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Nyarlahotep June 15, 2010

Posted by joost in : directing, film, music , comments closed

My housemate Annike has just finished her last year project for the London School of Fashion. She designed a costume inspired by the character Nyarlathotep (also known as the Crawling Chaos) by H.P. Lovecraft. Embedded in this costume is a glove with a series of sensors and electronics, enabling the performer (Tom Whiston / ascetic) to manipulate sound and music. Annike’s work will be exhibited at the Battersea Arts Centre later this month. As a companion piece to her work I shot a video depicting the costume and all-consuming entity that is Nyarlahotep:

BP Summer Big Screens 2010 entry Carmen June 4, 2010

Posted by joost in : commercial, directing, london , comments closed

Every year the Royal Opera House organizes several free open air broadcasts on big screens in London and other cities in the UK, sponsored by BP (…) in an attempt to make opera more accessible and popular. It’s basically a huge picnic while watching opera :-)

Part of all the festivities is a competition to create a really short film inspired by one of the operas. This year it is Bizet’s Carmen. The form can be really free, it’s really up to the maker to be creative, and that’s a brief which gave me the excuse to sink my teeth into something new; I decided to create an animated short that tries to convey the meaning of Carmen by using key text and graphics whizzing by. In order to realize this silly animated promo I taught myself the basics of After Effects, resulting in the following:


(click on the youtube logo to see the promo in glorious 1080p HD!)

The good news is that my short will be shown on the big screen at Trafalgar Square and other locations prior to the start of the opera!

Focus, plans, ambitions for 2010 January 13, 2010

Posted by joost in : directing, festivals, film, london, producing, reflection, screenwriting, work , comments closed

The start of a new year is always a good moment to write down plans and ideas. My ambition is to…

Specific goals and focus for the start of this year:

MOFILM commercials October 29, 2009

Posted by joost in : commercial, directing, london , comments closed

The results have been announced for the MOFILM 2009 London Film Festival competition. Our two Nokia commercials unfortunately did not win any awards or a mention on the shortlist. Still, two good efforts from our team with virtually no money and very little time. Judge yourself.

MOFILM Nokia – Treasure hunt
Credits: conceived, produced, directed and edited by Amélie Chicoye & Alice Caronna. Assisted by Mete Yilmaz and Joost Zoetebier.

MOFILM Nokia – Moments
Credits: conceived, produced, directed and edited by Mete Yilmaz and Joost Zoetebier. Assisted by Amélie Chicoye, Alice Caronna.

MOFILM ad competition October 6, 2009

Posted by joost in : directing, producing, work , comments closed

One of the many things budding film makers do in order to get noticed, to get some practice or to get some money in the bank for future projects, is participating in film related competitions. MOFILM is an example of one of them.

Me and three fellow film academy graduates decided to give this one a go. Biggest challenge was that we were all out of the country until late September, leaving us exactly seven days to come up with a concept, work on the script, find props and locations, and then shoot and edit the commercial.

We brainstormed and worked on several ideas for the first two days, with two viable and promising concepts as a result. Since our team consisted of four people, we decided to appoint two “team leaders” for each concept who would be in charge of realizing all that needed to be done. The other two would then have a supporting role for the other commercial, and vice versa.

We spent the next days on storyboarding and preparing for two days of shooting. In general we followed the “work with who you know, what you have and what you can get” principle – a motto that every guerilla filmmaker will recognize.

The two days of shooting the commercials were good fun. We acted ourselves, ran around in London and shot on some great locations. This left us with plenty of material and exactly one day to edit. We pulled an all-nighter and exported both commercials around 7am Monday morning, with a whopping five hours left to submit them before the deadline :-)

The shortlisted commercials for each brand will be announced really soon, next week already. They will appear online then as well. If they don’t then I will upload them myself for your viewing pleasure.

No matter the outcome, for us we have already succeeded; the manic week really got our creative juices flowing again so watch out for more viral videos, commercials and other visual gags by our team!

Artquest June 22, 2009

Posted by joost in : directing, film, london, work , comments closed

Oh and in the category “why not?”: I found out about this three month arts residency called artquest where London based visual artists get to live and work in a warehouse in central Berlin for three months, sharing the space with all kinds of other artists – all expenses paid. With an hour to spare I have submitted my application 8-)

Can’t get you out of my head August 18, 2008

Posted by joost in : directing, editing, film, producing , comments closed

Remember the Kylie Minogue song “Can’t get you out of my head“? (la la la, la la la la la…) After assistant directing on the “Can’t have my love” music video for Sian Cross, I suffer from the same syndrom; can’t get that song out of my head. Which bodes well for the chart potential of her song I guess :-)

The shoot itself was ambitious, with several exterior locations in and around Hammersmith planned, and interiors in an apartment in Kensington and a ‘dance studio’ in Fulham. On the day itself we changed plans because the weather was surprisingly good, the van surprisingly small (preventing us from traversing any meaningful distances) and the schedule not surprisingly too ambitious. So we adopted and managed to shoot some really good stuff anyway.

Compared to filming short films this shoot wasn’t that different, partly because the director tried to stay away from the cliche of singing-to-camera, partly because the logistics are pretty much the same. Assembling the right crew, camera and lights, locations, transport, shooting schedule, lighting and covering a scene, same same.

One of the main differences is that video clips tend to have a higher number of cuts than films (although I still have to see a music video that exceeds the average shot length of The Bourne Ultimatum – 1.9 sec!). This requires more coverage (different camera positions and shots) to have enough options in the edit, but at the end of the day the style and vision of the director determines just how flashy the end result will be.
We’ll have to wait a couple of weeks before we can judge ourselves. In the meantime I’ll be humming “Can’t have my loooove…”

Equinox June 9, 2008

Posted by joost in : directing, film, screenwriting , comments closed

Many months ago I wrote a short script which I gave the working title “Equinox”. This story started when a particular image suddenly hit me, an image of a man sitting at the end of a pier, looking over the water to the horizon. While I was writing I saw thoughts and emotions surface that I was going through at that moment. I incorporated those into the story, making it the most personal screenplay I had written so far.

The next few months I focussed on “Rule 2″ and wrapping up my year. For me it was clear that this would be my first ‘independent’ short film that I wanted to make after the LFA. From a production point of view it is relatively simple film (one actor, one location, exterior so no additional lights needed, etc) and more importantly, I really wanted to see this story come to life in the form of a short film.

After a short stint of preproduction I directed this film last Friday, with a small crew consisting of familiar faces from the LFA. It felt good to finally shoot this script, but in a way it felt like an anti-climax. I got all the shots that I wanted, tried some variations in the performance and wrapped before the tide of the Thames made further shooting impossible. I guess it’s just an odd feeling of bringing the script to life that I know inside and outside.
The plan is to edit the film in the next two weeks, so that I can submit the film to two short film competitions that offer publicity and prizes. Once the film is online, I’ll post an update.

Rule 2 finished March 13, 2008

Posted by joost in : LFA, cinematography, directing, editing, film, sound , comments closed

In March 2007 our Diploma year had to come up with the first ideas for screenplays we would like to develop the rest of that year. George wrote an outline called “The Inquiry” and it was one of the scripts that I liked most. After many workshops and drafts it was nominated to be one of the 10 minute films.
I pitched to direct this script early October. We shot it in November, edited the majority of the film in December, made many minor changes in January and screened it on February 1st at the LFA. What I showed was a locked picture with mainly work on sound still to do.
It was great to screen it, for the first time to my three actors and to a larger LFA audience. Compliments left and right, a nice reward for a couple of months of long days and hard work.

For me the film wasn’t finished yet though. I spent several days in February working on the “atmos tracks”, the background soundtrack that makes the setting of a scene feel more real. In my case that meant things like adding sounds of tanks driving by or sounds of a radiator humming.
With the locked picture and all the soundtracks I went to the studio of Nick Ryan, a sound designer who teaches at the LFA and offered to help me with some sound effects and making the final dub. We spent almost two days leveling, tweaking and fiddling about. I had a great time, endlessly playing fragments, adjusting, trying out effects, playing again, quite an anal process – heaven for a techie and a perfectionist like me.
The end result of this process is a final dub with all the dialogue at the appropriate level, combined with sound effects and atmos tracks that add detail and texture to the film.

The last step in the process of making a film is the final color grade. Together with my Director of Photography Claudio and the locked picture and sound we went to Molinare, a post-production facility in SoHo (where all the major film labs and post-production houses are located). In a futuristic looking studio you go through the film shot by shot, and apply color correction. Explaining this in detail is too complicated for this post, I summarized it in the past to other people as “it’s like Photoshopping a moving picture”. See wikipedia for more info and Da Vinci systems for the gadgets and cool pictures.

In about an hour we went over the whole film, talked about what mood we want(ed) to achieve and what shots or scenes in particular needed attention, and we saw the colorist do his magic. Fascinating to see him control all the buttons and dials and apply his knowledge to show us how far you could push and change an image. Restraint is a very good quality to have in a session like this because one gets easily seduced by the endless possibilities.
Because Claudio and I had prepared the grading session in advance we knew what we were going for, so the grading went smoothly. We left the building after two hours, proud owners of the finished film on mini DVCAM and DigiBeta!

So, a year after its initial conception and almost half a year after I started working on it, “Rule 2″ is finished! Yay!

Of course, this is not the end, it is the beginning of a new exciting phase – trying to get the film out there where it belongs, on the big screen.
The next few weeks I will be working on making a DVD version of the film including subtitles and promotional material. This will be used to submit Rule 2 to film festivals all over the world.

The first screening of “Rule 2″ outside the LFA has already been organized. The film has been selected to screen at the BSC New Cinematographers Night in the Pinewood Studios at the 29th of April! The BSC is the British Society of Cinematographers, an established and wellrespected institution in the film industry. Quite an honor to be selected for this evening I think, with an audience consisting of experienced and acclaimed cinematographers. And the cinema at Pinewood is magnificent, the first time my film will be shown on a proper big screen with excellent sound. Or as one of my cinematoraphy tutors pointed out: “All your faults will be magnified by a thousand times when you screen your film here.” :-)

Editing “Rule 2″ December 23, 2007

Posted by joost in : LFA, directing, editing , comments closed

I know that the posting frequency has been a bit low. Part of the reason is that I was really caught up in the editing process, and also was trying to spend as much time as possible with my fellow classmates, some of whom have left or will leave really soon.

In the last two weeks we have been editing “Rule 2″. After syncing up the rushes (linking the sound to the picture) we started with a rough assembly of the film, ordering the shots and scenes in the right order. This assembly is used to get to the first cut, where the overall structure is in place and where the preferred shots and sequences are used. As this process of stepwise refinement occurs, everyday the edit is trimmed and tightened, sometimes only by a few frames (1/25 of a second) at a time. Also bigger issues are addressed as the pacing, the “shape” and necessity of certain shots.

Every day there is at least one person apart from me and the editor who will see the film and comment on it. Sometimes this is very specific feedback from a fellow filmmaker or editing tutor, sometimes it is generic feedback from someone who does not know the script and sees the film for the first time. Both are very valuable, although a bit scary at first. After a while I got used to having people comment on the film and I actually started enjoying the process of involving people to see the edit and to hear their opinions.

On Friday the 21st of December we had several screenings of our latest cut in the LFA theatre, for ourselves and for some other people. The experience of seeing your film on a big screen compared to a computer screen is quite different, that is why we chose to give that a go on the last day before we would break for the holidays. It was a very rewarding day, because we saw that the film on a whole seems to work. Of course we – and some other people who gave us feedback – identified some issues as well, but none of those were a surprise. We were already aware of them, and got confirmation that they were not only obvious to us but also to others.

Apart from that it was very nice to receive genuine compliments on the film and on the work that we have done in the past weeks. Although we know that we still have to work on certain elements, I think about 90% of the film is “done”, and I don’t expect any major changes in the structure, shape and pacing of the film itself.

This makes it a good time for a (christmas/newyears) break, to let the film rest for two weeks or so.

I will be back in The Netherlands from December 22nd to January 6th, to celebrate x-mas and newyears and to enjoy some time off. In the mean time I hope to show the current edit of “Rule 2″ to anyone who is interested. Quite exciting because this will be the first time I will show the film to “non filmmakers” but at the same time to people that I know and who know me. Kind of like a second layer of opinions, very useful in the overall process of trying to make sense of the film.

I am quite proud of the film. I know that it still needs some work, but I feel that what I set out to do is actually there on screen and that is a great feeling!