Now, here’s the thing, while filming this documentary Ryan and Steve the producer of the doc, were blown up along with a couple of the special forces soldiers in Afghanistan. He was seriously injured/burned and had to be airlifted to Germany. Filming was cut short by 7 days and the entire documentary changed course. It became a much more personal film and very compelling.

(youtube video)

The video above is of the producer talking about the incident and the impact it had on the film crew. The story is very engaging and powerful. With the director/producer and director of photography both in the hospital, the sound guy picks up a backup camera and records some extra footage. It’s just very moving to me because these guys are there trying to make an honest film about what it’s like to be in a war zone as a green beret and they very nearly die in that effort.

Ryan is just a little older than me and has had a similar life, so it’s hard for me not to put myself in his shoes. In the Q&A he talked in detail about what it was like and what he experienced during and after the filming. It was riveting.

Afterward all I could think about was the idea of sacrifice and what drives certain people to be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for their country. Would I be willing to go shoot a documentary in Afghanistan or Iraq? I think since I am not married I’d be willing to risk my life and use my skills to bring back stories of the conflicts of the war on Islamic Extremists. But If I were married and/or had kids… i don’t know… Maybe I’d be more inclined to do it to try and make the world safer… or maybe I wouldn’t be willing to put myself in harms way and leave the people that depend on me for safety behind and alone. It’s a very tough moral decision and obviously one I don’t look forward to ever having to face.

The film is available on Amazon and also on youtube (divided into 6 parts, click ‘more from saif316′)

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Inside the Green Berets; a viewing with the DP

and I want to see this movie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCDtdhiCm6A

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Sounds like a movie

Good ideas are everywhere
Don’t think just because you have a good idea that you’re going to be able to do it… Leadership is what’s hard to come by. I’m not talking about someone who can organize things, anyone can do that, i’m talking about someone who can sell the movie to people and places, somebody who can create and stir up passion in other people. Otherwise they bail at the first obstacle.

Expect obstacles
If this was easy everyone would do it. If you run into a problem it doesn’t matter what it is, you just gotta work through it. Rewrite the script, cut the scene, re shoot, whatever it takes, just work through the problem.

Pay people
It doesn’t matter how much or in what form you pay them, but they will be loyal for much longer if you pay them. Be organized. If you aren’t people will know it and bail on you. It doesn’t long for people to get annoyed. Have a back up plan on most locations. Try not to have very many locations.

Practice
Practice the shots, practice the script, act it out before you bring in actors, practice using your camera, practice everything so that when the moment happens you don’t screw it up.

Finish something
If you get started on the project and recruit people to help out, give them something even if the project fizzles. which does happen. You don’t want to develop a reputation as somebody big on talk and small on action.

Don’t start with a feature!
start with a short film, maybe 10 mins, so that you can learn the basics. It will save you time and money in the long run to have something under your belt. It will also help with recruiting.

check out {my website} and watch a film called carousel to see a good example of true guerilla short film making. We used my apartment and two actors and I did everything else. It was tough but it was a superb experience. let me know if you have any specific questions. also check out {www.celtx.com} for a free screenwriting/planning and collaboration tool…

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Tips for beginning filmmakers!

I watched {Children of Men} last night without knowing much about it beforehand. I knew it starred Clive Owen and was about a future where humans lost the ability to procreate. That’s all. Boy was I surprised at the radical futuristic view and the authentic feel of the future. It takes place Great Britain in 2027 and evidently the world has fallen apart. immigrants get deported and the cities are filthy, violent, and extremely crowded. It’s a sobering view of the potential future if things were to get really bad. Somehow, one woman becomes pregnant and a group of underground activists try to get her to a secret lab called “The Human Project” where scientists might be able to find out how she got pregnant. Needless to say they encounter difficulties along the way.

While the plot is really intriguing, I was incredibly impressed by the cinematography. It was directed by {Alfonso Cuarón} who seems to favor very long handheld type shots that catch the action in a unique way. Some of the long shots are actually trick editing but that doesn’t bother as long as it looks real. In fact I think one the shots is almost 10 minutes long. It’s really a cool thing to see in a world where the quick edit rules. A few scenes in the film are just AMAZING as one shot scenes.

{Julianne Moore} and {Michael Caine} are both excellent. They have smallish roles but make the most of their screen time.

This film is a great treat for people who like the art of filmmaking and for people who enjoy futuristic thrillers. I definitely think it is worth your time and money to watch it.

{Here is an interview} with the director where he discusses his vision and some problems he faced.

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Review of Children Of Men

Martin Scorsese is a great director. No doubt about that. He crafted The Departed story extremely well and got some superb performances from /Matt Damon\, /Leo\, /Vera Farmiga\, and /Martin Sheen\. The gritty drama is the story of one bad guy playing good guy and one good guy playing bad guy. They are both working for a mob boss who is the epitome of evil and the pretzel like puzzle of who is helping who leads up to a dramatic showdown that leaves everyone covered in blood. It’s rare to find a movie that uses a great story as the foundation and then builds up with great acting and directing without overstylizing and ruining what started off great.

Here is an interesting factoid for you to take home and slip under your pillow. Matt Damon’s character lives in an apartment that has a view of the Boston State House. In real life that used to be Tom Brady’s (quarterback for the New England Patriots) apartment. Tom Brady now dates Brazilian supermodel /Gisele Bündchen\ and guess who her ex-boyfriend is? None other than Leonardo DiCaprio.

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The Departed: Second Best Movie of 2006

|The Weather Man| — I was told this was the funniest movie I will ever see. Not so… I do usually enjoy Nick Cage and he was pretty good in this, but this one wasn’t really hilarious. It was more like a wholesome family oriented light weight comedy with a touch of dark humor. I gave the dvd to my parents to watch because it seems like their type. Overall it was a well executed and enjoyable movie that I would be happy to watch again. One thing that stands out is the location. It takes place in Chicago during the winter and it looks absolutely miserable there.

|Kiss Kiss Bang Bang| — Starring Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer I knew it would be good. It was a clever and very funny buddy film that has a unique style of narration and hits on all cylinders. I laughed out loud throughout and really enjoyed the plot. Not to mention the nakedness of |Michelle Mohaghen|.

|Rocky Balboa| — The Rocky movies are not that great. But it’s hard not to like them. I thought this one took way too long to get to the fight, but conversly I don’t think they spent enough time building up the fight. I know that sounds weird, but the focus was on the wrong plot elements. Too much useless character development and not enough fight buildup drama. The fight was actually not that dramatic and lacked some spark. Above all this is a typical Rocky flick. Nothing more, nothing less.

|Blood Diamond| — This movie was fantastic. Everything about it was excellent. I would say go watch if you can and buy it on DVD when it comes out. |Jennifer Connelly| keeps getting hotter and hotter with every movie.

|Babel| — I actually caught this one while I was in California. It looked awesome from the previews. Kinda like a Traffic or Crash type. And it was sorta like those. But it really didn’t have the same of focus as those two. The various story lines were not very well connected and one in particular was really out there on left field by itself. The movie as a whole was pretty slow and boring and I can’t really suggest watching it if you have other options that could be good. However, it is worth watching and has some educational value.

|Thank you for Smoking| — I love this type of movie. Clever, funny, high brow, sarcastic, and educational. However, I was a little disappointed in this one. I think it had more to do with my expectations than the quality of the movie. It is pretty good. But I just thought it could have been a little better. Definitely worth watching though.

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quick thoughts on recent movie watching

So, “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” will be a new show on NBC about producing a fictional show on NBS named “Studio 60? and in that fictional show will be skits made up to entertain the fictional audience and us – probably sometimes on different levels. (source)

The pilot episode comes on tomorrow night and you can bet I will DVR it and watch it after Monday Night Football. Well, it’s possible I will click over to it if the football game starts to suck. In either case, I’m sure the show will be a huge hit and will go on to cement Aaron Sorkin’s name in the genius books.

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My new favorite show- Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

On the note of film style and such, I found it so compelling I wasn’t really paying attention to the art side of it. I need another viewing to analyze Stone’s handiwork. I will refrain from making suggestions to watch the film or not, because it really is a personal decision to decide if you want to stir those powerful emotions that Sept. 11th brought with it. I will just say that after one viewing I liked it and plan to watch it again sometime in the future.

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World Trade Center Review

Of course the opposite of that can happen too, sometimes they reveal too much about the movie. It should be just enough to get you interested in the movie but still have plenty of good stuff leftover.

You probably didn’t know that most of the previews are not made by the director and editor who worked on the film, but instead by the company distributing the movie. They bring in another writer and editor to make a preview that will sell tickets.

As a video editor, I know how powerful the art of editing can be. Editing can make or break a movie as well as totally change the outcome. For example, here are some links to some movie previews for The Shining, The Fast and the Furious, Blue Velvet, and Titanic that have been reedited to promote very different movies.

I’ve always wanted to try doing this to a movie, but never got around to it… maybe someday!

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Movie Previews

Here’s the plot outline from IMDB.com.
“Strange events are occurring in New York City, and the Turtles are needed more than ever, but Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo have become lost and directionless. With the city at stake, it’s up to Leonardo and Zen Master Splinter to restore unity and ninja discipline to the Turtles.”

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OMFG! TMNT!

My favorite line in the movie is actually too perverse for me to put in this review because I know my mother will probably read this. Let me just say it has to do with one character describing his poses for Playgirl magazine. I was cracking up the whole time, but honestly, not everyone seems to get a kick out of it. I was sitting in a packed theater so I was right next to a super super hot girl and I kept looking over to see if she was laughing but she seemed to be there only as an accessory for her boyfriend. I thought she might be asleep. Anyway, the movie is formulaic and predictable and actually kind of gets a little slow in a few spots, but so does the “The 40 year old Virgin“, which is the funniest movie I’ve seen in the last few years. One amazing aspect of this movies was how awesome the races looked. They did a fantastic job in capturing the speed and excitement of a race including the crashes. There were a few shots that wowed me and I’m not easily wowed. (click here for a little more info about shooting the stunts and to watch a few video clips of the actual crashes)

I really don’t have any problems telling you to go see this movie if you like this sort of comedy. It’s not for everyone, but the poking fun at Nascar culture was great and it had me slapping my knee throughout.

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Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby Review

Based on the book by Philip K. Dick A Scanner Darkly stars Keanu Reeves as “fred” an undercover agent addicted to the drug “Substance D”. The drug messes you up bad enough that you start developing split personalities and incredible confusion. This is possible because the cops wear “scramble suits” that hide their identity. Turns out one of the roommates is a snitch and reports his friend “Bob” is a bigtime dealer. So, Fred/Bob is investigating his roommates and himself without quite realizing it. This intriguing plot is the reason I wanted to watch this film. Sadly this isn’t really the movie it could have been… instead it is something else.

One of the more notable and interesting aspects of this movie is the use of the rotoscoping technique. This technique is where the film is shot regularly then they animate the frames as in the example below… Basically it looks kinda like a cartoon.

I’m not sure why Richard Lanklater decided to do this, except maybe to get the audience in on the surealism of the drug induced state. But that is right where the movie starts to suck. It rambles in the drug induced dialogue and the paranoia of the characters so much that it feels like i’m on drugs and nothing makes sense. Sitting around watching people that are high on drugs have schizophrenic conversations with each other doesn’t make that great of entertainment.

But the slowness and dullness of the plot and the annoying character portrayals were not the worst things about the movie. The worst thing is the fact that most of the characters we meet get forgotten about two thirds of the way through the movie. They just disappear never to be heard from again and it is then we realize the movie is not a epic tale of drug addiction, but more of a convaluted, meandering, mashup of characters that do drugs.

I suggest watching the movie on dvd someday for the novelty of the rotoscoping technique, but you’re not missing out if you skip it.

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A Scanner Darkly Review

Now onto my review of the movie itself. I don’t think it did a very good job of weaving all the elements together. It jumped around all the time and showed video clips seemingly at random. You could argue that the director did that to break up the monotony of Gore’s presentation, but I would argue that Gore’s presentation was the most powerful part of it and breaking it up into pieces like that destroyed some of the continuity that Gore built into his presentation. Sometimes the images were not on screen long enough for me to get a good look at them. Now I just really want to see the presentation from start to finish.

They seemed to have used every imaginable format known to man to shoot this thing on. Here’s an article discussing the various formats and problems with editing all those formats.

My opinion is that this isn’t a superbly done documentary. Gore’s presentation is fantastic and the crew did a pretty good job of covering it, but the rest of the documentary isn’t really done all that well. I’m not really offering much in alternative ideas, but it could have been better.

At one point Al Gore is saying that he spends the most time trying to remove the obstacles that prevent people from taking action and that really showed through on the film. The points he brings up demonstrate that without a doubt global warming is happening and bad things will happen if we don’t do something about it. I think the movie was successful in that regard and also in getting the word out to the masses. I wouldn’t mind watching the film again, but I would rather just watch Al Gore giving his presentation. Overall, it is a fantastic piece of work but I let Al Gore take the credit and not the director, Davis Guggenheim.

At the end, they show a web address for you to visit to get ideas on what you can do. Climatecrisis.net.

The question on the tip of everyone’s tongue is will Al Gore run for president in 2008? My answer is OF COURSE he will.

“He knows that his party, and more importantly, his country, need him. He will answer the call to serve, as he always has.” –Dylan Malone of AlGore.org.

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An Inconvenient Truth Review