alexschwindt.blog

"act of valor" - the first hollywood dslr movie

Today's a huge day for DSLR filmmaking. For the first time ever a major Hollywood blockbuster shot almost entirely on a DSLR is getting a wide release. (see the trailer after the jump) Three years ago a group of visionary cinematographers instinctively grasped how disruptive, these new tools would become, and they immediately set out to pioneer what has now become a revolution.

One of the guys on the very forefront of this whole movement was Shane Hurlbut, a widely-acclaimed cinematographer on movies like Terminator: Salvation and We Are Marshall. Rather than seeing DSLRs as a tool for budget filmmaking, Hurlbut immediate understood that the small form factor of these cameras would allow him to create imagery that would have be impossible otherwise.

Enter Act Of Valor...

"blue like jazz" movie trailer

One of my all-time favorite books from one of my all-time favorite authors is "Blue Like Jazz", and over the past several years it's author Donald Miller and Steve Taylor have been working to create a movie based on the source. Yesterday the official trailer for the film was released and I thought you might get a kick out of seeing it. (after the jump)

What's interesting about this project to those of us who are into indie filmmaking is that this movie was funded using a Kickstarter campaign. While the filmmakers originally had a goal of raising $125,000, passionate fans of the book ended up contributing $345,000, setting a Kickstarter record. If this reminds of us anything it should remind us that story truly is king.

Check out the trailer here...

dslr filmmaking roundtable

At this year's Sundance Film Festival Adobe hosted a panel about technology and storytelling that's really worth giving a listen to. (check it out after the break) The group includes some of the filmmakers and producers behind "Avatar", "Hugo", "District 9", and the upcoming "Act of Valor", and it's amazing just to hear about them using widely available technology like the Canon 7D and After Effects.  I just found this to be really inspirational - hopefully you will as well.

Give it a look...

we do not know what we cannot do

I saw the music video for Coldplay's "Paradise" a few months ago (before it has 68 million views), and I specifically remember thinking two things:
#1 - "This video is really works" and
#2 - "This video was probably really easy to make".

Sometimes we get stuck thinking that making great videos and films takes tons money and a slew of talented people. And on some projects that's true. But a great idea and some ingenuity trump big bugets almost every time. As filmmakers it's important to unlearn our limits. We do not know what we cannot do.

To see what I'm talking about, let's take a closer look at the "Paradise" video...

time lapse + motion effects = awesome

Someone turned me on to this amazing short film earlier today, and I knew a lot of you would definitely be able to appreciate what the filmmaker's up to with this piece. It's a incredible marriage of time lapse footage, motion graphics, visual effects, color grading and killer title work. The integration with the soundtrack is top-notch as well.

Douglas Koke is the visual artist, and you gotta respect the way he was able to find a compelling subject and then add several layers of awesome. Even better, the footage itself was shot with a sub-$1,000 Canon T3i.

Check out the short here...

50-dollar follow focus project

Now this is a cool kickstarter story. Follow focus devices are great for helping filmmakers achieve critical focus pulls, but even the DSLR-targeted ones have been a bit out of the range of beginning filmmakers. Enter Wiley Davis.

Wiley, a fellow video artist, was smart enough to see a target market and immediately began a Kickstarter campaign to create a low-cost follow focus device for aspiring filmmakers on a budget. And his plan succeeded wildly.

How wildly, you ask?

check out the PressPausePlay documentary - free

After posting last week about the upcoming "Side By Side" documentary I got some traffic about another great documentary on the future of digital media entitled "PressPausePlay." After screening at SXSW and the Seattle International Film Festival the makers of this extraordinary documentary have taken the extraordinary step of posting it up for world to see, all for free.

One of the great things about this documentary is that while it has a lot to say it also asks some really important questions, questions like 'what truely makes someone and artist?' and 'how can true artists break through the digital cacophony?' What's even better is that while wrestling with some big issues PressPausePlay ultimately maintains a hopeful vision of the future.

Check out the entire documentary after the jump...

documentary on the future of digital filmmaking

Yesterday Eastman Kodak announced that they are filing for Ch. 11 bankruptcy protection. I can't imagine a more profound illustration of the way digital imagery has reshaped the photography and filmmaking. While for some this may appear to be the end of an era, to many of us it's the beginning of an amazing new chapter.

Enter Side By Side, a new documentary from Company Films exploring the turbulent transition from celuloid-based filmmaking to digital. As if the subject isn't compelling enough, check out who they've interviewed for the project (trailer)...

designing sound in film

Hopefully you've had a chance to see Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol sometime in the past three weeks. It's pretty spectacular. Just as importantly, I hope you've had a chance to hear MI4, preferably in IMAX. This movie sounds spectacular.

But it doesn't sound spectacular by accident. Great sound is something you have to plan for from the very beginning. Your sound design directly affects how you shoot your film. To see more of what I'm talking about, check out this behind the scenes video on sound design in MI4...

chance (and Spielberg) favors the bold

Sometimes if you work your tail off, create something great, then put it out there, good things really can happen. Just ask James Curran. Last month Curran posted an unoffical opening title sequence for Steven Spielberg's Tintin movie, an effort so well-realized that it currently has over 600,000 views on Vimeo.

Turns out one of those viewers was Spielberg himself. Now Slashfilm is reporting that Curran has been invited to the world premiere of Tintin in London by the man himself. Even better, according to the co-writer of Tintin Spielberg has offered Curran a job! Talk about a dream coming true.

Check out the animation that launched it all after the jump...