the obviousness of it. good job.

“well, yes, but…” still reaching… “…i mean, do you live here?”

she laughed. “i knew what you meant.” yes. that. is exactly what i meant. yes. “no, just visiting mom and dad.”

“yep. same here.”

“i saw on Facebook where you’re in Nashville now?”

“well, Murfreesboro.”

“oh okay, how are you liking that–”

k, ima just skip ahead to the part where i hate being alive and want out of this conversation as quickly as possible.

it’s not her. she’s a lovely human being, as she always was. but we broke up like fifteen years ago, and i haven’t spoken to her in person in about ten years or more. so it was just awkward.

we grew up in the same small town. we met in junior high. we had dated for about two years, most of that long-distance. we started dating in high school, but attended colleges at opposite ends of the state. cell phones were just sort of becoming a thing at the time, and my parents got me one. so on nights and weekends we would talk, talk, talk.

we talked about lots of stuff. we talked a lot about religious stuff. i was busy with the Christian Student Center. religion was sort of a seasonal thing in her family, so she was interested in taking it to the next level. i’d like to think that our conversations about spiritual things drew her closer to God, even though i cringe when i think back to some of the things we talked about. i’m such a different person now. i’m sure she is as well.

the truth was palpable. we had gone our separate ways, and while there were no hard feelings, i just really didn’t have anything to say to this person any more. our lives no longer had anything in common; she might as well have been a complete stranger.

it was awkward, and i wanted it to take a turn, quickly. which it did.

i saw her look over my shoulder. i turned to follow her gaze and my found myself looking into the eyes of a tall, nicely-dressed man. taller than me. nicelier dressed than me. better looking than me. more hair than me.

“this is my husband.”

offfff course he is.

“hello, husband.” i’m sure probably actually said his name at the time, but whatever. i shook his hand, and some giant class ring (or Super Bowl ring or king’s signet or something) dug into my fingers as he gripped strong. i tried to politely make how ever much eye contact you’re supposed to make to be engaging but not weird. probably did not accomplish that.

then i noticed this little one hiding behind one of his pants legs.

“and this is our son, Louie.” Louie was TERRIFIED of me. dunno if it was the beard or the hat or what. he was eyeing me from behind his dad’s leg, probably thinking that i couldn’t see him.

“hey buddy!” i plastered on a giant smile — half fake, half actually glad i didn’t have to talk to either of his parents any more for a second. he was having none of it. he slinked back even further. suddenly it really bothered me that this kid didn’t like me. so i tried everything i could think of — a little peek-a-boo, some little tickling/”i’m going to get you” kind of maneuver. i mean let’s face it, if a child is terrified, putting on a creepy smile and telling him “i’m going to get you” should really smooth things right over. i never saw the bottom half of this kid’s face. he just stayed buried in his dad’s slacks.

they made some excuses and i shrugged it off with some self-deprecating remarks that ended up sounding more pathetic than funny, and then — thank the good Lord — they left.

as soon as they rounded the spices, i immediately thought about what an idiot i was for trying to make that kid like me. who cares? that kid’s never going to see me again. if i had completely ignored him, it probably wouldn’t have been seen as rude, and undoubtedly Louie and i both would have preferred it. i mean, this kid has no relation to me whatsoever.

now, i suppose one might point out that maybe i had some spiritual influence on the kid’s mother years ago, and that has been handed down to this kid. but let’s be honest. no one is telling this kid about the creepy grocery stranger’s role in his spiritual development. the kid is 6, and everything he knows about life comes from mom and dad. mom probably doesn’t even think about how we talked about spiritual stuff years ago. any of those discussions are long buried in the foundation of what is now a self-sustained building that’s got a whole lotta “not much” to do with me.

this is why the phone call was so incredibly strange.

“i assume that you are aware of the passing of…”

i wasn’t. car accident. it was quick and brutal. they were gone. Louie was at his grandparents’ at the time.

i tuned back in when i heard, “…named you as his sole guardian.”

“wait, i’m sorry, what?”

“in the will. they have named you as Louie’s sole guardian. this is why we’re calling you. we need to make arrangements…”

my mind trailed off again. was this woman crazy?

i stood near baggage claim. down the corridor, i saw an airport employee walking with a young boy. i couldn’t really remember what he looked like. i hadn’t even seem all of him, but i assumed it was Louie.

“he’s all yours now!” the bubbly flight attendant had no idea how frighteningly true that statement was.

“hey buddy.” he didn’t even look at me. he didn’t seem to be afraid of me, but he still didn’t want a thing to do with me. i assumed he was probably still grieving and convinced myself that it was probably best to just leave him to his thoughts. looking back on it, what he probably needed was some comfort and reassurance; i know i did.

the next few weeks were not much different. can you imagine trying to take someone else’s child and make him your own? i don’t know about you, but i come from a long line of parents. and yet, i’ve never been one. and this situation is so crazy, i couldn’t even get proper advice from people.

i tried discipline, i tried doing things his way, i tried being the “fun dad”, i tried giving him space… everything kinda worked in little ways, and everything was a huge disaster in other ways. it was completely stressful. i didn’t know what to do. and Louie was no help. i really did want it to work, but Louie didn’t. he just wanted me to go away. i had all kinds of different ideas than his parents, ideas that were central to who i was… i couldn’t just give them up. but, he was kind of the same way, right?

how do i talk to this kid? how do i see life through his eyes? how can i show him that i care about the best for him? how can i show him that it was a long line of out-of-control events that brought us here, but i desperately want to be a part of his life now, because if not me… then who?

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The Christian Movie Establishment vs. Blue Like Jazz

“One of the most consistent criticisms I got as a recording artist came from fellow Christians saying, “Why do you do these songs criticizing the church? Why would you go airing our dirty laundry for the public to see?” And, of course, that same criticism had been leveled at Blue Like Jazz.

This perspective has always amused me, as if the public thinks we’ve got our act together perfectly, as if they don’t already see the hypocrisy in our midst. They just think we’re too dumb to see it ourselves.

Which is why the image of a guy in a confession booth finally confessing the truth started my six-year-long quest to make Blue Like Jazz.

When we tell the truth – even the uncomfortable truth – the truth sets people free.”

the whole article is totally on point.

if you haven’t seen Taylor’s first feature The Second Chance, you should check it out; i really enjoyed it. i’m really looking forward to Blue Like Jazz (and not just for the Bear on a Bicycle scene).

i hope that there are a lot of angry patrons. if the film stirs the pot, people will become disappointed and angry with their anger and disappointment in life and seek something higher.

encouraging that search should be the aim of every filmmaker who proclaims the name of Christ.

UPDATE:  interesting update to this story as director Steve Taylor receives an unexpected phone call from Alex Kendrick of Sherwood Pictures.

southern humorist Lewis Grizzard explains the difference between being “naked” and being “nekkid.”

” ‘Naked’ means you ain’t got no clothes on. ‘Nekkid’ means you ain’t got no clothes on, and you up to somethin.”

nakedness

the first naked people in the Judeo-Christian tradition are, of course, Adam and Eve. their origin story ends with the world in a state that God himself called “very good”.

“And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”

- Genesis 2:25

naked and unashamed. but it didn’t last long.

the fall

“Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.”

- Genesis 3:7-8

nekkid and hiding.

the were naked and unashamed. now they were nekkid and hiding. this is the moment to which we give a tragic moniker: the fall of man. this is our “end of act one” moment, world turned upside down. chaos.

God, having sought them, asks a question of pain, of disappointment, of hurt feelings:

“Who told you that you were naked?”

- Genesis  3:11a

Jonathan Acuff brings this ancient question to our very present falling.

“Who told you that you were not enough?
Who told you that I didn’t love you?
Who told you that there was something outside of me you needed?
Who told you that you were ugly?
Who told you that your dream was foolish?
Who told you that you would never have a child?
Who told you that you would never be a father?
Who told you that you weren’t a good mother?
Who told you that without a job you aren’t worth anything?
Who told you that you’ll never know love again?
Who told you that this was all there is?
Who told you that you were naked?”

Zacchaeus

thousands of years pass. Jesus walks the earth. too short to see over the crowd, Zacchaeus climbs a sycamore tree. from here, he can clearly see Jesus, and Jesus can clearly see him.

at the end of this rich story, Jesus shares a personal mission statement:

“For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

- Luke 19:10

the NASB is one of the closest English translations to the literal rendering of the Greek text. you can see the Greek here. note the last phrase.

not “those who were lost.” ”…that which was lost.”

not necessarily lost people. a lost quality. a lost condition. something missing. something that needs seeking out, restoring. something that needs salvaging, saving.

what have we lost? what does every person who lives yearn for?

imagine what it would feel like to be naked, exposed to the world. not barren of clothing, but rather barren of burden, of secrets. imagine you could lay out every hurt, every insecurity, every doubt, every dark thought, every insult, every disappointment.

imagine you could lay it all on the line… and be unashamed.

naked and unashamed. exposed and loved. found out and invited in.

sin creeps in and divides and rots and topples. sin seeks to ruin. we hide our sin, and in so doing hide important parts of ourselves. if Jesus believed He could take away the sins of the world, then surely it meant restoring this important aspect of the Garden — the ability to be naked and unashamed…

ET: the Extra-Terrestrial

i watched ET with my friend Greg the other night. Greg is a huge Spielberg fan, namely his early stuff. we can’t get together without one of us mentioning JAWS or ET or Close Encounters or Raiders. beyond Spielberg’s directorial style, there was something metaphysical amid those early films. it was something that both came from and spoke to our culture in America at that time.

Leo Grin writes about how Lucas and Spielberg changed the face of cinema in the late 70s and ushered in the optimistic cinema of the 80s:

“They did this not by being avant-garde or trying to impress liberal critics or professors, but by refreshing themselves at the wells of myths, old movies, and pulps (much of them politically incorrect), and then infusing their new versions of those tales with a sense of optimism largely absent from the hyper-politicized movies of the Seventies.”

even my most atheist friends search the heavens for signs of life, dreaming of one day being a part of a society that is larger than the one we know now. everyone desires to be a part of something greater, bigger, more noble. whether you consider this a hard-wired desire to seek a creative God or whether you consider God a creation of a species looking to fulfill this desire, it would be hard to argue against this deeply-rooted human craving. there must be more than this.

so much of our everyday adulthood stifles this innate yearning. act this way, say these things, don’t talk about that. adulthood has become a parade of societal constructs attempting to tame and civilize a man who was placed in the center of wild creation and given the charge to “fill the earth and subdue it.” (Genesis 1:28)

this realization isn’t peculiar to adults. children know it, too, and they resist adulthood. this is the tension between parent and child. this is the dissonance of adolescence. there is much to value in the path to adulthood, but we often make the journey by hiding our true selves in the process, ashamed of that which we find lacking, broken, ugly.

one thing that strikes Greg about ET is how even the adults drop their walls by the end of the film. to witness something so amazing as a life from outer space, a spaceship taking off in plain sight. there is an awareness in every soul that to be present on this occasion is a rare blessing, and it may never happen again in human history, certainly not in their lifetime. the awe and spectacle has lifted them above their crowded lives to see something that is so much bigger than them.

one thing I noticed was that there are no bad guys in the end. the brother starts off as an instigator, but then makes a solemn promise. Gertie, first afraid of ET, teaches him to talk. the mother joins the team. “Keys” becomes a friend, based on his common yearning: “…since I was ten years old…” even Elliot’s brother’s friends who do nothing but poke fun at Elliot the whole movie become willing accomplices at the end, helping get the newly resurrected E.T. home. everyone who is “the bad guy” at some point in the film eventually becomes part of the small band of people watching the ship take off at the end.

everyone is fully enraptured in this mysterious event. how often do people that argue over minutiae become allies in the fight against a common enemy? how many spats and trifle arguments become weightless in the gravity of larger ideas?

spectacular Mystery beautifully interrupts.

Max Lucado describes John’s recounting of the woman at the well from John, chapter 4:

“Did you notice what she forgot? She forgot her water jar. She left behind the jug that had caused the sag in her shoulders. She left behind the burden she brought.

Suddenly the shame of the tattered romances disappeared. Suddenly the insignificance of her life was swallowed by the significance of the moment. ‘God is here! God has come! God cares… for me!’

That is why she forgot her water jar. That is why she ran to the city.

That is why she grabbed the first person she saw and announced her discovery, ‘I just talked to a man who knows everything I ever did… and he loves me anyway!’

The disciples offered Jesus some food. He refused it — he was too excited! He had just done what he does best. He had taken a life that was drifting and given it direction.

He was exuberant!

‘Look!’ he announced to disciples, pointing at the woman who was running to the village. ‘Vast fields of human souls are ripening all around us, and are ready now for the reaping’.

Who could eat at a time like this?”

i believe something new is coming, something exciting. something that will make all of us — the stuffiest doctor, the stodgiest lawyer, the most uptight priest, the most-hated tax collector — drop all adulthood barriers. we will come out of hiding. we will leave shame behind at the well of myth, legend, and story, and we will run to tell everyone we know about the Mystery we’ve encountered.

innate in each of us is the belief that there must be much, much more than this. and when we realize this, when we realize that we can escape into something bigger, higher, unashamed, bold, empowered, free…

…what will it look like to be fully alive?

“For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing…”

- Romans 8:19a

everyone’s seen the David. it graces the covers of books, postcards, and aprons. it’s been copied at varying sizes since it was first sculpted. it’s a seminal piece of art history, and it currently stands in the center of the Accademia Galleria in Florence, Italy, preserved for every tourist to come and surreptitiously snap pictures with their cellphones while loud, angry Italian museum guards yell unintelligible curses at our smiling, faux-naïve faces.

to see it in person is really something else.

i was in Europe in the summer of 2008. in Italy, i was completely by myself in Florence for about 8 days, doing research for a screenplay i was working on at the time. i did very few touristy things, but seeing the David before i left was a must.

i woke up early that morning. the nuns in the monestary where i stayed had barely roused. the night before they gave me some provisions for breakfast. they wanted to make sure — even though i was leaving early — that i was fed (since i was paying for it anyway as part of my rent).

so i ventured out onto the Viale Michelangiolo with backpack and breakfast and headed for the Accademia Gallery. i arrived at what appeared to be the backside of a warehouse, but no, it was the right place. surprisingly, there was no line, and a sign indicated the doors would open at 8:30. seeing as how it was about 6:30, i wandered back into town to get some coffee.

after my brief cup of espresso, i wandered back out and found a place on the street to pop a squat and people watch. the city was relatively quiet, though the noise had already begun, a few of the small industrial trucks barrelling their way down the tiny, cobbled alleys.

a few beggars clattered about, practicing their pleas on passersby. a few young stockboys, browned by the Italian summer sun hustled boxes into the square where the small kiosks were just stretching and yawning to life with the rest of the town. Florence is a major Italian city, but this morning I could see it was just another town like any other, a place these people called home.

after snapping a few pictures, i went about 8:15 or so to get in line. there were maybe 12 people in line. the guy in front of me spoke English. the doors opened, and we all waddled in, handing our 10 euro to some disenchanted museum employee locked away behind a ticketbooth window and an embroidered polo.

i moseyed about the first gallery, taking in the huge oil canvases from centuries ago. in the middle of the room was a towering sculpture. i took out my camera, and immediately became aware of the guards and the signs — “NO PHOTO!” both exclaimed.

rounding the corner into the main hall, i was really enthralled by the unfinished sculptures lining the walkway leading up to the David. (yes, the David was there, in my perifery. but i refused to look at it until i stood before it and could really take it all in.) these half-sculptures were amazing. their style was so different from the rest of Michelangelo’s work that i’d seen in books. they seemed so evolved artistically, almost like the art deco reliefs of the American 20s, or maybe i just remember them that way, these frozen men struggling to escape the stones which still encapsulated them.

unfinished, they were rough hewn. like seeing the contrapasto of a Van Gogh up close (which I got to do later in Rome at the Vatican), you could see the artist’s handiwork, frozen for posterity, unmistakable fingerprints of the one who cared enough to chip away at the unknown and present this gift to the world.

after a deep breath, i turned to see the David, towering over tourists under the Gallery’s small rotunda. he stood tall, relaxed on his hind leg, staring off at an opposing giant, unseen, to the south. he had already selected his stones, and stood sizing up his opponent, his massive hands clutching the sling draped over his sculpted shoulder.

as you approach, it is only natural to look to his face. despite being stone, it is soft, the brow ever-so-slightly furrowed. the danger of the giant is palpably tacit.

the natural draw is to walk around him to the right, counter-clockwise. my eyes glued to that unsure countenance, a magnificent thing happened as i paced about the marble marvel. the right side of David’s face is different than the left. it’s harder, the eye more narrow. as you walk around the statue, it comes to life. it’s eerily alive. you can almost see him breathe, it feels so real.

the face changes. as you cross David’s eyeline, his gaze resolves. the broad faith that selects five stones from a hidden brook settles into that certainty that fires one carefully selected projectie as David and Goliath race toward one of their deaths. in those carved eyes, you can see “who is this Philistine?” become “that all the earth may know there IS a God in Israel!”

unlike the prisoners of stone in the hallway before, David is free. his massive head and massive hands emphasize the intellect and the actions of a man of thought. a man with a deep connection to an important history. a man with determination. a man who will not stand idly by as his people are oppressed and persecuted. a man who slays giants.

this stone depiction of the 1 Samuel 17 hero is nearly as powerful as the small, smooth creekstone that cracked Goliath’s forehead millennia ago. frozen in the David’s fierce gaze is the fiery smolder that can only reside in a man after God’s own heart. the poet. the shepherd. the king. the warrior.

the path around the statue is short, but the journey spans all of human history. bit by bit, step by step, faith evolves into action, and by those deeds, the world will know that there IS a God among His people.

“But Jesus answered, ‘I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out!’ ”

- Luke 19:40

images not my own are pulled from the Wikimedia Commons, and to my knowledge they are used according to guidelines.

etymology

parabolos (pronounced par-ah-bah-lahs) is an ancient Greek word which means, “venturesome, reckless, dangerous”. the para- (para-) prefix can mean “aside”, “alongside”, or “to the side”, and the bolo root means “i throw”.  quite literally, the word means “thrown aside”. consider our idiomatic expression “throwing caution to the wind” as a parallel construct.

it may evoke ideas of its relative, parabole (par-ah-bah-lay), where we get our English word parable; a parable is a story “thrown alongside” a truth so that people may more easily understand it.

the paraboloni

from a lesson on Model Spiritual Servants by John MacArthur:

“That word parabolo came to have some interesting usages. In the days of the early church after the New Testament era, there was an association of men and women who got together and took the name ‘The Paraboloni’ which meant ‘The Gamblers.’ They took as their hero Epaphroditus who gambled with his life. And it was their aim and their mission to visit the prisoners, to visit the sick, especially those with infectious, dangerous, communicable diseases. It was their mission to unhesitatingly, unflinchingly and boldly proclaim the Lord Jesus Christ in every environment without any hesitation. And they called themselves, ‘The Paraboloni, The Gamblers.’

It is also interesting to note that in A.D. 252 the city of Carthage had a terrible plague and the heathen were so frightened of the germs that were in the bodies of the dead that they literally bagged them somehow and hurled them out of the city, not wanting to touch them for burial. Cyprian the Christian bishop gathered the congregation of the believing church together and the church members took their bodies and in a gracious act of human kindness buried the dead bodies of the plague-stricken people. And according to the historians as well, they nursed even the sick people, coming close enough to them to touch them in that plague-infested city, risking their lives to save some in the city and God used them as a tremendous potential, as a tremendous force really to reach people for Christ because of their love.

Whether you’re talking about The Paraboloni who gambled with their lives in an infectious disease environment, or whether you’re talking about Epaphroditus their hero who gambled with his life by going at a hostile culture with all he had in the service of Jesus Christ, that kind of self- sacrificing example is marvelous.”

through parabolos, i hope to live a thrown-aside life in order to tell the Story that this generation so desperately needs to hear.

one of the best tools i learned from my time at NCSA was the director’s worksheet. in this post, i’ll explain the worksheet, give you an example, and links to some downloads.

much of what i learned about directing i attribute to Janos, but don’t hold that against him. because these are not my ideas, these tools are being offered freely to you for your personal use.

the director’s worksheet

the director’s worksheet is a tool for interpreting a written work, and i’ve found it invaluable as a director and as a writer. as a director, it has helped me understand the inner workings of a scene to communicate these motivations to my cast. as a writer, it has helped me get at the core of scene and characters, often to problem-solve why a scene or sequence isn’t working, often to figure out where to go next.

here’s the basic worksheet:

director’s worksheet

script title

written by 

directed by 

page #: 

scene #: 

SCENE SLUG

scene description

story

     theme:

     moral message:

character name

      super-objective:

      story objective:

      scene objective:

      relationships with other characters:

      conflict with other characters:

      inner conflict:

scene

      verbs within the scene:

the instructions

scene info

script title, written by, directed by are all self-explanatory.

page # should be the current script page number. be sure to update this if the script is not locked when initially filling out the director’s worksheet.

you will have a unique worksheet for every scene in your film. yet, scene # should only be filled in when there are locked production scene numbers, so as to correspond with other production documents. if there are no locked scene numbers yet, it’s best to leave this blank for now and rely on the scene slug below.

replace SCENE SLUG with the scene slug line from script, “INT. HOUSE – DAY”, e.g. this is particularly necessary if there are no production scene numbers yet; you can use slug + page number to associate this sheet with the correct scene in the case of duplicate slugs.

replace scene description with a brief description of the scene for reference. it’s always a good idea to read the scene two or three times before filling out the worksheet. you should be familiar enough with the scene to come up with this description without having to look at the script.

story

the items in the story section will be the same for the entire screenplay, so just copy & paste with each new worksheet.

the theme will usually be one word — greed, love, revenge, addiction, etc. it is the vehicle by which the moral message below is delivered throughout the entire story. in some way, nearly every major aspect of the story will relate to this theme.

the moral message is simply the moral of the story. usually it will be a sentence — a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, don’t bite the hand that feeds you, etc. this is what you want the audience to leave the theater with above all else.

characters

before beginning to fill out this part of the worksheet, copy & paste the whole section for each character in the scene, replacing “character name” with the name of the character. i would recommend doing this for even minor characters, as complex motivations make those featured extras and day-player roles really fill out your world and feel less like a script device.

super-objectives

the super-objective is the central, deepest, core objective of the character. if you imagine the entire real-world lifespan of your character, this will be formed in them sometime during their early childhood development. it will remain in them unchanged for the rest of their life and drives every other more specific objective they may have.

common super-objectives would be “to be loved”, “to be respected”, “to live life on one’s own terms”. some would say that, with rare exception, it’s only those three. others have a looser interpretation of super-objective. the main principle is that it is the deep core of all the character’s motivations, even outside the current story. in very rare instances, a major tragedy or change may come to a character’s life and change his/her super-objective, but this is extremely rare.

i’ve been asked before if the super-objective must always be such a self-serviing central goal. i’d have to say yes to this, because even in the case of truly noble characters, their inner struggle often comes in overcoming personal struggles with selfish desires over what is right or true or truly good.

consider Jesus of Nazareth as a character, for example — Someone often seen as having the purest and most selfless of motives throughout His entire story. even He was tempted in the desert at the beginning of his hero’s journey, with Satan appealing to His desires to be filled, to be Lord, to be Savior. during this time of temptation, Jesus fought against temptation to achieve these goals in righteous ways — being filled with the Spirit, being Lord by being a servant, and being a Savior through ultimate sacrifice.

these goals are not selfish, in the connotation of the term. but they are HIS goals, and His actions and Words are motivated from His desires. it’s not that the super-objective is necessarily selfish (though i contend in 98%+ of the cases, it will be, especially for main characters), but that a self can only see the world through his own eyes and experiences. therefore all motivations, selfish or otherwise, are manifested in the self (though they may come from God or human nature or what have you).

other objectives

the story objective is the main goal of this character confined only to the pages of this story (novel, film, stageplay). story and super-objectives will be the same throughout the screenplay, so you can just copy & paste from sheet to sheet.

the scene objective is the character’s goal in this particular scene. it motivates all actions and dialogue in the current scene, and is informed by the story and super-objectives.

relationships with other characters gets into bio and backstory of the characters — family relationships, romantic relationships, have they met, under what circumstances, nature of friendship, etc. these will not be used on every sheet, but will be reused often — every time the same two characters are in a scene together — so copy & paste as needed. these should be brief reminders; you should have more extensive character notes elsewhere.

conflict with other characters should include both story-wide conflicts with characters as well as conflicts specific to the counteracting goals within this particular scene. both spans of conflict affect and change motivations in the current scene.

like conflict with characters, personal, psychological inner conflicts will range from story-wide or super-objective-type conflicts as well as specific conflicts within a scene. interpersonal conflict and inner conflict will be your biggest motivators when you come to line-by-line, action-by-action direction of actors on set. as a writer, this is where your subtext lies.

scene

verbs within the scene is simply what it says. it should be all action verbs, primarily from the actual screenplay, and should be in the order in which they occur — open, punch, sit, run, scrub, fold, etc. this will help you take the deep subtext of the rest of this sheet and connect it to the active business of your characters. it is here that the subtext and motivations break out into visual patterns. it is mostly by what the audience can SEE that they will understand the truth.)

an example

here’s a scene from a short script i wrote called Sunrise.

story and script © parabolos 2012

these are offered for you own personal use and personal education only. please do not copy, distribute, or produce derivative works without express written permission.

the scene

“SUNRISE“

FADE IN:

EXT. CAMP SITE – NIGHT

Rain.

DAVID ZACHARY (24) throws a rope over a tree branch. He misses. Again. Miss. Again. Made it. He grabs the swinging free end of the rope and pulls it as a garbage bag slowly lifts into the air. Halfway up, the bottom bursts, and water and garbage fall to the ground making a mess and splattering mud everywhere.

David dismisses the whole scene with a wave of his hand as he walks towards a small pup tent.

INT. PUP TENT – NIGHT

David enters the tent, soaking wet. His wife, MICHELLE (22), sits up in her sleeping bag.

MICHELLE

Hey, cowboy. Could you drip the other way please?

DAVID

Hey, I’m not the one who wanted to put up the garbage.

MICHELLE

I was just joking with you. What is your problem?

DAVID

My problem? My problem is I’m soaking wet.

David starts to get undressed.

DAVID (CONT’D)

I just want to get out of these clothes.

MICHELLE

For your information, if you don’t put the garbage up like that, it will attract bears.

DAVID

There’s no bears around here.

MICHELLE

Yes, there are. Becky and Barry said that–

DAVID

You know, since when Becky and Barry become the outdoors experts. I thought they lived in Cordova.

MICHELLE

Well, they do a lot of outdoorsy stuff.

DAVID

Oh yeah? Like what? Like riding the trolley? Their idea of roughing it is going to Millington.

Michelle folds her arms. David continues to undress. Then he notices.

DAVID (CONT’D)

What? Oh, come on.

David sits beside her.

DAVID (CONT’D)

Look, I’m sorry. I’m just really irritated right now. I’m soaking wet, the trash bag broke,…

MICHELLE

Broke?

DAVID

Yeah, it filled up with water and wouldn’t hold the weight. I’ll take care of it in the morning.

MICHELLE

But the bears will–

DAVID

Enough about the bears. Trust me, there’s only one animal dumb enough to fool with garbage out in the rain.

Michelle stares at him. He runs his hand through her hair.

DAVID (CONT’D)

I’ll pick it up in the morning, okay? It’ll be fine.

David kisses her on the neck. She smiles a little. He kisses her again. He turn her face toward his. He’s about to kiss her lips when:

MICHELLE

You’re getting my sleeping bag wet.

David sighs and gets over to his sleeping bag where he continues to change clothes. Michelle rolls over away from him to go back to sleep.

DAVID

(to himself)

Perfect.

the worksheet

here is my particular interpretation of this scene. yours may differ. this worksheet is offered as a resource for seeing how the worksheet is used practically. the sheet will regard scene 2 in the above excerpt.

INT. PUP TENT – NIGHT

theme: seeing. (it’s hard to know this from this point in the story, but the rest of the story, in a very literal way, uses what is seen as a metaphor for what is unseen. like these two characters cannot see eye to eye, one cannot see the other’s feelings, etc.)

moral message: warmth comes from within. (again, without knowing the ending of this story, it would be impossible to know this. but the idea of the short is that the couple’s surface goals for going on a camping trip masked what should have been the true goal, which is to spend time in personal intimacy with each other, to know each other. this is a lesson they learn by the end — that the whole purpose of a trip like this is to cast off all of those outer things that are seen, and gather around the warmth of deeper, unseen things. thus the use of seeing as a theme.)

David

super-objective: to be respected

story objective: to be seen as a man

scene objective: David wants to be the decision-maker.

relationships with other characters: David is Michelle’s husband of three years.

conflict with other characters: David & Michelle’s relationship has been strained lately. This attempt to reconnect was initiated and planned by Michelle, and David is determined to take some control of the weekend in order to be the pants-wearer.

inner conflict: David doesn’t want to hurt Michelle’s feelings, but this is split between his true desire to not hurt her and his personal desire for getting to the more physical part of the evening. David wants to fulfill his wife’s expectations regarding the chores and schedule, including in the tent, but constantly being told what to do has been getting on his nerves for weeks.

Michelle

super-objective: to be loved

story objective: to improve her marriage

scene objective: Michelle wants everything to go right tonight to ensure a perfectly romantic evening together.

relationships with other characters: Michelle is David’s wife of three years.

conflict with other characters: David & Michelle’s relationship has been strained lately. Michelle has initiated and planned this trip as a way of spending time alone and away from their busy suburban schedules, specifically David’s work, to which Michelle feels David devotes too much time at the expense of their life at home. David believe it’s how he provides for and supports his wife.

inner conflict: Michelle loves her husband but doesn’t feel that he loves her in return, at least not in the same ways. she doesn’t want to be seen as a nag or uncharming, but she does want to see certain things happen this weekend and has taken steps to ensure intimacy.

verbs within the scene: enters, sits up, undresses, folds her arms, notices, sits, stares, runs his hand through her hair, kisses, smiles, sighs, moves over, rolls away, sleeps

the downloads

these rich-text formatted files (inside the .zips) import great into Scrivener (my screenwriter of choice), but can be used in pretty much any other word processor.

director’s worksheet

director’s worksheet instructions

i’ve also provided PDFs of the scene and sample worksheets included here as resources for you. as with all of my resources provided on this blog, they are subject to copyright protection. please do not copy, distribute, or produce derivative works without written permission. they are for your personal use and education only.

if you would like to use any of these materials in an education or production setting, please use the contact box on the right sidebar to get in touch with me, and i’d be glad to assist you.

PDF of Sunrise scene

PDF of sample worksheet for scene

and here’s all four in one .zip file:

director’s worksheet resources

i hope you have found this look at the director’s worksheet useful. if so, please share this link with others you think can benefit. while content must be sacred and protected, we should all share our processes when we can. it helps us all make better films.

Godspeed.

i began this blog with a few reasons in mind. one of the most visible purposes was to share what i had learned about using new technology as it applies to the film production process.

some who follow my blog but don’t know me well personally may be frustrated that the site went dark for about six months, only to return with cryptic stories and essays that don’t seem to have anything to do with iPad 4 rumors.

and most of my daily traffic currently comes from Google searches about tech scenarios which i have specifically written about here: using an iPhone for production sound recording, the 5D vs. the 7D, the YouTube app on iOS, etc. this blog will continue to provide this film-related content which may be hard to find in other places.

tomorrow’s post, in fact, is one of the more extensive posts I’ve done. though light on technology, it is a technical post that hopefully directors and writers will find useful, and it comes equipped with examples and downloads.

so there will still be posts about film technology and technique. i believe that is one of the most tangible ways i can serve my industry, even in my limited station as a film/video freelancer deep in the heart of Tennessee. there’s a lot here in the archives that is still relevant, and expect to continue seeing tech-related posts over the coming weeks. my hope is to be more structured with posts, both in terms of writing craft and schedule.

parabolos

but the tech stuff is just part of a broader purpose for this space. parabolos is my film production company, and i am dedicating my life to it. over the coming weeks, i will be spelling out what parabolos is, what it means to the world, and what my intentions are.

wrapped up in all of this is my passion for telling stories. these stories and essays are as central to my identity as any of the trademark ways people recognize me — my daily Starbucks trips, the Apple tech in my hand, or my red Chucks.

the story isn’t always as visible as the other things, but it’s what fuels parabolos. it motivates me to simplify the craft for all of us. it pushes me to read, search, attempt, work, and sacrifice.

the Story is the Why.

story and screenplay © parabolos 2012
please do not reproduce or produce derivative works without permission. thanks.

“KATE’S SONG”

FADE IN:

EXT. DOWNTOWN – NIGHT

KATE (mid-20s) hustles on her way. She is dressed simply, but sharply, and dark, in contrast to her brightly lit nighttime surroundings.

Other PEOPLE bustle about on this early winter evening. Some beggars hassle passers-by. Kate ignores them, lost in her thoughts, going over some sheet music.

EDDIE (50ish), a street musician, slowly strums his guitar, but no one seems to listen, least of all Kate.

INT. ELEVATOR – LATER

Kate looks over her music. She glances up at a few of the other girls in the elevator car with her. They are also dressed well and made up, going over music themselves.

Kate catches herself being distracted and turns her attention back to her sheet music.

INT. WAITING ROOM – LATER

Kate is now just pretending to look at the music.She glances occasionally at the other girls, but mainly stares across the top of the page at the floor.

A door opens.

PEON (O.S.)

Kate Abrams?

Kate snaps out of her daze and plasters on a smile, rising.

INT. SMALL THEATER – LATER

Kate sings. Her eyes closed, she calls the music up from her memory.

A few gray heads in the front row listen and write notes. One interrupts her.

GRAY HEAD

Thank you.

Kate, a bit stunned, stops and looks at him.

GRAY HEAD (CONT’D)

Very nice. Thank you for coming.

Kate forces a smile and does a slight bow before exiting the stage. As she exits, she looks to the gray heads one more time. They busy themselves turning pages, making notes, and checking their PDAs.

INT. ELEVATOR – LATER

Kate rides down alone. She stares at the floor, her music rolled up in her hands.

EXT. DOWNTOWN – LATER

Kate walks home. It is late, and the streets are mostly empty, save a beggar or two.

INT. KATE’S BATHROOM – LATER

Having changed clothes, Kate cries, looking into the mirror.

INT. KATE’S TINY APARTMENT – THE NEXT DAY

SERIES OF SHOTS: Kate practicing her music and getting increasingly frustrated.

INT. KATE’S TINY APARTMENT – LATER THAT NIGHT

Kate sitting in front of her one window, staring out of it, in a trance. The television plays mindlessly in the background. A microwave dinner sits on the table in front of her, half-eaten.

EXT.DOWNTOWN – COFFEE SHOP – LATER

Kate exits a coffee shop with a high-dollar drink to go. She is dressed warmly, but comfortably. She strolls slowly, burdened.

Faintly, the sound of SINGING.

She looks up, listens. Follows it.

EXT. CHURCH – MOMENTS LATER

The open doors of the church cast a warm light onto the cold street. Kate steps into the light and hears the choir practicing. She steps in.

INT.CHURCH – CONTINUOUS

She walks about a third of the way down the aisle and sits in an empty pew. The pews are almost entirely empty, except for a few parents down near the front. The choir sings “Nearer My God to Thee.”

Kate’s face starts to ease as she listens. She sips her drink and begins to relax.

A feeling… someone behind her. She turns and looks.

There sits Eddie, his eyes closed, swaying back and forth singing along quietly.

Kate turns back around, contemplates, then watches the choir.

INT. KATE’S BATHROOM – THE NEXT DAY

Kate puts on her make-up. She is dressed nicely again.

EXT.DOWNTOWN – LATER

Kate walks down the street going over her sheet music. She passes Eddie who pays no attention to her as he strums his guitar.

Kate stops and watches him. A STRANGER drops some coins in Eddie’s hat. Eddie’s face lights up for a moment as he smiles at the passer-by, but then drops as the man walks away, not listening. Eddie turns his attention to his fretboard once again.

Kate looks at her sheet music, then to Eddie. She rolls up her music and puts it in her purse and goes and sits next to him. Eddie looks at her confused. Kate smiles awkwardly.

KATE

You know “Nearer My God to Thee”?

Eddie just stares at her for a second. Kate’s smile fades to “oh crap, what am I doing?” Eddie breaks his stare and begins strumming, and then singing.

EDDIE

Nearer, My God, to thee… Nearer to thee…

Kate joins him, smiling.

Soon, passers-by pause to listen. Eddie pays attention only to his guitar. Kate only watches him as she smiles, swaying back and forth to their singing.

When the song is over, a smatter of applause calls their attention to the small crowd that has gathered. Kate, genuinely surprised, smiles at Eddie. He grins slightly back.

People drop money into Eddie’s hat. Dollar bills even. They look at the money. They stare at each other for a moment.

EDDIE (CONT’D)

Just a closer walk with thee?

Kate beams.

KATE

Yes!

Eddie starts playing. Kate touches his arm as she begins singing with him. He playfully nudges her off. Kate laughs and continues singing.

FADE OUT.

from Psalm 95:1,2

so i decided i’d return to one of my favorite places — downtown Memphis — and be a tourist. i’d lived there, but never explored it as a stranger, really, so i’d seen the movieplex and the Denny’s, but often missed out on a lot of the history.

i moseyed down Beale Street and read every sign, every historical marker, every cement-bound time capsule of a Memphis of the past. some things i knew, some i didn’t. i went to the river and watched it go by. i watched the trolley make its trek down Main Street. i went to see if Eddie was playing guitar in front of the Walgreen’s; he wasn’t. maybe i got a bite to eat. or not. i don’t remember. i just remember how unnatural — but wonderful — it felt to mosey.

about 4:30, with the sun getting lower in the summer afternoon sky, i found a little cheesecake place near the Arcade diner. i went in and ordered a piece of cheesecake and a cup of coffee. i almost choked at the $8.32 price, but didn’t want to seem a dolt, so i handed over my debit card. he told me i could sit wherever i liked, that he’d bring it out to me.

still a little annoyed at the cost, i got a seat on the sidewalk. the air was the perfect temperature. there was a cool breeze. it was not unbelievably hot on that day; that i remember. painted clouds hovered overhead. i imagined the view in front of me to be the modernization of some forgotten van der Meer landscape. for just a few minutes, everything was perfect.

i sat at the table and imagined that i was not alone. in the perfection, my Companion and i enjoyed a nice conversation as i shut my eyes and depressurized, the tension released into the vacuum around me until i was indiscernable from the beautiful climate in which i reclined, feet propped up on the wrought-iron chair across from me.

i was startled by the quick interruption of the waiter, who presented me with my coffee. the entire display was unexpectedly graceful for this little hole-in-the-wall restaurant which i’d never heard of. two saucers, one for my beautifully crafted cup and one for the minature metal pitcher of cream (accompanied by some sugar and a decorative spoon). i hated to touch it, as if it were someone else’s canvas. but — like the cartoon cliche — the visible wisps of steam trickled up from the cup and into my nostrils with a Platonic-ideal aroma of my favorite brewed beverage.

i smelled the coffee, drinking in the aroma before diluting it with cream and sugar. with the creamy foam still spinning across the surface, i laid my spoon back onto the doilied saucer and took my first sip. this was the best coffee i had ever had (and, to the day of this writing, have ever had) in my life.

as the surprise settled warmly in my tummy, my server startled me again with a giant plate, almost big enough for the oversized piece of strawberry cheesecake it bore. it was drizzled and dashed with all kinds of delightfully depraved tastiness — powdered sugar, marshmallow & strawberry sauce, graham crumbs, and the like. again, i hated to touch it, believing seeing it untouched would be its best display.

i took a bite, and immediately desired to pay another $8.32 just for the privilege of having tasted it. my appreciation for this dessert (and the shop owner) increased as the triangle of deliciousness decreased. all too soon, despite attempting to savor each bite as long as possible, it was gone, but the plate was still a charming sculpture of crumbs and sauce, smeared and streaked, telling the tale of this decadent dessert.

during this dessert, sitting by myself on this Memphis sidestreet in the warmth of the afternoon ease, the conversation continued.

“there’s a dessert you’ll like better than this,” He said. “the knowledge of it was lost thousands of years ago. you’ll never hear or taste of it in this life.” and before disappointment could settle in, “we’ll have some when you come Home.”

as the sun sank into the Mississippi, i slowly sipped the last of my coffee, now cooled by the evening breeze, but i was still warm, for the best is yet to come.

if you’re at all interested in Apple stuff, and you’d like to hear our snarky opinions on everything (WHO WOULDN’T?!), give macgasm.net a few clicks.  the comments are often where it’s at, so read and participate.

a few shortcuts

• one of the more in-depth posts i’ve ever written, about using iPhone to get some great photos: iPhoneography 101
• a sample of film-industry-related posts — my gruff non-look at Final Draft Reader for iPad.
• a previous blog post containing all of my thoughts on Final Cut Pro X.

you can find any of my Macgasm articles at macgasm.net/author/skidmore.

Owen

Owen lives down the street from my parents. every time i go visit, we walk the dogs around the historic neighborhood, and Owen’s house is one of the first and last houses we see. i don’t know how someone lives in that house. it was once a beautiful two-story, southern plantation style home, but i now cannot tell if it was once covered in white siding, or if it’s that i can actually see the termites.

the roof looks like it’s about to fall in. above the front porch sits a bench and a step ladder; it looks like maybe there was a nice patio-style landing maybe sixty years ago, but whatever floor may still be there now rests at the same angle as the rest of the roof.

the yard is unkempt, and what’s there wouldn’t look good if it were kempt — palm trees, cacti, magnolia, dogwood, pea gravel, mismatched grasses, cement decor… it’s all kind of a mess, made worse by being covered in leaves, dirt, litter, and the eccentric collection that only good Southern white trash can effectively straw strow (what’s the present tense of strewn?) across the half-acre corner property.

and it’s this mishmash of a lawn that serves as the home of Owen’s many yard sales. i’m not sure exactly what the yard sale laws are in this little hamlet, but they obviously don’t apply to Owen, at least in his mind. he has them every few hours i think. where he digs up this junk is a compete mystery to me. i guess he finds it on the side of the road or something? it’s like he sees some garbage and thinks, hey, that mostly demolished coffee table just needs a little dusting, that’s all.

more than anything else, Owen sells bicycles. right now, he’s got various pieces of thirty plus bicycles scattered across his property. and every time i pass the house, i see Owen outside with… i guess it’s his wife? sitting on plastic lawn chairs that strain under their plump round ends. Owen’s got a cold, cheap beer can in one hand and a wrench in the other, concocting some new Frankenstein with wheels to try and sell at his daily flea market.

once on a walk without the dogs, dad and i tried out a few of the bikes Owen had for sale that day (he seems to turn them around pretty quickly). they were clunky, stiff. uncomfortable seat. not great rides. i think one of my tires was more of a triangle than a circle. even at $35 or so, we declined. i’ve wanted a cheap bike for some time, but was willing to save up a little more if this what thirty-five dollars gets you.

Owen usually has a story or two. dunno the veracity of any of them. i really don’t know the first thing about Owen or where he came from. the only car i’ve ever seen there is a probation officer truck parked in front of the house a time or two. my guess, from the beer and bicycles, is that Owen has no driver’s license, presumably from a DUI or worse. everything about Owen is a little sketchy, really.

the neighborhood, once just a neighborhood, is now a historic neighborhood near the town’s only college, now a university. most of the homes have been bought up and fixed up. and yet there sits a shirtless Owen, tossing back Old Milwaukee in front of a house whose threshold even Shaggy and Velma wouldn’t cross, peddling wares that’d be better off in a landfill, or maybe not.

why anyone would ever want that garbage was beyond me.

Dewan

like many kids, Dewan was a summertime opportunist, a weekend entrepreneur, a purveyor of citrusy refreshment to those that happened to walk by (or pull over and stop, if they were so kind). at 25¢, it sounded like a good bargain. i imagine Dewan made less money than his mother put into it.

Dewan could probably use a lesson in economics. being ten (or thereabouts), i’m sure he doesn’t understand supply and demand or the rule of 72. i doubt he understands profit margins or advertising (my theory supported by his sign: ”lemenaid – ¢25″). kind of unfortunate that many life lessons are probably lost here for this kid. i doubt he even learned how to count money, since Dewan lived a block in every direction from any street that had even remote traffic. but no one in the house cared or knew enough to teach him anything about salesmanship. i never once even heard him call out. he just sat there in front of his house, hoping someone would buy some of his lemonade, which i doubt that even he himself had bought to begin with.

it was kind of sad to watch, really. occasionally, i’d pity him and buy a cup. at least his mother is letting him make it himself, i presumed, the grains of undissolved drink mix sanding their way down my esophagus. it was rare, but over the course of the summer, i did see a few others wander his way with the same pitiful smile i no doubt displayed.

once, i saw his mom. i could barely make her out behind the screened-in door beneath the large green awning over the front steps. but i could see her eyes. she was a small, wiry woman in an old sleeveless t-shirt who watched me the way a security guard in an art museum would. it was clear from her intensity that the only thing of value in her life was Dewan, and she didn’t trust anyone else with him. certainly not a white man she didn’t recognize from around here. i don’t know her name.

i’ve never seen Dewan anywhere besides behind the little wooden card table with the masking-taped sign hanging from the front. never seen him playing in the street or waiting for the bus. i suspected sitting at the edge of the yard with a pitcher of undrinkable generic-ade was probably the most freedom he was allowed.

he was really quiet. almost submissive, even to his customers, strangers. Dewan always grinned when taking my quarter, but said little more than “thank you” and never looked me in the eye. i said thank you back, then headed home, wondering what hope people like that have, and badly needing a glass of water.

me

i hung up the phone, angry. for the third time this week, i’d have to rearrange my travel schedule for work. work is good, but i was having to cancel two things to which i’d committed, as if i’d set a price on my own word to someone else. not to mention, i’d only just arrived at my parents and hoped to take a couple of days to unwind.

looking at my calendar and my email only made me more frustrated. trying to release my irritation, i grunted through gritted teeth, sending the growl echoing through the empty house. i paced and huffed into the kitchen and poured a glass of water from the Brita pitcher. i stepped back onto the cold hardwood of the living room floor to stare out of the bay window, hoping for some serenity. that’s when i saw them.

there was Dewan, his frail little boyish frame standing at the edge of the street, talking with Owen. Owen was squatted down in front of Dewan, his large, round, balding head slightly lower than Dewan’s bushy head of hair. they chatted for a bit, and i saw Dewan point to his house down the block. Owen looked, then talked some more.

though part of me felt bad for instantly thinking it, i didn’t trust this redneck alone with this boy. where was Dewan’s mother? what had Owen gone to jail for, anyway? i suddenly felt like something insidious might be happening. the whole thing gave me a creepy intuition.

Dewan reached into his pocket and pulled out a fistful of change. i watched him count each coin into Owen’s grease-covered, chubby hand. Owen took them and flashed a grimy, semi-toothy grin. then, he walked back toward his house, out of my vantage. Dewan followed him. a queasy feeling filled my stomach as they both disappeared from my sight, and i darted for the guest room after my sneakers.

fumbling to get them on, i tumbled through the front door of my parents’ house just as Dewan rolled past me on a slightly rusty He-Man bicycle, complete with a faded Battle Cat mask between the handlebars and a shaky set of training wheels keeping the whole wobbly mess upright. for what couldn’t have been more than about $3.50, Dewan had spent his life savings on his first bike. Owen followed a few feet behind as Dewan clunked about on the pedals. Dewan had the first smile i’d ever seen him give — big and toothy, with almost as many teeth missing as Owen.

Dewan laughed out loud as he zoomed past me, squeaking down 19th street, never even noticing me. the late-afternoon sunlight fractured through the leaves and rippled flashes across his nose as he squeezed close his eyes and felt the wind rustle through his thick hair escaping from the oversized helmet strapped tightly under his little chin. smiling deeply, Owen noticed me and waved. trying to hide my shame, i smiled and waved back.

at the corner, Dewan did a figure eight, then turned around and headed for home. Owen moseyed right behind, watching Dewan to the end of the street to make sure he was safe before finally stepping back onto his patchwork lawn amidst his menagerie of patchwork bicycles.

and i followed right behind Owen, pulling two crisp twenties from my wallet.

i love watching Mathilda sleep. she does it with as much intensity as she does everything else. looking at her, it’s hard to remember she’s only 18 months old, but her behavior is very much that of a puppy. having not seen her or Larry for almost three weeks, they were ecstatic to see me. Mathilda wanted to get so close to me that jumping up to be at eye-level with me (which she is almost capable of doing) isn’t enough… she was trying to bite me and swallow my face… i guess if you’re a puppy, everything you value goes in your mouth at some point.

when i take her for a walk, she jerks and pulls, she chases after birds and squirrels, cowers and runs away from traffic, and in general wears me out. when she eats, don’t get in the way, or you’ll draw back a nub. she would never growl or bite anyone intentionally, but every time she eats, it’s like her last meal. everything she does — walking, playing, eating — is done with such intensity. even sleeping.

when she sleeps, it’s like she’s trying as hard as she can to get in as much sleep as possible. the slightest noise, and that head pops up off the ground waiting for something exciting. or tasty. when she dreams, she starts breathing heavily, then her oversized paws start moving, and every now and then she’ll give a deep, quiet, “rrruf…”

i always wonder what she’s dreaming about. do dogs dream like we do? do they see pictures and hear sounds? do they dream of people they know and places they’ve been? do they dream of giant bones or crippled cats or ponds full of fish and ducks and mud?

my dreams are weird — and i apologize in advance if this next paragraph is a little weird or more open than you cared for it to be. i rarely dream of anything fun. furthermore, my dreams rarely involve nudity, unless it’s me with no pants on  i used to have this recurring dream (even as a child) where i would be out in public, and all i would have on was a t-shirt that was very short and nothing else. i would try to pull the shirt down to cover myself, but it would never reach, and i would try to sneak home before anyone noticed. only once did this dream turn out well; i snuck into the toy section at Wal-Mart and opened a G.I. Joe Tiger Force Rattler airplane and used the included stickers to cover up my unmentionables.

more recently (i.e., over the past decade), i’ve had a recurring dream where i reconnect with a close friendship i lost in high school. he stopped talking to me for reasons he blamed me for, though i suspect it had as much to do — if not more to do — with things that were going on in his life at the time. but i dream we see each other and he makes a sarcastic comment, and then so do i, and we both laugh and all is well again.  even though it’s been years since i’ve seen him, i always wake up disappointed.

my dreams, especially as an adult, seem to be about what isn’t — either what i haven’t been able to make happen yet or what once was that is no longer.  they are mired in shame of differing levels, from the skin-deep shame of being… well, skin-deep… to the deeper, broader strokes of wishing i’d been able to handle a friendship differently, even if as a teenager there was no way i could know better, or for him to know better.  these dreams begin to pick away at who i really am, what i was meant for, how short i have fallen…

i don’t think Mathilda ever dreams like that.  she always seems to be hunting, chasing, running, playing.  i never imagine her dreaming of being afraid of anything… it’s easy to imagine her dreaming about being twenty feet tall and chasing an oversized cat or a king squirrel which will make a feast of a dinner for a giant dog such as her… maybe enough left over for Larry, too. i imagine she’s barking away a fierce predator as she stands between me and danger—nay, certain death!

when Mathilda dreams, i think she dreams of being king of the yard.  the fastest.  the strongest.  the scariest.  the stealthiest.  the bravest…

photo by Ian W. Scott.

Becoming the Sycamore Tree

by David Skidmore, my brother.

as featured in Youth Specialties.

“At my church, we have a private preschool and kindergarten. In the nearby church courtyard is a playground. And on that playground is an off-limits tree. A big tree. A tempting tree. I mean, this is a Mount-Everest-of-a-tree to little, exploring eyes. It’s as though God chose a playground and placed a tree in the middle and declared, “On every other structure thou mayest climb, but on this tree thou mayest not climb, for on the day when thou dost, thou shalt surely… be placed in time-out… or something.”

Eventually a red line was painted above the second limb from the ground. The children were free to climb to that line, but everything above was forbidden territory. And ‘Mrs. Wanda’ (as the kids call her) guards that tree with a watchful eye that would impress an angel wielding a flaming sword.

But after hours — figuring Mrs. Wanda and her whistle have departed for wherever kindergarten teachers go until 8 a.m. the next day — some kids do climb above the red line. There’s something about that tree that beckons, ‘Come… and climb!’ to every adventurer.

What makes it tough is that those who’ve boldly gone where no child has gone before tell other children about the view. During recess they proudly (albeit quietly) boast to those content with hop-scotch, ‘I have been to the promised land… and from it you can see over the fence of the playground!’

What they’ve seen ‘up there’ is amazing — much more so than the mundane sandbox.

Each morning I see that tree when I go to my office. Every day I see wee little people looking up, peering through its branches in awe. And I’m reminded that what they seek is a viewpoint so very different from their own. But without the tree, their quest is impossible—and their song is not as much fun to sing.”

Zacchaeus

“Luke records that when ‘Jesus reached the spot,’ He calls to Zacchaeus to come down. Jesus doesn’t stumble upon the tree. He doesn’t follow the crowd’s jeers and pointing fingers to find a stranger out on a limb. This meeting is no accident. He goes ‘to the spot’ as though it’s His destination that day—not some comical interruption preceding an important public appearance.

Jesus’ search for Zacchaeus is far more noteworthy than Zacchaeus’ attempt to catch a glimpse of the Christ. The story is not about a seeking tax collector, but about a seeking Savior.

Imagine the houses that had been cleaned that day in hopes that Jesus would invite Himself there for the evening. City leaders, prominent dignitaries, wealthy landowners—all certain they had it ‘together’ enough that Jesus would choose them as dinner companions.

Jesus, however, made His reservation before He ever arrived in town. Others wanted to be seen with Jesus, but this day will forever be remembered because one man wanted to be seen by Jesus…”

ministry

“How do I measure the success of my ministry?

If it’s only through numbers or pats on the back, the lost are seldom sought or saved. If what I want to hear is, ‘I enjoyed the retreat,’ ‘Great class!’ or ‘Good pizza,’ then salvation will not likely come to the homes of those I serve.

But — as a sycamore tree — I long to hear teens say, ‘I see Him, and I know He sees me.’ “

read the whole thing.

from the Fonz literally jumping the shark on that fateful episode of Happy Days to Barry Zuckerkorn’s subtle homage on Arrested Development, television viewers have discussed the concept now known as “jumping the shark”.

it’s the point where a TV show, in an attempt to do something bold and fresh (usually out of an apparent lack of burgeoning creativity) reaches so far as to do something silly, ludicrous — alienating viewers in the process. the attempt is bold new ground. the result is the beginning of the end.

the shark-jumping hinge is largely subjective. there was once an entire website devoted to the discussion of just when a certain television show made the fateful squaline leap.

for me it occurs when a show forsakes its core premise, usually by letting character relationships take the forefront.

consider a popular sitcom like Spin City, which did well early on, then descended into whether or not the two main characters were going to sleep with each other. when Michael J. Fox left, replaced by Charlie Sheen, i don’t recall hardly any major plot points revolving around city politics, which was the engine that drove the show in the early days. the show didn’t last long after that.

development, but not too much

i see this same thing happening with one of my favorite shows — House. but the writers seem much more aware, perhaps due to the ability to interface directly and immediately with viewer feedback thanks to the Internet, social media in particular. the show sometimes drifts from its procedural nature. whenever the plot focuses on the drama amongst the characters and the disease takes a back seat, it’s my opinion that the show suffers.

House writers found themselves with an interesting predicament a few seasons ago. Dr. House became known in the early seasons for his relentless sexual harrassment and professional fisticuffs with Dean of Medicine Lisa Cuddy, his completely unashamed addiction to Vicodin, and his general jerk nature to his supporting cast, made of strong characters (and actors). But at one point recently, we found a Dr. House trying to have a family with Dr. Cuddy, off the vicodin, and in general trying to be a better person.

it was a great experiment with the direction of the characters, but frankly, i’m glad it’s over. where we ended up was a general lack of conflict.

this season? Cuddy’s gone, a lot of the old cast is around, some new female cast members provide House some sexual tension, the Vicodin is back, and it feels a little more like when the show first started.

as TV watchers, we want to follow the lives of the characters, but not at the expense of the basic premise of the show — a brilliant jerk bucking society to solve the unsolvable puzzles of medicine. EVERYTHING else must take second place when it comes to television series show structure.

i say “structure” because ultimately, the structural framework of the show is merely the foundation for all of the other things we say we truly love about the show. an interesting thing happens: when the core premise remains the same, the messages, the intimations, the character developments are all more visible.

the cinema’s effect on movies

as home entertainment systems rival cinemaplex theaters and film-style production gear and processes come down in cost, television viewers have increasing expectations regarding the production value of the content to which they choose to devote themselves. this leaves showrunners struggling with how to produce cinema-style content within the television series structure.

viewers expect the same show every week, more or less, and traditionally have expected to tune in to a program and not need to catch up to figure out what’s going on.

LOST has changed this idea, along with 24 before it. apart from being a six-season-long narrative, LOST came about at a time when catching up on a show was — for the first time in television history — easy. i got the first season DVDs for Christmas, then got caught up on the second season thanks to iTunes. soon abc.com, hulu, and Netflix were carrying every episode, which helped skyrocket the show’s popularity.

in fact, i venture to guess that LOST might have failed were it not for its availability online. new viewers coming to the show on broadcast found the series’ title apt, as they were often lost as to what was happening, had they not done their due diligence to get caught up beforehand.

despite this potential drawback, the show was widely popular, and continues to be. (though it’s fair to say the show lost a number of viewers throughout the seasons — people who either couldn’t handle the commitment of keeping up or just felt the show had no direction. some faithful viewers — such as myself — stayed through to the questionably satisfying end. in the wake of missing our favorite show ever, all that’s left is to sometimes harrass Damon Lindelof via twitter about the show’s finale.)

furthermore, it has spawned numerous similarly serialized shows — Alcatraz, Flashback, Fringe, to name a few. but many shows do not enjoy the cult following that LOST has, and must somehow find a way to entice new viewers each week if they want to keep their advertising. hulu and Netflix are great services for supplementing a show’s fan base, but they do little to supplement the show’s bottom lines at this point, meaning people still have to be watching on broadcast TV. those ratings which exclude digital and DVR viewings then do matter.

and thus the quandry for show runners: how to maintain a moving storyline with compelling character development and yet gain new viewers week to week?

the perfect sit-com

in the television world, Community may do this best of all. in a recent write-up by WIRED on Dan Harmon, creator of Community, Brian Raftery tells of the infamous circles that line Harmon’s office walls.

this story circle is the foundational structure for every episode. and each episode is simply about some quirky “losers” in a study group at a community college. that’s it.

but the show has become so much more to its viewers. because the show has been so faithful to that foundation — a solid foundation, at that — Harmon, the writers, and the cast have been able to build three solid seasons of truly redemptive comedy. no shark-jumping in sight.

when the show was put on “hiatus” by NBC a few weeks ago, the cast cried out via twitter, and the show’s fans responded. if the show suffers from low ratings, i have to believe its because its core audience is the “losers” of society; the disappointed not-so-young-anymore that have “stuff” but still find their lives wanting; the connected generation, watching it all on their laptops and mobile phones. people like me, who don’t have cable, but have a cable modem; thankfully, every episode of Community is on hulu plus right now.

i don’t think we’ve seen the last of Community, by any means.

finale

has your favorite story jumped the shark? have you felt the distance between you and your favorite characters? do you think about how it used to be and wonder if you’ll ever feel that way again?

do not be decieved: when you deviate from your essential core, everything else around you suffers.

a lesson for both sides of the television glass.

photo credits: Dork Knits, ACES

forgive my absence from the blog for the past few months. lots of transition on the homefront. but i’m settled into middle TN quite nicely and loving it.

the coming months suggest some big things on the horizon. i can’t wait. hope you enjoy the ride as much as i do.

thank you for reading. i love you all.

the speculation: Thoughts on iMovie, Final Cut Pro, Final Cut Express, and the Future

the reaction: Beyond the Specs: Reactions to Final Cut X

the reflection: Final Cut Pro X: Our two editors spill the beans.

big ups to Josh for letting me be a part of the team.

UPDATE 2012.02.27 – two more:

the 10.0.3 update: The naked truth…

what FCPX may reveal about Apple’s plans for OS X: I’ve seen the future…

and a bonus, kinda related: Avid Studio for iPad…

and you can always read any of my articles by going to macgasm.net/author/skidmore.

“Put another way, the obvious structure for a post-Jobs Apple is simply Apple as we know it, without Steve Jobs.”

i think he’s totally en pointe with regard to Apple’s CEO situation. if you’re at all interested in the future of technology, i highly recommend reading this article.

also in the news this week (here’s another DF link, sourced from The BBC) is the insane amount of cash Apple has on hand:

“Apple’s most recent financial results put its reserves at $76.4bn”

many have speculated what Apple might use this cash for, but most suggestions involve laughably small portions of this immense amount of corporate wealth. stock holders have wondered why they aren’t seeing any of it.

my theory combines these two articles.

i don’t know much about stocks and such, so this may not be possible, legal, or accurate.

but imagine this.

Steve announces his retirement. the stock takes a hit. suddenly, Apple stops sitting on their cash and starts paying dividends to all their shareholders.

this could easily halt a drop in stock, perhaps even making it go back up. it’d be a great life-preserver to get Apple over what would on paper (read: to Wall Street) be a transitional hump, though in reality for Apple it would allow them to keep on with business as usual, at least as it has been for the most part during the last few years.

my hunches are almost ALWAYS wrong. but there it is anyway.

here’s a permalink to all my articles if you want to bookmark them.

also, @macgasm tweets new posts, and i try to retweet my reviews and articles, but don’t always.

read my in-depth, slightly scathing review over at macgasm.  included in my review of the app is a look at software for the film industry (and other professional industries) as a whole.

let’s go, bananaman. you better get on the stick.

listen to some videos from last night here (image isn’t very helpful, especially during the demo).

would love to hear your reactions.

UPDATE: better video here.

big thanks to Joshua Schnell, editor-in-chief of macgasm.net for giving my article a spot in front of his readers.

first page is apps i use almost every day. top level of the iPhone starts with the Apple menu, and includes the kind of system things that affect the general iOS experience — Clock, 1Password, App Store, etc. (by the way, you can add the Apple symbol to your folder titles in iTunes (opt+shft+K). i don’t know of any way to add it in iOS.)

the rest of the iPhone top row is the Camera and associated photo apps, and my directing tools. while i don’t use my directing tools every day, i do use them every day i’m on set directing, so it saves me from rearranging every time i have a shoot. the whole top row feels like an extension of the info/title bar across the top.

the next two rows aren’t in any particular order. the positioning is mainly influenced by association of purpose (Maps and foursquare – location; foursquare and Facebook – apps with personal friends; Facebook and Echofon – social media communication) and where i’ve had apps for years, despite any strategy (Messages and Dropbox).

the dock isn’t necessarily the apps i use most (i only use Calendar to add a meeting, so rarely) but they are Apple apps i use most frequently and represent the core purposes of the device.

on iPad, the only folder on the home screen is the Apple system folder. everything else is apps i use regularly if not daily. here, the dock DOES have the apps i use most. with my phone, i’m often responding to something — an alarm, a phone call, a text message, twitter. with my iPad, i’m usually taking action — writing, reading, watching, etc.

page two is folders, pure and simple. apps are categorized and named by what i will do with the apps inside. the only non-folder icon on page two is the TouchPad. i don’t use it every day, but when i do want to use it, i want to get at it quickly.

inside folders, typically frequently used apps come first. secondarily, apps are arranged by the order in which they’ll be used. for instance, in the directing folder, writing apps come before directing, directing before editing, etc.

finally, you’ll notice the bottom row is empty. that’s an idea i stole from my buddy Stephen. it makes for clean page turns, even (especially) in jiggle mode. i also think it looks nice. occasionally, i’ll have a movie wallpaper, and a CinemaScope image fits nicely in that space. similarly, my friend George has only one row of apps per page to highlight his current wallpaper; he’s a photography nut.

the iPad has just two rows of folders:

so that’s it. just the two pages. sometimes folders get full. i don’t make a new folder (i cheat a little with play/think for games). i decide what needs to go. even when i purchase new apps, the app count on my device rarely goes up. helps me keep everything clean and simple.

and above all, they’re guides, not rules.

how do you organize your apps?

some titles to check out:

• The 400 Blows by French New Wave director François Truffaut
• The Seventh Seal
• La Jetée, a 28-minute photo roman
• George Washington (by NCSA alum and Shotgun Stories producer David Gordon Green)
• Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times

i watched Chaplin’s The Kid last night, laughing out loud by myself. they don’t make ‘em like they used to.

some, but not all of these are also available on Netflix instant streaming.

Will is (and has always been) such a talented and knowledgeable guy. and on top of that, he’s just so darn likable. he deserves every great day working at one of the coolest places on the planet.

you’ve heard Will’s work and probably don’t even realize it. check out his imdb page for the details.

[via The Daily]

from their recent e-mail:

totally killer.

check out the new Call Sheet Overview video at http://doddleme.com/.

see my recent review of doddlePro over at macgasm.

UPDATE: actually, after really going over the specs, the new Intel HD 3000 still uses shared memory, so i’m guessing the MBP is still crippled (i.e., little Motion, no Color). so… i guess nevermind on that one. sorry (post title/permalink updated as well).

UPDATE 2: according to this article (via daring fireball), Thunderbolt uses PCI Express, which iOS devices do not currently use, so I’m probably wrong on that as well (read on below if you want to see my nutcase prediction/hope anyway). we’ll see if there’s anything interesting atop the iPad 2 in less than a week!

but perhaps the most interesting addition is that of Thunderbolt, Apple’s company lingo for Intel’s Light Peak technology (daring fireball links one and two). more interesting is the fact that it seems to be interchangeable with the newer mini-display ports on the latest gen MacBook Pros and iMacs. if you’re like me, you’d never heard of Light Peak, much less Thunderbolt, until the last week or so (or today, if you’re EXACTLY like me, God help you). Intel has been working on it for a few years, apparently.

as soon as i saw the leaked pictures of the Thunderbolt port, i made an immediate connection — one i haven’t seen anyone else guess at. some leaked pictures of possible iPad 2 cases show a hole at the top that doesn’t line up with anything on the current iPad form-factor (rumors such as this). some have speculated this could be for a mini-display port. seeing pics of the mini-display-shaped Thunderbolt port leads me to think Thunderbolt might make more sense on the new iPad than a mini-display port alone.

so this is my total speculation but my guess is iPad 2 (to be announced/demoed March 2) may have Thunderbolt.

but the question then is… why? Thunderbolt is supposed to replace virtually every connection interface (USB, FireWire, SATA, SD), so it opens it up to a world of peripherals. still, Apple has never been excited about adding an SD slot or USB port to the iPad, and i have never needed either one as a daily iPad user.

however, waiting on Thunderbolt may be a more credible reason than Apple’s just assuming no one will use a USB/FireWire/SD slot, etc. that is to say, why put SD and/or USB and/or HDMi on a device that Apple already knows is going to eliminate those techs in its second phase? plus with one port, think about how many dongles are dead once the tech world begins migrating to Light Peak. anything could connect to it. iPad 2 would be the most promiscuous little tablet on the market.

but even that quality still feels a little weak to me. as i said, i’ve never desired to connect anything to my iPad, and no one has been crying out for Light Peak on their mobiles. plus, the whole point of iPad is its portability, not its power and versatility. if i need to carry around a bunch of peripherals with my iPad, then it’s not any different from a laptop at that point, which is far more versatile than my iPad.

that’s why my guess, given the supposed location of the port at the top the iPad, is that Apple is positioning Thunderbolt as a replacement for the classic 30-pin connector, which is maybe the only iPod family feature that has remained virtually unchanged since its introduction. having both the 30-pin and Thunderbolt allows for a transitional period for iPad owners, since Macs featuring Thunderbolt don’t even hit the market until tomorrow.

but they do hit the shelves tomorrow, and expect to soon see refreshes to iMac and the rest of the MacBook Pro line… heck, just put every Apple device on that list except maybe Apple TV (it is just a hobby after all). and because of the popularity of the iPad, expect to see a flood of Light Peak devices and peripherals hitting the common market very soon. my guess is that this is the special tech Apple has invested in of which Tim Cook spoke during the latest earnings report conference call.

i don’t speculate much, and only write about it when my guesses are fairly nutty (i.e. no one else that i saw is saying anything similar), but thought i’d throw in my 1.4 cents on this one (after Apple’s 30% cut). we’ll find out March 2.

oh, by the way, is anyone in the market for a slightly used iPad 1…?

[via TUAW] (thanks, Stephen & Joey)

“If you believe the image sensor in the 5d mark ii is similar in size to a frame of film from a 35mm motion picture camera like a Panavison or Arricam, you are wrong! Since Canon and Nikon are primarily coming from the still photography world, their understanding of “full frame” and “1.6x cropped” need to be understood in motion picture terms.

There is some translation involved in order to understand sensor size as it relates to motion pictures. From this point forward when we use the phrase “full frame” it will be understood in still photography terms.”

be sure and check out the Abel Cine links at the bottom of his post. and if you need to rent car mounts for your shoot, check out David’s rental company — ProRigs.

*** be sure and check the bottom of the post for a special bonus! ***

the last film I produced and directed was made on a shoe-string budget. as with any independent production, we had to find the balance between professional quality and cost-efficiency. unfortunately, the first place most independent productions skimp is with audio. this is a compromise we weren’t willing to make.

audio is half your movie.

if you don’t record good production audio and don’t have professional-level sound design, it doesn’t matter what camera you shoot with or how good the story is. i, like many others, have seen both sides of this beast. bad audio can ruin an otherwise well-done film. professional sounding audio immediately takes your film to the next level.

for post audio, i have some really good friends in the upper echelons of post-production sound in the Hollywood Industry. my buddy Mark Messick mixed the sound for Sleepwalking on his home ProTools rig. another friend Josh Chase did the score, composing and recording it himself in his home studio. having friends who make the sacrifice for you is a huge plus for a young filmmaker (i’m still young, right?). hopefully it won’t be long before i can repay their generosity with some awesome paying gigs.

post-production sound design can make or break your indie project, but production audio is also crucial. if you don’t get the dialogue recorded cleanly on set, then you’ll have to do ADR/looping (re-recording of dialogue) in post, which just never sounds quite right without experienced professionals at the controls.

the “Time to Pass” setup

me, DP Jim O’Keeffe, and sound mixer Joey Robertson

production of this film (called “Time to Pass”) was going to be challenging as we would be in a lot of tight spaces. apart from the small house we were shooting in, we also had some dialogue scenes in a car, so the sound setup needed to be a one- (or no) man show in order to fit in the backseat with the director of photography, camera assistant, and director (me). also, we didn’t have money to rent a nice audio package, meaning we had to go with what we could piece together.

luckily, a friend lent me his Sennheiser shotgun mic. the mic is to the audio what the lens is to the picture. if you have a great camera and a crappy lens, you’ll get crappy images. if you can only afford to rent one thing, rent a nice mic. they’re not terribly expensive. once you have a great mic, the recording mechanism is less crucial, especially if you’re recording digitally.

Joey Robertson was our production sound mixer, and a lot of this was his idea, but we decided to use FiRe (iTunes link) and an iPhone 4 to record all of the production audio. he even invested the initial cost of buying the cables we hobbled together to make it work. it worked great, but I’ll spare you the setup. the iRig makes it so simple and is actually cheaper than the combo of cables and adapters we bought. if only we’d had one then!

the Sennheiser is XLR, and the iRig is 1/4″ mono, so you’ll need an adapter. i tried an XLR to 1/4″ mono conversion cable, but that doesn’t work; the levels don’t come through correctly. you’ll need a metal XLR female to 1/4″ male adapter you can get at Radio Shack (the silver part in the photo up top and below). it has a Lo-z Balanced to Hi-z Unbalanced translator built-in, which i guess is what makes the difference.

note: this particular model of Sennheiser has a built-in powerpak, powered by a AA battery. this setup won’t work with a mic that requires external phantom power. if you’re renting your mic, make sure it is self-powered.

since you’ll need some distance between the iPhone and the mic, you’ll need a great XLR cable between the mic and the Radio Shack adapter. the iRig has an 1/8″ out for headphones. you can use the iPhone headphones, or any standard set of stereo headphones.

lastly, Joey bought an armband for his iPhone (seen above) which let him use two hands on the boom while he was recording. between takes, he could quickly start a new recording and rename it to match the scene and take number on the slate.

file retrieval

files can be transferred from FiRe a number of ways, but the easiest is browser access. like many iOS apps, just make sure the iPhone or iPod Touch are on the same wifi network. you can then connect to FiRe’s file management system via any web browser. then you can download the files quickly and painlessly. we downloaded them to Dropbox, of course, meaning the editor had near-instant access to the audio at the end of the production day.

post-production

this same setup was also used to record hard effects, foley, and ADR for “Time to Pass.” i transferred the picture lock cut to my iPad via iTunes (or Dropbox). using my iPad as a monitor, the talent could see and hear their previous performance as i recorded them with my iPhone/FiRe setup. this is also how i walked foley.

it’s a great setup for its portability. find any quiet, acoustically-dead area wherever you are. i’ve gotten professional quality foley while sitting in the floor of my nieces’ playroom.

don’t have an iPad? i believe FiRe records while backgrounded, so you can try playing the movie while recording. i have not yet tried this setup, though. if you try it out, let me know how it turns out.

also, for podcasting

i also do app reviews for macgasm.net. Editor-in-Chief Joshua Schnell recently adopted the iRig setup for recording the macgasm podcast:

“FiRe only records the line-in signal. This means you can connect with a voice Skype call, then background it. You’ll be able to hear the Skype conversation in your headphones, as well as the mic audio. The iRig plus FiRe give you a complete, professional-sounding, self-contained podcast recording setup.”

any downsides?

remember that iOS devices are 44.1kHz, meaning it won’t record at 48kHz, the standard for film and digital video. but even Hollywood professionals will tell you the difference is indiscernible. any rendering time in Final Cut is minimal as 44.1k files generally play in real-time. besides, you can talk specs all day, but the bottom line is, “how does it sound?” it sounds great.

summary

iRig + FiRe is a professional-sounding, low-cost solution for indie filmmakers looking to make the most of their budget. it meets audio needs in production and in post.

just don’t skimp on the mic.

special bonus!

Joey’s Cavalier was used for Time to Pass, and we did a bunch of hard effects recording with it before he got his muffler repaired so it would match with production audio. sadly, the Cavalier recently burned to a crisp on the side of the road. other than the emotional scars of losing a long-time automobile friend, Joey is okay. so in honor of the Cav, i am making the entire 2000 Chevy Cavalier (with bad muffler) sound effects collection available in the downloads section.

it’s such an excellent post. i made a few notes, swapping out the apps i use for the apps he uses for the same purpose.

for remote login to my computer (and therefore my home server), i use the free service LogMeIn and the associated (not free) iOS app, LogMeIn Ignition. it’s not necessarily better than other options (there are certainly much cheaper options available for remote login), but i’ve been using LogMeIn for a long time and bought the iOS app very soon after it came out. personally, it’s already paid for itself, so i have no need to look elsewhere.

for pretty much any kind of doodle, i use SketchBook Pro, though his selections for doodle apps are more targeted. also, Adobe Ideas is free, and Layers is a bit cheaper than SketchBook. again, this has more to do with the fact that i run SketchBook on my iPhone and Macs as well.

and for those online meetings, here’s a quick guide to setting up your A/V in various OSX applications. i include it, mainly for its closing line:

“make sure you’re wearing pants, just in case you need to stand up suddenly.”

(follow The Brooks Review on twitter: @brooksreview)

is 3D better than conventional cinema and television?

not that it matters, but personally i like 3D. i like it, but i don’t prefer it for traditional film. the 3D Muppets thing at Disney World is really fun. i have no desire, however, to watch Casablanca in 3D.

narrative film in two dimensions has established contemporary cinema language, some of which works for 3D, some of which does not. cinema as we know it will primarily remain 2D, at least for a long while. 3D cinema may eventually become something all its own, but at the very least it will exist as a subset — just like opera, musical theater, and dramatic theater are all separate, though similar with regard to production and exhibition.

technology

currently, 3D glasses are awkward, hurt your eyes, and cost extra. converting theaters to 3D requires a digital conversion first, then an expensive add-on setup which will only be occasionally used. post-converted 3D movies don’t really provide a great experience for a myriad of reasons, and films made for 3D often focus more on technical and technique than on story.

watching 3D at home is evolving but is still confusing and expensive. like a theater conversion, it requires most homes to buy a new television, media player, and 3D add-ons. it also still requires glasses for the time being. i’ve long said that until people can watch 3D in their homes without glasses, 3D will remain a gimmick. several companies are working on this, so it may happen sooner than later.

mise en scene

so much of commonly-understood cinema language relies on mise en scene, the construction of the frame — not just the frame in an instant, but the frame as it evolves over time, including movement of the frame, movement within the frame, and montage/editing theory.

as Christopher Nolan points out, a film is three-dimensional.

“The truth is, i think it’s a misnomer to call it 3-D versus 2-D. The whole point of cinematic imagery is it’s three-dimensional. … You know, 95% of our depth cues come from occlusion, resolution, color and so forth, so the idea of calling a 2-D movie a ’2-D movie’ is a little misleading.”

no one imagines they are looking at a flat world. so much of montage theory evolved around trying to clearly establish and navigate a three-dimensional space with the viewer in mind. a director’s choice of shots takes into consideration these foundational geographical principles and builds storytelling and expectations on top of them.

today’s 3D films often try to speak the same language, but use a different voice. imagine trying to sing a lullaby with a kettledrum instead of a clarinet; it could work, but there are certainly other musical styles more appropriate for kettledrum. contemporary cinema language was founded on representing three-dimensional space in a confined two-dimensional area.

examples

take focus. in a 3D film, shallow focus is more confusing than helpful. in 3D, deep focus gives the viewer the ability to explore the different layers just as he would in the real world. if you shoot a scene in 3D, but everything except the actor is out of focus, what’s the point?

a shot from Time to Pass (p./d. paul skidmore, w. Kayla Crockett)

a lot of contemporary cinema language is built around cutting back and forth between multiple locations or shots. the editing builds a pace, a mood, a style. typical editing theory is antithetical to exploring the 3D environment. maybe that will change further down the evolution, but we’re in The Great Train Robbery era of 3D right now. viewers aren’t savvy to 3D and too much going on can lose an audience or, worse, make them physically disoriented and ill.

none of this means 3D is awful or inferior. it just means we’re just in the horse-and-buggy stage right now. and yet, we’re attempting mass transit with this horse-and-buggy art-form. this craft won’t truly evolve until it really comes into its own. trying to hop on the back of existing cinema may be one of the biggest factors really holding back development of some great content, not to mention the establishment of some technology standards.

so what should 3D be?

James Cameron’s concept makes the most sense for 3D — immersive, simulating realism (this is why he also pushes for higher frame rates over higher resolution). think holoodeck. the Terminator show at Universal Studios is a great example, i think. while im not saying 3D should be relegated to theme park rides, i am saying there is a time for an immersive experience.

i can see 3D working very well for a horror movie or even some documentaries. personally, at this point in cinema language, conventional cinema language is much more emotionally affective for things like a romantic comedy or drama.

an HD 3D sporting event at 120fps would give you the feel of being ringside, court side, in the bleachers, on the field. an HD 3D music video that cuts to a different shot or location every four beats would likely make you want to throw up.

so…?

so is 3D better than 2D?

is film better than theater? is television better than radio? is an mp3 better than vinyl? is facebook better than personal communication?

i love movies, but love local productions of Drood. i love House, and i love This American Life. i love free iTunes downloads, and i love laying back in bed with the lights out during a thunderstorm listening to Rachmaninov pop and crackle off the vinyl through my stereo speakers. i love quickly sharing info with friends i haven’t seen in years, but i still have coffee with Timothy every week.

is 3D better than 2D? sure. sometimes. but in most cases, i don’t prefer it, and i think most of the movie-going world is in agreement. but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a special place for 3D.

personally, i’ve found my place as a filmmaker in conventional cinema language. that’s where i want to push the boundaries, speak to people’s hearts and hopes, cast a vision for something Bigger than us.

besides, the only 3D film i’ve ever wanted to do was Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, and someone beat me to it.

head over there and check out my first review for a film-related app, Artemis Director’s Viewfinder and Artemis Remote.

if you just can’t get enough, here’s a link to everything I’ve written for the site (thanks for the clicks, mom).

this article is rather lengthy, but i hope to provide a complete picture of the setup for your education. also, if anyone has any suggestions for streamlining or adding to the existing setup, please post in the comments below.

one last note, this article is part one, and it completely covers my entire remote DVD viewing setup with limited details. part two will cover using a similar setup for sharing dailies for film crews. while not everyone will be interested in part two, part one is a prerequisite for understanding part two, as the latter will not cover the details of the technical setup.

old school

i abandoned traditional television service some time ago, cost being the biggest factor at the time. i can honestly say i haven’t really missed it. i have two 4:3 tube televisions that are never used. ditto for two DVD players and this… what is this? V H something… can’t quite make it out for all the dust.

as a kid, i learned how to edit with two consumer VCRs. Final Cut Pro gives me a few more options nowadays. likewise, advances in technology have improved my film and television viewing experience as well.

the theater

first, i just want to put on record that the best place to watch a great film is in a great theater with other people. while the combination of great film and great theater might be a rare combination these days, there is likely a great cinema somewhere near you that offers a great film watching experience — darkened room, bright projection, robust sound, and hopefully a respectful, enthusiastic audience.

media

as i referenced in a previous post, streaming and digital download is the already-present future of digital media. music is already heading over the curve toward streaming. movie and tv services like Netflix and hulu are growing in use, but people still want to own movies. DVDs are still around, and Blu-Ray is enjoying some modest success.

being in my early thirties, i have already accumulated a pretty sizable movie collection. buying brand new digital download copies isn’t really an option on my budget, but i often shop online first for new purchases, beginning with the iTunes Store. i cant wait for the day when digital download becomes affordable for me. the inclusion of metadata with digital downloads makes for easy sorting, searching, etc.

NAS

i constantly run out of hard drive space — a problem not unfamiliar to filmmakers working in the digital realm. recently, in an effort to solve two issues, i bought a LaCie 2TB NAS. Network Attached Storage allowed me to not only increase my hard drive capacity at the house, but also allowed me to give others remote access to up to 2TB worth of data.

one issue resolved was the sharing of files like dailies and cuts of films in progress. these files are often too big to share via a free Dropbox account (limit 2 GB). resolving the second, personal issue, the NAS became a great way for me to access my personal media — inside the house over wifi, or remotely. it has become the hub of my wicked-awesome, remote-access media setup.

iTunes

the first thing i did with the new home server was to move my iTunes music folder to it. the shares on the NAS mount similar to an external drive, so the path becomes volumes/share/etc., even when connected remotely via afp.

(click for biggerizing)

while there are cheaper/free solutions available, i pay extra each month for the convenience of a static IP through Bellsouth. i also created an Automator app that quickly connects and mounts the NAS volumes via afp IP. adding this Automator app to my login items means that my NAS (and therefore my iTunes library drive) connects on boot-up, even if I’m away from home.

a Dropbox hack (outlined by my buddy Stephen here for syncing Safari history) on my laptop and my new iMac allow me to add to iTunes from either machine. this maintains one complete library – system prefs and library files synced with Dropbox, media accessible through the NAS.

DVDs

disclaimer: for the purposes of this article, i am referring, of course, to DVDs that perhaps you have created or to which you proper rights or permissions. i am in no way suggesting you pirate commercial DVDs. the information provided here is for your education on the technical setup. please don’t pirate because i am a filmmaker, and i need to eat.

the next step was to start ripping my DVDs to the NAS. many people use an app like Handbrake to rip a DVD into a format that is both compact and playable via iTunes or an iOS device. that’s fine, but i haven’t had tremendous success with Handbrake. limited settings and audio drift issues have kept my use of it down to almost never. instead, i use Mac the Ripper, and rip the entire disc, as is.

by ripping the entire disc, i can access the VIDEO_TS folder with OSX’s DVD player application and access all the features of the original disc — commentaries, special features, subtitles, etc. with these rips on the NAS, i can access them with my laptop anywhere in the house wirelessly. technically, i can access them remotely via afp, since the NAS is setup to allow it. the problem here is my home upload speed. on a good day, i might get around 200kbps upload speeds — fine for streaming my iTunes library to my laptop at Starbucks, but nowhere near fast enough to play uncompressed DVDs. so until recently, watching my DVD collection, while wireless, was relegated to the house.

Air Video

introduce Air Video to the mix. Air Video (iTunes link) is an app for iOS (both iPhone/iPod Touch and iPad, free trial version available) that allows you to stream content from your media library to your iOS device. a free desktop server app allows you to add any media folder you like. these folders are then accessible via your devices.

naturally, a lot of media you may have on your desktop might not be iOS compatible. Air Video offers two options. the first is to convert it all and create iOS compatible copies of it. no thanks. my desire to avoid redundancy is one reason i don’t use Handbrake AND Mac the Ripper in the first place.

the second option is called Live Conversion. if your desktop system is powerful enough, Air Video can convert any video on the fly and then send an iOS-compatible stream to your device. Air Video even has a feature to quickly and securely access your desktop libraries remotely. this means you can access Live-Converted video over a remote wifi connection or even 3G.

and Air Video is smart; it knows what type of connection you are on. in the global settings of your iOS device, you can set the bitrate for Live Conversion. i’ve adjusted my remote wifi and 3G settings down to 128kbps to comply with my snail-paced home upload speeds. in the house, though, i get great quality video on my iPad or iPhone 4.

watching a movie is now as simple as booting up Air Video on my iPad and selecting from the list of everything on the NAS. the best part is that i can do this anywhere i have an internet connection.

cons

it’s not a perfect setup. Live Conversion works on files, not folders. Air Video does not yet include support for an entire VIDEO_TS folder. thus, you navigate to the specific .vob file you wish to play. each feature on a DVD is separated into separate .vob collections, with each .vob file having a 1GB limit, or approximately a half-hour or so. this means a typical feature film will be multiple .vob files. Air Video gives you the option to automatically proceed to the next file in the list, but there’s a few second delay in playback as it backs out of the first stream and proceeds to the second.

while there is support to crop the video, boost the audio, and choose an audio stream, it doesn’t support subtitles or indicate which audio stream is which. also, to access global settings, you have go into the settings for an individual video, where you have the option to modify settings globally— not exactly intuitive. other global settings are available via the options button at the bottom of the interface. personally, i think this could use some cleaning up in what is an otherwise elegant design.

perhaps the biggest issue is that once you’ve started a stream, scrubbing isn’t really an option with Live Conversion. i’ve found that once you’ve begun a .vob, the only option is to completely restart it if you want to go back — particularly frustrating if you happen to doze off for a minute. this issue is also frustrating when a DVD that is a collection of videos is divided up via a script, rather than broken into separate files — a problem i encounter often with collection-type DVDs. while the Live Conversion settings seem to give you the option of starting at any point in the .vob file, i haven’t ever had success with it. i believe this is more a limitation of trying to convert an MPEG-2 file into a data stream, rather than a shortcoming of the app or service itself.

if the Air Video developers could overcome these apparent limitations of MPEG-2-to-streaming conversion and have seamless playthrough of playlist files, that would make it possible to better replicate a DVD-viewing experience. allowing Air Video to see a folder enclosing a video_ts folder as a piece of media would be even better. for example, clicking on the folder “movie” could give you a choice of the enclosed feature items or take you directly to the Live Conversion panel if there’s only one movie. this would be an improvement upon clicking on “movie > video_ts > vts_02_01.vob” and hoping you’ve got the right file.

which kind of touches on another small issue. while Air Video is smart regarding your connection, it’s dumb to your data. other media library services (like Plex) access the web to connect your media with metadata content (automatically discerning the name of the film, DVD case art, director, actors, etc.). at the time of this posting, the Plex iOS app does not live convert .vob files, however, thus making it incompatible with the way i’ve stored my DVD collection on the NAS.

final thoughts

still, even with limited issues, it’s not a bad setup. i can watch my DVD media from anywhere i have an internet connection. and since Air Video supports the new Airplay service, i can bounce the audio from my iPad to my stereo speakers or toss the video to an Apple TV at a friend’s house. my next big paycheck will likely go toward an Apple TV and accompanying HDTV for my own home for just this purpose.

no doubt Apple will give its users the ability to do something similar before too long, but it still seems to be a year or two out. i have high hopes for that NC data center, though. Airplay, Apple TV 2, Apple’s friendly relationship with Netflix, and that mountain of cash-on-hand also point to some great media sharing developments for the future.

until that time, I’m ok with spending $4.99 on an app that lets me do it myself.

pretty pictures

i always try to have the best viewing experience possible. for instance, in OSX’s QuickTime 7 player, i always make sure that “Use high-quality video setting when available” is checked. why on earth this option is off by default is beyond me, especially since the only people who still use QT7 are video professionals and enthusiasts. QuickTime X does not have a setting for this that i’m aware of.

YouTube app over 3G is grody

my friend Joey turned me on to a similar issue with the iOS YouTube app. firstly, the app went unaltered since it’s first introduction with the original iPhone. it did receive a refresh with iOS 4.2, but still suffers from one issue: over 3G, video quality is terrible.

YouTube’s native web app, on the other hand, is capable of streaming higher-quality video over 3G. note the difference between these screenshots of a video i recently edited as viewed with m.youtube.com:

now compare to the same video viewed over 3G with the iOS app:

note that it doesn’t even fill the screen. furthermore there is a ton of artifacting around the text from the high compression.

web app vs iOS app

this issue doesn’t present itself over wifi, but this is one instance where you don’t lose anything by using the web app instead of a native app. the iOS app doesn’t download, so it has to have a connection anyway. the web app is HTML5, so everything plays nice with Mobile Safari.

plus, if YouTube decides to tweak something, they can roll it out immediately to the web app, whereas you’d be stuck waiting for an update to iOS for any tweaks in the iOS app (which isn’t likely to happen anyway).

how to get rid of the iOS YouTube app

it’s so simple.

now, any time you click on a youtube link in an app, email, or text message, it will take you to Mobile Safari, where you can view the highest-quality version available for your connection speed.

the YouTube app is not only disabled, it won’t even appear on your home screen. if you wish to have YouTube on your homescreen for quick access, you can tap the share button in Mobile Safari to add your m.youtube.com homepage to your homescreen.

update

it appears turning off YouTube in parental controls breaks embedded clips in webpages, so bear that in mind before deciding.

“5. Who is happy about this?”

Sleepwalking

my first concern regarding this announcement was what it means for me as a small-time indie filmmaker showing my stuff on my own website. getting the Theora ogg file to work for Sleepwalking was a headache, and I’m sure it’s still not working right. or at all.

making an h.264 was a no-brainer with FCP/QuickTime, and required no extra installations of third-party software. HTML5 browsers that support the video tag have a basic built-in player, even, so it didn’t require any special setup on my website. a Flash (h.264) version presented several headaches I won’t get into, and i’m still not happy with the Flash implementation on the site, but it’s a necessary evil until IE9 proliferates. naturally, this required Adobe Media Encoder, part of the Adobe Production Suite CS4, which cost around $1700, and installation of a Flash player on my web server. i found a free one, and i’m pretty sure it’s worth every penny.

the needed resources to create a Theora version (necessary for Firefox HTML5) were free, but required downloading some weird stuff and reading a bunch of instructions and crossing-fingers and scouring user forums and — frankly, this is why i never looked back after leaving my PC. while i didn’t even bother with VP8 (since Chrome currently supports h.264), i will say that process appeared to be as confusing as the Theora setup. then again, this was late May, and VP8 was a new beast.

so now every major browser should be supported, but in the end, the best viewing experience for Sleepwalking via the website is with the iPad.

too open

installing new codecs, configuring web players… are these solvable problems? no doubt. for a web guy. I’m a film guy, with no desire to be a web guy, and no money to pay one just yet. hence my fear about a potential global switch away from h.264 to WebM.

h.264 was by far the most painless setup, in my experience. some of this comes down to “you get what you pay for.” the free stuff seemed all over the place — too open, if you ask me. i don’t have time to create new problems between my film and my audience. the streamlined FCP to HTML5 h.264 workflow Just Works.

but i’m a small guy. and small guys don’t determine web standards. big online content providers do.

when people want “open,” they really want “free.”

WebM’s VP8 may be even more “open” than h.264, despite the latter’s eternally-free license for non-commercial-use. in truth, both are open standards; VP8 is completely royalty-free, and that’s the real difference. will content providers want to change? maybe. when Jobs announced the iPad would not support Flash, i was agreeable, but even i did not think so many content providers would be HTML5 compliant by launch day. so certainly companies are willing to change.

still, that move was not urged by Apple’s insistence alone, but it was partnered with Apple’s commitment to HTML5 (and h.264) wrapped up in a revolutionary package called the iPad. even two-years-plus of millions of Flash-less iPhones wasn’t enough to see most video sites provide HTML5 support for video. even after the iPad’s success, very few sites have ditched Flash completely, and Adobe will be supporting the VP8 codec in their Flash wrapper. why? for one thing, IE (with Flash support) still dominates a huge share of browser usage.

also, it should also be pointed out that a lot of Flash implementations are still using the h.264 codec, just wrapped in a Flash wrapper, instead of, say, a QuickTime one. switching from Flash h.264 to HTML5 h.264 was a code issue for a lot of sites, rather than a codec issue.

WebM’s future

so there’s opportunity and precedent for content providers to adopt a sweeping change, but why would they this time? the simple answer is obvious: money.

the details, however, aren’t so simple. with no licensing fees, providers could sell content without having to pay a license fee to MPEG-LA (owners of h.264). on the other hand, if you’ve already paid for your 5-year block license with h.264, there’s no big hurry to spend a ton of time and money recompressing everything in a completely new codec. then, there’s the fact that maybe it won’t be so free after all, if MPEG-LA has anything to say about it. Google is confident they’ve done their due diligence, and has the resources to fight it besides.

still, in the end, content providers will do what is in the best interests of the majority of their customers. without a revolutionary product (like three-million-in-three-months revolutionary) to partner this change, WebM will at best co-exist with h.264 for quite a while. all things Chromium innovate, but when it comes to the real motivator for a global standards revolution (dollars), it’s no iPad.

read more

for more details about h.264 licensing matters, check out this engadget article.

for more details about WebM, see this cnet article.

“Remember the showdown between HD-DVD and Blu-ray? Streaming won.”

and from the comments:

“I bought a Blu-Ray player at Wal-Mart during “Black Friday” in 2009 (I should say that my wife bought it while I was sleeping at home), and I use it relatively frequently. I didn’t have an upscaling DVD player, and this model does that, too, so it was worth the money I spent on it.

I do have a few Blu-Rays that I’ve purchased (maybe 20), and I rent Blu-Rays through Netflix even though it costs extra.

But he’s right that the commercials/trailers are frequently harder to skip through than with DVDs and do take longer to load (and it’s not just my player because DVDs load much quicker on the same player). It also seems to be hit-and-miss whether the Blu-Ray will pick up where you left off if you stop watching in the middle.

And I do use my AppleTV a lot more often.”

it’ll be interesting to see how many people in the film business quickly rush to Verizon or the Apple Store in February to get their hands on this device.  this is good news for developers and even better news for customers.

hulu plus is hulu.com’s subscription service that brings two things unavailable to the non-subscriber. first, it opens up a wider selection of content. for instance, on hulu.com, anyone can watch a few episodes from this season of Psych. as a hulu plus subscriber, you can watch every episode of the first four seasons of Psych as well.

secondly, hulu plus subscribers have the option of watching hulu (and the plus-added content) on devices other than their PC — IPTVs, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, gaming systems, etc. while licensing of shows sometimes procludes certain devices (for instance, you can only see the current season of Psych via your PC’s web browser, whereas the previous four seasons are viewable with other devices), hulu is constantly working with networks and content creators to get content to viewers in as many ways as possible. i easily use hulu plus 6 hours a week on average, and this makes up pretty much all of my television viewing; i do not have a cable or satellite television service at home.

while hulu plus for mobile devices has never been unwatchable and has improved greatly over the course of the preview period, it’s still not without its idiosyncrasies. but customer service is quick to respond to feedback; they even quickly responded to my original blog post about it. and this move to not only lower the price, but to actually CREDIT everyone definitely hits me in my “wow” factor. this is an excellent move by hulu, and hopefully will help them score tons of new users now that they are out of preview status. (hey hulu guys — if you’re scouring the Internet this morning for hulu related blog posts, allow me to say thanks!)

i do fear a bit that the lower price will initially feed into fears by content creators, such as Mark Levitan, producer of Modern Family, who has begged ABC to not have any streaming versions of his program available at all, particularly on hulu. read a relevant article here. my hope (and certainly hulu’s) is that a $7.99 entry point will mean a volume of customers that will push online ad revenue more towards broadcast ad revenue, making online streaming of content a more (if not equally) viable distribution option for broadcast television and cinema.

of course, the biggest costs of the motion picture industry relate to unions and talent payscales that match the living-in-Beverly-Hills lifestyle, and hulu ain’t never gonna fix that.

if you’d like to try hulu plus with an initial free week, please, by all means, use my referral code!

here’s the email current plus subscribers received this morning:

we shot it in 24P HD on a Canon 5D in two days in Memphis, TN. it was used as part of a Hope Presbyterian sermon series, i believe.  Dan’s a great director and editor, and this film shows it! follow him on twitter if you like.

old school

a survey of the location, checklist in hand, revealed potential parking, bathrooms, power outlets, etc. then I’d take a series of pictures from a couple of spots. later (after getting the prints back from one-hour photo), I’d scotch tape the photos together so they connected to form a panorama of some kind, then tape all the panoramas of the location into a legal-sized manilla folder. finally, I’d file it away in a cardboard box with my other locations, since I couldn’t afford a legal size filing cabinet.

ugh, just thinking about it reminds me of the Flintstones or something. one-hour photo? remember those?

new school

so how do I do it now? I just bought AutoStitch for iPhone (iTunes Store link). using my iPhone 4′s built-in camera and Camera app, I can take the overlapping pictures, just like I used to. in AutoStitch, I select the photos from one panoramic pass and the app stitches them together in literal seconds. this has been possible with Photoshop for some time, and though you will likely get better results with PS, AutoStitch does a pretty fantastic job, and the results are plenty good enough for location scouting.

once the panorama is rendered, you can crop it however you want and save the image out at full resolution to your Photo Library. from the Dropbox app, you can upload the panoramas directly to your locations folder for the rest of your crew to see immediately. no prints. no scotch tape. no folders. not even a one-hour wait. a day’s worked reduced to a few minutes.

brilliant.

samples

below are some samples. the panorama jpgs are the final outputs from AutoStitch. in the zip files, you’ll find the individual files, if you’re interested in that. they were taken with my iPhone 4 with HDR on.

my parents’ kitchen

kitchen.zip (16 MB)

corporate coffee establishment

corporatecoffee.zip (14 MB)

enjoy!

the initial answer is, looks that way. however, you will have limited use of Motion and Color will be unusable. the new Air uses the same graphics setup as the current 13″ MacBook. this information comes courtesy of this discussion over on the Apple user forums.

so for basic editing, looks like you’re a go, though you’ll probably be limited to a few real-time previews and effects. in other words, your timeline rendering indicator will red-line more often than not.

for DVDs, DVD Studio Pro will run, but there’s no optical drive. to burn (or rip/play/test), you’ll obviously have to borrow a friend’s beefier Mac, or invest in an external burner, which along with the external drive you’ll likely need for media storage is pushing you into Mac Mini/iMac/15-inch MBP territory.

the only people for whom this is a valid question would be students. even with the new price point, you’re going to be better off getting a stripped down 15-inch MacBook Pro, or a Mac Mini or 21-inch iMac for your editing (then saving those tips and birthday/Xmas money for an iPad). if you simply can’t afford the 15-inch MBP, much less the Mac Mini/iMac + iPad setup, then, yes it seems as though FCP will run on the new Airs.

for anyone else, iMac or Mac Pro for FCP. Mac Mini if you’re broke (me) and MBP if you MUST have the extreme portability (consider the portability of an iMac). iPad for mobility.

i’ve said often since touching my iPad for the first time, “i’ll never buy another laptop.” though my gearlust be aroused, I just don’t have need for a laptop most of the time any more, and when I do, i can connect via LogMeIn on my iPad.

now, a bigger, HD iPad? that, i would use. can’t wait till spring…

Compass Film Academy has invited me to Grand Rapids for a weekend in october.  thursday, october 14, i’m doing a two-hour session for students of the school. i’ll be speaking some about the relationship between film and faith, giving a short primer on parabolos portable production, and walking the students through production of a scene from Sleepwalking.

saturday, october 16, i’m giving a two-hour workshop for the local film community about parabolos portable production. the two-hour time frame will give me the opportunity to demonstrate some processes, talk about the future, and then let attendees have some hands-on time with the devices. we’re in talks with a valuable third party; if they’re able to commit, i’ll post about that separately.  if you live in the Grand Rapids area, click here to get a ticket. only $12! ($15 at the door.)

also on saturday, i’ll be participating in the 24-Hour Film Festival‘s showcase. the showcase will feature the projects shot the previous weekend, with all creative elements originated within the 24-hour window of the contest. the festival-style screening will be judged live, “American Idol” style. no word on if Paula Abdul will make an appearance.

other speaking/teaching engagements are in the works for that weekend, so it looks to be a busy weekend.

if you’re not in the Grand Rapids area, what does this mean for you? mainly, i wanted you to know that i do this sort of thing. i really love speaking/teaching, second only to filmmaking. if you would like for me to come and speak to your film program about parabolos portable production, film & faith, or just filmmaking in general, contact me with details.

if you’re a filmmaker or business owner that thinks you can benefit from the portable production technologies we’ve been using, contact me for a consulting appointment. i can help you streamline your pre-production, production, and post-production workflows based on your technology and budget.

and finally, if you’re a film student, never hesitate to contact me with questions. my contact information is all in the top-right section of any page of my blog.

GO YOU HUSKIES!

the connectivity will be a huge plus for buyers, if the price point is good. my friend Stephen Hackett over at forkbombr links to some great info on the device and its data plans. incidentally, if it’s tech info you want, Stephen’s your guy. you can follow his @forkbombr twitter to be updated about new posts to his very informative blog. while i often post about tech stuff, i’m mainly interested in how it pertains to the filmmaking world, so let’s dive into that.

it looks pretty cool, but nothing real innovative. Android seems like it would scale up decently. though Google has said it’s not ready for tablets (see the forkbombr article linked above), it’s clear they’ll be developing it in that direction. i don’t think you should hold things that are likely software updates against a device, even if it may take a few months (AHEM iOS 4.2).

the size is nice for a PDA, i suppose, but it’s a bit small for film production stuff. i like the size of the iPad when i’m on set. the screen is basically the size of the printable area of a piece of paper, so going through paperwork, scripts, overheads, etc. feels very natural.  but the Tab IS 16:9; the openness (read: developer opportunities and/or hackableness) of the Android OS means that someone might develop a way to use it as a monitor for ACing or playback (a 30-pin dock connector gives access to HDMI and USB). overall, i don’t think the 7-in size  is big enough to be advantageous over a smartphone.

it has some specs the iPad doesn’t. a microSD slot (takes up to 32GB) means your data could be interchangable, but if you have a 64GB iPad, it doesn’t mean more space. the obvious differences are the front and rear cameras. on set, this would be great for continuity photos, video conferencing back with this office maybe. still, i can do those with my iPhone 4. other than some references to third-party apps like Fring, i didn’t immediately find anything about what kind of videochat tech/software/protocol the Tab is using. FaceTime hasn’t caught on yet, and neither has anything else. the press release does suggest that it works over 3G, however.

but the Galaxy Tab (and Android in general) still lacks a few things that iPad (iOS) DOES have, namely apps. the following is a list of some filmmaking apps i use often which only exist on iOS (as far as i know):

• everything from Chemical Wedding (Artemis, Helios, Toland)
• cinemek Storyboard Composer
• iMovie
• Scripts Pro
• Screenplay
• Movie★Slate
• pCAM Film+Digital Calculator

there are probably some similar apps on Android i’m not aware of. and no doubt some of these developers are working on Android versions, but Chemical Wedding’s answer to this question in their FAQ for Artemis gives a bit of perspective:

Yes, we are working on an android version, but to be honest it’s a huge job. We have to almost start all over again. The problem is that on set the iPhone is king so it’s not giving us as much incentive to spend time learning new languages.

though i said before you shouldn’t hold potential software updates against a device, i don’t think this applies in the realm of apps. until developers have an incentive to go to Android, iPhone remains king of us artistech (see what i did there) filmmaker types.

so the Tab looks great, and could probably be used to do a lot of the stuff i do on set. but for now, i’ll stick with the iOS apps i rely on and the larger screen size & longer battery life of the iPad.

the worst part is purely a big-time design bumble: iCal reminders and notifications take you out of the episode. this is not just pause. it takes you back to the episode selection menu (i.e. out of the video player portion of the app). once the notifications have been cleared, it does pop up an option to resume your most recent video, but then has to reload. it replays the network splash (e.g. “so bold, so brash, so Fox!), then replays show info screen (e.g., “Lie to Me, on Fox, Mondays at 9ET”), and then replays the advertising info screen (e.g. “the following episode has been brought to you with limited commercial interruption by…”) before resuming where you left off. this can be especially irritating if you get a few reminders in a row, since it can take about 10-12 seconds to resume watching. take a clue from the Netflix app, hulu — or really any other video app designed for iOS. i wonder if 4.2 will have any effect on this particular issue. this needs to be fixed soon. it is a HUGE irritation and completely ruins the continuity of watching media on a device.

(update #1: the new release of hulu plus (released hours after i hit publish on this post) completely resolves this issue, as Alex mentions below. now, when a notification pops up, playback is paused, and as soon as the notification is dismissed, playback immediately resumes. this has not only been resolve, but resolved in the best possible way.

the above image shows what hulu has updated in version 1.1)

there are often many errors and glitches. episodes are not always listed in order. sometimes video begins out of sync (you have to manually scrub to get it back in sync). sometimes on startup, an episode’s video will play very fast through the first 30 seconds or minute, but audio plays fine, never losing sync or skipping; then the video will pop back in line with the audio — the audio never misses a beat. sometimes the screen will just be black and it won’t play at all; i’ll have to completely reboot my iPad.  lots of weird stuff that doesn’t happen with any other app. a problem every now and then is expected, especially as much as i use the iPad for watching video content. but it happens so frequently, there’s really no excuse for it. i don’t know all the technical stuff behind it, but i’ve never had these problems with hulu.com in Safari on OSX. i’ve only ever experienced these issues in the iOS app.

(update #2: i noticed last night that some previously mislabeled episodes of Arrested Development were corrected; this was most likely a cataloging error rather than an error within the app anyway.  AD also was where i saw the sped up first minute or two problem; no sign of it yet this morning. i’ve watched 3 or 4 episodes and so far, no issues at all. the transition in and out of ads even seems smoother. however,  at least one episode of Lie to Me still begins out of sync. another buffered and buffered and never started. it could be an issue with the way those episodes in particular are compressed. before the update, most of Season 2 of Lie to Me had this problem. and maybe it’s just me, but the overall video quality of everything even looks better.)

probably the most disappointing thing about hulu plus for iPad is something beyond hulu’s control. that is licensing. none of the USA shows i watch are licensed for anything but web viewing with hulu. this means they won’t play on hulu-enabled TVs or mobile devices such as the iPad. there’s a lot of shows i can watch on my laptop that i can’t watch anywhere else.

while adding a subscription model like hulu plus brings some more revenue back to networks (and theoretically back to content creators and show producers), clearly the film and television industry are taking their time and not rushing into anything. piracy isn’t cannibalizing their sales the way that Napster was with music, so there’s no immediate threat — no hole in the ship, so to speak. Apple (nor anyone else) has yet to figure out a business model that replaces the existing TV/film home distribution models. the inclusion of only ABC and Fox with Apple TV‘s $.99 episode rentals is a great example of this industry hesitancy. read this article for an industry perspective from the side of the content creators.

(update #3: unfortunately, no software update is going to solve this. hopefully content creators will work out something with hulu soon.)

still, with all its problems, i do use it several hours a day. i’m constantly watching something on it, even if it’s stuff i’ve seen before. tonight was the first big night for new season premieres, so we’ll see how much new content comes to my device over the next month or so. if there’s no app update, and if there’s no new licensing, i may cancel hulu plus for the time being. they’re definitely on to something — something that could satisfy viewers and content providers alike — but there’s still a lot of work to do.

a lot of rumors hit the price-point ($99), but it is not an iOS device, at least in any recognizable form. this means you still have most of the same options of media to choose from as with the last version. one addition would be Netflix, but as a menu item, not an app. the Apple TV update comes hand in hand with a business model update, namely cheaper HD rentals and, for the first time, TV rentals. some people seem really excited about this. i could be wrong about this, but here’s my initial thoughts about it.

the iPad

let’s go back to the iPad.

among my friends, i’ve achieved “fanboy” status over the last year for being so pro-iPad, which is fine. while i don’t really see myself that way, i do like most things Apple. i do own several Apple products. i’m certainly more than a casual Apple customer. but for what it’s worth, i was mainly excited about the iPad because of what it was going to bring to my toolkit as a filmmaker. my iPhone 3G had been a huge boon to my on-set experience as an AD and director on some recent films, and I was dying for the processing power and the screen real estate of an Apple tablet. i wanted something more iMac-ish than iPhone-ish, though, and the keynote about the iPad was pretty lackluster, at least until they hit the price point. i knew i’d get one; i’d already booked a workshop at Biola Media Conference and wanted to have one in hand. and i could see that it would eventually change the computing game, though it might be a little farther down the road than i’d hoped. still, i really underestimated how much i’d be using it and loving it.

and the LAST thing i thought i would use it for is watching video. Steve kept talking about TV and the iTunes store and HD movies and HTML5 video. i rolled my eyes as he went on during the Keynote. as much as i despise Flash, let’s face it: most of the video on the Internet is flash. it wouldn’t be the media device Steve was touting it to be without all that video. sorry, Steve.

then, in just a few weeks between the unveiling of the iPad and it’s appearance on the shelf, dozens of major video sites prepared HTML5 versions of video. the night before the iPad appeared in customer’s hands, the Netflix and ABC apps appeared with little to no warning in the app store. TED, ABC, Netflix, YouTube… nearly all the video i watched online would be accessible from my iPad. even now, hulu plus brings most of the offerings of its online counterpart to the smaller, more portable screen of my favorite device. i probably run between 1-5 hours of video on my iPad on any given day, mostly from Netflix and hulu plus. people like me, who bought the iPad for its many uses, were pleasantly surprised by the amount of video one can watch on it.

still, though… i’m not buying movies or TV shows in iTunes. they’re just too expensive. i’m broke. i realize this isn’t an issue for everyone else, but it’s a big one for me. as a broke filmmaker (i.e., someone who desperately wants to watch a lot of movies), i go for volume per dollar over picture/sound quality or ad-free. sure, all things being equal, i’d rather watch all of Season 6 of House in HD. but if it’s between seeing it on hulu and paying $24, i’ll not mind the mid-range quality and a few ads. i could easily spend $30+/mo in $.99 rentals, not to mention movies. if i’m going to do that, i might as well get cable again. for movies, i’ve stopped buying DVDs, and won’t invest in Blu-Ray, but haven’t started purchasing iTunes movies yet. i just don’t have the money. besides, they’re not even 1080 yet. still just 720. buying/renting stuff with iTunes just still doesn’t seem practical to me yet, given all the other options out there.

anyway, the overall point is… my iPad became a media consumption device for me ONLY because there is a wide variety of media and payment models from which to choose, and only because i already owned it, for its many other uses.

the hobby

this is the central problem of Apple TV, by Steve Jobs’ own admission*, and why Apple TV, even after today, remains a hobby. at $99, some will add it to their entertainment system, but it’s not going to replace it yet. i believe, other than a little bump because of the price point, this Apple TV won’t fare much better than its predecessor. unlike the iPad, there is no delay between its announcing and its launch. we will likely not see any surprise hulu plus addition to the UI the night before it hits the shelves. also unlike the iPad, it has no other uses. for instance, Steve mentioned in today’s keynote that the iPod Touch was the #1 portable gaming device**… not really, Steve. people are playing games on their Touch, but i suspect few are buying a Touch to play games. its success as a gaming platform is incidental. if they released an iPod Touch that only ran games, it’d do worse than the Pippin.

the business

Apple cracked the music code by allowing people to buy a single song from an album of otherwise unlistenable songs, something people buying CDs had been saying for years… “if only i could just buy this one song…” i’ve heard less people say, “if only i could pay for this one show…” now, i HAVE heard people say, “if only i could pay for this one channel…” but even then, they’re looking at their $50 cable bill and the 250 channels they get and figuring, “hey, that’s $5/channel/month!” which doesn’t work out to $.99 an episode. at $.99 an episode, i only get two weeks of Bones, House, and Lie to Me before i’m over that $5/mo quota. the math may not be fair, but it’s what people do in their heads. $.99 for one song of 15 from an album that costs $15 makes sense. with TV, however, compared to subscriptions, $.99 STILL won’t be cheap enough for most consumers. and you still have to add a $99 box.

this is a problem that’s affecting the whole film and television industry in their move to digital and mobile. there isn’t a television network or film distributer on this planet that doesn’t want to put their shows and movies in your pocket, no matter what James Cameron’s opinion about it is. but what’s the model? there’s a lot of similarities to the music industry, but as the journalism and publishing industries are finding out, it’s not the same. a new economy has to emerge for it. $5 HD rentals do not accommodate $90 million slacker fantasies. the great TV shows get lots of ad money. people want rid of ads, but they also only want to pay a dollar or less for an episode of TV. unless some drastic changes come to the film and television industries in the form of union dissolution or independent distributors suddenly blowing up and taking over the big dogs, things aren’t going to drastically change in the next year or so.  again, the problem is not the tech. it’s the “go-to-market strategy,” as Jobs says. new tech tickles our gear lust, but the new Apple TV just really doesn’t offer anything new.

the future for Apple TV

surely, they see the potential in making Apple TV an iOS device. a $200 box that runs Netflix, hulu, the Internet, is a gaming system, can be used to sample and purchase content, includes FaceTime, GameCenter… it’s practically a small adjustment (both in UI and in form factor) from an 8GB iPod Touch (don’t need storage space if streaming/AirPlaying content). i think that would sell much better than what they debuted today, being more useful to more people. but then again i’d have designed the iPad differently, and i think they did it right. i’ve not spent years and millions in R&D, and they’ve sold over 3 million of them, so… i guess we’ll see…

the new Apple TV is pretty. the innovation of AirPlay is pretty neat. but i’m still going to make my next computer a Mac mini, and run something like Plex. then if i can ever afford an actual television, i’ll have a nice living room setup when i’m home, and an always on connection to my home server when i’m not. Apple may very well crack the TV/film distribution code, but they haven’t done it yet.

ps…

November. really?

anyone’s brain really.  first, stop reading this post, fix some tea or coffee and sit and read the following articles for the next few minutes, avoiding distractions, phonecalls, facebook, etc.

“Author Nicholas Carr: The Web Shatters Focus, Rewires Brains” on WIRED (Michael Hyatt recently linked to another incarnation of the same information).

“The Creativity Crisis” by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman of Newsweek.

what does this mean to the creative? what follows is my largely uneducated answer to that question.

the multitude and the solitude

first, it means we have to be careful how we spend our time. there’s so much to know, so much to learn. as creatives, we are inherently curious about our world. as a filmmaker, i find myself wanting to know about all sorts of things. as i research for particular screenplays, i find out just how much there is to know about a given subject. while movies frequently skim the surface of topics, settings, character-types, what it’s like to work a certain job, etc., i am dedicated to providing as honest an experience as possible for my viewer… some nugget of truth. if they don’t believe the world, even a fictional or fantasy one, they won’t believe the story.

i did not really learn well how to learn in either lower education or at film school. the best class i’ve taken to help me research was the library class at Harding Graduate School of Religion back in 02. sadly, i’ve forgotten most of it, but it at least opened me up to the wealth of information that is available if only one were to look for it.

but that’s not so much the problem these days. with the Internet in our coffee shops, our homes, our pockets, access to data isn’t really the issue. in fact, it’s the problem. there’s so much data flying around about any given thing, one has to get used to sorting through it all… all day long. how is a person, in the world of available information, supposed to focus on any one topic, any one mode of thought, any one direction?  from film to politics to technology… even information about our friends (facebook, twitter, etc.), the onslaught of information could be damaging to our thinking — no, our brains, even.

could be.

the truly creative person is that person that lives with his feet firmly planted in both of these worlds — the multitude and the solitude. the truly creative person masters both the quick processing of aggressively available ideas and the slow steeping of relevant truths. it is not a balance but rather the ability to excel at both that makes a truly creative person excel.

different people are wired different ways, and certainly much of our wiring is a consequence of our own doing. but i’ve realized if i’m going to be successful as a filmmaker — a writer, director, editor, DP, producer — i’m going to have to be intentional about both interacting with the endless evolving web of thought and contemplating the single idea. as a result, i have recently started trying to adapt to a schedule that moves me in and out of left and right brain activities, makes time for things that usually end up being distractions, gives proper relevance and importance to seemingly recreational things like television and movies (which really are essential for me as a filmmaker), etc. it’s by no means perfect, and i am by no means perfect in doing any of it.

my right brain, left brain day

basically this means doing right brain stuff first thing in the morning. hit facebook, twitter, email… catch up on my hulu queue while fixing breakfast, taking care of the dogs, etc. this works best for my 5:30am scatterbrained moar-coffee-pls mornings. after breakfast, i settle into pulling articles of things i want to read. for this, i primarily use Newsrack on my iPad, but also browse twitter for things i’m interested in reading. i send all of these to my Instapaper account. i use the pomodoro technique (25 minutes of uninterrupted work with 5-minute breaks to follow) to stay on task and, more importantly, know when to end a task before it eats up my day. one of the biggest adjustments is getting used to leaving unfinished business.

once the right-brain sorting work is done, my coffee and breakfast have usually hit bottom, and the body and brain are in gear for a productive day, so i take advantage of that time and energy to focus and read some of the articles i’ve just pulled. maybe some music in the background, but otherwise no distractions as i sit and read. i try not to skim or flit about. just read. i also schedule brief meetings in the morning, usually one-time or first meetings with people i’m going to do business with (meetings with friends happen over meals).

at lunch, i might flip through some articles if i’m not with someone, getting that right-brain back in gear. after lunch, i return phone calls and emails, and just take care of quick things that need to get done (here’s a great resource). then large blocks of time in the afternoon, when i’m most productive, are relegated for hardcore attacking my business work… first with the geared-up, well-fed, creative right brain (what are my problems? what are possible solutions to those problems? how could i attack these problems?), then a 30-minute break (usually a TV show on Netflix or Hulu Plus to cleanse the mental palette). Late afternoon, as the morning’s caffeine has worn off, the brain settles down and focuses on executing the solutions i’ve thought about in the early afternoon.

evenings are another block of time for getting work done, or hanging out with friends. or playing in the floor with the doggies. Saturdays are kept open for working on film projects or doing nothing at all. Sundays are for communing with God and His people.

now, this is just a guide.  so far, no day totally looks like this. AND i’m still trying to get in the habit of all of this. but as a creative, i very much want to keep both sides of my brain fully-functioning. specifically as a film director, i want to be able to handle a thousand things coming at me, but also focus on a singularity with passion and commitment. so i continue to be conscious of both parts of my brain, and i try to be respectful and dutifully healthy with both. i think any creative should have the same consideration for their most precious personal commodity, their creativity.

i keep saying i recommend this for creatives. so what about the non-creative person? much like the Newsweek article, i submit that there is no such thing.

you have take it out of your pocket and practically touch it to the sensor (usually found at gas station pumps and some retail checkouts), so it would be difficult for someone to steal your data simply by being near you.  however software threats are present in the mobile world.

Christian Ray Flores tweeted this article earlier this morning; MacWorld’s Brad Reed interviewed Symantec’s Khoi Nguyen, group product manager for the Mobile Security Group:

So while he says he admires the success of Google’s user-policed Android Market application store, he thinks Google might have to start taking more of a direct role in ensuring that applications on the store are safe, particularly in an era when more people will be using Android-based devices as personal credit cards.

“I think it’s a potential issue for Google going forward since anyone can publish an application on the Google market, and then only after the fact people may discover that it’s a malicious app,” he says.

there’s a lot about Google’s openness to be desired, but as mobile devices become our primary computing and data devices, as they merge with our credit cards and bank accounts, i’m thankful that i have a little less to be worried about under Apple’s “closed” system.  Google will no doubt move to further tackle these problems in some way, but i imagine that, as with raising children, reigning in chaos is much harder than loosening the leash a little as things develop.

also earlier this morning, software developer Joe Hewitt tweeted:

The more I work with Android the more it reminds me of Windows.

which is not necessarily a bad thing, but certainly Android’s openness has been under attack by some.  not necessarily by any kind of viruses or malware, but there’s a lot of talk about the potential for such.  Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 (link requires Silverlight, not surprisingly) looks really sleek and, while it’s not my favorite UI, is still very appealing. One wonders if it, too, will be attacked with the same kinds of malware and viruses with which its desktop companion was plagued.

of course, no amount of software protection fully protects against loss and theft, though remote wipe and/or lockout functions (built-in to Apple’s MobileMe) are a good start. until this was available, i did not want to put any bank account information anywhere on my phone, even after apps from developers i trusted (1Password and iBank) became available, complete with passcode security. for me, MobileMe’s $99/year price tag is worth it just for the security (well, and the calendar syncing).

so there’s a lot of variables, and given the hardware imperative, we won’t see it happening just yet, certainly not in the iPhone. but, bottom line, i’d love to not have to carry a wallet around one day. an RFID-enabled phone that includes my driver’s license, VISA or bank info, even my car key… maybe pockets will be obsolete soon.

which is the real point of this article. because i love kilts.

from accesshollywood.com

would an iPod Touch be a good second choice over the iPhone for a production tool? I know I would lose the telecommunication ability, but can I still get most of the same apps you covered at the workshop?

there are several reasons people ask me this question. for some, it is about the extra financial commitment involved with getting an iPhone ($15 or 25/month data plan on top of  AT&T phone service, not to mention the phone can cost way more than the iPod Touch). for some, it is simply about not wanting AT&T’s decidedly weak phone service.

for people in LA, where these devices could really be utilized, AT&T’s service is either bad or unavailable in many pockets, meaning an iPhone is a bad choice for people whose business depends on staying connected. while AT&T is working on upgrading their network, i can’t argue with any of these arguments. i will say AT&T service isn’t as bad as everyone (including me) makes it out to be, but it’s not spectacular. the 3G service, on the other hand, i’ve never once had a problem with, and AT&T’s Edge network (2G) is sluggish by today’s standards, but still gets the job done and is available almost anywhere in the country. unfortunately, the poor phone service hurts sales for ground-breaking devices that function terrifically on a fantastic data network.

i’m sure you’re well aware that the iPod Touch is basically an iPhone without the phone, but let me point out what that means… primarily, it means no cellular Internet service and no GPS. some location services are accomplished through WiFi with decent accuracy (seems to work well enough for basic directions, weather, etc.) so that’s not a huge deal, but to me Internet access is a biggie. i’ve come to realize this with my WiFi-only iPad. i LOVE my iPad — so much, in fact, that i find myself feeling irritated when riding in a car or stopped to grab a bite while traveling and being unable to use e-mail, twitter, Safari, etc. i’m not just drinking the kool-aid, here. i really do prefer my iPad for things like watching video, e-mail, even web surfing.

my thinking with buying the WiFi iPad is simple: cost. it ain’t cigars and limos over here, and i needed to enter the iPad world as cost-efficiently as possible, especially since i knew i wanted to try out a lot of the accessories that come along with it. at $499, the 16GB iPad WiFi was the perfect choice. beyond that, i felt like enough places had WiFi available, usually for free. in a jam, i could always pull into a Starbucks to get connected.

turns out WiFi isn’t as available as I’d hoped. while it is still available in many places, often for free, i have found myself wanting to get online in places where i simply couldn’t. after having a mobile Sprint express card for years and now my iPhone, checking e-mail, twitter, facebook, etc. in the car has become routine for me, especially on long trips with someone else driving. my recent traveling from LA to Memphis to Nashville to Cleveland, TN had me wishing i could get that iPad Netflix app up and running in transit, even if it just meant listening to episodes of King of the Hill in the car while plowing down I-40.

but how does this translate to field work in the world of filmmaking?

some of the accessory apps have everything built-in. Storyboard Composer, pCAM Film + Digital, and Artemis Director’s Viewfinder are great examples of apps that have everything you need built-in. no Internet connection necessary.

but some of the apps rely on an Internet connection to get their data. take the Dropbox app for instance. it doesn’t download your 2GB of data onto your phone. you can favorite the items you know you’ll need for the day, but if you’re on set with no wifi, you’ll be unable to access any other info. i rely heavily on Dropbox on set, and while i usually try to favorite everything i need for the day before calltime, invariably i’ll need to access something on set from other days, usually for continuity. while my new iPad makes a great on-set device for viewing overheads and script sides, if there’s no WiFi available, i’ll have to pull it up on my iPhone instead. probably not a problem, but sometimes we use my phone for the slate, and i often put my phone on airplane mode (thus disabling the 3G) while on set to prevent vibrations and interruptions from facebook, twitter, text messages, phone calls, etc. it just becomes a hassle.

having had my iPad for a few months now, i see that i love and use it even more than i thought i would, and with WiFi certainly plentiful, but not EVERYwhere, i’d love to have a 3G one now, possibly with even more storage. the extra $130 for the 3G is a no-brainer, and finding the extra $25/month for the data shouldn’t be a problem. for now, though, i’ve made my purchase and am sticking to it. AT&T’s addition of the tethering option is a possibility, but i have some problems with it (but that’s another post).

so my experience with my iPhone and now the iPad should translate well to Michael’s original question. would the iPod Touch be a good second choice? the simple answer is, yes! with a heavy emphasis on “second.” in my opinion, if you’re about to drop around $300 or so on an iPod Touch, consider getting the 8G iPhone 3G. if you’re a new AT&T subscriber, it’s only $99. my iPhone is a 3G 16GB. i make use of the space, but could easily get by with 8GB, esp. considering i almost never use it as an iPod, and about 6GB is just music (and most of the rest of it is movies i keep on hand to show people, which i also almost never do). there are some nifty additions to the 3GS, for sure, but they weren’t enticing enough for me to upgrade. i am hoping for the next paycheck or two to cover my upgrade to the new 4.

i think the two biggest factor in this for a filmmaker are 1.) crew position on set and 2.) WiFi availability on set. certainly, the iPhone and iPad are not really considered cloud devices. however, many apps that are useful during filmmaking (Dropbox, weather apps, e.g.) rely on an Internet connection. if you’re an AD or UPM, having an Internet connection and access to all your information at all times is critical. buying an iPod Touch seems like a waste of money. if you’re a DP or gaffer, that’s a different story. your iPod Touch becomes a hand tool, a fancy DOF calculator, etc. until you need to use that power load calculator to run the gennie (sorry, it’s only a web app for now). if you live in a city with municipal WiFi, this may not be a problem, no matter your position. after all, a wifi connection should be much faster than a 3G connection. or if you’ve got a private wifi network piped into your shooting location or set, even better; your team’s devices can see each other, communicate, and other important on-set activities.

whatever your position on set, your phone is very important, and, personally, i would like to have as few redundant devices as possible. for a long time, i wanted my iPod and my phone to marry each other, but finances prohibited me from buying an iPhone for a while. at some point, i saw it was becoming an necessity for me to properly serve the people for whom i was freelancing, and i managed to gather up the cash and make the plunge. it hurt, but it was so worth it, and my productivity shot through the roof. if time is money, there’s no way to guage at which point my iPhone paid for itself, but it was early on.

the wifi/3G/LTE/4G landscape is constantly developing, and staying on top of it is difficult. even so, i hope this brain-dump has been helpful to Michael and others.

it’s been a while since posting, but there’s a lot on the horizon. I can’t wait to share a lot of it with you. the past few months have seen some high and low times, exciting and boring, feast and famine. a new chapter is slowly brewing, and being able to share that with others is going to be fun.

in the meantime, i want to congratulate William and Robin Cavataio on recently tying the knot! it was a great service and intimate, country reception in Marion, AR. I was honored to be there, but ducked out before i ended up with yet another wedding garter! if you know William and Robin, be sure and congratulate them!

the film began without me, from the life experience of jessica powers. the soul of this film is her creation. late one night, she and i discussed the possibilities of the story while talking in my driveway. jess was attempting to leave, and I was babbling on and on, but under a bright country moon, not unlike the one in the film, we worked out the details that would later become jess’s first draft.

jess researched tirelessly and wrote several more drafts, each one of them great. the parabolos team contributed and gave their notes. i made my changes as director, and we launched into production.

we all spent hours and days working separately and together. i spent nearly every day at Starbucks working on directorial prep and trying to hide in plain sight — despite looking like a member of the Village People — while i prepared for my cameo as the bartender.

since then it has been a blur. eight or nine days of production and reshoots, weeks of editing, logistics, sound work, composing…

soon everyone will be able to watch the film. i hope you all enjoy it as much as i do. it’s the culmination of months of work by so many people. some are long-time friends, some i knew only for the few hours they were on set. some are professionals in the film industry with feature and television credits, some have never so much as touched a video camera. some live hundreds or thousands of miles away, some of us have practically been living together. but each person made a contribution without which we could not have made this film.

thank you to all of them. and thank you to anyone who so much as lifted a breath of prayer or spoke a word of encouragement to one of us. you have no idea how far and deep your kindness goes.

i love you all very much, and i hope you enjoy the film.

we are all so grateful for the fantastic response to the teaser… we suspect around 150 people have seen it already within its first full day of being online, and people are still checking it out today.  we appreciate all the good feedback from everyone. your interactivity is very encouraging to us, please know that.

if you enjoyed the teaser, please RT on twitter, Share on Facebook, or simply pass the link on to people you think may enjoy it as well!

the first two scenes of Sleepwalking are available to whet your appetite, so check it out over at sleepwalking.parabolos.com!  the full film will be available June 1st.  as we wrap up visual effects, score, and sound design, i can’t help but feel a little excited.  it’s been a while before i’ve unleashed something this personal before the world, and i’m really happy that others are going to get to see it.

which leads to the question… what comes next?  God only knows, but i’m certainly open to suggestions!  got any?  leave them in the comments below…

* – i have lots of posts in various stages of completion saved in draft, some just waiting to be cleaned up… expect to see more in the next few days…

in addition to my workshop on parabolos portable production, i’ll also be doing a twitter interview, or “twinterview,” so check out the details here.  you may have some great questions for one of the speakers, so submit it as soon as possible and be watching for the answer tomorrow.

doing some last minute tweaks to my Keynote. will be posting a followup sometime shortly after the conference is over… could be as late as Monday afternoon… it’s gonna be a full weekend… see you on the other side!

Jim and Beth gave their concluding remarks, and everyone crowded in for the group picture… even Angel who arrived in the nick of time to show the final edit of Cracked.  had lots of great conversation time with the GRITS (girls raised in the south) — Hillary and Austen — and it was great to have some time to just hang out and chat with the two Michaels, Leah and Lia, Nora, Angel, Mack, Zach, Max, John, Kyle, and the rest. (i know i totally just Gilligan’s Islanded some people whose names i either never learned, forgot, or am not bold enough to attempt to misspell/get wrong as i’m sure i did with the others… sorry!) lots of talent in that group, and so encouraging to see how they’ve become such fast friends, though they were mere strangers just months ago.

made me think about Matt Brown, Bryan Moore, Will Files, Charlie Dugan, Clint Smith, Mark Messick… and all my other NCSA buddies with whom i have lasting relationships, whether or not they’ve gotten me any work (thanks Jen Haire! haha).

special shoutout to Smokey Cloud who better get with me soon for some extremely fattening food somewhere. seriously, one trip to Roscoe’s isn’t enough.  oh, and Ruggles, i think a House of Pies trip is in order…

hmm… must be lunch time…

more than anything, I enjoyed talking with Robert, Ryan, Laurie, and Josh after the class. also liked seeing Ryan’s iPad! never seen another one in person until today!  hopefully I’ll see most of them again tomorrow at the Biola Media Conference.

workshop Keynote almost finished… a few more hours of work and I’ll be ready for tomorrow… back at it…

Kevin Kelly’s TED talk about the next 5,000 days of the web is a really remarkable look at where we’ve come from and where we’re going in the next few years with technology and the interconnectedness that is the Internet and the World Wide Web.

the idea of the one machine sounds a little scary, and he even gets a little philosophical/religious with it, which is odd, but given that this talk was recorded in 2007, he was right on.  since then we’ve seen Twitter really take flight (sorry) and everyone really likes Facebook (sorry again).  the recent announcements by Facebook (another link) are right in line with his predictions about the Web’s future.

you can also it watch, download, and share it on TED.com here.  also check out his discussion of the evolution of technology.  very interesting stuff indeed.

paul skidmore likes this.

read Mark Gill: “Yes, The Sky Really Is Falling” on indieWIRE.

then, if you care what i think, keep reading.

i have a lot of thoughts about all this, but the only one i’ll share for now is this.  a technical revolution began in the filmmaking world round about the 60s.  that, combined with the undoing of the Production Code, led to an entirely new style of films.  still, many of the craft advancements have been more based on technical achievements than artistic evolution, in my opinion. the style of many of the films of the 70s especially was made possible by faster film stocks; smaller, more powerful lighting units; more portable audio recording equipment; the zoom lens; smaller, quieter camera systems; etc. digital sound and non-linear editing have freed up post-production to do more things. lately we’ve seen digital animation, 3D, all kinds of new storytelling tools being developed. on top of all of this, prices for filmmaking technology have fallen so drastically in the digital age, that almost anyone can get professional-grade tools in their hands to make a cinema-quality motion picture, at least from a technical standpoint.

despite all of the technical advancements, i feel the craft of filmmaking has not truly advanced in a large way artistically, except due to these achievements.  in contrast, the ingenuity of the Russians, Germans, and French led us to define almost all of our editing cinema language that we know today, and much of their artistic advancement sprang up despite (or perhaps because) lack of access to even basic filmmaking equipment in resources. i kinda feel this experimentation with montage, master/scene technique, etc., was the last great artistic development in cinema language.

here lately, i think we’ve started to see some new advancement in that cinema language, due in large part to short films. today’s audiences are savvy to the short film, and most commercials are 30-second stories rather than just advertisements.  i believe commercials and short films have helped to advance our evolution of cinema language in a purely artistic craft sense (though certainly not in a vacuum, i.e. not without significant influence from the technical achievements ). their ubiquitous presence in our much smaller, media-saturated world has made the audience savvy to their short-hand vernacular, adding new techniques and ideas to our cinema language vocabulary.

i think Gill’s presentation points to the end of the current technical revolution being the primary driving force behind creative evolution.  not to say that filmmaking technology has reached it’s peak; we’re still in the horse-and-buggy stage, i think, about to transition into the Model T phase. but i feel it has been the driving force for several decades now, and our culture has become used to it.  thus the poor box office performance (at least compared to projections/budget, more) of a film like the recent King Kong remake… in 1920, no one had ever seen a “real” giant gorrilla, and audiences were wowed.  nowadays, everyone knows that Peter Jackson just pushes a button, and out leaps a big, hairy ape. certainly, there’s more to it than that, but i think that’s the general feeling of moviegoers regarding CGI visual effects these days.

people have always wanted story, from the beginning of time. but for the past few decades, the tools of storytelling have kind of been the driving force a lot of times. Gill’s presentation points to the inevitable fact it’s no longer enough to use the tools, even well.  people now expect you to be able to do anything, and aren’t easily amazed any more. but a really great story… they’ll think about it for weeks and talk about it for months.

no one loves Casablanca for its visual effects. the spectacle of Gone With the Wind is as much wrapped up in the historical even it portrays as it is any effects or matte paintings. even Citizen Kane, with all its technical achievements, is best remembered for the bold choices of its director.  owning a RED doesn’t make you a filmmaker, any more than sitting in a henhouse makes you a chicken. today’s independent filmmaker has to learn more and become more experienced faster. process and technology MUST be second nature so that the artist is free to create. we are no longer standing on the shoulders of the past decades technical achievements.  there are so many that a firm foundation has been securely formed, and we are now standing on our own ground, technically.

the shoulders we must stand on now are those of Welles, Curtiz, Vertov, Kuleshov, and Eisenstein. i fear so many RED owners are unfamiliar with those names, much less their work. thank you, Renata Jackson and the late Ray Regis.  without you, i would not be familiar with them.

in fact, i’m still not as familiar with them as i should be… off to revamp my Netflix queue…

for more great learning about the great filmmakers, check out Film Art and Film History by David Bordwell & Kristen Thompson.

i would also love to hear the opinions and analyses of people smarter and more educated than i, of which there are many.

i followed Jim into the classroom-sized screening room and suddenly floods of memories came back from my NCSA days… Renata’s gifted teaching, Ray’s smile, fellow students’ comments and critiques watching each other’s dailies… and my favorite of Janos’s jokes, spoken in his thick Hungarian accent: “my name is Janos Kovacsi. i am from Budapest, Hungary. i learned to speak English from Mr. Carlos in El Paso, Texas. my advice? don’t hire him.”

before i spoke, i got to sit on the front row and watch three rough cuts of class projects, their final one for the year. memories of Phone Schmucks abound, mainly the look on Mark Messick’s face when we swung the boom mic around to grab a wild line from him… “i SWEAR if i ever get my hands on you…” (that was the line, not what he said to me after class…)

the rough cuts were all great. they were all shot at the same hotel location, and it was interesting to see how each group used the space differently. each film had a completely different style to it, even though there were some similarities in the stories. very creative group of students. my favorite part was listening to them be genuinely critical of each others work, and i don’t use the word critical as a pejorative. they were insightful, offered suggestions toward possible solutions based on other footage they had seen, and just generally seemed to support each other in their craft. reminded me very much of Leslie Hill’s class my first year.

“…aaaaand BUMP.”

“smooth move… ACE.”

after a break, Jim introduced me. i used their built-in computer system to show them my blog and other utilities like Dropbox, LogMeIn, etc. only 17 in the class (not counting Jim and Beth, his teaching partner, and Lindsay, the TA), so the group was small enough that i could demo some of the apps for them up close.

i have to say i was surprised that more of them were not familiar with things like Google Wave or Dropbox, but i was certainly glad to be able to introduce them. they really enjoyed checking out Jonathan Houser’s Cinemek Storyboard Composer, and who wouldn’t — the thing is flippin brilliant.

after showing them some apps and talking about the possibilities of today’s technologies, they asked some great questions, then we talked in the courtyard until i had to go get my car out of the parking garage.

i really loved moments like hearing Michael talking after class about the possibilities of the future, with municipal wifi, remote access, faster processors, etc. seeing the wheels turn, i felt that i had done what I came to do. i’m looking forward to seeing them again at Jim’s house tomorrow night to watch their final projects.

i’m really glad that i had the longer time to speak last night… it helped me realize what i need to develop and what i need to leave out for Saturday. still a ton of work to do before then.

Sunday, i’m joining my fellow NCSA alum to share with this year’s graduating class. hopefully, i’ll be able to give them some insights into making films outside of the Hollywood arena, and how to get by in the process.

well, i “slept in” until 5:45a this morning, so it’s time to get some coffee and eggs in me. i already hit up In-N-Out, so today is Roscoe’s/Amoeba day with Mark Messick and my friend Robin. maybe we can get Phares out to Roscoe’s as well unless his new wife has him taking out the garbage or something…

more soon…

as i continue my series detailing parabolos portable production, part two of my section on development covers screenwriting for iPhone.

writing

Screenplay (iTunes store link)

Black Mana Studios

after i got my iPhone, the one thing i said i’d continue to use my laptop for was screenwriting.  then i found Screenplay.  it was available for nine bucks and is Final Draft (.fdx) compatible.  frankly, if a screenplay app isn’t Final Draft compatible, it’s useless to me.  i’ve gotten so used to script formatting over the years, i almost think in it.  Final Draft’s formatting style and method is so second-nature to me, it actually takes me longer to write prose treatments than it does to hash out entire scenes.  Final Draft compatibility is essential.  the latest update improves the round-tripping process by keeping all metadata (script notes, scene navigator info, etc.) intact.  i find it very easy to use.  the way you use it is a little different than you may expect, but i like it, given the limited viewable screenspace of the iPhone, especially with the keyboard open, ESPECIALLY in landscape.

while we’re on the subject, i’m sure most people are skeptical of typing/reading on an iPhone.  certainly, i was.  about day 3 of owning my iPhone i got very used to typing on the keyboard for e-mails and whatnot.  then started using Quickoffice to compose scratch documents or first drafts of company stuff, including sections of our business plan.  by the time i discovered Screenplay, typing on the iPhone was fast and painless for me; i realize not everyone is going to feel that way, but i think it’s great.  it’s not great for very long screenplays that require a lot of little fixes, or for heavy editing (moving sections, etc.) but for just getting some stuff written or starting a screenplay, it works really well.

certainly the screensize argument is no longer an issue on iPad, especially if they quickly develop an iPad version of the app.  doubling it to fill the screen is okay, but seems like it’d be a pretty quick code re-write to make the app iPad sized, giving the user more screenspace to read/edit/write.  even just the standard iPhone app will get my by for a while as i wait on:

Final Draft for iPad

Final Draft, Inc.

just in beta as i type this, i’ve read a good report about it from the guys over at Hand Held Hollywood. i am very much wanting to get my hands on this.  would love to also see Tagger for iPad.  seems like it would work really well, though may have to be redesigned from the ground up.  i am typically frustrated with “industry-standard” software, as i find much of it to be clunky and poorly designed from a software standpoint, but Final Draft’s commitment to making a great app for the new iPad shows that those winds may be a-changing. maybe there are some benefits to that “closed” system after all.

next

soon i’ll post development part iii – the pitch.  if you missed development part i – the research, check it out here.  if you have any additions, questions, or requests, be sure and leave a comment.

because of the staggering similarities in the emotional, compressed, symbolic nature of symphony and cinema, i often first approach my directorial vision as if it were a blank musical score… empty staff lines waiting for storyboards and overheads to unfold.  my script is like the poetic lyrics, and the visual music i will compose must convey the deepest intended meanings and nuances of the lyricist.

being a director is all about making choices.  so many directors waste their time with making decisions about wardrobe and picture cars and what font that sign is going to be in, then turn around and do boring stock coverage on a scene, or worse, do some really cool-looking shot that means absolutely nothing.  now, my fellow producers, ADs, DPs, and production desginers will be the first to tell you that i’m constantly meddling with wardrobe choices, picture cars, and sign fonts.  my point is not that a director need not concern himself with those things, but rather that if a director has not done the homework on the deeper stuff first, he cannot possibly make informed, correct decisions about colors, makes, and typography.

so the first thing i do is separate the script into movements.  with a short, the movements will likely be largely based on three-act structure, perhaps a little more divided or defined. with a longer film, there will be many more movements; the three-act structure is almost separate opuses (…opi? oppossum? i’m sure that’s it).

however many movements there are, they are signified by the completion of an arc, a large sweeping musical phrase, if you will. often the resolution of this arc will be something that forces the beginning of an entirely new arc (think end of act i, beginning of the climactic episode of act iii). it must be considered broadly and will likely be present in some way in every scene of the movement. once that is defined, then the director can start to ask questions about it’s development in each scene: what conflict does this create? how does it affect each character, etc.

at that point, a director can start making informed decisions about what shots are going to best present the story and show relationships appropriately.  for me, this is really the only way i can get a sense of the big directorial picture when approaching the material.  it’s often too big to swallow all at once, and sketching it out in this way makes it more manageable.  some people will say that selecting shots should be intuitive, and it should be to some degree.  but i’ve never met anyone who didn’t benefit from analyzing why they do or want something, then improving upon it based on that new-found understanding.  and that’s not just a directorial lesson.

so that’s what i do.  what do you do that seems to help you navigate the big picture? how do you then break it into smaller, more manageable bites?  i’m eager to learn from all of you, and i hope you’ve learned at least one thing by reading this.  i will do more posts about my directorial process in the future.

to exemplify the movements process, i have included below the first page from my movements sketch of Sleepwalking, the short film on which we just finished principal photography.  it is my goal to provide as many real examples of things as i am able.  it’s likely to not mean as much to anyone else as it does to me, given a sort of short-hand nature, but the basic breakdown is this:

1. the movements are the larger structural pieces
2. the smaller scene groupings are like broad musical phrases
3. the first line under the scene heading is what literally happens in the scene, script-wise
4. the italicized line uses musical verbage to describe what is emotionally and structurally happening in that section, or what should be accomplished.
5. the indented line following contains the specifics of how i plan on achieving that feeling and structure.

i’ll be the first to say that i didn’t achieve everything i wanted due to hundreds of factors, but having done this homework helped me make decisions on the fly on set.  i made them for good reasons and with confidence that it would work with the rest of the film.  it’s also been helpful for my editor thus far.  i shared the entire document with the key crew; i feel that the more your crew knows what’s going on in your head as a director, the more closely their work can reach toward your vision.  hopefully, they’d agree.

Sleepwalking - movements, p1

the development process should really be spent developing story, developing a visual form around that story, and then acquiring the resources they needed to tell that story.  this includes the marketing scheme, release structure, etc.  if you don’t know where your film will play, then you don’t know who your audience is, and you don’t know how to speak to them.

there’s lots of great tools out there to use during the development phase.  i can’t cover all of them, but i can at least point out a few things i’ve found helpful (and free).

the research

iTalk Recorder (iTunes store link)

Griffin

this little app serves as a voice recorder, similar to the now included Voice Memo app that’s part of the iPhone OS.  i started using iTalk before iPhone OS 3.0 was released, and still use it because it is more functional than the simpler Voice Memo app.  with iTalk you can name each recording, record at three different quality settings, and easily transfer recordings to your computer over a wi-fi network with the iTalk Sync desktop app (available as a free download from Griffin).

i’ve found iTalk to be very useful in recording little ideas i have, especially while driving.  often as a writer, i find myself talking/acting out scenes to feel the cadence of speech, etc.  with iTalk, not only can i record long fluid scenes (to be typed up later) while keeping my eyes on the road, but also, since i’m speaking into my phone, it keeps other drivers from assuming i am insane while i do it.

another huge benefit of this app is its low power consumption, since it continues recording even after the backlight fades and the phone locks itself (reminders or text message alerts alone don’t stop it, but if you answer a call or open any other app, the recording stops, saving everything up until that point). this means you can record for very long times without destroying the battery life, and i look forward even more to using this on iPad with its monster battery.  in this way, i have used iTalk to record scriptwriting sessions with a writing partner or company staff meetings.  i make these available via dropbox, and anyone involved can review the content at any time, even on their phone.

i was never diligent enough to carry around an “ideas” notebook or keep a file of index cards with lines or scenes or whatever, and furthermore, i just hate stuff.  that’s one of my selfish reasons for developing the processes i’ve developed recently.  technology has finally caught up to the point where i can walk out the door, do a wallet-keys-phone pat down, and i’m on my untethered, unburdened way.  now, for the first time, i’m actually saving funny lines, odd circumstances, and script ideas the moment i have them.  the quick record feature means i can do it even while i’m driving, keeping eyes-off-the-road time to a minimum.  oh, and it’s free.

Quickoffice mobile office suite (iTunes store link)

Quickoffice, Inc.

with the Quickoffice Connect mobile suite, you can create/edit/view word and excel documents, and view just about anything.  also, iPhone users know that the iPhone OS does not have a file management system built into the interface.  Quickoffice Connect has a file management system built-in, and also accesses your iDisk, Dropbox, and other popular file-sharing systems, allowing you to create documents and save directly to your iDisk/Dropbox, or move files about between them.  unlike many of the apps, i’ll talk about here, Quickoffice makes it’s products for nearly every mobile OS out there.

obviously, this is a great thing to have for any business.  for film production, i found myself jotting quick notes in it… things for tomorrow’s safety meeting during today’s tech scout, to-do items lobbed at me from a director in the midst of a creative brainstorm, etc.  by saving directly into iDisk or Dropbox, they are quickly viewable in other apps, or by other people who have access to those shared folders.

of course with the introduction of iPad, i plan on buying the iWork for iPad suite, so i’m sure my need for Quickoffice will diminish some.  still, it’s a great way to port files around on your iPhone, rather than just having access to view or the ability to send links to things.  Quickoffice syncs with any web browser over a wi-fi network.  you can manually upload or download files directly to the phone in this manner. until the iPhone/iPad OS has it’s own Finder, Quickoffice will serve just fine.

Evernote (iTunes store link)

Evernote Corporation

i’ve just started using this app, and i feel late in the game to it.  totally free to download and use, apps for iPhone and desktop, all kept in sync with a free account at the Evernote site.  a really cool way to store ideas, pictures… whatever.  categorize, sort, let Evernote extract text from a photo (wicked!) and lots of productivity stuff.  i may write more about it after i’ve had a chance to really put it to use.  anyone out there use it regularly?  any tips?

next

soon i’ll post development part ii – the screenplay, followed by development part iii – the pitch.  if you’re curious about why i’m so interested in portable production, read the original post.

alert Roscoe’s, Amoeba, In-N-Out, and the Arclight Theater. oh heck, alert Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, too. let’s face it, i’m totally going.

i’ll be arriving april 27 and heading straight to USC to meet up with my good friend Jim O’Keeffe. i’m starting off my two-week stay by teaching a hands-on workshop to first-year undergrad students about portable production stuff.

then, may 1, i’ll be doing a workshop at the Biola Media Conference (biolamedia.com), also about portable production. if you’re in the area and can come, please do! it would be great to see some familiar faces!

I won’t be getting back on a plane (voluntarily) until may 10, so let’s have an old-fashioned NCSA cookout or grab coffee and spend time together!

i don’t have time to do a full wrap up just now; the parabolos production core (john boggs, amanda gibson, jessica powers, and myself) are headed to Brother Juniper’s for breakfast.  we’ll decompress a bit, i’m sure, but mainly we’ll eat delicious food and get our caffeine boost for the day before jessica and i head back to the house to clean up.  we wrapped most everything last night, but there’s still a few things remaining.

this is the first production in a while that i kinda hate that it’s over.  i had a lot of fun, learned a ton, and hope everyone else can say the same.  more later…

GO YOU HUSKIES

i’m really drained, but the good kind.  i will sleep like a baby tonight!  a baby that sleeps well… through the night for 8 hours or more… and then wakes up without crying and can fix french toast for itself.

anyway.

i’ve now met with all of the actors for the show, and i’m so excited to be working with all of them.  everyone who auditioned brought something special with them, but these four really captured the characters we were looking for, and they have great chemistry together.  i laughed a lot while watching Patrick (Rob) harass James (Jackson) while raking leaves.  i was encouraged to see how directable James was in a little roleplay with Patrick as brooding, self-absorbed Rob.  Nia (the Teacher) and i shared stories over some hot java at the local commercial coffee establishment.  then Jenn (Angela), James, and i had a lot of fun today wandering around the Children’s Museum of Memphis, which is actually a pretty cool little place for kids (of all ages).  thanks to jessica powers, parabolos team member and fellow producer, for setting up all of the casting stuff with pretty much no help from me that wasn’t forced out of me.

since then, i’ve been sitting at said local commercial coffee establishment working on directorial.  i’ve gotten some overhead templates done and started my lined script, certainly a far cry from being done, but at least it has begun, which is a good feeling.  as a director, i really like to have everything planned out as much as possible in pre-production.  my philosophy is that the film is made in pre-production, that includes the directing.  i will direct the camera on paper before hand, and that will free me up on set to work with actors and concentrate on performances.  my AD, fellow parabolos team member john boggs (aka boggsy), will take the plan and work with my DP and the rest of the crew to get things ready with as little assistance from me as necessary.  will it actually play out that way?  it usually doesn’t, but the more we try for that, the smoother things will go.  sorry, more smoothly.  smoothlier?

ok, time to pack everything up and head back to the house to play with the dogs and crash out.

but feel free to go ahead and check out the site now.  it’ll give me something to look at when i refresh my Google analytics dashboard tomorrow.  also, be sure and click on the button that says “Donate” and do WHATEVER IT TELLS YOU.  thanks.

one last thing!  if you’re an iPhone owner, add sleepwalking.parabolos.com to your home screen… we made a little custom button for it.  we did the same for the parabolos website as well.

* – i’m aware “donate” is a verb.  that was more a Steve Martin** reference than anything else.

** – Steve Martin the stand-up comedian, not the Final Cut Suite Trainer as featured on rippletraining.com, though that Steve Martin is also amazing at what he does.

Accept Defeat: The Neuroscience of Screwing Up

have faith in failure.  especially when it comes to building a team or the creative process, value mistakes, embrace them.  i always encourage young filmmakers to fail as often as possible in the beginning.  much better to fail on a 5-minute class project than on a $20,000 short after you graduate.  what many try to dismiss as useless or a waste of time may actually be the very thing that makes you a better filmmaker… better than you are now, maybe better than those filmmakers you already admire.

i hope that you read the article.  be sure to read the introduction and conclusion if nothing else.  i also hope you read into the article, seeing the implications to your personal process, work ethic, talent, and ego.  Kevin Dunbar, the researcher mentioned in the main body of the article learned what was told long ago, that the light of the universe shines best through the cracks of a well-worn jar of clay.

special thanks to Jonah Lehrer at WIRED, who wrote this article.  hope he doesn’t mind me reposting the link, or including the picture below.

how to learn from failure - Jonah Lehrer

parabolos is well into pre-production on Sleepwalking, a 20-minute short film that serves in many ways as a great test run for a lot of the processes we’ve been developing for a while.  we’re working out the kinks in protocol, advertising, communication… and we’re one of the few groups of people i know actually using google wave.  it’s still in beta, but has become a great tool for us.  i really hope google and apple can keep their relationship amicable.  that would make me a happy little filmmaker.

you can click on the link above for a teaser site.  featured near the bottom is the paypal Donate button; if you’d like to contribute to our film production, we’d gladly thank you!  i’ll posting every now and then over the next few weeks with updates about the production, and we’ll have a full website for the film up and running before too long.

what was i talking about?

right.  i’m a filmmaker, currently living in the memphis, tn area.  i’ve rounded up eight great friends and filmmakers, and we’ve started a company called parabolos.  we’re doing some initial financing stuff right now, but we’re already working on two short films and two features, with more things in the development wings.  i’m a 2002 graduate of the university of north carolina school of the arts school of filmmaking.  i have a bfa in filmmaking with an emphasis in producing in years three and four.

have you seen anything that i’ve worked on?  probably not, though Shotgun Stories is available on DVD and Netflix instant.

i love making films and watching them, and though i’m typically not a big fan of crowds or social events, i really love persons.  i love sharing what little i know as a beggar shares bread with another.  there’s a lot of beautiful things to explore in the world, and i don’t want to waste much time.

if you’re desperate to know more about my background, click here to view or download my bio, and here to view or download my résumé.

if you want to know what i look like, head over to my facebook.  if you follow my twitter feed, you will be instantly informed of new posts, as well as any developing parabolos news.

with the proliferation of smartphones, laptops, new devices like netbooks & the iPad, and ever expanding, ever faster Internet connections, film production has the potential to be more simple, streamlined, economical, and portable than ever.  while many filmmakers are already harnessing this power on their own, i’ve had some great trial-by-fire experience and developed some workflows that others may find useful.  i am sharing them here as i feel that, while content must be secured and kept secret as a precious, intimate commodity, process must be shared if we are going to advance the artform and develop it artistically.

some people want to go paperless for environmental reasons.  that’s fine.  some people want to save money, or time (but i repeat myself).  and that’s fine, as well.  some want to make it easier.  i do, too, as long as i remember that truly great art often comes through great struggle… and at a price.  but frankly, i’m tired of the struggle being against things that don’t seem to matter.  i’m tired of the artistic struggle being — for the filmmaker — against the production protocol, the tools we use, the time lost retracing steps, bad communication, no communication, disseminating information, making copies, converting files, etc.

for me, the struggle should be against the darker side of life, against the things that hold us back from being truly magnificent beautiful creations that are fearfully and wonderfully made.  having to convert my Pages document to a PDF so i can e-mail it to someone that doesn’t know how to access my iDisk isn’t my idea of “suffering for my art.”

the biggest thing i appreciate about these processes i’ve learned, and what i hope to pass along to anyone reading, is that when process starts to become invisible (or at least second nature), what’s left is creation.  i became a filmmaker to emote, to bring along, to empathize, to learn, to entertain, to captivate, to be captivated… to tame a wild, wild world… to fill the voluminous earth and subdue it… to chase the truth and be set free.

i can’t do that chained to a copier.  i hope the processes that follow in the coming days are of use to others besides myself.  a lot of it won’t be anything new, but maybe the combination of it will be something new for you to try out.  as technology keeps changing, i’ll keep adapting, and i’ll keep posting, making as much of it as freely available as possible.  i want to help creators create, i want to help storytellers tell stories, and i want to help filmmaker make films.

and also i hate fax machines.

ps – George and Ashley are also great web designers