king’s college circle – Find out how to make the image to the left. Could probably be adapted for After Effects.
Quid Pro Quo – Great post about helping other people out in order to call in favors later on – the favor bank. This is what Film School is all about, because we’re all going to be working in the industry together and I want people to remember me as the guy that helped them build their set or film their audition.
Wire-Pull Squib [FreshDV] – Great alternative to a real $150 squib (and safer).
10 Must-Have Steps to Getting Honest Feedback – Useful tips to getting good feedback. Very useful during the editing process.
- What do you hate most about (my performance/product/etc.)? <- Force honesty by leaving no room for sugarcoating.
- What is this missing to become great instead of just good? <- Assuming they gave you initial positivity, push a little harder.
- Will you buy it [pay to see it]? <- Separate the love from the like by asking for a purchase.
Shooting Reality On the Lot – I think the show is like watching YouTube in HD (I’ll probably post some thoughts about it soon), but this article has some good pointers for filming real-time events in general.
“You are constantly given these locations, like a huge mansion where the cast lives and cameras are going to be shooting 360 degrees for two months in this location, inside outside, day and night. What you see a lot is people hang a thousand Kino Flos and light it like K-Mart. That to me is what’s wrong with reality TV: let’s just flood everything with light. I realize that the shows have huge challenges and a lot of times the producers aren’t interested in making it look interesting, just the bottom line. The shows I’ve picked to work on are the ones where I can have a little more control and model the light. I’ve developed some techniques where I can shoot 360 degrees and still have shadow and some drama in the lighting.â€
Divorce the Book – Read any screenwriting book and they’ll tell you, “you have to grab them in the first ten pages.” Seems things are similar in the book world, if not worse.
Chabon gives a book two pages, Goldberg allows it 15 to 50, and a book editor I know says that ”publishing turns you into a person who decides within five pages whether you’ll like something or not and who puts it down (whether it’s work or personal reading) without one ounce of guilt if the answer is no.” She added, ”I know someone who swears by nothing more than the first sentence.”
Plus, Two Screenwriters with No Complaints, Worst 007 Gadgets, and Canon Virtual Lens Plant.
