A Ghastly Notion of Persistence

So Brant Jones edited my newest movie. Then we stitched together fragments of my edit into his cut and we made a “best of” edit. The cinematography is astounding, both due to the RED ONE camera, and mostly due to its operator/cinematographer, Greg Sabo. I am very happy with the results. There is still much to do. Color correction, sound mix, scoring, and various other technical details, but I can now watch a movie and foresee what it shall be.



Bryan Michael Block came up to the studio last night and looked at the cut with me and we made some minor tweaks here and there. I also realized I had not done a test on how to go from my 1280x720P proxy edit back to the 4K RED files. So I tested out the procedure of making an EDL from Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 and then editing that file in NOTEPAD and changing the file names from *.AVI to *.R3D, then re-opening the EDL in Premiere. So far that is the single procedure and technical aspect that has worked without any kind of hitch.



I’ll screen this cut as is to a select few people to gather some opinions. It’s too fresh and I’m too close to it to arrogantly decide this is all the editing that needs to be. I want feedback from key personnel, as well as other people whose opinion I value.

Started some of the minor visual FX work on this today. More RED issues reveal themselves. Exporting to RED is not as easy. There are no settings for it. So exporting files with edits to an FX artist ain’t gonna be easy. So we’ll do it old school and send the whole clip and tell them the time code. Or export as an uncompressed file. I have options, but each one has potential downsides with color, etc.

Once finished, the next step is to use this to raise the rest of the budget to shoot an entire feature. I have a few ideas on what to do, some things I’ve never tried before. I view this as my last real attempt to make something out of what I’ve been doing for 10 years now. After this, might consign myself to a life of day job editing and working for other people in other capacities, but I don’t know if I could ever overcome the urge to make movies of my own. I have something to say and I like communicating it to people via moving pictures and sound.



In other news, I won some awards at the BEST OF UNDERNEATH CINCINNATI FILM FESTIVAL screening last weekend. I won BEST CONCEPT for Relationship Card, plus I got an HONORABLE MENTION for BEST SOUND (take that Tim Dutton with your professionalism and surround sound!). Relationship Card also got a half an award for BEST ACTOR with Amanda Howell, sharing with John Whitney’s Measured Sacrifice performance with her. We joked because the screen said John’s movie, but the award had a picture from my movie. The official statements credit it to both movies now. It’s like 2.5 awards for Relationship Card.



Speaking of Relationship Card, that and How to Deal With Telemarketers were official selections to the TROMADANCE FILM FESTIVAL, run from Lloyd Kaufman and Troma Studios. I wish someone had let me know. I got the rare experience of finding out my movies were playing from someone unrelated to the festival who was going. Weird. I could have gone too.



Now Sonnyboo productions has 5 movies in the TIME WARNER ON DEMAND FILM FESTIVAL/VIEWERS CHOICE competition thingy on channel 1111 or 411 (depending on where you are at with Time Warner). The most views win s $500. I hope someone else wins this. I don’t need the $$$ that bad right now. Although, 2 out of the 5 Sonnyboo movies were not directed by me, so GRUDGE MATCH (The Derek) and REFRACTORY (Joanne Fromes) could win and I wouldn’t mind helping out the others. I even got mentioned in the COLUMBUS ALIVE for this.



I’m also working on another book thingy as a quickie. Royalty free screenplays if you buy the book, then you have the legal write to make a movie based on the scripts therein. They are all short screenplays, some that I’ve made and some that are unproduced at this time.

That’s all I got for now. Peace out and Respect,
Peter John Ross

The Supposition of Steven’s Vernacular

Post production was delayed on my newest endeavor. Paid work, especially work that pays well, takes precedence. It’s the way of life. I’m no communist, and I prioritize the work regardless of how soul crushing it is to deny the muse her attentions. The hardest part is that I love my job. I get paid to edit and do graphics work. Who can really complain about getting money to do what they love in some form? Therein lays the conundrum. I don’t hate the day job work, yet it keeps me from focusing on the artistic work that I strive to improve and expound upon.



After some preliminary tinkering with the footage, I’ve decided to bring in another editor other than me to work on the cut. I’m too close to it. I want to select the takes, but the actual cutting is more difficult for me on this project. I have the luxury of every single take looking great and the performances were very good. The curse is that I have too many options and making decisions get a lot harder.

I may have spoken too soon about my writing. Why is it that the dialogue sounded so good in rehearsal, and now I kinda hate what I wrote? I’m thinking of stripping a lot of the dialogue down to its essentials, and telling the story more visually.

HEALTH
I had another health scare last week. Much pain in my ankle and walking became very difficult. Luckily, Dino Tripodis came to the rescue with a HOUSE M.D. promo item for the series, a cane. I have only recently discovered and fell in love with this show, mostly because of the ties to Sherlock Holmes. When I first got the cane, I was more or less retarded in my usage since I’ve never had or used a cane before. Amazingly, with pain the proper use of the cane came to me in milliseconds.

Evolution - 1
Creationism - 0

So I’ve been limping everywhere and nicknamed GIMPY by several people. All those Special Olympics jokes are coming back to haunt me.

Karma - 5,763
Ross - 6,399

I’m still ahead.

I’ve been collecting HD-DVD’s now from AMAZON.COM. I’m getting titles for $1-$3 each, so I’m even getting movies I have never seen and quite possibly will hate (I.E. THE FAST & THE FURIOUS, and the ubiquitous sequel 2FAST, 2FURIOUS). I love that if I order $25 worth, shipping is free, and so costs stay low. I love my HD-DVD/BLU RAY combo player. I took my old HD-DVD only player into work for the 32” TV there and an old surround sound setup. It’s like having a home theater at home and at work.

Later my friends.

- PJR

Post Production Hold Up

This blog will be very technical and very few people will enjoy the minutiae of computer and video editing detail, so I apologize in advance for boring the pants off of several readers.

I just finished a shoot for my next feature and we shot on the RED ONE camera, a video camera that shoots incredibly film like images. It has a 35mm sensor, so the depth of field and lenses are exactly the same are shooting on 35mm film. Combine that with the frames being 4096x2160 at 24 frames per second, and we have a diverse camera.



Greg Sabo owns a RED camera now and wanted to have some more freedom than the TV spots are affording him, and I traded some website work for the chance to use it on my project. He shot some test footage over a month ago so I could test the most basic workflow for how I would edit footage from the camera.

I tested this pipeline on my basic PC at home. Luckily Adobe had a link to a 47 minute instructional video on how to use CS4 and the RED because it showed several cool tricks. The coolest of these was how to turn the source and timeline monitor resolutions down to ½, ¼, or 1/8 resolution so that editing was manageable, even on this computer.



I am on a PC and I use Adobe Premiere Pro and the Creative Suite (CS) packages. I’m on CS3, but in order to edit RED, I needed to upgrade to CS4 and Premiere Pro CS4. I hadn’t wanted to spend the $$$ on that yet, but it was a necessity. Now the RED plug in for Premiere Pro CS4 requires a 4.1 upgrade, and they are on version 1.7 of the RED plug in.

At work, I have a much faster, better computer with the Matrox RTx2 video editing card in it. This allows me to monitor my timelines, including 1280x720 HD and 1920x1080 HD, on a TV or an HD monitor. We just got a 32” HDTV here at work, but it’s a 720P, so I can’t view 1920x1080 timelines on it.

I’ve made the decision to downres the 4K footage to both 1920x1080 HD and 1280x720 HD. I will edit with the 720P files so I can see them on the 32” monitor. I learned a lesson on my earlier short RELATIONSHIP CARD that seeing things on a high resolution monitor makes a significant difference if people will see it that way. Being able to see and correct mistakes, or details that you want to affect, the bigger the better, and that means resolution too.



I do want to have a full 1080P version of this project too. So I have 2 folders, one for the 720P Matrox AVI files and another for the 1080P. All of the files names exactly match the R3D files in the other folder. This will allow me to later conform the 4K files to match the HD edit I do. I can create the EDL (Edit Decision List) and just change the *.avi to *.R3d and I’ll have my exact edit done in the original RED raw files.

As we’ve started to export the HD files, I discovered that it takes a really long time. About 45 minutes per 1 minute of RED. That means the first 3rd of my raw footage will take approximately 36 hours to render. I setup a sequence as a 4K RED sequence, then export to the Matrox HD files.

The hypothesis I’m working with is that the RED color correction I’m using is adding to this render time. Right now, I’m still waiting on this first 3rd, all the exterior shots with no sync sound, to finish rendering before using any of the interior footage and sound and exporting those already synched.



Because the images from the RED camera are “raw”, as in it’s the raw data straight off the chip; you have a much more broad range of control over the image (like a film negative in the telecine). This also means you pretty much HAVE to affect the images a little to get a balanced look. For the exteriors, shot at high noon on a sunny August day, I had to bring the levels down since they appeared blown out, but really weren’t. I changed it from the RED COLOR SPACE/CONTRAST to the REC.709 and that seemed to match what we were seeing on the monitor during the shoot pretty close by itself.

Adobe Premiere has a plug in with the RED software that acts the same as the REDCINE software that is separate. This acts as a filter within Premiere. Once you affect the colors using this, it treats the file everywhere in Premiere as if it is natively that color/contrast without affecting the source file or creating a temporary file or needing rendering.



Something's funky in that I have a message that clearly states "No Matrox Acceleration", which means the extra GPU chip on the Matrox card is NOT being used at all, when it should/could.

As soon as this next file finishes rendering, I'm going to upgrade the drivers for my video card and the Matrox (with a slight 4.0.1 to 4.1 version upgrade) that may solve a lot of the render time issues.

I solved the long time render issues. If I make the timeline a Matrox 720 or 1080, then scale the footage down in Premiere BEFORE the render, instead of IN the render, it went from a 45 minute render down to 3.75 minutes. And it will still BATCH process. The only difference is I have to make 2 separate timelines, one for 1080 and one for 720P, which is only a few seconds longer to cut & paste with 2 clicks of Ye Olde Mouse.

All this techie talk means is that I can edit as early as Saturday instead of next Wednesday...The Rossman is happy.

The Past Crimes of Paul and Christopher

So this new piece has been rolling around in my head for a long time, about 5 years. I was going to follow up HORRORS OF WAR with this in
2006 if I could manage it. I had 4-5 drafts of the screenplay, and it just didn t come together. The stars were not aligned at the time. The past few months have been much more about waking up, like from a terrible dream (ever see Indiana Jones & The Temple of Doom and the whole takes a fire to burn you out of the trance?).



I made the first couple shorts this year to get my legs back. Making movies is like playing guitar (something I used to do). If you don t practice, you can lose the skills a bit and get rusty, so the shorts acted as my trial run. Both pieces (Refractory and Relationship Card , alliteration unintentional) I am proud of. I have improved on some of my old skills and ideas. I have not only retained some, but I tried new and better things with telling a story with the camera.

This past Saturday, we shot a 5 page script. It was my first real chance to work with Greg Sabo since a 1 day pickup shoot on HORRORS OF WAR and he wanted to play some with his RED ONE camera. We ve talked about working together for a while and this was great. He’s an artisan with the camera and Greg has a lot of big toys.



Now I remember why I wanted 8 weeks of rehearsals with the actors. There was barely any time on the shoot to focus on performance a lot as it takes hours to setup lights (to make it look like you didn t light anything). When the sand starts to drain out of the hourglass, you have to rely on the actors to know what it is they are doing and what you did in rehearsal. There wasn’t a lot of gray area about what the scenes were about and what I wanted, so we had it all smooth as glass. I will definitely rehearse like this again. The worry is that you over-rehearse and kill the spontaneity, but it didn’t since we saved the bigger performances for camera.

Max and Ruth filled in for art department, and they did an incredible job. It helps when you have department heads that take their jobs seriously and really think about the purpose and meaning, as well as how color reflects mood and character.




Shane Howard stepped up to bat for a couple FX shots, especially the bullet hole in a head. He delivered on time, and fast. That helped. Max “Bruce Willis” Groah delivered on a promise that blood splatters would easily wash off walls and carpet and it did.

I brought on the Derek as a producer to help me not have to deal with every tiny detail that wasn’t related to directing. I often short change myself as a director because I produce my own stuff a lot. On HORRORS OF WAR, I had that same opportunity and I squandered it some as I wasn’t as prepared to actually Direct. I don’t want to NOT appreciate things like this, so Derek is da’ man for covering, and also ADing the shoot.

Sound was done well, and I start to wonder how much of Chauncey s rep is undeserved. Having a full crew of about 20 helped the day not take forever. We lost time in a company move from the house exterior to a different house 3 miles away for interiors, but it was worth it to get the depth.



The RED footage is staggeringly impressive. It has latitude much more akin to film and that s not even taking into account the 4000+ pixel size of each frame. We started at the exterior shoot around 11AM and ended that portion after Noon. The sun baked us but the footage looked great on the monitors. I nearly had a heart attack when I saw the digital files after the footage dump, but Greg showed me how much latitude the footage had. REDCINE software and even a version of it within Adobe Premiere Pro 4.1 (with Red 1.7 updates) allows you to put the equivalent of a filter over the footage or an entire telecine colorist in front of the raw R3D files before you use them to edit.

I downloaded all the footage to my internal drive of my computer at home, more as a backup, but I figured I could peruse the footage, albeit slowly since the specs are nowhere near RED minimum. After a 4 hour transfer whilst I slept, I got up at 8:30AM to sneak a peek. The footage set to play at 1/8th quality played surprisingly well. In fact, all my plans to create HD proxies to edit from might be put on hold since the machine at work is a lot faster and more filled with RAM.



If I thought the footage looked great on the monitor, that wasn’t nothing compared to what I looked at today. The detail was staggering. The RED ONE is the most filmic video camera ever manufactured. The depth of field, the lens options, the latitude, contrast, and quality of image all rival actual 35mm film. I can clearly see now what so many TV shows are switching over this fall. It makes sense on many levels. For TV, there is no film print being made (anymore), and the look matches well and it makes everything easier in post production for editing and finishing. The only significant difference now seems to be archival. It s a tapeless workflow and it s all data on drives of various sorts and if something gets corrupted or lost, it s gone as opposed to a tape or a roll of film negative.

Just as I had hoped, this will be the best thing I‘ve ever made. I rehearsed the way I wanted to, played with depth of field for cinematic reasons, and worked with a good crew to meet my goals and everyone exceeded them. Whatever my hopes were for a “look” greatly passed my expectations. By luck, serendipity, inspiration or whatever it was, the color of costuming, paint on walls, randomly selected paintings and lights all coalesced into a perfect image on virtually every frame.



I wanted to thank the entire cast and crew for helping to make something special to me. I hope I put together something that deserves the talent that was involved. I m just trying to make fun of some aspect of humanity that annoys me and I got A-List creative types from our area. I soooooo don t deserve this.

I’ve already started going through all the footage and making my mental edits. I promised myself NO EDITING the first two days after the shoot. Get some distance and maybe even get another editor to take a crack at it. This is akin to the promise I made to myself about NO MORE COCA COLA CLASSIC and GOING TO THE GYM. At this rate I’ll have a rough cut done by Tuesday morning when I promised myself I’d start looking at footage.



Good day Acolytes of Boo!

AVATAR, DISTRICT 9, and other various movie commentary

I got tickets to the AVATAR sneak preview screening of 16 minutes of footage in IMAX 3D. For those not in the know, James Cameron, director of TITANIC, TERMINATOR 2, ALIENS, etc. has not made a movie in 12 years since sweeping the Oscars ™. Now he has returned with a science fiction opus that many industry insiders have said will completely change the game on how movies are made and distributed because of how awesome the 3D is in this. Since it’s about 60% all CGI with alien characters and a strange planet, and 40% real sets and actors, it seemed like it was possible. I’ve been excited since I first heard about this film 4 years ago.



Now that I’ve seen the 1920x1080 HD teaser online and 16 minutes of it on the big screen, my expectations have dropped tremendously. Granted, what I’ve seen was absolutely amazing and kick ass, but it was NOT life changing or revolutionary. In fact, I found the 3D glasses to start feeling annoying in 5 minutes, and as impressive as the 3D was on the big screen, it made it a lot harder to focus on anything in particular.



The movie looks to be a somewhat oft told story of how an invasion of some alien planet doesn’t take into account the indigenous life, blah blah blah. Most of the movie will be a somewhat anthropological view of the alien life. It’s cool and interesting, but nothing that will change the way people sees movies. Looks like the industry is desperate to do anything to combat lagging ticket sales and high definition home theater experiences. 3D won’t be the thing that keeps me going to the theater… good movies will.



I saw DISTRICT 9 and loved it. Great sci fi movie in there. I particularly like that it takes place in South Africa without the stupid American studios turning it into a tourist video explaining all the subtle differences between our cultures. Phil Garrett showed me a short film in 2005 from this writer/director and the feature is a remake of that movie.



I also finally got around to watching a couple Netflix DVD’s. HANNIBAL RISING, the prequel to RED DRAGON and SILENCE OF THE LAMBS was a clunker. It was a typical revenge story, rather than anything inventive or cool. The lead actor was incredibly weak, and that’s not even comparing him to Anthony Hopkins or an unfair scale, but simply based on his performance. It’s too bad because the sets, costumes, art direction, locations, and everything LOOKED amazing, but it was all for nothing.



I also got on DVD the YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES movie that Steven Spielberg executive produced. Interesting factoids on this movie:

1. Written by Chris Columbus who would later use a LOT of similar elements in the first
2 HARRY POTTER movies he would direct in 2001-2002.
a. The FX and style are eerily reminiscent of Harry Potter
b. The gothic English architecture and locations
c. A prep school atmosphere
d. A rival between the underdog student and a blonde bully
e. A headmasters friendship with the rogue student
f. The teachers not liking rogue student

2. Directed by Barry Levinson, future director of

3. First ever all CGI (Computer Generated Image) animated character intergrated with live action on film

4. PIXAR animation, at the time still under Lucasfilm, created the CGI knight from a stain glass window, before their sale to Steve Jobs of Apple Computers.

5. Even though it is not based on any Sherlock Holmes adventure by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, it does originate several common character traits including his never taking a love interest, parental influences, his distinct hunting cap, the smoking pipe, and his lack of emotion.


Bear in mind that this was years before HARRY POTTER was even conceived of.



I loved this movie as a kid and still liked it now. I always coupled this with THE GOONIES as Amblin Entertainment/Steven Spielberg movies that were geared towards my age group, but this holds up very well.

I still want to see THE HURT LOCKER and INGLORIOUS BASTERDS soon.

Predicating the Preparation

One week to go before my big shoot. The rehearsal process has been invaluable. Tomorrow night I’m rehearsing at the actual location. I find this to be essential because blocking like a stage play with pretend objects and furniture isn’t the same.

Once actors are in a real shoot location, everything feels new and distracting, so rehearsing with no crew or cameras with the real place with everything the same, we’ve got it covered. This also helps with the repartee with actors in that they have an even greater level of trust because they won’t be standing on those marks for the first time in front of the crew. I want there to be trust and solid foundation with me before the cameras, lights, crew, and other elements of a shoot surround and separate the actors from the director.



Now comes the fun part, creating a shot list and being flexible enough to change, re-arrange, accept, and work with other ideas. The formula for most directors is to be responsible for 50% camera, and 50% actors and performance. I tend to be 75% actors and 25% camera. I prefer to work with a camera person who wants a little more creativity and less interference, but understands telling a story with the camera. I want there to be a relationship between the camera angles and story, plus the emotion therein.

I’m bringing my A-Game to this shoot. This piece is another one of these ideas that’s been rolling around in my noggin’ for a while. I think my own skill set is more apt to pull it off than ever before, plus some of the people I’m working with are top notch in our market, like Greg Sabo. We’ve wanted to do something since my brief chance to work with him on the single day of Pick Up shooting on HORRORS OF WAR. He worked with John on his half and my sole experience was shooting the plane interiors and insert shots. Greg’s done many things that kick ass as a DP, so I’m looking forward to this.

The Tribulations of Tom Tuttle From Tacoma

The end of the month can’t get here soon enough. I’m so freakin’ excited to be shooting again and everything comes together like a John Lennon song. Rehearsals are going fantastic, the crew has almost entirely come together, and I’m so ready for this. This will be the next step in my evolution as a filmmaker.

Again, the re-writing that comes from rehearsal constantly improves the dialogue, which is a weak spot for me. A few years ago, I really let a few people’s opinions that I sucked as a writer get to me. I wasn’t that confident in my writing, as I never really aspired to be a writer. So when these 3-4 people told me it was not my strongest asset, I decided to give up on writing for the most part. I’d take the Spielberg/Bryan Singer approach of being a producer/director who shaped the script as the one in charge, but take no credit as a writer or even “story by”. The title of DIRECTOR would be good enough.



My quest began by trying to find and work with other writers. This was not the most fun experience because there are so few screenwriters who will work for either spec (meaning no money up front) or the ones that will, have no idea the collaborative nature of making a movie and writing a script as a group. I kept going to these guys and saying “these are the elements that are etched in stone and cannot be changed” and inevitably those things would get changed. It wasn’t enough to use certain sections a play ground, so invariably, I’d have to get rid of them. In the end, I’m writing by myself again. With the last few scripts and shorts I’ve made, my confidence in screenwriting has improved, but because I know it’s not perfect, I’m much more accepting of criticism and making changes.



I used to think Peter Jackson was nuts for the number of revisions and the constant re-writing he did on THE FRIGHTENERS, LORD OF THE RINGS, and KING KONG, but I think he’s completely right on now. I inadvertently adopted his style of nearly free-form writing and collaborating with actors to shape the dialogue as long as the basic “intent” remains the same.

I’m working on my shot list for the latest draft of this 5 page script. I couldn’t be more excited. Every movie still feels like the first time. I get giddy like a child on Xmas morning. That’s how I know I’m doing what I was supposed to do. The magic hasn’t faded.

Anywho, that’s my big update for now.

Rock-N-Roll Creation

I love working with actors. My two favorite parts of making any movie are the rehearsals and the editing.

The re-writes that come from rehearsals are essential. Asking questions of actors, and more importantly them asking questions of you as both a writer and director create dialogue and scenario changes that leave no gaps. One of the points of rehearsal is to work out any logic gaps or credibility issues with the scenes and words. Cutting lines feels like editing video, but live with actors. Sometimes something reads fine, but hearing it out loud makes you think “Hey, no one would stand there and listen to that much without intervening or doing something.”

It’s different for a writer/director in that I have to either have or find the answers to the actors’ questions. I get to interpret with the actors what the words mean. Sometimes it changes in the rehearsal process to incorporate what the actors bring to the table. I like the challenge of seeing if I know the characters well enough to answer all questions. Sometimes the answers find themselves, other times I have to create the answer, and sometimes the actor can find the answers. Finding a reason and a meaning in every line is important. The context, subtext, and everything in between makes for a more interesting performance.



From one single rehearsal last week, I changed 30%-40% of the dialogue in the script. Concepts and ideas get refined in the dialog. Clarification from the intent happens easier when you have an open mind to contributions. Rehearsals are somewhat sacred to me because I want to develop a repartee with the actors so we have trust on set. All the bugs need to be worked out BEFORE we get to set. I am going to fight to have a true blocking rehearsal on the actual location BEFORE the shoot sans crew. Even with great rehearsals, it gets disorienting on the actual location with the crew and cameras, so getting that extra chance to try it out at the real place develops a confidence in the cast on the day of the shoot because they have a leg up on everyone having already been there, done it, without the same pressures of the shoot day.

I’m only shooting a 5 page script in 1 shooting day. It will be a full day and my standards (for myself) are a lot higher than anything I’ve ever made before. I have 3 of the best actors in Central Ohio. I pretty much have a dream cast for Columbus thespians. Greg Sabo has the cinematography gig, so a polished, well lit and operated piece this shall be. He already started a shot list and it’s gonna be fantastic. We’re on the same page mostly, and to be honest, I like to rely on my camera person more than a director should. Most directors are 50% camera and 50% actors (or 75% camera and 25% performance), and I like the collaboration with actors and making performance my main concern. If I “cast” the camera person right, someone who knows how to tell a story with the camera, then I’ll be fine. I need to work with people who have more experience and are “better” than me at what they do. That’s the best way for me to learn.

SMELL THE GLOVE

Now I’m excited again, in a big way. After making some short films earlier in the year, and doing some writing, I feel a little bit more confident in myself again. Part of it was the self beating that my first real feature film gave my ego, especially on the self reflection angle. I’m not really affected by people saying “You suck!”, no matter what the project. I don’t like or hate something I made based on how other people feel about it; I’m only concerned with how I feel about it. I don’t measure myself against other people, only myself and my own goals and interests.

When another local filmmaker recently dick-measured themselves versus my material, and basically were saying they were so much better than me. I was not pleased. A friend misinterpreted how I felt and told me to “Use that! Go out make your next movie and kick their ass!!!!” and all I could think was (And unfortunately I also said this out loud), WHAT A STUPID REASON TO MAKE A MOVIE. I am not motivated by interpersonal rivalries or comparisons to other filmmakers. Making movies is NOT a competition or a race. This whole analogy that film is akin to sports makes me nauseous. I make movies to tell stories. My only successes and failures, along with comparisons are to myself and my other work. I can’t put myself on any kind of scale with another filmmaker. My personal philosophy truly is that there is NO SUCH THING AS BETTER OR WORSE; ONLY DIFFERENCES.

What motivates me is the need (not desire) to tell a particular story. If I have something to say, I say it with the moving pictures and the sound along with it. It’s an expression about whatever the story and characters mean to me and some kind of sociological metaphor or slice of humanity that tickles my fancy. When I make a movie to try to prove that I can do this or that to some other filmmaker or to win a popularity contest, I’ll shoot myself in the head.



Now what gets confusing is that I have had to learn to keep my mouth shut about my honest assessments of other people’s work, unless it’s praise. I’m much more silent now about that kind of stuff, but I guess some people are ultra sensitive about their own material. Go figure. I’m a lot less interested in other people’s projects at this point anyway. My life has changed significantly in the last 2 years and where I am at and what interests me has invariably changed.

CHANNEL 17, a local digital only TV station has switched over from being a HOME SHOPPING NETWORK to original programming. They are filling a much needed void of locally created content. My old boss Mike Tavares does some freelance shooting and editing for them. A few months ago, they told him about how they were interested in local content and he told them about me, my short films and even HORRORS OF WAR. He gave them some DVD’s and that started them looking at the local film scene as a whole. Ironically, local yahoos want to (yet again) take credit for something they didn’t start but I really don’t care. All I want is my material to be on TV again. It can only help with exposure to an audience that otherwise would not see it. There is also a credibility issue that good work being seen on a TV station helps create. If potential investors see your work broadcast or know that it is being shown, then you are being validated by someone other than your mommy and daddy and the cast and crew. Step aside pretend filmmakers, the real ones are going to utilize the opportunity, then parlay it to mean something.

Sonnyboo.com is going to sponsor the show and the :30 Sonnyboo spot will play on the CHANNEL 17 network soon. With enough (good) new programming, WDEM CHANNEL 17 might get picked up by cable operators and then the exposure goes up exponentially. Since Columbus is illegally withholding any kind of Public Access television, this is a way to get material seen, and in this case, the station will filter out the sub-par, unwatchable crap from many of the weekend camcorder wannabes.



Next month I am shooting something special to me. Finally, I get to shoot something with the RED ONE camera. That will be freakin’ sweet. That means an upgrade to Adobe CS4 just to be able to handle the RED footage from the CF (Compact Flash) cards. I think THIS will continue my growth as a filmmaker and be another huge stepping stone in the career path. RELATIONSHIP CARD helped, and I am very proud of the piece, but this is taking another deep stab at something more professional and clawing my way towards another feature film.

Rehearsals start this week for the new project. The juices are flowing. Time to take another bite out of life and see what’s left.

Shark Sandwich

The other night I watched an old movie, as in 50+ years old. Even as a film fanatic, I don’t enjoy many older pictures. Also, I love the way guys from the Golden Age of film called them “pictures”. What I don’t like is the acting styles. That Edward G Robinson/Humphrey Bogart syncopation to the dialogue that comes off like it’s half theater-y and half semi-real acting. It’s too distracting in most cases for me to sink in and enjoy the story. CITIZEN KANE stands out because Orsen Welles gives a very real and modern acting performance, and that’s why Marlon Brando and his contemporary James Dean were considered so great – they were breaking the mold of that old style decades before it became the norm (and pop culture preference).

I make a few very rare exceptions, but mostly I like movies made AFTER 1964. The movie I watched easily makes it into the exception (and exceptional) category. TWELVE ANGY MEN blew my mind.



This is the 1957 movie version. It’s obviously based on a play, but the acting and direction are superb, but what stands out the most to me by a large margin is the screenplay. 95% of the movie takes place in 1 room and it never loses its grip on the audience. That’s all in the writing. Even though a few of the actors had that kind of period acting that I hate so much, the story and dialogue were too good to let that hinder the experience. Not one word spoken is wasted. Even the seemingly mundane turn out to have significance by the end of the movie.

For those of us want to consider a low budget, one location movie, the lesson learned for me was SCRIPT IS KING. If the screenplay isn’t 100%, it’s all for nothing. Every word has to play a part in achieving the affect and intent of the movie in some form or another, if it is demonstrative of character or painting the world. 12 ANGRY MEN doesn’t even tell you a single character’s name (except 2 at the very end), but you know a lot about them and they are all individualized.



As for direction, Sidney Lumet is still kickin’ it if you can believe it; I mean he is still directing as of 2009. Lumet’s direction can’t go unnoticed because he changed lenses slowly through the piece and the eye levels so that at the start of the piece we have some distance between the jurors and looking “in” on the scene, and later gets down to eye level and gets in the faces of the characters, plus it starts to compress space with the lenses and makes it feel claustrophobic in the end. At this time, even though they had color film everywhere, DRAMA’s were almost always done as Black & White as a choice. I wish it were still a viable option today, but that happens less and less.



Great movie. Definitely something relevant today, even in comparison to the varied court room dramas playing 7 nights a week on TV…


Anywho, have a good time one and all!
Peter John Ross

Brain-Hammer

I have some time to myself this week. The Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ is on vacation with her family and I had some work to do. I’m going to be doing some writing this week. I plan on taking a few days off to go off somewhere and just WRITE. If you have been reading this blog for the past several years, you can clearly see a former writer/director that became more of just a director because I lost some faith in my own writing. After working with some other writers and also this year doing some more writing, I’ve regained some of that lost faith in my own ability to write. If I’m properly motivated, and I feel it in my heart, then I can write. So now I plan on writing my next project myself. Here comes draft 9…


So as I gear up for another season conventions and having a dealer table to sell items, I came up with another disc. I compiled all my educational videos onto a single disc and plan to sell it. I may even put this on AMAZON.COM, but eh, I may not. It all depends. Maybe if I make a few more videos like this, of which I had plans, but have been put on hold.

Now, there’s something educational. Let’s talk about editing on a feature film. Some people, a surprising number of people, don’t understand the most standard workflow of editing on a feature film. In several cases, if the audio was recorded separately from the picture (which is always the case with celluloid film), you need to synchronize (or short hand “synch”) the audio to picture. That’s where you match the sound of the clap to the “Clapper” which is the slate. After that, the initial edit of scenes, in most cases is just a basic cutting of the scenes in script order and they tend to be long. The name for this edit is THE ASSEMBLY, or assembly edit or assembly cut. This can often mistakenly be called a “rough cut”, but the rough cut is really the NEXT edit. The assembly of APOCALYPSE NOW and THIS IS SPINAL TAP are bootlegged as “rough cuts” and that propagates the misnomer.

The 2nd edit is the ROUGH CUT. Once you start to attack the movie from the assembly of scenes, and really start to dig in, you are doing something beyond the basic cutting of the film. The 3rd cut, often called THE FINE CUT is where all the notes from relevant personnel from the producers to directors, etc. are incorporated from the ROUGHT CUT and trimmed away, or put back in as may be the case. The FINE CUT is where radical re-arrangement of scenes, dropping scenes, etc. usually (but not always) occurs. This is usually where pick up shooting comes from, etc. You also wouldn’t’ want to screen anything but the FINE CUT to any kind of audience. The FINE CUT is what studios usually show to test audiences, and never any earlier versions. This is where temp music is placed and used to really start selling the movie.



After the FINE CUT comes the FINAL CUT, which means picture lock. That may or may not have the final FX shots, color correction or sound mix, but they often call it PICTURE LOCK because you aren’t really cutting any more or re-arranging the shot to shot edit.

So these are the four main stages of editing, especially on a feature film.

ASSEMBLY -> ROUGH CUT -> FINE CUT -> FINAL CUT

It terrifies me that people making movies don’t know this simple procedure on a feature film. I never went to film school, but even I know this. The procedure has been around now for nearly 100 years (since the mid-late 1920’s). It works. It works well.

One thing is for sure, I really am learning how much I know and don’t know about making movies every single day. All I know is that I don’t want to keep teaching people what I know. I want to work with people that I don’t have to explain this stuff to. I want to work with professionals, not amateurs. I’m done babysitting.

- Peter John Ross

Intravenus de Milo

I submitted my new DVD of short films in 39 combined film festival entries. Luckily most European fests have no entry fee and most of the smaller fests I have a relationship with, so I can get the submission fees waived. It pays to give things like royalty free music away and other handy things on my site. It helps pave the way for a return favor from things like film festivals. Countries I have submitted to this round include Poland, Spain, Portugal, Sengala, India, Japan, Canada, the UK, and even Nigeria.

To commemorate the completion of these shorts, I made a DVD cover and I really dug it lots. Again, taking inspiration from the Jazz albums of the past, this time specifically the orange and yellow against black of an old Thelonius Monk album, I dug this creation, which I wish I could take more credit for, but alas it wasn’t as much me.



Aside from that, I now stand at the almighty crossroads. Sadly, Jack Butler won’t be playing his amazing guitar with the devil at his side at my crossroads. I have to decide how to proceed with my options as a filmmaker. Artistically, there are a few options, but which one to take? I have another short, something that combines my sense of humor with more of the darker dramas that are in my soul, but it’s still another short with limited appeal, gross income, and marketability. I have my initial plan to proceed with the bigger investors and take the time to work out the bigger ticket features. And there’s the possibility to take some of the money already on the table and make a cheaper feature, but with no name stars and incredibly small odds at a financial success and career advancement.

I haven’t made up my mind yet, but when My Sexy Girlfriend Veronica™ heads to South Carolina for a week, I want to go into seclusion for a hefty writing session, locked in a hotel room alone with the laptop in a cabin with no internet. I just need to know WHAT I’ll be focusing on. So I have all of a few short weeks to determine how I’ll be spending the next 18 months (at least) of my life. Can anyone say “Horrors of War 2”? YIKES, that would be tragic.



Today was my first real recovery after the big annual work project. I enjoyed some special time with “V”, but mostly I rested and even watched the first Blu Ray I got with the PS3 (Spider-man 3, a lot better the 2nd viewing, albeit still flawed). I don’t get to watch movies like I used to, but I want to get back to that, at least somewhat. Right now I average one feature film every two weeks and that’s kinda bad.



That’s it folks!
Peter John Ross