The Colbert Report is having their second Green Screen Challenge, where they provide images to be composited. This time, the assignment was the make John McCain interesting. My original concept was to have the Movie Monkey interview McCain, thinking he was at a press junket for a little indie movie called “The Straight Talk Express.” The problem is that it wasn’t very funny; McCain’s available dialog online doesn’t lend itself to morning DJ hijinks. In fact, if you watch, you’ll agree that it is very boring. Apparently he can only be funny on SNL.This second concept came together in one day in a crazy rush of compositing and editing. It basically puts McCain in the ultimate pre-9/11 action movie. The music is by Jonathon Vandergriff, a local KC composer who does awesome work.
When I’m working on a computer program, I generally will mull a problem over for a long time, sometimes days, before a single line of code is written. This of course appears to the untrained eye that I am “juggling in my office” or “reading The Onion“, but I want to have a full understanding of the problem and understand all the implications before I begin. When I actually actually sit down at the keyboard, the initial coding often comes out in three to four hours of bezerk code rage, followed by two to three days of debugging.
In some ways the same applies to my writing. When I write stories, I generally have a fuzzy idea of what where I am going to go before one word gets written. I generally have an idea of who the people are and signposts the have to hit by the act breaks. The difference is that during the writing process I have a lot more points where I have to take a break and make a decision that affects everything going forward.
A good example is picking a name for the a character. The character’s name should be just a token that identifies them in the fantasy universe, but actually is much more. Once they have a name they have heritage, background, a family history, something kids made fun of growing up, and so much more. Making that one decision can give your character so much life they may no longer want to be bound to the fate you have planned for them.
In my case, I wanted my main character to name his dog “McGuffin”, which is something of a writers joke. I thought that I could make it work if he named it after a relative, and this introduced a Gaelic heritage to the character. Given he lives in the Old West it applies new rules to him that weren’t there before. It gives whole new areas to explore in the piece that I hadn’t planned on.
I think I will keep hacking away at my first draft, but I’ll need to go to the library as well to do some research. Three pages into the first draft and I’m actually starting to feel like a writer.
For the past two years I’ve been doing animation projects on the side and posting them online. My eventual goal was to be able to turn an animation out at a respectable rate, like one or two a week, by developing my skill and using my own tools. Granted, I haven’t done much work lately as I’ve been busy with trips to foreign lands and website updates, but I think if I wanted to I could actually make some pretty good stuff once a week; I’d just have to give up my day job.
To most filmmakers this would be a no brainer: “Leave my dead end job to make internet short films? Sign me up!” The first problem for me though is that I like my day job. It pays me money for things I like doing. The second problem – which is a big one – is that nobody really watches my films. They’re cute and I love making them, but my most popular short has one one-hundredth of the views on youtube than a cat that boxes; though to be fair that cat is precious. One could argue that if I put out videos more consistently I could develop an audience on my own, and I would agree, but I’m not sure I want to be that guy.
I think it may be time for a change in direction, and I think I have the answer. I’ve been afraid to do a longer form project ever since The Emperor’s New Clothes wrapped years ago because of the sheer amount of effort that went into what ended up being a somewhat mediocre result, but doing the Movie Monkey shorts has taught me a lot about what makes interesting viewing and I think I’m ready to try again. It will take a long time – possibly years – and I may exhaust every resource and friend I have in the process. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?
While I’m working on it I will try to blog about the progress I’m making, if only to give myself something to look back on. I can’t say what the end result will be, but life isn’t a hero’s journey; that’s what makes it interesting.
I’ve been working on some updates to the site for a while, and I’m just starting to test some of the new features:
A new photo album. I’ve been meaning to find a good place to keep my photos for a while, and decided to merge it in with the site. It will mostly be vacation photos and other nonsense, but I’ll try to make it interesting.
I’m moving nicreations off YouTube. This is a big step forward for the site but a good one in the end. I will still post some videos on YouTube, but for the most part all new videos will be hosted on nicreations.com
iTunes and iPhone support. Nicreations is now iPod and iPhone compatible! Even better, most of the videos are available as a iTunes podcast! To subscribe, open iTunes and select Advanced | Subscribe to Podcast…, and paste in the following URL http://nicreations.net/movies/player/itunes/itunes.xml
The videos should be iPod compatible. Changing my rendering setup to support these new formats was very complicated, and it will take some time to work out all the kinks.
Try out these features by clicking the links above. If you have any problems, leave a comment on this post and I’ll look into it (yes, this is a desperate plea for posts. For once I’d like to moderate something besides viagra spam).
After Harrison Ford fights Russians and survives an Atomic bomb blast (no, really) he joins Shea LeBeouf on a trek to South America to rescue archaeologist John Hurt that rejoins him with Karen Allen, reprising her role of Marion from Raiders of the Lost Arc. For all the worry about his age, Ford still feels right as Indy. The best parts of the movie are Allen and Ford’s interplay, and I wish there had been more of it. The film is constructed just like the others, where scene of exposition leads to a thrilling set piece up to the conclusion. Nobody makes exposition seem interesting like Harrison Ford, and nobody does set pieces like Steven Spielberg.
There was always more to Indiana Jones though. From the rolling boulder to Indy shooting the swordsmen to “No Ticket“, the Indiana Jones movies are full of iconic images. Just like how Spielberg and George Lucas were a first generation of filmmakers who grew up watching films, today’s filmmakers grew up watching Spielbeg and Lucas. Unfortunately watching “Crystal Skull”, you can’t help thinking that you’ve seen this done better in The X-Files movie, Stargate, or even cheap clones of the Indiana Jones series like Laura Croft: Tomb Raider. Even if it isn’t a bad movie, it isn’t a good Indiana Jones movie.
There’s also the issue of bringing Indiana Jones into the atomic age, both in front of and behind the camera. The opening has Ford fighting Russians in Area 51, only to escape on a prototype rocket. It is a fun sequence, but it somehow feels wrong to have Indy in more modern surroundings. This hampers the film too, which uses the latest computer graphics to deliver some really fake South American jungles. It makes you want to see the opening of Raiders of the Lost Arc again.
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is not a bad movie, but it won’t remind you of why you loved Indiana Jones twenty years ago. For all of its craft, it never justifies its own existence.
Most people think I’m just a hack filmmaker, but this isn’t true – I’m actually a hack filmmaker with a film degree. Having a bachelors of film mostly qualifies me to be annoying at parties and insist that you really should check out “The Triplets of Belleville” because it’s one of the most original animated films ever made.
Last Sunday I went to a student film screening at my old stomping grounds. Now the concept of a student film screening seems very romantic with the watching creations of up and coming artists just brimming with fresh ideas. In reality, you end up watching movies about monkeys with mystical powers that represent addiction. Or animated remakes of fairy tales. To make things worse, you usually have to watch with the filmmakers (and crew) present, so even if the end result is total crap, the whole room will burst into applause. I sit through these because I’m addicted to the thrill of when somebody does surprise me – when I see something that actually is original and different like Jesse Schmal‘s “SUB!” I think it’s all worthwhile. But there is a lot of rough between the diamonds.
While student filmmakers are generally encouraged to work collaboratively, they are also generally told to write/direct/edit/produce their own original work. Think about that: music performance majors aren’t asked to compose their own work. Theater directing majors aren’t asked to direct their own plays. Why? Because writing is hard. There was even a strike about it. Encouraging film students to write their own original pieces both takes their focus away from polishing their technical skills and at the same lowers the quality of the final result. This probably sound like I want structured creativity or to be the headmaster who opposes carpe diem, but what I really want is to have film production students to focus on film production instead of exploring their underdeveloped storytelling skills.
I’ll end this rant with a plea: film students, please think of your audience. Think of the film festival judges who have to watch hundreds of terribly lit, badly acted student films in a row. Think of the audience member who ran out of patience at minute 5 of your 45 minute film. Think of people besides those who helped you make the movie. If you are putting all this time and effort into something that only you care about, isn’t it just a waste of time?
I’ve been working on some nicreations.com updates, but unfortunately one of the side effects is that I broke my RSS feed, and quite honestly I’m too lazy to fix it I’m not sure how to fix it. I’m not really sure how many people have subscribed, but since I think it’s less than 10 I’m just going to wait for them to complain.
One of the stranger episodes of Movie Monkey that I’ve made had to be “My Filmography”, where the Movie Monkey has a surreal conversation with his maker.
I’ll admit it was pretty out there, though to be fair “out there” is pretty parforcourse for a Movie Monkey episode. But maybe a little explanation might help. In 2005 the Kansas Film Commission was having a summit at the Lawrence Arts Center, which is around the block from my house. At this time I was just getting started working on the Movie Monkey and I thought it would be a good way to network with other filmmakers.
One reason I never made it as a filmmaker, besides the fact that I’m not an asshole, is my cynical nature. To make it through finding money, production, post production, and distribution, you have to believe that your film will change the world. I, on the other hand, said “wow, nothing I make will ever make a difference” and got a job instead.
So this summit was something of a culture clash. I would be talking to people between sessions, and the conversations would usually go something like this
“So what are you working on?”
“Well, I have a job.”
“On a Movie?”
“No, just the regular type”.
At this point I would notice their eyes move past me, as if to say this guy can do nothing for me. I must find someone important. After a while, I started to realize these people think the most important thing in life is making movies – above religion, above politics, above family. Is your worth as a person really defined by your filmography? The more I thought about it, the more I could see where it comes from. If you read trademagazines you get drilled into your head that “you are only as good as your last picture.” Combine this with the dream and passions of an independent filmmaker, and you have a weird new religion.
So thats what the episode is about – the church of Entertainment Weekly. To anyone who is a member – filmmakers in particular – might I suggest that there is much more out there than making movies and the business of making movies. Like watching videos on the web deconstructing movies.
