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Theory of Editing March 28, 2007

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

First (another) quick round of introductions and a check of the basic knowledge of editing in our class (“Blimey! You guys know more about the theory of editing than I do!”).
Even though today may be called “Theory of editing”, what better way to show different types of cuts, transitions and sequences then by watching some clips!
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, North by North West, Taxi Driver, Silence of the Lambs, Thelma & Louise, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, Dead or Alive, Dirty Dancing, The Breakfast Club, Mean Machine, Swept Away, Saving Private Ryan… And tomorrow it’s BYO (Bring Your Own) :-)

Movie magic March 23, 2007

Posted by joost in : LFA, cinematography, reflection , comments closed

A magical moment on Thursday: we shot our first feet of super16 film! It’s hard to explain why this is so special (to me) but I’ll give it a try.
It has to do with movie magic. By “magic” I am not only referring to the impact that a film can have when viewing it, but also to the ritual of dimming the lights, hearing the projector and then seeing a beam of moving images.
Film – celluloid – has a history, quality and specific properties that go beyond the mere light sensitive particles that form the film stock. The process of filming, exposing, developing, printing and grading is complicated, time consuming and expensive. That is exactly why every step of the process is made with the greatest care possible. This knowledge filters down back to the very moment that the first assistant shouts “roll camera!” and “action!”.
Lighting a set and setting up the first shot like we did today took us an hour and a half. Some actor and camera rehearsals preceded the moment of actual filming. Before that, the type of shots have been decided by the director. And before that, the production office have had their say on the constraints and amount of (financial, logistical, artistic) freedom. This goes on and on, all the way until the first words were conceived by the screenwriter.
So by the time that the first couple of feet of film pass the gate of the camera there is the realization: we are filming, we are capturing this meticulously prepared piece of work in 25 frames per second.
In all honesty I have to admit that we only filmed one scene (seven shots) of a silent film today, purely for practice purposes. But I’ll tell you, the feeling when that camera was rolling for the first time – and me being the one directing that first shot and shouting “action!” – was magical!

Nun’s knickers March 22, 2007

Posted by joost in : LFA, cinematography, screenwriting, sound , comments closed

Last week we had to submit one or two proposals for a screenplay that will possibly be turned into a film later this year. The next weeks we’ll have weekly sessions where we will discuss our rewritten draft versions. Other students and tutors give feedback on each script and come up with new or alternative ideas for your screenplay. In reality it has just as much to do with the resulting screenplays as with exercises in creative writing, giving and receiving feedback and methodically getting to the core of your idea, characters and story.
I am quite happy with the proposal I wrote and with the enthusiastic reactions from the others. Yesterday I submitted the second draft of my proposal, tentatively called “The Number Cruncher”. A few weeks from now, the students can vote on the screenplay they’d like to film, an external screenwriter will give his or her opinion as well, but the LFA department heads have the final say. We’ll see how things will develop.

On Tuesday and Wednesday we received instructions on how to handle the film and audio gear that we will be using the rest of the year. This is every boy’s wet dream if your into technical stuff :-)
For the afficionados amongst you, we’re talking about an Arriflex SRIII Super16mm film camera, filming in 1:66, printing in 1:85 (cinematic widescreen format). Catalogue value is 20,000 pounds, add several (tens of) thousands of pounds for the lenses and other accessories… Audio will be mixed on a SQN Series IIIa mixer and recorded on DAT or a Flash recorder, using a wide variety of microphones. There is a bunch of lighting equipment as well, ranging from 300 to 2000 Watt and accompanied by all kinds of rigs.

Because this equipment is so expensive and heavily used by students of the LFA, there is a lot of paper work involved whenever one wants to use it. Every item in every box has to be verified and checked on a book out form, and the same when booking in at the end of the day (or at the end of a shoot). On our instruction days the paperwork and moving all the gear cost about an hour! When doing a shoot, they reserve half a day to an entire day for the booking out procedure. And apparently, this is the first example of lots of paper work to follow. I will write about this non romantic side of film making when it comes up.

Of course we got to practice after receiving the instructions: aligning the tripod, assembling the camera, loading film stock in the magasin (first in clear day light, then in a small tent without being able to see what you’re doing. Crrrazy!), setting up a lit set, tweaking the audio mixer, doing fake street interviews with different mics, …
One of the many things I learned during these days: camera people have a funny sense of humour. There’s a piece of cloth between the lense and the matte on a camera. This looks very much like something that you would use to tie your hair with. But here they call it “the nun’s knickers”. In a similar fashion, they have something called “the teddybear’s arsehole”… I’ll leave that one up to your imagination :-)

Smoke March 18, 2007

Posted by joost in : lifestyle, london , comments closed

Friday night. An Irish pub in Fulham, warming up for St. Paddies Day. Eleven people are celebrating their second week at the Film Academy. I look around and discover that I am the only one not smoking in this group. We had touched upon this topic earlier this week during one of the breaks between classes. About two thirds of dip11 is a smoker. We discussed whether film making causes people to smoke (because it can be quite a stressful way of life) or that it works the other way around; that smoking is a habit that is related to characteristics that are beneficial to working in the film industry. The conversation then turned into a game of naming directors who don’t smoke ;-)
The question that came up when I shared my observation with the ten smokers: will I smoke by the end of this year? And if so, when will I start smoking? Place your bets!

Collective daydreaming March 15, 2007

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

Lots of introductionary classes this week. The image of listening to monotonous lectures while sitting on wooden benches comes to mind. But hey, this is a film school, you don’t seriously think that picture is correct?! How about this: imagine “The Theatre”, a small cinematic screening room within the LFA. Three rows, each consisting of seven luxurious black fluff cinema chairs with cup holder :-) Add a big screen, beamer, vhs and dvd player, acoustic tiles and walls, air-conditioning, … did I forget anything? Oh wait, that’s right, yours truly sitting in one of these chairs enjoying courses on screenwriting, sound recording, cinematography and directing! “It’s a dirty job but someone has got to do it…”

Some of the courses were a bit dry this week, with recaps of things like how the human ear works and how colors can be perceived. Not everything was theory though, we got to do some boom operating and sound mixing on Tuesday. One person had to walk around while talking, another had to record this voice by following him with the boom (the microphone on a pole) – and without putting the boom into the (virtual) camera frame. The third person did the audio recording and mixing (watching and correcting the audio level). Of course nobody dreams of being a boom operator, but doing it yourself is really useful. Humbling fact: it takes about five years of practice to become a good boom operator…

The cinematography course on Wednesday was great. Our tutor is one the world’s best steadicam operators and has worked as a cinematographer with some big names like Luc Besson and Stanley Kubrick. Every now and then he casually tells a story of things he experienced and lessons he has learned in the many years he has been filming. Truly awesome! Meanwhile he taught us the basics of lighting a set. In case you did not know, cameras and lenses are an important part of cinematography, but lighting is the key element.

Thursday dealt with directing, or “collective daydreaming” as our tutor put it. After some theory and analyses, we spent several hours trying to come up with and executing different ways of filming a particular scene we saw earlier that day. Even though a lot of shots and camera angles seem obvious or at times even necessary, we experimented with ways of telling the story and accentuating particular elements. Very very cool!

In the evenings of this week we had to come up with premises and proposals for the 5 and 10-minute shorts that we will be making later this year. I submitted two proposals. Every idea and proposal will be discussed next week so we’ll see how that goes.

A special event today, the Polish documentary filmer Marcel Lozinski will give us a masterclass. We watched several of his films as preparation, but I have no idea what will happen during this masterclass.

How to make an award winning short film and launch your career March 10, 2007

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

Team work is important in general, but especially in the film industry. That’s why we had a workshop on Wednesday where we discussed our different personalities and the qualities that will benefit or hinder team work. Some pints of beer afterwards helped the team building as well ;-)

A crash course in character development on Thursday. Within a day we had to come up with a thorough description of somebody that we knew well in real life. Our tutor kept on asking questions that would reveal new aspects of this character. Combining this rich character with somebody else’s description had to lead to a story that we had to pitch to the producers (the rest of the class) at the end of the day.

Friday had an intriguing title: “How to make an award winning short film and launch your career”. We spent the day watching and discussing award winning short films that had been made by students in European Film Schools in the past twenty years. We tried to distill some useful lessons (do’s and dont’s) from these shorts. Most of the films were deceivingly simple (“elegant” might be a better word to describe them), very well executed and touching. No special effects or blood or gore to be seen in miles, for the geeks among the people who read this :-)
From a practical point of view we were told that, both financially and technically, we ought to be able to make films like this at the end of our year here at the LFA. The creative part with great characters, emotions and story telling is up to us…

Other lessons learned this first week:

Pinch me March 6, 2007

Posted by joost in : LFA, film, london, reflection , comments closed

It’s midday, I’m sitting in the Academy’s small cinema room watching and analyzing “Life lessons” by Martin Scorcese, when I suddenly realize: this is what I do now, this is my occupation. How incredibly lucky I am to have the opportunity to study gifted film makers and to start working on my own films real soon!

First day at school March 5, 2007

Posted by joost in : LFA , comments closed

I’m officially a student! (again) As part of “Diploma 11″ – or dip11 as it’s fondly called here – I started with the one year course in film making. A hands-on start because after a short introduction we were split in groups and had to do a couple of exercises in story telling and shot selection. We viewed and discussed the results, watched a famous scene from The Godfather and before I knew it, day one was done!
In between we had some short breaks during which most students had a quick chat with each other. We have a very diverse group with people from all over the world: Italy, Turkey, India, South-Africa, Jordan, Chili, Columbia, Ireland, England, Germany and The Netherlands (yep, that’s me!). What we have in common is a love for film, and (a broad range of) previous experience in film making.

Haveseenlist LFA March 1, 2007

Posted by joost in : LFA, film, lifestyle, london , comments closed

I think it will give an interesting insight to track the movies I have seen this year, both at the Film Academy and at home. This is my haveseenlist, since the first of March 2007 til March 2008 when my year at the LFA was semi-officially finished…

The Deer Hunter
The Number 23
I, Robot
The Godfather (director’s commentary)
Life Lessons (short)
Living In Oblivion
The Ring (US remake)
Malet (short)
Jajko (The Egg) (short)
Myaso (Meat) (short)
Cotton Balls (short)
In Your Shoes (short)
La Boule (The Ball) (short)
The Wind (short)
With Hands Up (short)
Emo (Mother) (short)
Taxi Driver
Mean Streets
Haze
Doodlebug (short)
Inside Out (short)
89 mm Od Europy (aka 89 mm From Europe – short)
Jak Zyk (aka How We Live)
Road
Wszystko moze sie przytrafic (aka Anything Can Happen) (short)
Próba mikrofonu (aka Microphone’s Test) (short)
Moje miejsce (aka My Place) (short)
Passionless Moments (short)
Iha Des Flres (aka Isle of Flowers) (short)
The Black Tower (short)
Red Dragon
Silence of the lambs
Hannibal
300
Sin City
Final Destination 3
About A Girl (short)
Je t’aime John Wayne (short)
Safer (short)
Witness
The Hulk
Ice Age 2: The Meltdown
The Passion of the Christ
Serendipity
Tonari no Totoro
Chinatown
The Painted Veil
Inland Empire
Sudden Death
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex Solid State Society
Paprika
Highlander: The Search for Vengeance
Le Chevalier d’Eon
Full Metal Alchemist The Movie: Conqueror of Shamballa
Spiderman 3
Kill Bill vol. 1
After Thomas
Being John Malkovich
Pitch Black
Ghost Rider
Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny
Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World’s End
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Little Miss Sunshine
Snakes on a Plane
Grease
American Psycho
Raise the Red Lantern
Curse of the Golden Flower
The Juror
Goodbye Lenin!
The Lives of Others
Simon
Mr. In-Between
The Forgotten
A Clockwork Orange
Amores Perros
Babel
The Insider
The Pianist
Hell on wheels
Paradise Now
Turtles Can Fly
The Green Mile
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Gladiator
A Scanner Darkly
Zodiac
Before Sunrise
Before Sunset
The Seventh Seal
The 5th Element
Borat
The Bourne Supremacy
The Bourne Ultimatum
Clue
Back to the Future
Assault on Precinct 13
Nightwatch (Nochnoy Dozor)
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Sunshine
Black Snake Moan
Miami Vice
The Prestige
Pan’s Labyrinth
The Gods Must Be Crazy
Meprises (short)
My Best Friend’s Wedding
Total Recall
Groundhog Day
Death Proof
Gegen Die Wand
Batman Returns
Hitch
Die Hard 2
Eurotrip
Michael Clayton
The Kingdom
Two days in Paris
Ratatouille
Io Non Ho Paura (I’m not scared)
The Green Mile
My Brother Tom
La Estrategia del Caracol (The Snail’s Strategy)
Buscando a Miguel (Looking for Miguel)
Donnie Darko
Adaptation
Universal Soldier: The Return
The Darjeeling Limited
As Good As It Gets
The Polar Express (IMAX)
The Omega Man
Street Fighter
The Wedding Planner
Ocean’s Twelve
Spider-man 2
Hide and Seek
I Am Legend
Shoot ‘Em Up
Collateral
Santa’s Slay
Black Christmas
White Christmas
Speed
Feast
Black Sheep
The Hills Have Eyes 2

2008

The Mahabaratha
Eastern Promises
No Country For Old Men (2x)
The Cell
Cruel Intentions
The Kite Runner
Montevideoaki (short) (clip #1 #2)
There Will Be Blood
Cloverfield
I’m Not There
The Matrix
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber From Fleet Street
Suzie Gold
Death Wish II
Youth Without Youth
Anaconda
The Muppets’ Wizard of Oz
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
Clear and Present Danger

(and that was roughly where my year at the LFA was officially done)

In 1 year at the LFA:
Feature films: 148
Shorts: 25
…and I probably forgot to put some films on this list…

London Calling March 1, 2007

Posted by joost in : london, reflection , comments closed

The past few weeks have passed in a blink of an eye. The interview at the London Film Academy went really well, and when I officially heard that I was accepted a hefty todolist was waiting for me. Quitting and wrapping up my job at XS4ALL, canceling the rent for my apartment, diving into all kinds of administrative rules and regulations regarding moving abroad, arranging living space in London, sorting out all my stuff at home and moving them to my parents, brother and girlfriend, preparing my new macbook for my time in the UK, etcetera etcetera. And in the mean time I also wanted to have some last talks and drinks with my dear colleagues, friends and family. So much to do, so little time…

Before I knew it, March 1st came to pass. The day of my departure to London. Armed with a 20+ kgs backpack and a 8+ kgs daypack (macbook, harddisk, camera, books..) I was all set to go. After waving goodbye to “my people” at Schiphol Airport, I flew to London Luton. Because my plane was delayed, I had to rush to the minivan that would drive me from the airport to the Baker Street tube station. Everything went ok and after a short walk I arrived at my new home in Fulham (West London), a small student dorm above a washing and cleaning store. My new roommate Simon (German) had just arrived before me so we had a quick introduction and started unpacking. Our room is basic (2 beds, 2 tables, 2 chairs, 2 closets, some shelves, a refrigerator and sink) but it will do just fine. No surprise to me but still a pity: no internet and no open wifi, so I’ll have to visit internet cafes (or to be more precise: “belhuizen”, for the people from Amsterdam Westside ;-) for the time being. Tips and advise on free wireless internet locations are greatly appreciated!

I am using my first days here to get to know some of the other students living here and to arrange the basic necessities such as a bank account, a debet card, a cell phone and of course groceries. The British seem to have a knack for frozen food, I visited a supermarket where literally one third of all the shelves consisted of frozen food! (and one third of those shelves were frozen fish dishes..)
There’s an interesting “division” in my student dorm BTW: of the ten people living there, half of the people attend or have attended the LFA and come from European countries, the other half are from Africa and are study things like Business Administration, Finance and Marketing. Insert joke here about people pursuing a proper career and people chasing their passion :-)