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Current work June 17, 2009

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

I’m currently co-producing a documentary on the life and death of Naji al-Ali. My involvement in this project started several months ago when I offered to help on what then was just a no-thrills simple shoot one half of an afternoon. Slowly but steadily this project has grown into a two part documentary to be broadcast on Al Jazeera before the end of this year – and with it solid (paid!) production work for me. I’ve started pre-production a while ago and we are aiming to shoot several elements (interviews, location shoots, crime scene re-enactment) over the course of two weeks early July.

I have also (finally!) started post-production of I/O recontextualized, the experimental short film that I directed during the Easter weekend. It took longer than expected to determine the best post-production workflow, not only because my film uses a myriad of source material (super16, HD, SD, cell phone) but also because we wanted to find the best and most sensible price/quality for processing the super16 film. We eventually settled for a transfer to HDCAM SR, 1920×1080 4:2:2. Practically speaking this resulted in a QuickTime file with a runlength of about 16 minutes and a size of 120 GB :-)

Simon, former classmate and roommate, will be editing the film over the next few weeks. Quite a challenge because there are many possible ways of interpreting the source material and piecing it all together. We will need to go through a couple of iterations where we want to be as free and experimental as we were during the shoot, but where we also need to get some of the key concepts across in the midst of all the artiness.
I hope to publish a more in-depth description somewhere soon on this blog of what the film is about, how the shoot went and what I am trying to explore. But first there is some producing to be done…

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 editing update June 26, 2008

Posted by joost in : editing, film , comments closed

The first week of editing was slow, mainly because all the editing suites were occupied by new students. We are still allowed to use LFA’s editing facilities – which has become really sweet now since the complete switch to macs! – but because this is a post-graduate project we are basically the last in line. Add to this some specific issues due to the fact that we shot the film on HD with a movietube and corresponding lense kit, and before you know it a week has gone by.

Luckily the past few days Shilpa (the editor) and me have made some good progress. After the first rough assembly and a first cut we now have a second cut that we are pretty happy with. This means that we are close to a locked picture, having only to work on sound and color correction (this film will have no music, and just very simple titles). The deadline for one competition is June the 30th, leaving us not much time anyway :-)

If I want to submit the film to that competition, I will have to dig up my butcher’s knife though; the second cut lasts about 4 minutes whereas the maximum duration for this competition is 2 minutes 30 seconds… And you don’t just lose more than a third of a film just like that… So I will have to be brutal and lose complete lines of dialogue, get rid of some actions and tighten everything up, while still trying to stay true to the nature and intention of the film.
As it stands now I will try to make a cut specifically for this competition (because the prizes and publicity are just too appealing to ignore), and after that I will finalize the ‘longer’ version which will be the official cut – which I will submit to another competition (that doesn’t have such a short runlength constraint) and possibly to festivals.

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.” :-)

Back in action January 26, 2008

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

In case you are wondering: no, I did not disappear from the face of the earth. Somehow I didn’t get round to updating this blog, even though there is plenty to tell! So here is a quick recap to satisfy your appetite.

Christmas and newyears back home were great. You know the drill; family, friends, catching up, boozing. Several good friends offered me their place to stay, which I gratefully accepted.

Part of the visits coincided with showing my work-in-progress version of “Rule 2″. I was really looking forward to this, because I could literally show what I had been working on in the past two or three months. Until that moment, only filmmakers had seen and commented on it. Now it was time for people close to me to watch it and share their thoughts. The most basic checks that I wanted to do were “Does the story make sense?”, “What do you feel (if anything) at the end of the film?” and “Were there parts where you got bored?”.

Of course people try to be nice so every now and then I had to push in order to hear what they really felt. It’s hard to summarize everything that I have heard, but the bottom line for me was that the film seems to work. Also interesting: I am not planning to change anything that I wasn’t already planning to change before. In other words: I received a lot of feedback, but nothing lead me to rethink or re-edit my film. Which is good I think! (or stubborn – you choose :-)

The second week of January I returned to London. Most important news that week was that we reached an agreement on making another (“the 4th”) film at the LFA! I’ll write about that at a later moment, what’s relevant for now is that I am trying to get this thing on the road together with some other determined students. Part of this process is that I have written a new short script that might be selected for this film. The plan is to prepare and shoot this extra film in February. Yay!

My year at the London Film Academy is nearly over. We all returned for three weeks of classes. I nicknamed the first week to “Life after the LFA”. We talked about and practiced how to (make a better) pitch, learned about what an agent can and can not do for us, how to make a filmmakers resume, we had career interviews, talks about wrapping up our production files, an ex-student telling how she managed to get a career going after graduating at the LFA, and last but certainly not least a visit to the Pinewood Studios!

Pinewood is like a industrial complex only filled with studios and film related companies, outside Northwest London. Two of our lecturers gave us a guided tour accompanied with all kinds of anecdotes of their filming experiences. Words are hard to describe what that day was like. It was the best way to finish that week. The start of the week everyone was (or got) worried; “how will I ever get a job in the film industry? how do I make sure I eventually get to do what I want to do?” (etc). The week ended with my whole group being psyched about the visit; “THIS is why I want to make films, this is where I want to be!”.
Not so strange when you know that we got to be on the infamous and massive 007 stage where they were shooting the new Bond film “Quantum of Solace” (!), that we were 2 inches away from Oscars, BAFTAs and Cesars for classic films like Dr. Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia (!), that we saw things like gigantic blue screens, special underwater facilities, old 35mm cameras and the preparation for a registration with four top of the line HD cameras of the King Lear play featuring Ian McKellen.

The past week we shot 10 short films in 5 days, with actors from the Central School of Speech and Drama. We filmed scenes from existing films. For them one of the first times they act on camera, for us an extra opportunity to direct, camera operate and to DoP. Quite a high pace, something we could achieve because we shot on a professional digital camera (and not film). And of course because we are a lot more experienced now than one year ago ;-)

Next week is the last week of our course. We have a couple of days left to finish the edits of our 10 minute films. Friday February 1st marks our official last day, with the screening of these films. My aim is to have “Rule 2″ completely ready by then. The picture is pretty much locked now, I just need to focus on the dub. Leveling the overall volume, fixing gaps, hisses, pops, clicks, adding ambient sounds, that kind of work.

In case you are wondering “So Joost, what are your plans after that week, what will you do?!”: February will function as a bridge between finishing my year and getting ready for the real world. I intend to stay in London the coming months, hopefully to work, but also to write and direct (my own) short films. And then we’ll see.

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!

Shaping a film September 30, 2007

Posted by joost in : LFA, editing , comments closed

After a slow start editing finally got underway. To me the most interesting part of the process is not so much sitting behind a computer and pushing all the buttons, but the interaction between the director and the editor. You (try to) take a fresh look at the material that has been shot and ask yourself what the film should be about. This might sound odd, “because surely by now you know the story, the theme and the characters by heart?”. Yes, but during editing you revisit all of this. Does the director like the performances of the actors? Do certain scenes work, from a technical and dramatic point of view?
This means that you spend a good time of the day having conceptual discussions, pointing at the screen, showing different ways of achieving your intention.

Sometimes it’s not even about what is on the screen, but what you want there to be on screen. “I want to show the psychology, what is going on inside her head at this moment. So we need a close-up shot where she is looking at the other character before she moves towards her, instead of the other way around. Can we steal that from an unused slate?”.
Or: “The dialog is too much on the nose. Can we cut out the dialog and convey the same thing by just showing the action and reactions?”.

Our group is editing four short films at the same time. During the day we walk around to see what the others are up to, how their film is shaping up, you bounce off ideas and ask for feedback on rough cuts or on more finished sequences.

A week from now we have a screening of these films at the London Film Academy. Currently one film is completely done, another one (the one that I produced) has a final cut and just needs to spot and lay the score, the third one is near the final cut and has one week for a composer to come up with a suitable soundtrack (which is tight but not unusual), and the fourth one will probably not be finished on time.
This fourth film happens to be the one I am editing :-(
We had a two week delay compared to other films because of issues with the sound. Those problems have not completely been solved, we probably have to do half a day of pickups in a few weeks time to fill in the gaps and to make the film work as a whole. At the moment the director is not happy with the result and it seems wiser not to show the film as it is now at the screening.

The screening is an important milestone. It is not only a deadline for the (main) editing process, but it is also the first time the finished films are shown on a big screen with an audience that has not seen the film before. Scary but very useful to understand what things work or don’t work. Several of our tutors who were involved in the pre-production or production will see the finished films there for the first time as well. Hopefully that will lead to some extra feedback to further improve the film(s). And soon after that, it’s time for the 10 minute films!

Connecting the dots June 18, 2007

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

Last week was all about editing and writing. Although we are editing our 2 minute films and writing our 5 or 10 minute films, the combination was interesting. In one week we were both working on the start and the end of the film making process.

We spent several days editing our 2 minute films. We got assigned to edit somebody else’s film, because “in the real world” you also do not get to edit the film that you’ve written, produced or directed. In my case I got to edit a somewhat sad table conversation with a supernatural flavor. I liked editing it, because it had some technical and storytelling challenges.

From a technical point of view it was interesting because I had to “cut on action” between takes that did not connect nicely. In one take a character for instance said a line of dialogue before picking up a glass, and in the take that I wanted to cut to the line was said after picking up the glass. Which makes a cut impossible, ugly, or optimistically put: “challenging” :-)

From a story telling point of view, the scene cut together nicely but did not really convey what it was about until the very last seconds. It was too normal for a scene that has a supernatural touch to it, but there were no takes shot that gave hints in that direction. So in this case I had to find a way in the edit to get that point across. You’ll be able to judge yourself in about a week time when I upload the film.

At the same time, someone else was editing “my” film. She did a first rough cut, then tweaked that after some comments by the tutor, me and other students. Add some music, minor sound effects, titles, change the volume, tweak the pacing some more, and a few hours before we had to finish editing we decided to add in another shot because it felt that the film could use it. In the end I think we improved it but it caused us some last minute headaches because of awkward timing issues where we tried out several cutting options and where we literally were moving the cut one frame (1/24th of a second) forwards and backwards.

During the day we were editing, which meant that I spent several evenings rewriting my screenplay. Mine is shaping up to be a 5 minute film (about 5 pages).

One of the difficulties of the short film “genre” is that everything has to be spot on. In a feature there is more room for exposition and development, whereas in a short every sentence has to mean and add something to the overall message / theme. This means that you scrutinize every sentence and every line of dialogue that you write; “is this really necessary, what if I leave it out?”, “can’t I make it shorter?”, “does this move the story or the character forward?”.
We also have to take production considerations into account, setting the story in the Middle Ages with two armies in a big battle scene is sadly not an option. A lot of us got the advice to cut down the number of locations, and/or where possible to swap external locations for internal ones.

The cool thing in writing a short is that you’re aiming to connect all the events, characters and story elements with each other. And if you succeed in doing so, it really feels like you’re connecting all the dots. Suddenly it seems like there is only one logical and optimal way of unfolding the story and spreading your message. And you’ve just found it :-) Or at least I try to get closer to this nirvana one rewrite at a time :-)

Personal digital short: Self-portrait April 30, 2007

Posted by joost in : LFA, cinematography, directing, editing, reflection, screenwriting , comments closed

Fifteen personal shorts, shot on digital video. Fifteen different stories that one way or the other tell you something about its maker. Here is mine.

Self-portrait, February 2007.

My Graduate Trailer April 30, 2007

Posted by joost in : LFA, editing , comments closed

You thought The Graduate had something to do with Mrs. Robinson? About an affair between a student and the mother of a classmate? Think again! Here is the real trailer for The Graduate, that I made as an editing exercise to get to know AVID. Enjoy!

Quicktime hi-res lo-res