The Actor - …AND SCENE!
December 31, 2008
I must apologize for being missing in action for the past couple weeks, but family, friends, and the holidays played a bigger role than usual and left me waiting in the wings and out of sight, so to speak, on the blog front.
In addition, I was in the studio recording voiceovers for the children’s design show “Clean Your Room!” which we filmed in Tarzana, CA earlier this year in preparation for some upcoming network meetings. I quite enjoy being in a studio and recording a number of lines repeatedly while sitting behind a microphone in a comfy chair. However, it is hearing my voice on the playback that is always a bit odd, but it is said that we hear ourselves differently from the way others do.
As the year comes to a close, the acting front is once again on uncertain ground with a possible SAG (Screen Actors Guild) strike around the corner, a mere year after the WGA (Writers Guild of America) strike. The notion to strike or not is in the hands of its union members and will be decided by our voting for or against it on January 23rd.
It is said that the poor economy might have some impact on the result, as will the number of working and non-working actors. Only 10% of actors in the union rely on TV and Film work as their primary source of income and make a successful living acting. The other 90% of us earn less than $28,000 a year from acting jobs and, therefore, have less to lose if we were to strike. We might have less to lose as far as money from acting jobs goes, but we would lose the opportunities to gain work doing what we love and to become a part of the 10% of actors in the union constantly working.
So, today, being the last day of 2008, I am setting the stage for a new year and the possibility of a new role outside of acting. 2009 holds a set change for me on the stage of my life as I enter a new decade in age and my desire to work with children, especially those with disabilities, grows stronger.
We are all uncertain of what the future holds, but that of an actor is almost consistently unstable. I have always wanted to make a positive difference in peoples’ lives, and I strongly believe in the importance of patience, genuine kindness, truly listening to people, and believing in others, young or old, something I try to practice in my life on a daily basis. It is when we are children that we are affected the greatest, in a beneficial or detrimental way, and is a time when we start discovering our true potential.
I was fortunate to have loving parents who always were, and still are, encouraging in all aspects of my life. Unfortunately, many people are not given the time or attention they deserve, be it at home or in school. So, it would be a true reward for me to be able to be a positive influence in the lives of others, especially those who do not have it in other areas of their lives or who need a little more than others due to special needs.
I will still pursue acting, but want to explore doing something to sincerely help others, something that I have always found to be fulfilling. Regardless of where my life’s path takes me or what adventures await, I hope you have all had a Happy Holiday and that you have a very Happy New Year! Be sure to have a fun and fabulous time, and I will see you next year…and scene!
“Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.” - Hal Borland
Tags: Movie, Film Industry, Filmmaker, Hollywood, Television
The Storyboard Artist - THE LAST STORYBOARD POST OF THE YEAR
December 31, 2008
This year is over. Get use to it. Actually, don’t. As you read this, there will be one more day to kick 2008 around, and then that will be that. As it stands right now, you have one more day to whine about this year or scream about how great it was.
To me, it ended well because my wife, son and family are well. Most of my friends are alright, too.
I did a lot of feature work in the first half of the year and then virtually none in the second half. That’s how the industry went. It blew.
I got a lot of writing done. One script is going “out” do to a manager digging it. I am up for some features as a storyboard artist and I will have to compete with my equally out of work friends and colleagues.
Hopefully, January will be huge, there will be no SAG strike, and most of us (it’s never ALL of us) will be working.
I would like to give a special shout out to my friend Lili Bernard. She does not to boards. She is a wife, mother of six and a fantastic painter. Artists MAKE time to do art, you see… I think you should all check out her site http://www.lilibernard.com and see something removed from the film world that will just make you think and go …”wow”.
Check out her site. As I say “Happy New Year” feel free to look at my own site (under the picture, y’all).
I’ll really be able to brag about my wife, Betty in 2009! Things are cookin’.
Until we weep again… Smile, will you?!!
Tags: Oscars, Movie Theatre, Movie, Director, Film Blog
The Standby Painter - Landscape in Film:
December 29, 2008
The Long, Strange Road to Working with a Bunch of Vampires on the Set of Twilight
Evergreen Twilight: Landscape in Film: We Can’t Paint the Forest for the Trees
Part1 of 2: Story in Place and Living in La La Land
Why two parts? Because discussing landscape in film covers a lot of …
Tags: Oscars, Film Blog, Filmmaker, Filmmaking, Movie Bloggers
The Editor - Editing and SOUND Editing
December 26, 2008
One of the things that I haven’t gotten into at all in my posts is just how much what we do, as editors, goes beyond what many think film editors do. A cab driver once told me that “You guys cut out the dirty parts” which seems wrong to me, somehow. But the perception certainly is that what we do is manipulate pieces of picture somehow. I could go on forever about the difference between what we do and what our audiences think we do.
But I won’t. Instead, I’d like to talk about the differences between what we do and what we think we do. And I want to start out by talking about sound.
Lawrence Jordan, the original founder of the 2-pop website for digital filmmakers, has started up a site, called HDFIlmtools.com, that keeps getting better and better. Among the coolest things he does is to conduct interviews with filmmakers and suppliers. In October he did an interview with Matt Wood, who is a supervising sound editor up at Skywalker Sound — George Lucas’ primo sound creation and mixing studio in Northern California. The first two parts of the interview are now online and you can get to the first one by going to the HDFilmTools website right here.
During the interview Wood talks about how and Ben Burtt were able to shape the voices in WALL•E, the fantastic Pixar movie from thispast summer and he mentions that his job starts “really early” for animation films in order to give the world a life that it oculd never have, since there is no “production sound.”
But the reality is that it is of great benefit to bring the sound editor/designer in as early as possible on ALL OF YOUR PROJECTS. At the very least, you should be considering sound as you edit anyway. I like to cut temp sound effects into my tracks in much the same way as I cut temp music tracks in — to help tell the story and with great care. Any editor will tell you about the phenomenon of “temp love” where you fall in love with temporary music that you can’t possibly use in your final film. No matter what your composer does, you will always compare it to that fantastic temp piece, and the comparison really is unfair. It is also true that music tends to disguise editorial problems — since it is probably the most powerful way to shape an audience reaction (for more details on this, you should all go out and buy a copy of my new book THE LEAN FORWARD MOMENT, and turn to chapter nine where I talk about the use of music).
As a result, I continually am turning off the audio tracks where I’ve put music (typically on tracks 7 and 8 — in stereo) in order to view the edit cleanly.
But music and sound are such crucial parts of telling the story that it seems silly to me to not use them in your initial edit. Why have a character say a line (”I’m scared.”) if you can get that feeling across with a proper sound effect? How do I know how to pace an edit properly if there is a possibility that I’ll need an additional twelve frames for a gust of wind?
So, to repeat, I’ll add to my cut any music or sound that I need in order to tell the story to my audience. I know that it will all be smoothed out later, by a real sound editor (because they do what I could never do — specialize in crafting sound so it works with our minds), but I think that it’s important that everyone get a chance to see the film with something approximately a sound design during our working-it-out-in-the-editing-room time.
And that is way more interesting and better done, when it is the actual Sound Designer/Supervisor who is doing the work. It helps them to get to know the director, the editor, the producer and the film much better.
So, to twist the title of this post on its head — the best way to do sound (as in “sensible”) picture editing is to start thinking of its sound editing (as in… well… “sound editing”) early.
In the meantime, go read HDFilmtools.com. You’ll be tested next week.
MACWORLD NEWS
I will be speaking at the upcoming Macworld Conference in San Francisco on January 9th at 12 noon. I’ll be at the Peachpit Press booth, immediately following Mark Christiansen’s informative talk on After Effects, and will be talking about how you could use visual effects to shape the storytelling of a scene. Please let me know if you’ll be there — I’d love to meet up with you. I’ll be available to sign copies of my book there as well.
You might also be interested in dropping by the evening before at the LAFCPUG Supermeet, the annual funfest put on by the Los Angeles Final Cut Pro User Group. There will be vendors like JVC and Apple doing announcements and the ever-informative Bruce Nazarian will do a presentation on Blu-Ray on the cheap and you’ll get to meet filmmaker M Dot Strange.
For complete details on the SuperMeet including driving and transit directions and instructions, a current list of raffle prizes and a link to where to buy tickets, visit the Los Angeles Final Cut Pro (lafcpug) web site.
Tags: , Movie, Film Blog, Movie, Film
The Indie Film Producer - GLOBAL EDITION - TOP 10 FILMS of 2008 and more
December 26, 2008
Happy Holidays, ya’ll! Click on headlines for full articles…
WORLDWIDE VERY BEST OF 2008
Joseph Fahim:
Without a doubt, 2008 has been the year of American films. The new wave of neo-westerns, allegorical epics and corporate thrillers that have miraculously arrived to our shores after taking the US by storm at …
Tags: Director, Film Industry, Film, Filmmaking, Hollywood
The Cinema Studies Major - Operation: Valkyrie—Should’ve Aborted
December 25, 2008
Valkyrie (2008) – dir. Bryan Singer; starring Tom Cruise, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Kenneth Branagh
I caught an advanced screening in Philadelphia of this movie, which gets a wide release on Christmas Day. I think I was one of the only people who hadn’t yet been exhausted by the …
Tags: Film Blog, Movie Bloggers, Film, Television, Oscars
The Storyboard Artist - YULETIDE STORYBOARD THOUGHTS
December 23, 2008
Here we are at perhaps my last blog of the year. Not with a bang or with a whimper. To some it up, the year was financially disappointing as the feature market dropped out, but it was still personally fulfilling I got a number of screenplays written or improved upon, and one of them is being sent out next month by a literary manager.
In the feature world of storyboards, there was very little work to be found by the summer. The A TEAM film I was working on with John Singleton went the way of the dinosaur (scientists have proven the T-Rex and the like were killed in “Development Hell”) and I really had to scramble.
I was shown that unlike politicians and characters on Melrose Place, storyboard artists look out for each other. Dave Lowery, Darrin Denlinger, Darryl Henley, Josh Sheppard and Jim Magdaleno all gave me leads for work. Some panned out, some didn’t and some will be revealed once the Holidays are over, but at least these people tried to help. Union 790(Illustrators) “merged” into the Union 800 (Art Directors) and we’ll see how that goes. Was not a “easy” transition to be sure.
Commercials ended up saving me. Old friends/ director clients like Maurice Marable, Malcolm Lee, Bennett Miller, John Singleton, Erik White and Hank Perlman, all gave me multiple gigs which really came in handy.
I started learning the STORYBOARD PRO software and it is quite good, it’s just taken me a while to learn and to have time to practice, as I write so often in my “spare time”. I did not want to “learn” while doing a gotta-have-it-now job.
I got into the connection sites LINKEDIN (great for business contacts) through my pal Lawrence “The Dark Knight” Christmas, and FACE BOOK….well because I kept getting invited to Facebook. I have been able to connect with old friends I haven’t seen for years like Mark A. Davis, whom I worked with at Bloomingdales 15 years ago, and who was a talented young artist. I’ll find out how his art is going soon. I also hooked back up with my old pal Darryl Barnes (Hip Hop’s “Smooth B” of the duo “Nice & Smooth”) who is just as cool and down to earth as he was when we last saw each other in NYC in the late 90’s.
My wife Betty K. Bynum’s singing, acting and writing talent stretched into designing handbags, and she made her first sale TODAY!!
Our son Joshua turned 13, and is my pride and joy. Good kid, good looking like his mother, and he’s getting better at studying his schoolwork.
Mom turned 85 and what can I say after that?
My wife and I will both sell screenplays next year, God willing, and then we will start taking names.
Bless you all for now.
Tags: Movie Blog, Filmmaking, Movie, Film Blog, Filmmaker
The Business Affairs Assistant - A new blogger for 2009!
December 23, 2008
As an assistant in the business affairs department of a studio, our top secret blogger is immersed in answering phones, redlining contracts, and filing. She was previously an executive assistant to a producer and worked at a major talent agency which also involved answering phones and filing. Her weekly blogs will be starting very soon.
Tags: Actor, Filmmaking, Film, Movie Blog, Movie Bloggers
The Independent Filmmaker - A Prediction
December 22, 2008
The Screen Actors Guild commercial contract is up for negotiation in March. I predict it will be a smack down drag out fight. Here’s why…
On the actors side, they are bruised and sore from the messy losing battle they waged with the studios on the theatrical contract. I know it’s technically not over and they still may strike, but it’s fairly clear who won this round and they’re going to want to take it out on someone. And, commercials are very rarely art so from the actor’s point of view this is where they should be making their money. The stakes will be very high for actors who make majority of their living off of commercials.
On the producers side, they resentfully feel that they prop up an entire union and due to lower ad spend and runaway production - something frequently blamed on expensive talent contracts in the US - their budgets have been steadily shrinking since the 90’s. On top of that if you talk to producers you’ll find there’s still lingering bitterness from the strike in 2000 so they’re not afraid of a fight this time around.
The only thing I’m not sure of is where the public’s sympathy will fall - with the actors who they mistakenly see as vastly better off than the general population. Or with the crews - who have helplessly watched their jobs go to Canada, Argentina and Eastern Europe.
But I feel fairly certain of this, if you make any of your living in the world of commercial production I hope you’re saving your money now because we’re all going to need a big cushion come March.
Brace yourselves. And hope I’m wrong.
Tags: Hollywood, Movie Theatre, Film Industry, Television, Movie Blog
The Standby Painter - Part V: Special Effects at Twilight
December 21, 2008
The Long, Strange Road to Working with a Bunch of Vampires on the Set of Twilight
Part V: The Shade of Fear, Jewelry for the Aged, and the Blue Man sans Group: Special Effects at Twilight
Once upon a time I was working on a show where the owner of the brand …
Tags: Movie, Television, Filmmaker, Film, Actor
