In the spring of 2000, I bought my first camcorder, the Canon Ultura. It was one of the early consumer-grade mini-DV, all-digital camcorders, and it was great—I remember being amazed by how vivid digital video looked compared to the graininess that I’d come to expect from analog video camcorders.
The Ultura was a great camcorder, enabling me to shoot my UK vacation that summer, and then allowing me to start shooting Miller & Mullet and other stuff. The Ultura also served as my capture and export deck for a series of Macs and Mac OS’s, and it never let me down. Until, that is, this summer while I was trying to capture footage for a short my friend Jeff had shot. After 8 years of regular (and sometimes heavy) use, the Ultura’s playback head is kaput. Not even my trusty head-cleaning tape could fix the problem.
I paid $1500 CAD, plus tax, in early 2000, which was a typical price for a camcorder back then. I remember looking at various cameras, including Sony and Panasonic, before picking the Ultura from Japan Camera at the Eaton Centre.
The Ultura is a single-chip camera, but it was a better camera than most that year. Canon had actually put in a better lens in it, much better than the ones used in their ZR-series and Elura camcorders that followed. The Firewire connection worked perfectly, as did the tape mechanism, and I never had to take it for repairs, despite the abuse it received, including shooting a feature during an incredibly hot and humid Toronto summer, capturing the footage from that feature (on nearly 30 mini-DV tapes)….
Canon withdrew the Ultura after a year in production, and I remember the replacement models weren’t of the same quality. Sure they were samller and had more buttons, but the quality wasn’t there (I’m basing my opinion on what I saw in various camera store showrooms).
I tricked the Ultura out with cheap Cokin filters (the key filters being the neutral density and circular polarizer, but I also bought 2 grades of orange for counterbalancing the ND filter, and a blue filter that I never got around to using for day-for-night shooting), so for outdoor shooting, the Ultura did a great job. Indoors, footage tended to be grainy if it wasn’t in a horribly bright room. I tried to go manual as much as possible for colour balance and exposure as the automatic controls tended to over-react to any change in lighting levels. Overall, though, I learned how to avoid the Ultura’s limitations, and I think the resulting video looked better than most one-chip productions did.
The most annoying aspect of the Ultura, though, was the audio jack. I curse whoever decided that a ⅛” plug was a better option than XLR or even 1/4 “…. The transformer I bought to convert XLR to the ⅛” worked great, but eventually you had to find the sweet spot where the plug and jack were both in full contact and the audio was actually reaching the recording head (I went through a series of cheap headphones dedicated to ensuring the audio was making it to two channels at the same time).
So… after spending several hours over a couple of nights trying to capture and recapture Jeff’s footage, I realized my beloved Ultura had reached the end of its working life and was now destined to sit as a memento on my bookcase rather than actually shoot anything.
Next time, part one of my search for a replacement.
Showing posts with label shorts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shorts. Show all posts
Monday, October 6, 2008
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Characters with Hearts of Gold
I’ve been playing with Magic Bullet Looks, but I’m still working on the blog entry. My AfterEffects trial ran out before I could get into some serious work with it, so I’ll have to see if I can get a new trial installed to play with it. There’s a lesson for you: never install a trial until you’re positive you can actually get time to play with it!
Meanwhile, here is this week’s (or last week’s) entry.
I’ve been tardy about getting my testing done because I’ve been busy writing scripts. We’re still a few shy of having enough to look at, pick a few, and shoot a select few.
I have the advantage of writing for two main characters that are well established, and we’ve steadily added a pool of recurring characters that live in Miller & Mullet’s world, so I don’t have to look too far to find foes, foils, or friends. I’ve used them in the scripts for the shorts, and Mullet’s used them for the comic book scripts, so we’re working with the same materials, and we’re fleshing out characters that we can continue to develop.
Several of these supporting players date back from the Babysitters script. Two of them, Officer Bob and The Shark, first appeared in Babysitters (played by Teige Reid and Dave Pearce, respectively), and they (the characters) have since appeared in our comic book series, Miller & Mullet in Space, although they don’t resemble Teige or Dave very much. Officer Bob is a corrupt cop or ex-cop, and The Shark is a hustler and conman usually involved in Bob’s schemes. These guys are natural villains in Miller & Mullet’s world. Morally, Miller isn’t much different from these people, but he lacks the ability to pull off a scheme—or at least come up with something that actually works. From a writer’s perspective, it is a lot of fun to have three swindlers locked in a room together, and I expect that we’ll see more of them going forward. Between Babysitters and the two issues of the comic book, these two are our most fleshed-out villains.
Two other characters we’ve repeated are Honey and The Pimp, both of them appearing in Babysitters. Ron Fromstein played The Pimp and Tasha May Currie played Honey. These characters haven’t appeared in the comic books yet, but they play important roles in the lives of Miller in particular.
Honey is the prostitute with a heart of gold, or at least our version of that cliché. If she’s a reluctant prostitute that the cliché requires, we don’t see that part of her character as she’s quite enthusiastic—or at least willing to provide service—when Miller appears (we’ve never shown her with other johns, so that might be the next step if we want to play with the cliché). Honey probably loves Miller, but she doesn’t hesitate to beat him savagely when he rips her off. Yet her feelings for Miller allow him to take advantage of her (before she retaliates). A strange, sadistic relationship, to be sure.
The Pimp, Honey’s “boss,” is a vicious psychopath who hates Miller and carries a corkscrew as his primary weapon. Honey and The Pimp haven’t appeared in the comic books, but I’ve written them into a couple of scripts.
There is no shortage of people we can bring back from any of the movies or comics—these four are the most important recurring characters in the stories we’ve written so far, and I expect that they’ll continue to remain important.
Another character who has never appeared on-screen is Miller & Mullet’s agent, Larry. Larry seems to get them work, albeit birthday parties and other jobs they’d like to leave behind for greener pastures. We’ll have to put Larry directly into a story at some point, although the idea of an unseen recurring character is interesting, too—think of Charlie of Charlie’s Angels.
I’ve written three or four scripts that include a blind person as a character. In Babysitters, we had Humphries, a blind person (played by a rampaging Sandy Jobin-Bevans) who Miller robs to pay Officer Bob and The Shark. In a couple of shorts, I’ve written other blind characters as foils who get caught up in various misadventures courtesy of our heroes. In these cases, the characters are more vulnerable than the average person is, so you save some exposition by not having to explain why they’re trapped in the situation with Miller & Mullet—it’s as obvious as the white cane and dark glasses that they’re using. I’m not taking out any prejudice against blind people, honest: I have a white cane that a blind friend donated to the cause, so we can come up with a blind person with a white cane. If I had access to a wheelchair or one of those clunky hearing aids from the 1950’s, I would certainly create physically challenged and deaf characters.
There are some other characters I’d love to have in our shorts, too. If I could get a police uniform or two, we’d have natural bad guys or foils. Give me a clergyman’s collar or nun’s habit, a firefighter’s bunker suit and I’ll make use of them. The thing about no-budget filmmaking is, of course, you don’t necessarily have the budget to dress the cast as you’d want, so you have to make do with what you can get access to. In Babysitters, we bought a police officer’s blue shirt for one scene, but otherwise we’ve never supplied a costume (my favourite costume is still the bright red marching band jacket that Steve Chamberlain thought his jockey character should wear while he doped a horse). Of course, if we weren’t trying to keep the world around Miller & Mullet realistic, we could adopt more deliberately unrealistic standards for costumes, like kiddie hats and plastic raincoats to portray firefighers, but we’ve chosen a different direction for the shorts.
Next time, I’ll either get on with the evaluations or I’ll write about finding props in the garbage….
Meanwhile, here is this week’s (or last week’s) entry.
I’ve been tardy about getting my testing done because I’ve been busy writing scripts. We’re still a few shy of having enough to look at, pick a few, and shoot a select few.
I have the advantage of writing for two main characters that are well established, and we’ve steadily added a pool of recurring characters that live in Miller & Mullet’s world, so I don’t have to look too far to find foes, foils, or friends. I’ve used them in the scripts for the shorts, and Mullet’s used them for the comic book scripts, so we’re working with the same materials, and we’re fleshing out characters that we can continue to develop.
Several of these supporting players date back from the Babysitters script. Two of them, Officer Bob and The Shark, first appeared in Babysitters (played by Teige Reid and Dave Pearce, respectively), and they (the characters) have since appeared in our comic book series, Miller & Mullet in Space, although they don’t resemble Teige or Dave very much. Officer Bob is a corrupt cop or ex-cop, and The Shark is a hustler and conman usually involved in Bob’s schemes. These guys are natural villains in Miller & Mullet’s world. Morally, Miller isn’t much different from these people, but he lacks the ability to pull off a scheme—or at least come up with something that actually works. From a writer’s perspective, it is a lot of fun to have three swindlers locked in a room together, and I expect that we’ll see more of them going forward. Between Babysitters and the two issues of the comic book, these two are our most fleshed-out villains.
Two other characters we’ve repeated are Honey and The Pimp, both of them appearing in Babysitters. Ron Fromstein played The Pimp and Tasha May Currie played Honey. These characters haven’t appeared in the comic books yet, but they play important roles in the lives of Miller in particular.
Honey is the prostitute with a heart of gold, or at least our version of that cliché. If she’s a reluctant prostitute that the cliché requires, we don’t see that part of her character as she’s quite enthusiastic—or at least willing to provide service—when Miller appears (we’ve never shown her with other johns, so that might be the next step if we want to play with the cliché). Honey probably loves Miller, but she doesn’t hesitate to beat him savagely when he rips her off. Yet her feelings for Miller allow him to take advantage of her (before she retaliates). A strange, sadistic relationship, to be sure.
The Pimp, Honey’s “boss,” is a vicious psychopath who hates Miller and carries a corkscrew as his primary weapon. Honey and The Pimp haven’t appeared in the comic books, but I’ve written them into a couple of scripts.
There is no shortage of people we can bring back from any of the movies or comics—these four are the most important recurring characters in the stories we’ve written so far, and I expect that they’ll continue to remain important.
Another character who has never appeared on-screen is Miller & Mullet’s agent, Larry. Larry seems to get them work, albeit birthday parties and other jobs they’d like to leave behind for greener pastures. We’ll have to put Larry directly into a story at some point, although the idea of an unseen recurring character is interesting, too—think of Charlie of Charlie’s Angels.
I’ve written three or four scripts that include a blind person as a character. In Babysitters, we had Humphries, a blind person (played by a rampaging Sandy Jobin-Bevans) who Miller robs to pay Officer Bob and The Shark. In a couple of shorts, I’ve written other blind characters as foils who get caught up in various misadventures courtesy of our heroes. In these cases, the characters are more vulnerable than the average person is, so you save some exposition by not having to explain why they’re trapped in the situation with Miller & Mullet—it’s as obvious as the white cane and dark glasses that they’re using. I’m not taking out any prejudice against blind people, honest: I have a white cane that a blind friend donated to the cause, so we can come up with a blind person with a white cane. If I had access to a wheelchair or one of those clunky hearing aids from the 1950’s, I would certainly create physically challenged and deaf characters.
There are some other characters I’d love to have in our shorts, too. If I could get a police uniform or two, we’d have natural bad guys or foils. Give me a clergyman’s collar or nun’s habit, a firefighter’s bunker suit and I’ll make use of them. The thing about no-budget filmmaking is, of course, you don’t necessarily have the budget to dress the cast as you’d want, so you have to make do with what you can get access to. In Babysitters, we bought a police officer’s blue shirt for one scene, but otherwise we’ve never supplied a costume (my favourite costume is still the bright red marching band jacket that Steve Chamberlain thought his jockey character should wear while he doped a horse). Of course, if we weren’t trying to keep the world around Miller & Mullet realistic, we could adopt more deliberately unrealistic standards for costumes, like kiddie hats and plastic raincoats to portray firefighers, but we’ve chosen a different direction for the shorts.
Next time, I’ll either get on with the evaluations or I’ll write about finding props in the garbage….
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
To Upgrade or Not to Upgrade—that is the question.
…Whether 'tis nobler to stand pat with what I’ve got….
As next spring’s post on our DVD draws nearer, I’ve been contemplating the post-production aspect of it: do I have the tools to do a really good job by current standards?
I could produce a functioning DVD with basic tools, even freeware apps, but the goal with this project is to produce a demo reel to put into the hands of the mighty. If we sell a few of them, all the better, but I wouldn’t want to sell anyone something that wasn’t the result of Mullet and I playing at the top of our game. Mullet takes the same approach with the comic, as does our artist, Kameron Gates.
At the moment, I have a G5 (single 1.6 GHz processor, the original low-end G5 model) and Final Cut Studio 1 as my software. I have a pair of 250 GB external hard drives for video capture, and I listen to the whole thing via a 10-watt Radio Shack amp and $30 Radio Shack speakers. This is probably as no-budget as you can get! I won’t be replacing the G5, so my focus will be on the software.
I’m running OS X Tiger, and I haven’t decided whether I’ll upgrade to the new Mac OS, Leopard, yet. I usually wait some time before upgrading, but I’m happy with how fast and stable Tiger is—Leopard’s new features haven’t prompted me to run down to Riverdale Mac just yet. I’ll revisit the OS after the DVD’s done, but I don’t anticipate, at this point, upgrading based on some of the negative experiences people have had. If the consensus on the various forums that focus on all things Final Cut and Mac come back with reports of speed increases or can’t-work-without features, I might take the plunge.
I am, however, evaluating 4 options for upgrading my current apps:
- Stand pat with what I’ve got ($0)
- Upgrade to Final Cut Studio 2 ($545 CAD),
- Buy Magic Bullet Suite ($799 USD) or just one of the Magic Bullet apps
- Buy Adobe AfterEffects ($1149 CAD for CS3, $1969 CAD for the Production Premium version, which adds PhotoShop, Illustrator, etc.).
Taking Magic Bullet for a ride is step one in my evaluation. Magic Bullet was created by Stu Maschwitz of The Orphanage, and it’s been a well-known plug-in and stand-alone app for years. Last spring, I bought Stu’s book, The DV Rebel's Guide: An All-Digital Approach to Making Killer Action Movies on the Cheap, which I’d recommend to anyone making no-budget movies (even if you’re not shooting action flicks, there’s plenty of good information there), and found his blog and forum there quite interesting.
Magic Bullet Suite is priced at $799 USD, and you get Magic Bullet Looks (applies preset or user-created “looks” to video), Magic Bullet Frames (converts 60i to 24p, also deinterlaces video), Magic Bullet Colorista (3-way colour correction), and Instant HD (converts SD video to HD video). These programs are either stand-alone or plug-ins for FCP and Motion, but the demos seem to be plug-ins only. I’ve read a few reviews for Colorista, plus various forum comments, and all have been positive. I can’t recall any negative comments, actually. I downloaded the demos for Magic Bullet Looks and Colorista, and in a future post I’ll let you know how they’ve worked out.
Upgrading to Final Cut Studio 2 would give me the latest versions of that bundle: Final Cut Pro 6, DVD Studio Pro 4, Motion 3, Compressor 3, and Soundtrack Pro 2, plus the new app, Color. At the moment, this would be a $545 CAD investment. The learning curve is the lowest here given that I’m familiar with the previous versions of all these apps, with the exception of Color. There are no demos available for FCS 2, so I’ll have to rely upon reviews and the Apple website for evaluation. The reviews of FCS 2 have been positive overall, although some people don’t like Color.
Whether I upgrade or not, I’ll be using FCP, Soundtrack Pro, Compressor, and DVD SP for the DVD. These are good, stable programs that meet most of my needs for no-budget post-production. The only needs I find wanting are in the areas of mastering and onlining.
Stu’s book goes into onlining quite a bit—getting the video from your non-linear editing program to the final version enjoyed by millions. Colour correction and mastering are the two main areas. In the book, Stu has reservations about using FCP for onlining and recommends using AfterEffects since FCP renders at 8-bits and AE can render 8-, 16-, or 24-bits. The higher the bit rate, the better the filters and transitions look. With Stu’s workflow, you don’t do any rendering at all in FCP—you export everything sans transitions and filters, and apply them inside AfterEffects instead.
In FCP 5, you’re limited to 8-bit rendering, but Apple promises that FCP 6 does 16- and 24-bit rendering, as does Color, but I haven’t seen anyone come out with a clear statement on whether it works as well as AE does, even on Stu’s blog and forum.
I’ll download the AfterEffects CS3 demo and try it out once I’ve played with Magic Bullet. I had AfterEffects 3 way back when OS9 ruled the Mac world, so I’m somewhat familiar with the program, but I suspect that CS3 is probably a lot more sophisticated than 3 is!
To evaluate the 2 demos, I’ll take the same sequence from a Final Cut project, export it as a DV QuickTime file, and import it into each program (bearing in mind that the Magic Bullet demo is plug-in only, I’ll presumably be using FCP’s rendering engine when I test Magic Bullet, so I’m testing the interface more than I am the output).
I’ll come up with 3 or 4 different things I want to test, and use Magic Bullet, AfterEffects, and Final Cut Studio 1 to independently come up with 3 different versions. Once I’ve done all 9 or 12 tests, I’ll export them as QuickTime files and bring them into Compressor to convert into H.264 and DVD files. I’ll run the DVD files through DVD Studio Pro to create DVDs to look at on various TVs, and I’ll test the H.264 files on a mix of computers, mostly Windows.
I’ll post results for these evaluations in the coming weeks.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
What’s Going on Today (or, Meanwhile back in 2007)
Now that I’ve updated what went on in 2001-2002, here’s an update on what we’re doing right now in 2007.
Mullet is slaving away on the issue 2 script. This is taking a lot of his free time, naturally. But he’s way ahead of where we were for issue 1 so there’ll be more time for story editing and polishing. I’ll see the script eventually and give him some feedback as his story editor.
Writing a comic book is a unique craft compared to screenwriting or prose—you have to come up with the usual story elements (plot, character, dialogue, action), but you also work on the layout of panels and pages. Until Mullet started writing our comic book, I had no idea what the roles of the writer, artist, etc were in that format. Like with movies and TV, well-written and well-designed comics make the writing transparent, so I never really thought about it before. I have more respect for the writers now, to be sure.
Meanwhile, back at the video ranch, I’m chasing a bunch of loose ends. This blog takes some of my time, and I’ve used it to find the discipline necessary to get back to writing almost every day (with the goal for every day). I am working on several script ideas, which I hope to have ready for Mullet by December. I have 4 shorts on the go as rough drafts, plus about a dozen interstitial/blackout type ideas that I think we’ll either use on the DVD as transitions and/or as a collection of short bits that we’ll post online.
When I get tired of writing, I’ve been playing around with the Babysitters final cut, and I finally got back to working on the edit of Can that Andrew Currie did for us. I still have to put Stalled together, and I’m working on an idea for opening credits (for the shorts) that will tie into the comic a bit (I sketched out some quick storyboards and then started some tests in Motion to see how I could accomplish what I’d drawn).
I’ve also downloaded the demo for 2 elements of Red Giant Software’s Magic Bullet Suite. More about that next time, once I’ve had the chance to play with it.
So that’s where we’re at, for the moment.
Mullet is slaving away on the issue 2 script. This is taking a lot of his free time, naturally. But he’s way ahead of where we were for issue 1 so there’ll be more time for story editing and polishing. I’ll see the script eventually and give him some feedback as his story editor.
Writing a comic book is a unique craft compared to screenwriting or prose—you have to come up with the usual story elements (plot, character, dialogue, action), but you also work on the layout of panels and pages. Until Mullet started writing our comic book, I had no idea what the roles of the writer, artist, etc were in that format. Like with movies and TV, well-written and well-designed comics make the writing transparent, so I never really thought about it before. I have more respect for the writers now, to be sure.
Meanwhile, back at the video ranch, I’m chasing a bunch of loose ends. This blog takes some of my time, and I’ve used it to find the discipline necessary to get back to writing almost every day (with the goal for every day). I am working on several script ideas, which I hope to have ready for Mullet by December. I have 4 shorts on the go as rough drafts, plus about a dozen interstitial/blackout type ideas that I think we’ll either use on the DVD as transitions and/or as a collection of short bits that we’ll post online.
When I get tired of writing, I’ve been playing around with the Babysitters final cut, and I finally got back to working on the edit of Can that Andrew Currie did for us. I still have to put Stalled together, and I’m working on an idea for opening credits (for the shorts) that will tie into the comic a bit (I sketched out some quick storyboards and then started some tests in Motion to see how I could accomplish what I’d drawn).
I’ve also downloaded the demo for 2 elements of Red Giant Software’s Magic Bullet Suite. More about that next time, once I’ve had the chance to play with it.
So that’s where we’re at, for the moment.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
The 74-Minute Skeleton in Our Closet, 5: No-Budget Finances
Compared to most student features, Babysitters was an inexpensive project, but for two people putting up all the money themselves, it wasn’t cheap!
With the purchase of computer software and hardware, video equipment, supplies, props, and the mandatory on-set food and drink, I put around $5500 CAD into it (equivalent of about $3600 US in 2002). Mullet put in $2000 CAD, so our budget for Babysitters for 2001-2002 was $7500 CAD, or about $4900 USD in 2002 dollars (all dollar numbers below are in Canadian funds).
So… what did $7500 buy us besides 74-minutes of hilarity?
Most of that money went into fixed assets like computers, software, extra hard drives, a tripod, shotgun microphone, etc., so the money we spent on Babysitters has saved considerable money on subsequent projects. We can now make a short for the costs of blank tapes, food, beverages, gas, parking, office supplies, and the occasional new prop.
For Babysitters, as a general strategy, we decided to buy inexpensive gear rather than rent better stuff since we had a lot of single shooting days spread out over 9 months. If we’d scheduled the shoot to take place within a single block of time or two, the rental option would have made more sense, so your schedule will dictate your finances a great deal.
We never prepared a budget beforehand, which is something we should have done, in hindsight. If we had done a budget, though, we would have revised it constantly as we came across new expenses that we hadn’t anticipated—every rookie mistake will cost you money.
We averaged about $100 each day for food, beverages, props, gas, parking, and supplies like mini-DV tapes, and that has been our typical budget ever since. We’ve always been able to borrow cameras, so we’ve never had to rent one (about $200/day for a DVX100 or similar camera in Toronto these days).
We also don’t pay our actors or crew anything. This means we don’t use people who belong to the acting guild in Canada, ACTRA, as we can’t afford the minimums that the guild has in place for its members. If we did use guild people without following procedure, we would never be able to sell the project to anyone, so it’s not worth it. ACTRA does have a low-budget program, but they’re still pretty big bucks for anyone at the no-budget level. The guilds in your area will have similar rules and policies that you should know before starting a project.
Any decent film school has an introductory producing class, so I’d recommend taking one before plunging into shooting. If I didn’t live near a dozen film schools like there are in Toronto, the internet has leveled the playing field—you can get just about any book on film and video producing, and there are a lot of good websites, lists, and blogs on the topic as well. I’ll post an entry with some links at some point.
You also want to budget your time. For longer projects, you should anticipate the demands on your time during all phases of production. A good production management book or course can give you an idea of how much time you’ll need to do things (and it will always take longer to do something than you’d think it would…).
We saved money where we could with gear. Instead of buying a microphone boom pole, I modified a $15 window-washing extension arm with a PVC collar and mini-bungee cords to create a shock mount (this guy had a similar idea). We used a $5 desktop mike stand for most of the shoots—putting the mike at the feet of our performers just out of frame with the mike aimed up. I bought 3 sets of halogen work lights for our interiors, using gels to convert them whenever needed to sunlight-balanced light. I built camera stabilizers (to make handheld shots easier) with raw materials from Canadian Tire (after seeing how much a pro stabilizer cost). All of this stuff may look cheap and crappy, but with a little work, it does the same job as the pro gear at a fraction of the cost.
We only had to pay for locations three times, when we shot scenes in rehearsal spaces. We used both our apartments, interior and exterior, for as many distinct locations as we could squeeze out of them, and we used someone’s apartment for another location. We found and used a deserted lot downtown, and we used public property elsewhere. We didn’t build sets, which is another big expense even for something small.
We were fortunate in that we avoided the debt like a lot of filmmakers get into with features, so I don’t have any advice to others on how to manage it. Just avoid it if you can. After all, no-budget means no-money….
With the purchase of computer software and hardware, video equipment, supplies, props, and the mandatory on-set food and drink, I put around $5500 CAD into it (equivalent of about $3600 US in 2002). Mullet put in $2000 CAD, so our budget for Babysitters for 2001-2002 was $7500 CAD, or about $4900 USD in 2002 dollars (all dollar numbers below are in Canadian funds).
So… what did $7500 buy us besides 74-minutes of hilarity?
Most of that money went into fixed assets like computers, software, extra hard drives, a tripod, shotgun microphone, etc., so the money we spent on Babysitters has saved considerable money on subsequent projects. We can now make a short for the costs of blank tapes, food, beverages, gas, parking, office supplies, and the occasional new prop.
For Babysitters, as a general strategy, we decided to buy inexpensive gear rather than rent better stuff since we had a lot of single shooting days spread out over 9 months. If we’d scheduled the shoot to take place within a single block of time or two, the rental option would have made more sense, so your schedule will dictate your finances a great deal.
We never prepared a budget beforehand, which is something we should have done, in hindsight. If we had done a budget, though, we would have revised it constantly as we came across new expenses that we hadn’t anticipated—every rookie mistake will cost you money.
We averaged about $100 each day for food, beverages, props, gas, parking, and supplies like mini-DV tapes, and that has been our typical budget ever since. We’ve always been able to borrow cameras, so we’ve never had to rent one (about $200/day for a DVX100 or similar camera in Toronto these days).
We also don’t pay our actors or crew anything. This means we don’t use people who belong to the acting guild in Canada, ACTRA, as we can’t afford the minimums that the guild has in place for its members. If we did use guild people without following procedure, we would never be able to sell the project to anyone, so it’s not worth it. ACTRA does have a low-budget program, but they’re still pretty big bucks for anyone at the no-budget level. The guilds in your area will have similar rules and policies that you should know before starting a project.
Any decent film school has an introductory producing class, so I’d recommend taking one before plunging into shooting. If I didn’t live near a dozen film schools like there are in Toronto, the internet has leveled the playing field—you can get just about any book on film and video producing, and there are a lot of good websites, lists, and blogs on the topic as well. I’ll post an entry with some links at some point.
You also want to budget your time. For longer projects, you should anticipate the demands on your time during all phases of production. A good production management book or course can give you an idea of how much time you’ll need to do things (and it will always take longer to do something than you’d think it would…).
We saved money where we could with gear. Instead of buying a microphone boom pole, I modified a $15 window-washing extension arm with a PVC collar and mini-bungee cords to create a shock mount (this guy had a similar idea). We used a $5 desktop mike stand for most of the shoots—putting the mike at the feet of our performers just out of frame with the mike aimed up. I bought 3 sets of halogen work lights for our interiors, using gels to convert them whenever needed to sunlight-balanced light. I built camera stabilizers (to make handheld shots easier) with raw materials from Canadian Tire (after seeing how much a pro stabilizer cost). All of this stuff may look cheap and crappy, but with a little work, it does the same job as the pro gear at a fraction of the cost.
We only had to pay for locations three times, when we shot scenes in rehearsal spaces. We used both our apartments, interior and exterior, for as many distinct locations as we could squeeze out of them, and we used someone’s apartment for another location. We found and used a deserted lot downtown, and we used public property elsewhere. We didn’t build sets, which is another big expense even for something small.
We were fortunate in that we avoided the debt like a lot of filmmakers get into with features, so I don’t have any advice to others on how to manage it. Just avoid it if you can. After all, no-budget means no-money….
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
End of Summer (almost) Roundup
OK, my biweekly promise has gone the way of Paris Hilton's dignity. I can't even remember what I wrote the last time, so I'm probably going to repeat myself from earlier posts here.
So here's an update on the Miller & Mullet DVD:
1. This week, Andrew Curriecopied the media and project files for Can onto my external hard drive. I now have his rough edit on my Final Cut timeline. The cut turned out really, really well. It's different from how we would have shot it on our own, which makes it a better short, I think. We've been doing a more theatrical style of shooting, and Andrew shot Can in a dynamic, visually interesting way. The cut he gave us is a rough edit, so the cuts have to trimmed for timing and any future sound effects added, but the overall shape is there. The current running time is 4 minutes, and I'd expect at least 30 seconds to come off that, if not more (depending on how much I play with speed).
2. We did all the interiors for Bags, the short formerly known as Dressing Room (finally found the one-derful, er, one word title we wanted). We shot the stage manager scenes with Alastair Forbes, a Theatresports colleague of Mullet's and an outstanding talent. Alastair graciously allowwed us to shoot in his home, so he gets two gold stars on his Miller & Mullet report card. A week later, we shot my interior pickups to replace my laryngitis-plagued original takes. Mullet directed me, and while I was batch-capturing the takes, a few things made me laugh out loud (which is rare becuaase I normally cpature stuff as soon as I get home from shooting, which means I'm watching something that was repeated ad nauseum all day and has lost all the funny by the time I watch the multiple takes of said something repeat itself on my camcorder). I still have to sit down and watch all the takes for the 3 shooting days before I even attempt to start cutting something together. Unlike Can, I'm too close to this to be excited about it --if the magic struck this production, too, I won't know until I play it for another person and see their reactions. The only remaining scene is an exterior with Alastair's character to wrap up the short, which we'll shoot when schedules permit.
3. I've dusted off our "boot camp" movie, Babysitters. We shot this from October 2001 to July 2002 and ended up wtih a 74-minute feature, all shot on a single-chip Canon Ultura. Insane? Yes. We went into it with the goal of putting something together that we could use as a calling card, but it was also meant to be our self-taught film school. We shot almost every Saturday, dragging friends Jeff, Kasia, and Nic out to help us shoot an episodic story about two babysitters (guess who?) who lose the baby they're supposed to care for --will theyy get the baby home? We ran a screening for cast and crew in 2002 and then put it quietly aside (after about a year's worth of post-producction). We plan on doing another screening this fall or in the winter for the cast, crew, and friends jsut so I can get it off my hard drives.
4. I'm re-editing a short we did in 2004, Stalls. Stalls was our first post-Babysitters project, so it has some similarities to it, such as a linear storytelling style and limited coverage. I've been working on it, on and off, since then, but we did have a cut that we submitted to the 2006 San Diego Comic-con film festival in conjunction with our entry into the small press section that year. The short didn't get in, so I've been tinkering iwth it since then. I'll likely turn a very linear story into a non-linear story. comparing Stalls to Babysitters, the first thing I notice now is that the writing improved greatly, as did the performances (especially mine --I was taking a directing class at Ryerson U when we shot it, and the Meisner technique had taken hold of my performing by then). but we cut out all the distractions and shaggy dog plotting that makes Babysitters a mess, and told a very linear story. But with us not shooting a lot of coverage, there's no room to change that linear story very much, so I'm going to break the plot up a bit with flashbacks to make it, hopefully, a less predictable and more lively short.
So that's where we stand --3 shorts in various stages of post, plus an old "feature" awaiting its final tweaking.
The NeutrinoPlex show ended in July, and I had withdrawal symptoms for a couple of Fridays afterwards. I think I benefitted from being part of the show, even if I wasn't actually shooting stuff myself. I was the cheif button pusher, running the intro and outro DVD clips, cueing up mini-DV tapes, and switching each scene. Three teams went out and shot 3 scenes each of a story, rushing the tapes back to the theatre, where we started playing them after about 20 minutes of videos or standup comedians. It was a high-wire act, with late tapes spelling disaster a few times, but otherwise, when the show worked, it was comedic gold with improvised scenes that made the most of what the performers could find and use on the bright lights of the Danforth. Each week, before the show, we'd watch the prior week's archive tape, and it would be the first time I'd really see the show without the distraction of loading and unloading tapes. I learned the value of closeups, making relationships between characters clear and distinct right from the start, and many other lessons that will come to me after I've posted this missive. I would say that the NeutrinoPlex cast and crew, plus the inestimable director, Andrew Currie, provided me with a course in no-budget, on the fly filmmaking that has freed me up from how I've thought out shots and cuts before. All for the price of dinner every other week! If and when they do the show again, I'd be glad to be asked back.
Alastair Forbes, the improviser I plugged earlier, asked us to help him out with some shorts he and Natalie Urquehart were putting together. Mullet's off for a while after some nasty dental work, so I volunteered. I was glad I did --the shoots were all fun and very easy-going. I did minimal prep for the 2 shorts, Spy Bum and Office Wizards, basically figuring out the style of shooting for both. For the Office Wizards short, I emulated the Office (UK version) with handheld camera, riding the zoom lever in and out to give it a documentary feel (I didn't hide behind office plants or anything like that --the emulation was a bit limited by geography). For Spy BUm, I watched the sole 007 tape I own, the George Lazenby Bond, On Her Majesty's HOlidays in the Sun. It had a very conventional '60's style, so I shot Spy Bum entirely on tripod, zooming only when needing to reframe (and practically panning on each zoom as well). Both shorts were a joy to shoot --the cast, all improvisers, worked out the beats with a few rehearsals, and then did the scene beautifully each time. Office Wizards was done from top to bottom each time, and with a master shot, 2-shots, closeups, and inserts, I think they did it about 20 times in total. Yet, with the skills of the improvisers at hand, they made minor variations work each time, and I am glad I'm not editing it as I don't think it will be easy to pick one take over another (aside from a few takes that did go south). With Spy Bum, the short was broken into several scenes, so it's much more of a bits 'n' pieces production. Again, the cast were amazing. My hope is that I managed to get that magic on tape so that Alastair can cut them into something wonderful.
So, now that the summer is rolling into Labour Day (the sound of summer ending in Toronto is the airshow at the CNE), I'm shifting into post. I also ahve to start writing more scripts for our winter shooting plans, which would likely be in January and February (interiors, naturally). And then there's the theme song we need to write and get someone to perform. More about that next time --hopefully in two weeks....
So here's an update on the Miller & Mullet DVD:
1. This week, Andrew Curriecopied the media and project files for Can onto my external hard drive. I now have his rough edit on my Final Cut timeline. The cut turned out really, really well. It's different from how we would have shot it on our own, which makes it a better short, I think. We've been doing a more theatrical style of shooting, and Andrew shot Can in a dynamic, visually interesting way. The cut he gave us is a rough edit, so the cuts have to trimmed for timing and any future sound effects added, but the overall shape is there. The current running time is 4 minutes, and I'd expect at least 30 seconds to come off that, if not more (depending on how much I play with speed).
2. We did all the interiors for Bags, the short formerly known as Dressing Room (finally found the one-derful, er, one word title we wanted). We shot the stage manager scenes with Alastair Forbes, a Theatresports colleague of Mullet's and an outstanding talent. Alastair graciously allowwed us to shoot in his home, so he gets two gold stars on his Miller & Mullet report card. A week later, we shot my interior pickups to replace my laryngitis-plagued original takes. Mullet directed me, and while I was batch-capturing the takes, a few things made me laugh out loud (which is rare becuaase I normally cpature stuff as soon as I get home from shooting, which means I'm watching something that was repeated ad nauseum all day and has lost all the funny by the time I watch the multiple takes of said something repeat itself on my camcorder). I still have to sit down and watch all the takes for the 3 shooting days before I even attempt to start cutting something together. Unlike Can, I'm too close to this to be excited about it --if the magic struck this production, too, I won't know until I play it for another person and see their reactions. The only remaining scene is an exterior with Alastair's character to wrap up the short, which we'll shoot when schedules permit.
3. I've dusted off our "boot camp" movie, Babysitters. We shot this from October 2001 to July 2002 and ended up wtih a 74-minute feature, all shot on a single-chip Canon Ultura. Insane? Yes. We went into it with the goal of putting something together that we could use as a calling card, but it was also meant to be our self-taught film school. We shot almost every Saturday, dragging friends Jeff, Kasia, and Nic out to help us shoot an episodic story about two babysitters (guess who?) who lose the baby they're supposed to care for --will theyy get the baby home? We ran a screening for cast and crew in 2002 and then put it quietly aside (after about a year's worth of post-producction). We plan on doing another screening this fall or in the winter for the cast, crew, and friends jsut so I can get it off my hard drives.
4. I'm re-editing a short we did in 2004, Stalls. Stalls was our first post-Babysitters project, so it has some similarities to it, such as a linear storytelling style and limited coverage. I've been working on it, on and off, since then, but we did have a cut that we submitted to the 2006 San Diego Comic-con film festival in conjunction with our entry into the small press section that year. The short didn't get in, so I've been tinkering iwth it since then. I'll likely turn a very linear story into a non-linear story. comparing Stalls to Babysitters, the first thing I notice now is that the writing improved greatly, as did the performances (especially mine --I was taking a directing class at Ryerson U when we shot it, and the Meisner technique had taken hold of my performing by then). but we cut out all the distractions and shaggy dog plotting that makes Babysitters a mess, and told a very linear story. But with us not shooting a lot of coverage, there's no room to change that linear story very much, so I'm going to break the plot up a bit with flashbacks to make it, hopefully, a less predictable and more lively short.
So that's where we stand --3 shorts in various stages of post, plus an old "feature" awaiting its final tweaking.
The NeutrinoPlex show ended in July, and I had withdrawal symptoms for a couple of Fridays afterwards. I think I benefitted from being part of the show, even if I wasn't actually shooting stuff myself. I was the cheif button pusher, running the intro and outro DVD clips, cueing up mini-DV tapes, and switching each scene. Three teams went out and shot 3 scenes each of a story, rushing the tapes back to the theatre, where we started playing them after about 20 minutes of videos or standup comedians. It was a high-wire act, with late tapes spelling disaster a few times, but otherwise, when the show worked, it was comedic gold with improvised scenes that made the most of what the performers could find and use on the bright lights of the Danforth. Each week, before the show, we'd watch the prior week's archive tape, and it would be the first time I'd really see the show without the distraction of loading and unloading tapes. I learned the value of closeups, making relationships between characters clear and distinct right from the start, and many other lessons that will come to me after I've posted this missive. I would say that the NeutrinoPlex cast and crew, plus the inestimable director, Andrew Currie, provided me with a course in no-budget, on the fly filmmaking that has freed me up from how I've thought out shots and cuts before. All for the price of dinner every other week! If and when they do the show again, I'd be glad to be asked back.
Alastair Forbes, the improviser I plugged earlier, asked us to help him out with some shorts he and Natalie Urquehart were putting together. Mullet's off for a while after some nasty dental work, so I volunteered. I was glad I did --the shoots were all fun and very easy-going. I did minimal prep for the 2 shorts, Spy Bum and Office Wizards, basically figuring out the style of shooting for both. For the Office Wizards short, I emulated the Office (UK version) with handheld camera, riding the zoom lever in and out to give it a documentary feel (I didn't hide behind office plants or anything like that --the emulation was a bit limited by geography). For Spy BUm, I watched the sole 007 tape I own, the George Lazenby Bond, On Her Majesty's HOlidays in the Sun. It had a very conventional '60's style, so I shot Spy Bum entirely on tripod, zooming only when needing to reframe (and practically panning on each zoom as well). Both shorts were a joy to shoot --the cast, all improvisers, worked out the beats with a few rehearsals, and then did the scene beautifully each time. Office Wizards was done from top to bottom each time, and with a master shot, 2-shots, closeups, and inserts, I think they did it about 20 times in total. Yet, with the skills of the improvisers at hand, they made minor variations work each time, and I am glad I'm not editing it as I don't think it will be easy to pick one take over another (aside from a few takes that did go south). With Spy Bum, the short was broken into several scenes, so it's much more of a bits 'n' pieces production. Again, the cast were amazing. My hope is that I managed to get that magic on tape so that Alastair can cut them into something wonderful.
So, now that the summer is rolling into Labour Day (the sound of summer ending in Toronto is the airshow at the CNE), I'm shifting into post. I also ahve to start writing more scripts for our winter shooting plans, which would likely be in January and February (interiors, naturally). And then there's the theme song we need to write and get someone to perform. More about that next time --hopefully in two weeks....
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Third Shoot in the Can
My plan to do this biweekly blog hasn't worked out very well....
On Saturday, we did our third shoot for the DVD project, doing a few scenes with Alastair Forbes, an up-and-coming improviser who graciously let us use his bedroom as the location. We didn't have anyone to crew it for us (it sort of happened last minute), but we were able to get the shots done. Just one shot actually had me, Mullet, and Alastair in it, so it wasn't really difficult to manage; the camera was locked down for all the shots, so we didn't need someone to pan or zoom.
This was the second shoot for Bags (working title was Dressing Room). We'd shot most of the dressing room scenes despite my laryngitis in the first shoot, and this weekend, we did the scenes outside the dressing room. Alastair plays the stage manager (probably the assistant to the assistant of the stage manager) who brings us to the dressing room for the unseen variety show. We changed the script quite a bit during the first shoot, but we stuck to what was written in the revised script to come up with some fun stuff. Alastair and I go nose to nose at one point, and we found the beats pretty quickly. Alastair came up with some gems, both verbal and physical, that built on and improved the scenes as written. We've certainly gotten adept at cutting out the non-essential and for allowing the room to come up with new and better things.
Our shooting style, in terms of film grammar, has really evolved since we worked with Andrew Currie. We always had what I'd call a theatrical preference for wide shots over closeups, probably from our stage origins. A singular failure we've had in our older projects was a lack of closeups, and a really limited film grammar in terms of framing action and composing shots. AC's shooting style opened our eyes to a new (and better) approach, and I think the lessons we learned were enhanced by our long delay between projects and my involvement in NeutrinoPlex this summer. I should explain.
We haven't shot much since we did fragments of a short called Temptation almost 2 years ago. We were trying to shoot 22 minutes (a broadcast half-hour) with 4-5 shorts, but with the rise of YouTube, we scrapped that idea and focused on 2-5 minute shorts, which we've completed shooting for 2 scripts (Can and Bags), with 4-6 more to go. Coming back after a long break makes it easier to incorporate new ideas, I think, so we've changed how we shoot more easily than if we'd continued to shoot.
With Neutrinoplex, I've been exposed to hand-held improvised filmmaking shot with a hard deadline of minutes. The shooters and their teams of improvisers rely upon quick shots, closeups, and existing light sources to do their thing. In less than 30 minutes, they produce 3 scenes on 3 tapes using the area around the Bad Dog as their locations. My role is "technical director," which means I run the tapes for the audience, using 2 camcorders and a portable DVD player linked to a video projector via a Radio Shack switcher --very low-tech, but it's worked (the only glitches are human ones, mine or the shooters). The show starts at 10 p.m., so the shooters use the light from streetlamps, store windows, the marquee from the Music Hall across the street, etc. Even with 3-chip cameras, the images aren't very bright, so closeups are necessary in most situations.
So, the closeup is our friend now.
This coming Saturday, we are doing my half of the dressing room scenes now that I've regained my voice. I'll try to get another post up next week....
On Saturday, we did our third shoot for the DVD project, doing a few scenes with Alastair Forbes, an up-and-coming improviser who graciously let us use his bedroom as the location. We didn't have anyone to crew it for us (it sort of happened last minute), but we were able to get the shots done. Just one shot actually had me, Mullet, and Alastair in it, so it wasn't really difficult to manage; the camera was locked down for all the shots, so we didn't need someone to pan or zoom.
This was the second shoot for Bags (working title was Dressing Room). We'd shot most of the dressing room scenes despite my laryngitis in the first shoot, and this weekend, we did the scenes outside the dressing room. Alastair plays the stage manager (probably the assistant to the assistant of the stage manager) who brings us to the dressing room for the unseen variety show. We changed the script quite a bit during the first shoot, but we stuck to what was written in the revised script to come up with some fun stuff. Alastair and I go nose to nose at one point, and we found the beats pretty quickly. Alastair came up with some gems, both verbal and physical, that built on and improved the scenes as written. We've certainly gotten adept at cutting out the non-essential and for allowing the room to come up with new and better things.
Our shooting style, in terms of film grammar, has really evolved since we worked with Andrew Currie. We always had what I'd call a theatrical preference for wide shots over closeups, probably from our stage origins. A singular failure we've had in our older projects was a lack of closeups, and a really limited film grammar in terms of framing action and composing shots. AC's shooting style opened our eyes to a new (and better) approach, and I think the lessons we learned were enhanced by our long delay between projects and my involvement in NeutrinoPlex this summer. I should explain.
We haven't shot much since we did fragments of a short called Temptation almost 2 years ago. We were trying to shoot 22 minutes (a broadcast half-hour) with 4-5 shorts, but with the rise of YouTube, we scrapped that idea and focused on 2-5 minute shorts, which we've completed shooting for 2 scripts (Can and Bags), with 4-6 more to go. Coming back after a long break makes it easier to incorporate new ideas, I think, so we've changed how we shoot more easily than if we'd continued to shoot.
With Neutrinoplex, I've been exposed to hand-held improvised filmmaking shot with a hard deadline of minutes. The shooters and their teams of improvisers rely upon quick shots, closeups, and existing light sources to do their thing. In less than 30 minutes, they produce 3 scenes on 3 tapes using the area around the Bad Dog as their locations. My role is "technical director," which means I run the tapes for the audience, using 2 camcorders and a portable DVD player linked to a video projector via a Radio Shack switcher --very low-tech, but it's worked (the only glitches are human ones, mine or the shooters). The show starts at 10 p.m., so the shooters use the light from streetlamps, store windows, the marquee from the Music Hall across the street, etc. Even with 3-chip cameras, the images aren't very bright, so closeups are necessary in most situations.
So, the closeup is our friend now.
This coming Saturday, we are doing my half of the dressing room scenes now that I've regained my voice. I'll try to get another post up next week....
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Finally something in the can!
We finally have something in the can!
After all these months of moaning about preproduction and rewriting, we actually went out with camcorder and director in hand and shot stuff.
This past Saturday (May 12), Mullet and I were joined by Andrew Currie, esteemed grad of the Second City mainstage company, one half of the Devil's Advocates, blogger extraordinaire, and producer of the late Second Cine video show which played a couple of videos we did. AC is also a graduate of the Canadian Film Centre, so he actually knows what he's doing.
This was our first experience with a pro, and it was a good learning experience for us.
We shot it on location on a side street one block north of Queen West, between Spadina and University. Behind the Rivoli, really. In fact, we used their garbage cans for a few shots, much to the dismay of some tired-looking cooks and a bemused manager. The street had these great alleys and laneways, strewn with garbage, brilliant and mundane graffiti, and that big city grunge that can't be craeted by art directors (unless they have a lot of money or use the real thing...).
AC wanted to work chronologically as he was basically editing in camera with minimal coverage. He didn't need the slate as he'll be editing it himself, but I did grey-card the first tape just to make sure I can get colour-balance done later on. I brought along my usual continuity log sheets, but they weren't needed, either. This was one difference between how AC shoots and how we did it, but with a 5-page script, I guess the usual slate/log stuff is probably borderline overkill. We have shot stuff without logging it or slating it, like our Aristocrats DVD contest entry which was 5 takes of the same story with 2 cameras, so I only changed the take number on the slate to mark the start and end of each take.
We did a number of takes for each set up until he got one good one and one safety in the can. This is basically what we do, so this was nothing new --though he did apologize when making us do another take when hunched over or fumbling through garbage (not necessary --we've made ourselves do a lot worse for a lot more takes...). With the lines being minimal and me not having to do more than perform, I was more focussed on the performing than I usually am, so I believe I sucked less than usual.
Mullet was good, too,
After all these months of moaning about preproduction and rewriting, we actually went out with camcorder and director in hand and shot stuff.
This past Saturday (May 12), Mullet and I were joined by Andrew Currie, esteemed grad of the Second City mainstage company, one half of the Devil's Advocates, blogger extraordinaire, and producer of the late Second Cine video show which played a couple of videos we did. AC is also a graduate of the Canadian Film Centre, so he actually knows what he's doing.
This was our first experience with a pro, and it was a good learning experience for us.
We shot it on location on a side street one block north of Queen West, between Spadina and University. Behind the Rivoli, really. In fact, we used their garbage cans for a few shots, much to the dismay of some tired-looking cooks and a bemused manager. The street had these great alleys and laneways, strewn with garbage, brilliant and mundane graffiti, and that big city grunge that can't be craeted by art directors (unless they have a lot of money or use the real thing...).
AC wanted to work chronologically as he was basically editing in camera with minimal coverage. He didn't need the slate as he'll be editing it himself, but I did grey-card the first tape just to make sure I can get colour-balance done later on. I brought along my usual continuity log sheets, but they weren't needed, either. This was one difference between how AC shoots and how we did it, but with a 5-page script, I guess the usual slate/log stuff is probably borderline overkill. We have shot stuff without logging it or slating it, like our Aristocrats DVD contest entry which was 5 takes of the same story with 2 cameras, so I only changed the take number on the slate to mark the start and end of each take.
We did a number of takes for each set up until he got one good one and one safety in the can. This is basically what we do, so this was nothing new --though he did apologize when making us do another take when hunched over or fumbling through garbage (not necessary --we've made ourselves do a lot worse for a lot more takes...). With the lines being minimal and me not having to do more than perform, I was more focussed on the performing than I usually am, so I believe I sucked less than usual.
Mullet was good, too,
Thursday, March 1, 2007
A brand new blog
Hello! Welcome to my blog. I've futsed around with a blog at Myspace , but I've decided to chronicle the making of the first Miller & Mullet live-action DVD. Since the internet is full of all sorts of weird and wacky stuff, I thought I'd contribute with my own rantings.
Who am I? I am half of Miller & Mullet, a comedy duo based in Toronto, Canada.
So far, we've shot a 74-minute "boot camp" video, shot a 5-minute short, completed issue 1 of a comic book (with the help of a great artist named Kameron Gates), and took the comic book to the 2006 San Diego Comic-Con. Now, we're turning our attention to both issue 2 of the comic book and a self-published live-action DVD, with a return to San Diego (assuming they'll have us back...).
At this point, the project is basically a dozen first-draft scripts, most of which I've abandoned and will not polish into second drafts. In 2005, when I started writing scripts, we were aiming at filling a broadcast half-hour (22 minutes in Canada, I think 20 minutes in the U.S.) with a no-budget pilot for a sketch show starring... Miller & Mullet. The plan was to shoot 3-4 sketches and edit them down into a cohesive show. But before we started shooting, we met industry people in Toronto who told us the half-hour wasn't necessary --just concentrate on 5-minute shorts. People in San Diego told us the same thing, so our 2007 plan is to do a DVD with 4-5 5-minute shorts. The 10-20 page scripts have gone back into the trunk, and now I'm working on making the magic happen on less than 6 pages.
I started brainstorming ideas last August, writing stuff into a notebook I started carrying with me all the time (or my trusty Palm if I'm going where no backpack has gone before). Stories began to appear in my head, and I dutifully put them down on paper where most of them died quick, painless deaths (the cold light of the written word tends to spike the weaker ideas quickly, I think).
Then I got writer's block. Back when I was in college, I wrote for about 2 hours a day, making great leaps forward in my writing. I lost that daily exercise, so now I've had to work hard at getting back to an hour session 2-3 days per week. The goal is to get back to an hour a day, 7 days a week. I'm not there yet....
I've found the writing process liberating and frustrating in equal amounts. You don't have a lot of time to play with, so the diversions we're so fond of doing with the characters have gone by the wayside. There's not a lot of room for other characters, either, so the end result is the stories have to be more direct than they have been in the past. But I find that it takes me 3 pages just to set up the situation, so once I've written out the script in a rough first draft, I go back and trim the beginning down.
In the next week or so, aside from brainstorming new ideas and getting them down on paper, I'm going over the stuff I've already shown Mullet and pickign them apart to make sure I can't do things better. Checking for internal logic, making sure the writing beats are set up properly, trying to find a better setup for gags, trying to find better payoffs for gags --that's how I'll be spending my weeknights, TV be damned.
Our budget for these shorts is pretty low, probably in the $100 (Canadian) range for each production day (1 short per day is our goal), so I can't include exteriors we can't use for free or include too many characters as we'd have to feed them.
For inspiration, I've been watching the shorts I have on tape and DVD at home, like Laurel & Hardy, W.C. Fields, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Harry Langdon, etc. --mostly to see how they economized on the story and character development to fit one or two reels. These were the people and shorts that inspired me to get into comedy. They had a much better budget than we can scrounge up, but when I watch them, I'm paying more attention to how they're telling the story.
I've got a collection of shorts from the late, great Second Cine, a show that Andrew Currie ran at Second City Toronto a few years back. When the show ended, Andrew brought in a big collection of submission tapes which were eagerly grabbed as potential dubbing tapes. I haven't erased any of them, and with the mix of good and bad, I've watched a few to see what I like and don't like. My favourite shorts from Second Cine were those from HotdogBoy.
And there's Channel 101 and 102, which I visit every month to see what the L.A. and NYC videoheads are doing. I've spun 101 alumnus David Hartman's DVD a few times this week, too, just to marvel at his freaky and violent little opuses (opi?) --will I ever have excellent gun flashes like he does? I have saved a lot of favourite 101 and 102 videos to my hard drive just to watch whenever the mood strikes me. Originally, I saved just my favourites, but about a year ago, I started saving all of them, even the rejected pilots. Some I can't sit through, others have that magic to them.
It's good to study the good with the bad. I paid money to see Dude Where's My Car 2 weekends in a row (at the gone but not forgotten Eaton Centre cinemas, which cost all of $5, making the study of bad comedies cheap). I think I learn more from my own mistakes than when I succeed, and other people's mistakes are a great help, too.
We're prepping for a live appearance at the 2007 Ad Astra con here in Toronto (30-minute show to fill time before the Masquerade starts), so I've put the scriptwriting aside this week.
I think I need 4-5 new stories to add to the 7 I've already done first drafts for. Of the scripts I've done so far, "Can" is my favourite and the first one I've shown to anyone other than Mullet. Another script was actually a clone of "Can," so I've discarded it after I realized what I'd done.
So, after the Ad Astra show, it's back to finding new stories to write. Mullet is slaving away on the script for issue 2 of the comic book, so he's my sounding board rather than writing partner for the next few weeks.
It's still too cold and crappy outside to do any exteriors, so I have about a month to work on the scripts before we have to start the more commitment-heavy parts of preproduction: crew, casting, scheduling.
Keep writing,
Ed
Who am I? I am half of Miller & Mullet, a comedy duo based in Toronto, Canada.
So far, we've shot a 74-minute "boot camp" video, shot a 5-minute short, completed issue 1 of a comic book (with the help of a great artist named Kameron Gates), and took the comic book to the 2006 San Diego Comic-Con. Now, we're turning our attention to both issue 2 of the comic book and a self-published live-action DVD, with a return to San Diego (assuming they'll have us back...).
At this point, the project is basically a dozen first-draft scripts, most of which I've abandoned and will not polish into second drafts. In 2005, when I started writing scripts, we were aiming at filling a broadcast half-hour (22 minutes in Canada, I think 20 minutes in the U.S.) with a no-budget pilot for a sketch show starring... Miller & Mullet. The plan was to shoot 3-4 sketches and edit them down into a cohesive show. But before we started shooting, we met industry people in Toronto who told us the half-hour wasn't necessary --just concentrate on 5-minute shorts. People in San Diego told us the same thing, so our 2007 plan is to do a DVD with 4-5 5-minute shorts. The 10-20 page scripts have gone back into the trunk, and now I'm working on making the magic happen on less than 6 pages.
I started brainstorming ideas last August, writing stuff into a notebook I started carrying with me all the time (or my trusty Palm if I'm going where no backpack has gone before). Stories began to appear in my head, and I dutifully put them down on paper where most of them died quick, painless deaths (the cold light of the written word tends to spike the weaker ideas quickly, I think).
Then I got writer's block. Back when I was in college, I wrote for about 2 hours a day, making great leaps forward in my writing. I lost that daily exercise, so now I've had to work hard at getting back to an hour session 2-3 days per week. The goal is to get back to an hour a day, 7 days a week. I'm not there yet....
I've found the writing process liberating and frustrating in equal amounts. You don't have a lot of time to play with, so the diversions we're so fond of doing with the characters have gone by the wayside. There's not a lot of room for other characters, either, so the end result is the stories have to be more direct than they have been in the past. But I find that it takes me 3 pages just to set up the situation, so once I've written out the script in a rough first draft, I go back and trim the beginning down.
In the next week or so, aside from brainstorming new ideas and getting them down on paper, I'm going over the stuff I've already shown Mullet and pickign them apart to make sure I can't do things better. Checking for internal logic, making sure the writing beats are set up properly, trying to find a better setup for gags, trying to find better payoffs for gags --that's how I'll be spending my weeknights, TV be damned.
Our budget for these shorts is pretty low, probably in the $100 (Canadian) range for each production day (1 short per day is our goal), so I can't include exteriors we can't use for free or include too many characters as we'd have to feed them.
For inspiration, I've been watching the shorts I have on tape and DVD at home, like Laurel & Hardy, W.C. Fields, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Harry Langdon, etc. --mostly to see how they economized on the story and character development to fit one or two reels. These were the people and shorts that inspired me to get into comedy. They had a much better budget than we can scrounge up, but when I watch them, I'm paying more attention to how they're telling the story.
I've got a collection of shorts from the late, great Second Cine, a show that Andrew Currie ran at Second City Toronto a few years back. When the show ended, Andrew brought in a big collection of submission tapes which were eagerly grabbed as potential dubbing tapes. I haven't erased any of them, and with the mix of good and bad, I've watched a few to see what I like and don't like. My favourite shorts from Second Cine were those from HotdogBoy.
And there's Channel 101 and 102, which I visit every month to see what the L.A. and NYC videoheads are doing. I've spun 101 alumnus David Hartman's DVD a few times this week, too, just to marvel at his freaky and violent little opuses (opi?) --will I ever have excellent gun flashes like he does? I have saved a lot of favourite 101 and 102 videos to my hard drive just to watch whenever the mood strikes me. Originally, I saved just my favourites, but about a year ago, I started saving all of them, even the rejected pilots. Some I can't sit through, others have that magic to them.
It's good to study the good with the bad. I paid money to see Dude Where's My Car 2 weekends in a row (at the gone but not forgotten Eaton Centre cinemas, which cost all of $5, making the study of bad comedies cheap). I think I learn more from my own mistakes than when I succeed, and other people's mistakes are a great help, too.
We're prepping for a live appearance at the 2007 Ad Astra con here in Toronto (30-minute show to fill time before the Masquerade starts), so I've put the scriptwriting aside this week.
I think I need 4-5 new stories to add to the 7 I've already done first drafts for. Of the scripts I've done so far, "Can" is my favourite and the first one I've shown to anyone other than Mullet. Another script was actually a clone of "Can," so I've discarded it after I realized what I'd done.
So, after the Ad Astra show, it's back to finding new stories to write. Mullet is slaving away on the script for issue 2 of the comic book, so he's my sounding board rather than writing partner for the next few weeks.
It's still too cold and crappy outside to do any exteriors, so I have about a month to work on the scripts before we have to start the more commitment-heavy parts of preproduction: crew, casting, scheduling.
Keep writing,
Ed
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