Community Project

My greatest regret, during my time on IndieTalk, has been my failure to get a community project off the ground. We came pretty close with the organ lottery project, but it never quite worked out. The past few days has seen a new member trying to get another community project off the ground, but is, I suspect, going to fall into a number of inevitable traps.

I am currently studying for the final exams of my academic career (*sob*) so am just sitting in libraries all day, every day. I'd like something to break it up a little bit (in addition to the couple of projects I am, slowly, working on). So I've come up with a new way to do a community project.

If you would like to participate in this project as a director (or in a shooting capacity), I need the following information out of you:

What actors are at your disposal? [i.e. two men and a woman]
What locations are at your disposal? [i.e. a house, a bar, an abandoned quarry]
Can you record decent quality sound? [i.e. yes]

Please be conservative with your responses. In order for this project to be realistic and work, I need to be sure that people can (and will) shoot their scenes in the allocated manner.

Once I have a bunch of participants, I will go away and write a short script that incorporates these various shooting units into a single coherent story. I will ensure that no member has more than a maximum of two days shooting (though generally will try and keep it to what can be done in a single day). If you cannot record decent quality sound, I will give you no dialogue to shoot. Everything will be kept as simple as possible (within the constraints of a very tricky project!) so that we have the maximum chance of success.

Additionally, if you are not willing to direct (or arrange the production of) a shooting unit, there are loads of other roles that are required:

Composer
Editor - individual units should edit their scenes but a central editor will put it all together and try and ensure that the editing matches throughout.
Post-sound
VFX - will not be VFX heavy, but we can incorporate some if there's someone who can supply the talent.
Marketing - with so many cooks, would be great to have someone responsible for pushing the film.

In order to make this attempt as successful as possible, I will only accept forum regulars into the scheme. New members (and I'm talking people who've only been around a few weeks) are welcome to input and help out, but it is of paramount importance that I know people will stick around and see their unit through to completion.

The deadline for signing up is 18th April 2014, giving people two weeks, after which we will allocate two months (and a bit) to complete production of your scenes, meaning a shooting deadline of 30th June 2014. As I have said, should be no more than a day of filming over the course of two months, so if you can't commit to that then please don't!

I really hope this works, and I think it can. Let me know if you have any thoughts and get signing up!

Current units:
David.rhsc (San Francisco, USA)
cheeseandachallenge (Wellington, New Zealand)
Cracker Funk (Richmond, USA)
wheatgrinder
Flicker Pictures (Boston, USA)
mad_hatter (Birmingham, England)
Dreadylocks (Omaha, USA)
Lucky Hardwood (New Orleans, USA)
ChimpPhobiaFilms (Ohio, USA)

Fence-sitting-maybe-merchants:
WalterB
Dreadylocks
sfoster
mad_hatter
ChimpPhobiaFilms
ItDonnedOnMe
jax_rox
Flicker Pictures

Music team
JoshL
mike mcguill

Sound team
mike mcguill

Sound maybes
AudioPostExpert
Alcove Audio

Marketing maybes
RayW

And remember to fill in this form if you want to have a shooting unit in the film!

(Of course, if you're local to an existing unit, why not team up?)
 
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Well, I was thinking of combining the start of the voices with a shot (or 2 shot scene) of someone eating on the couch with TV on. (Maybe at first starting with black screen)
TV is off screen but creates the flickering lights in the livingroom.
His attention is drawn when they mention the ufo.
With a slow dolly in.

(Actually what I first thought would be nice for Laura.)

If you can get clean voices, the sound department can make it sound like coming from a TV :P (I hope ;) )
Or isn't there a kind of craigslist in NZ? In case you doubt yourself too much?
 
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Should we sync the audio? I dunno, what do our audio guys say? I suppose it'd help them if we did that, no?

As the Dialogue Editor, ultimately that would be Alcove's call. The usual workflow would be for the Picture Editor (actually the asst. Picture Editor on big productions) to do the basic dialogue sync'ing and then the dialogue editor would tweak where necessary. Although it might appear obvious that dialogue sync is an audio post process, it's actually just as much a picture editing process, "J" or "L" cuts are a common example.

Hopefully Alcove will chime in with his thoughts/requirements.

If you can get clean voices, the sound department can make it sound like coming from a TV :P (I hope ;) )

Yes, that would not be a problem. BTW, deliberately downgrading sound (dialogue, SFX or music) to sound like it's coming from some on-screen (or implied on-screen) audio playback device like a phone, TV, music system, radio, jukebox, PA system, etc., has it's own specific term, it's called Futzing ("to futz a sound").

The Director really needs to come up with a vision for this opening because that will dictate what needs to be shot and recorded. For example, let's say the film starts black-screen with a few credits and some radio broadcasts, then we fade/cut to various bits of cell footage and/or reaction shots but the radio broadcasts (with different accents and even maybe in some different languages) continue over the cut/fade and throughout the sequence until we cut/fade to our first actual scene. If we were to do something like this, the cell footage/reaction shots could all be filmed MOS, although we would obviously need to make some simple scripts and a variety of radio announcer type audio recordings.

G
 
Wheat, that location looks magnificent. I love what you've done with the oxygen tent and the fogger. Can't wait to see some footage, feel free to upload a clip to Vimeo for me ;)

I hope the rest of your and Cracker's shooting goes well.

I think we're all on the same page with regards to getting the footage to CF and the audio to the post-sound team. I think we should try and get that done pretty much as soon as possible, so that we're not delayed by transfers in September. APE/Alcove: Have you guys received any of the sound yet?

As for colour grading, I'm sure we can find someone here on Indietalk (it'd be good to get another name involved). I know there are bags of people who are talented at it, and if no-one steps forward for it, I'll put an advert up in the Jobs forum.

And, Dready, any thoughts on the Vern scene?
 
Dready: We need to get things shot in the next week or so, ideally before September. I realise that would be a super rush, but that's the timeframe we're working too because CF has other work in the second half of September. It's also pretty important that the forest scene matches the forest in A) the viral video and B) Wheat's scene.

I can say with fair certainty that by this Monday is not doable for me. I don't have a day without other obligations until Sunday the 7th. :( :(

It might be worth conferring with Wheat via PM to see whether you'll be able to get things to match up, but I appreciate that, given the time constraints, it might be too much of an imposition. But it would be really great to have you directing a segment, so if we can make it happen, then let's!

I agree, I was really sad when I had to back out.

What about Urbana State Forest? Looks like it could match Oregon close enough if you kept quite shallow DoF and shot at twilight...

BHT-Wa12.jpg

That does look like Oregon! Unfortunately when I googled it, it looks like it's in New York state. I'm in Champaign/Urbana, Illinois. This is the site for my county's forest preserves and such. And here is a map/list from the city's park district. It's mostly single-block playground and manicured stuff but maybe wheat can find something that doesn't look too off? As far as the forest preserve type stuff goes, we're at least at an advantage now that school is back in session: they shouldn't be too crowded.
 
Ah, that's so bogus, what a misleading name for a forest!

I guess it's going to be difficult then. Unless you fancy a weekend away at Mark Twain National Forest, which looks beautiful and is probably the nearest correct looking habitat. But I understand that that is a big undertaking.

Looks like it's back on you Wheat!

EDIT: Looks like MTNF is only a 3 hour drive from you, so HYPOTHETICALLY you could drive down in the morning, film during the day, and be back for bedtime.
 
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If the new BitTorrent Sync works, CF can download the dutch files (actually, the complete project) as soon as he installs Sync. We'll let you know our findings!

I synced the sound to save CF time.
We both use Premiere Pro CS5.5 so that made it real easy to arrange things.

@APE what is MOS?
 
Oh man, if only you knew how much time I've spent in cars in the last month... not trying to be difficult, but a six hour round trip just ain't gonna happen :)

Please let me know if you guys need any help in any other department, though. I'd really love to help in some way.

Oh, and wheat, that screenshot looks AMAZEBALLS!!
 
APE/Alcove: Have you guys received any of the sound yet?

I haven't. There's not much we can do without a complete edit. TBH, once there is a rough edit of the entire film, I would like the opportunity to make some suggestions/recommendations before we arrive at a locked-off edit. Once we have a locked-off edit, that is the time when the audio-post team can really get stuck in.

Without sound. I think it stands for like motor over sound (although for some reason I've always had it in my head as Mit Out Sound), for when the camera's making too much noise to record viable sound. Sure APE knows the proper meaning and origins.

Like you, I've heard it referred to as "Mit Out Sound" and that's what's in my head too. I remember looking it up many years ago, only to discover there are a number of competing anecdotes/legends as to it's origins and indeed it's actual meaning. I think it's enough to know that it's just a filmmaking term meaning "without sound". BTW, filming MOS is not necessarily due to camera noise or indeed any other environmental noise, it might be because sound is simply not required for a particular shot/sequence, as in the example I gave.

G
 
Oh man, if only you knew how much time I've spent in cars in the last month... not trying to be difficult, but a six hour round trip just ain't gonna happen :)

Please let me know if you guys need any help in any other department, though. I'd really love to help in some way.

Oh, and wheat, that screenshot looks AMAZEBALLS!!

I heard you were great at designing film websites..? ;)
 
Nick I think its your call as to what we do for the intro. If we need some extra shots/audio of Laura (or another New Zealander to get some more voices) I'll need to know asap. I can probably only do something pretty basic, as my DoP has a busy schedule and my sound recordist is pretty much unavailable at the moment. So I'll probably be shooting it by myself with as assistant. Which would be fine for "cell phone quality" footage (though I'd be tempted to light it and shoot it on a proper camera and degrade it later). I should also be able to get a clean enough audio recording if audio is all that is needed.
 
Nick I think its your call as to what we do for the intro. If we need some extra shots/audio of Laura (or another New Zealander to get some more voices) I'll need to know asap. I can probably only do something pretty basic, as my DoP has a busy schedule and my sound recordist is pretty much unavailable at the moment. So I'll probably be shooting it by myself with as assistant. Which would be fine for "cell phone quality" footage (though I'd be tempted to light it and shoot it on a proper camera and degrade it later). I should also be able to get a clean enough audio recording if audio is all that is needed.

My inclination is that we go with this:

AUDIO: A collaged combination of faux radio news, and people giving their reactions to the video (could be fake chatting with friends...etc). Lots of different accents, lots of different languages.

VIDEO: Skylines/iconic shots of different cities, places, landscapes, from around the world.

How does that sound? I think it's, practically speaking,within our range of ability and emphasises the global nature of the project. I also worry that the 'reaction video' idea, while fun, might be a bit messy.
 
Cool cool, I'll see if I can get something together for some audio in the next week or so.

Regarding reaction shots - I agree it could be messy. But perhaps, one character (from the main narrative) reacting to a news segment (the radio news could blend into TV news - or they could just be listening to the radio) could be a nice segue into the actual events of the film?
 
AUDIO: A collaged combination of faux radio news, and people giving their reactions to the video (could be fake chatting with friends...etc). Lots of different accents, lots of different languages.

VIDEO: Skylines/iconic shots of different cities, places, landscapes, from around the world.

That could work. We would need a basic script which everyone can vary slightly and people with various accents/languages, doing as good an impression of a radio news announcer as possible.

I'm a bit confused though, does the actual viral cell footage follow this sequence, precede it or even inter-cut within this sequence of skylines, etc.?

G
 
I'm a bit confused though, does the actual viral cell footage follow this sequence, precede it or even inter-cut within this sequence of skylines, etc.?

I sort of agree with your confusion. In my opinion, we should cold open with the cellphone footage. But, a while back, people felt like that wouldn't work – or might make viewers instantly think the film was crappy – so I refashioned to have a kind of radio show opening (we could maybe run some opening credits whilst this was going on) which, visually, looks quite bold and professional, before cutting into the cellphone footage. That was, people who flick on for just a few seconds will know that we've got production value and not be confused by the phone camera stuff.

I think I could commit to that. What're we talking? Blog + About page + Press page? Do we have a logo yet? Or a film title?

Yes, that exactly.

The title, and we never all agreed on it, seems to be Threads. Well, that's what it's listed on IMDB as! We don't have a logo or any design yet or anything.
 
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