Woody Allen on the 2 types of Film

Woody Allen interviewed on PRI's Studio 360 with Kurt Anderson:

"Sometimes I think to myself that there are 2 types of films. There's the confrontational film that deals with life issues and existential issues and political issues. And there's the kind of film that is escapist. And I always debate with myself – which one makes the better contribution? You would think off the top of your head that the confrontational films are superior to the escapist films. But the truth of the matter is, the real philosophical issues of life, you know religious issues, issues of mortality and issues of human suffering are never resolved in any of these movies. Because you can't resovle them. So people just go and they commiserate masochistically and they come out of the theater moved in some way. Where with an escapist film, at least you give the audience a chance to get away from the horrors of reality for an hour and a half. It's like going into air conditioning or something and just sitting down and watching Fred Astaire dance for an hour and a half. You come out at least refreshed. And then you can go on with your life a little bit. And so I'm not sure that escapist films and comic films are not more of a help in the long run. Even though the temptation is to always to think and to want to do more substantive things."

Trust your Creative Team

This is a great post about advertising creative which applies equally well to this world of filmmaking.

When you hire your team - trust them to do the job you've hired them to do regardless of whether they are a DP, or an Editor, a Production Designer or a Composer. 1+1+1 really does equal 58,000,000!

snippet:
BART CLEVELAND: A creative team walks into the conference room with freshly mounted layouts underarm. They have worked untold hours to develop the ideas they now carefully share with others. Every detail has been examined and re-examined. There has been nothing left to chance. The work is superb. Their audience applauds with appreciation and admiration.

Then there is the “pause to reflect.”

A glimmer appears in one observer’s eye. Similar to telling a painter where he has missed a spot, the observer helps make a good idea better by adding that perfect little addition that causes good to become great. Then another glimmer appears in another observer’s eye. Well, I can’t go on because it’s just too gruesome.

Your True Voice

Every artist spends a lifetime searching, discovering, refining and rediscovering their "voice." Whether a painter, a novelist, a dancer, a singer or a composer. The artist, regardless of medium, expresses themselves in a certain way that after a few experiences of this artist's work, is readily recognizable. It's the artist's "filter" on the way they perceive. Things come through them and are twisted and shaped and come out as a "Picasso", a "Faulkner" or a "Beethoven."

Recently, I took part in a great film scoring workshop. A bunch of us have put our work online so you can really see how no Composer approaches the same scene the same way. Take a look/listen.

All my secrets revealed...

There's an interview with me posted today at music supervision central.

Edit Ves Filmmaker's Festival, Frankfurt Germany

Just got the exciting news that I will be a featured presenter at the 9th annual Edit Ves Filmmaker's Festival in Frankfurt, Germany on September 25, 2006. The festival is unlike others in that it delves deep into the heart of process, approaches, theory on the art of visual storytelling and attracts professionals in the areas of film, television, commercials, gaming, new media and more.

I will be speaking and showing examples of our process at 300 Monks especially with regards as how we bridge the gap in communicating about emotions from visual to audio.

Previous festivals have included talented filmmakers such as Roland Emmerich, Michael Ballhaus, Dante Ferretti, Dennis Muren, Vilmos Zsigmond, Phil Tippett, Peter Greenaway, Marco Müller, Tom Rolf, Bill Plympton, Emir Kusturica and many more incredibly skilled storytellers.

The festival runs from the 24th to 26th of September. You can learn more here.

A Filmmaker's Audio Team

Don't let these guys do your film sound!


There seems to be not a lot of information given filmmakers in school or even in books regarding who can help with the audio side of film.

Before we do this there needs to be distinction between location audio and post- audio. These are very different jobs and usually different people as the equipment, disposition and skills are completley different. Location audio guys will have a mobile recording setup (either 2 track or multi-track) which nowadays can be on miniDisc, tape, CD, DAT, DVD, Hard Drive or a swappable media such as CompactFlash, SmartDisk, MemorySticks or something similar. Some of these units can hook into the camera or a digital slate for true professional recording with reference points for the later tedious and laborious process of logging all the footage and audio and syncing it. Location audio specialists will also have a number of special mikes including shotguns, lavalier (hopefully wireless) and boom poles and windscreens. This stuff is not cheap. The blimp windscreens alone are around $500! An industry standard Sennheiser shotgun mic is over $1000. And then headphones and perhaps a mobile battery-powered mixer for multi-mic recordings.

For post-production audio, your team can include one or all of the following:
- Music Supervisor - person with a vast encyclopedic knowledge of music who can suggest/find songs for use in film and then arrange the licensing agreements for those songs. The licensing part may actually be more work than the actual creative part especially with well known songs. Can also be the person to hire the Composer.

- Music Editor - person who edits the music to conform with the picture. may also add a temp score to the rough cut for use by the Composer.

- Composer - person who will write the music for the film. This person, depending on the deal, may also be responsible for contracting the musicians, conducting and recording the score. The greatest Composers can lift up, unite and emotional bind a story as music speaks quickest to the heart, leading the eye.

- Music Producer - a vague term in film, this person can be in charge of the music for the production. Can also be another name for the Music Supervisor or the person who brings all music elements into the production. For example, T. Bone Burnett was the Music Producer for the film "Walk The Line." His job included finding the songs they would sing, teaching Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix to sing believably, arranging the songs, contracting the musicians and booking a studio and supervising the production of the final recordings.

- Sound Designer - These people are unique in their ability to create and recreate sounds that create hyper-realism on screen. They often will mix in unexpected sounds to beef up the results. For example, in "Fight Club" the sounds of the punches were layers and layers of sounds of meat being punched, kicked and beat. It was so powerful, the director David Fincher asked for a version without the extra violent sounds to pass the review board for an R rating instead of an NC-17.

- Mix Engineer - This person is the one to bring all the final audio elements together into a cohesive experience. These disparate elements can be dialog, sound effects, music in final mixes, or music in stems, voiceovers and source sounds. They can do separate mixes for cinema, television, web, promos, and these can be in a combination of stereo or surround sound.