A Young Genius Colin Levy gaga

Colin Levy is a talented young guy. If you see his site you will agree with me. You find here some photos, films, animations, tutorials and visual effects.

Look at this foretaste from Colin works.

„Did you know?” is a good compilation and it runs many important problems about our human world.


„In a way, this one film says more than any of my other movies, ever” - writes Colin. It’s true, but there are also good films of him.

The cloning is very popular subject. Colin has made his own version.
CLONING: Direct interaction


But how can you make it? Look our howto movie, it will help you.
Let’s see another interesting trick. How do we fire our finger without pain? Choose the „Magic Trick” video.



Of course a genius can fault sometimes. I don’t understand why is this film here.



The jokes aren’t funny. It is very calculable. „This movie is my longest short film” - writes Colin. Maybe it’s the problem.

And now one more extra. It is a fly trip in the garden with a spaceship.
Choose „Spaceship in Suburbia”.



What do you think? He is a skillful guy, isn’t he?

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Making storyboard by photos

Next time when I want to shoot a film I will make a storyboard with my own photos. I’ve never made this before. Well, what I’ve done so far is to try to draw it but since I can’t draw there’ve been many funny pictures in it.
There is a website where you can create your own photostrip and share it with your friends. It is called Comeeko. It is a good place where you can create storyboard by the help of your pictures. I’ve made a quick one. It was only a kind of experiment. Here it is:


I think looking for the right locations for your film is one of the most important things in filmmaking. Béla Tarr filmmaker said he must find the location first. Accordingly locations play a significant role in his films.
Here is a sequence from „Damnation”:


Look at Movie Locations Guide site if you are interested in which locations are in some well-known films.

Or here is the Filming Locations Browser on IMDB where you can browse by film titles or cities and countries.

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Let’s Destroy the Hollywood’s Family Image

If you are a great pioneer director and usually work with your own visions only why would you like to do a remake from one of your films? Could it be an inspiration thing or is it just the effect of the movie industry?
Would this remake have a new message at all?

Haneke remade his film Funny Games in America with Naomi Watts, Tim Roth and Michael Pitt.



The fans of Haneke ask: ‘What is the point in a shot for shooting remake?’
Some of them just cannot understand it and isn’t keen on these remakes. But some says: ‘If it is going to be a great success why not? At least he can do another version with a new script for the audiences in the US.’

But are these opinions the only ‘explanations’ of doing remakes? I don’t think so. The Funny Games’ story is so strong that we can consider it as a brand new film. It can be an interesting experiment to bring this unsettling family drama into the Hollywood scene where the family image is still essential. (Központi téma? Ezt nem értem.)

I’m very exciting in how it will work in the States. In fact this is a really funny game could only do a great director such as Michael Haneke.

I hope we will have fun.

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An Early Ultra-Low Budget Film by Rodriguez

I’m always interested in what kinds of films were made by famous directors when they were young. Bedhead by Robert Rodriguez is a very energetic and inventive 16 mm short film. It was made when he was 22. The crew was his large family.
You can watch his trademark style in this film: quick cuts, intense zooms, fast camera movements. And of course it’s very funny.



After this film he shot the first feature, El Mariachi in Spain for around $7000. It won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival in 1992. Check out its trailer:



Rodriguez had his diary of making and selling El Mariachi published as a book in 1995.
Titled: Rebel Without a Crew: or How a 23 year old filmmaker with $7,000 became a Hollywood player.
Rodriguez’s piece of advice is this: ‘spend money on making a film, not learning how to make a film. Do everything yourself, and get everyone to work for free.’

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Is Trier a Painter or an Ascetic?

The first film I’ve seen by Trier was Breaking the Waves (1996). I think this was the really first Dogme film disregarding the scenes which separate the story and the last scene of the film where the divine bells ring out. These parts of the scenes are very colourful and imaginative, but they are not long.
The same picturesque world can be found in a few of his earlier films like The Element of Crime (1984), Medea (1988), Europa (1991). Here is the Europa trailer:

His first official and only Dogme film was Idioterne (1998). We’ve tried to find
the same old picturesque world in the rest of his films in vain since then. Trier is like an ascetic who consciously gives up colourful things in life. The Five Obstructions (2003) is the most personal movie about the difficulties of his initial period as an artist. He tells in this film how hard it is to work with such demanding rules. This film was inspired by Jørgen Leth’s The Perfect Human (1967).
After that Dogville’s (2003) and Manderlay’s (2005) atmosphere is truly like Kaffka’s world. (Otherwise the title of Europa came from Kaffka’s novel, Amerika). Everything is isolated and bleak.
Here is the Manderlay trailer:


Trier said in signandsight.com: (17/11/2005)
„I look for boundaries which restrict my range of activity and aesthetic freedom. Then I can concentrate all my energy in this small space. It's very simple: when you're in a prison, you're in a better position to think about freedom.”

It's true but sometimes he suffers from depression. „Lars von Trier's depression could finish his filmmaking„ (CBC Arts Online)

But I'm waiting for the good old picturesque world...

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Type, Typo, Film

Here you can find some animated letters from different creators. Each are good example, what can you do with fonts, typography and/or Adobe After Effects.
Pulp Fiction in Motion Graphics By Jarratt Moody.
“The basic idea of the project is to take a piece of audio from wherever (movie, song, poetry reading, answering machine) and then represent that audio on screen using only typography.”


Same technique form Ocean’s Eleven. By:callme4b
callme4b the creator says: “My first attempt at animation, and After Effects. Project Description: Take 45 seconds of audio from anywhere and animate typography to it to show intonation.”


Pulp Fiction, other version, with After Effects

If you want to see another example, I suggest you the following piece it has the same technique but this time the text is not from a movie.
Brazil

If you are interested in other typography stuff, visit this blog:Type for you

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A norwegian guy’s shadow

I presume you know Lasse Gjertsen from Youtube. He is a very inventive filmmaker. His film entitled "Hyperactive" has great success.


The "US" is also a really charming film.

Every time I see Lasses’ films it occurs to me: If you want to make a movie, don’t forget the experimentation is much crucial in filmmaking. You have to release your playful expermenting self to create a really lively film.
Lasse speaks about how did he make his movie (the quotes from Youtube):

„Well, this was kind of an experiment. I wanted to see how it would look if my shadow ran away. I cut myself away from the scene so that only the shadow would remain. The result ist 100% but I think it's a cute little film.. (How it's made: Filmed 3 different things in each scene (the up the street scene in this example); the location (the street), me running (as me), and me running as the shadow. The sequences were exported from Premiere to seperate image files. In each image, or frame, I had to delete the surroundings so that only me (or only my shadow on that sequence) was visible. I then put the two sequences on top of the location sequence. Voila! I also did some simple photoshopping on some scenes, like when the shadow is dead on the ground. The smoke in the film is artificial. I filmed myself having a sigarette behind a black cloth, so that the smoke went through (filmed in front of the cloth of course). I could then put it in the film as gunsmoke and breathing, using luma key. Oh, the car isn't really there either. It was cut in from another clip. The blood is blackcurrant juice.”

The "Machine Man" is also made by stop-motion technique.


Lasse says:

„Well, this isn't a very funny movie, more experimental, artistic and, eerm well.. lame..?
Anyhooo, I think the way the guy's walking cycle is continuous while the background is changed out every frame looks cool. It took a while to edit it all together, and I think it's a nice little thingie.. (How it's made: Gaah, do I really have to explain? Ok. Filmed my friend Bo Fan at over 70 locations, (used Premiere to) cut it into different video files, figured out how many frames his walking cycle was and just started cutting together, frame by frame. Wee.. Another problem I encountered was that his body was in different places and sizes on the screen in each clip! So I put two pieces of blutac on the PC-screen, one for his head, and one for the bottom of his feet. Then I "just" had to move his body into the right position and size according to the blutac. The sounds are the real sounds from the different clips, and in addition to that I put on an in-fading "jet engine" kind of sound to make it more stressing. The music is made in FL Studio.”

Lasse’s work is a possible exemplary: if you want to make a movie, you can use quiet simple tools too and of course the most important to use your imagination.

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Day of the Shot

I’ve already shot some amateur films with my friends, so I know the feeling when stress grips the stomach the morning before the shooting. I thought about this kind of pressure when I saw „Day of the fight” (on Google Video) by Stanley Kubrick.
As I was watching his early film I imagined the fighter as an independent filmmaker.


Both in professional and independent filmmaking, you have to fight for success and win. The boundaries of professional and independent filmmaking disappeared a long time ago.
38 years passed since this interview with Kubrick. He said:

„The best education in film is to make one. I would advise any neophyte director to try to make a film by himself. A three-minute short will teach him a lot. I know that all the things I did at the beginning were, in microcosm, the things I'm doing now as a director and producer. There are a lot of noncreative aspects to filmmaking which have to be overcome, and you will experience them all when you make even the simplest film: business, organization, taxes, etc., etc. It is rare to be able to have an uncluttered, artistic environment when you make a film, and being able to accept this is essential.

The point to stress is that anyone seriously interested in making a film should find as much money as he can as quickly as he can and go out and do it. And this is no longer as difficult as it once was. When I began making movies as an independent in the early 1950s I received a fair amount of publicity because I was something of a freak in an industry dominated by a handful of huge studios. Everyone was amazed that it could be done at all. But anyone can make a movie who has a little knowledge of cameras and tape recorders, a lot of ambition and -- hopefully -- talent. It's gotten down to the pencil and paper level. We're really on the threshold of a revolutionary new era in film.”("The Film Director as Superstar" Doubleday and Company: Garden City, New York)

It is very interesting that we also can say: „We're really on the threshold of a revolutionary new era in film”, because anyone can make a movie even easier than before.

But what is truly revolutionary? When the day of the shooting comes.

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