Monday Morning Inspiration: The Magic of Mystery

J.J. Abrams understands (and explains) the power of the Mystery Box.

I haven't checked the weekend box office, but I have little doubt that J.J. Abrams' new Star Trek movie was a massive hit. Friends have raved to me about J.J. Abrams for years, but I've been a late, somewhat reluctant convert to the cult of J.J...I don't watch Lost, didn't get Alias and I haven't seen enough of Felicity to truly appreciate it (I thought Regarding Henry and MI:3 were fine movies though).

I didn't get seriously interested in checking out the man's work until I saw the Cloverfield trailer and then again when Andrew Kramer mentioned on his blog that he was working on the opening titles for a cool new show called Fringe. That in turn led me to J.J.'s inspiring TED Talk about "the mystery box", which drops some big clues about the "secret sauce" that makes his work so captivating to so many people. This month's Wired Magazine includes an essay that further explores his thoughts on the power of mystery.

Thanks to the internet, these days the answer to almost every question is literally at our finger tips. As more and more becomes known to us I wonder, will the unknown - the "magic of mystery" - become even more compelling than ever?

Monday Afternoon Inspiration: Do The Right Thing

Do The Right Thing is a very powerful film about racial prejudice and some of Spike Lee's best work.

I first saw Do The Ring Thing as a teenager in a high school film class. It's one of my favourite movies. A few weeks ago On Animation posted a really interesting analysis of how Spike Lee told the film's story using cinematic language.

I really need to see this again sometime soon.

Monday Morning Inspiration: Interview with Pixar’s Andrew Stanton

Wall-E director Andrew Stanton recently had an in-depth chat with Creative Screenwriting Magazine.

Creative Screenwriting Magazine recently posted an exclusive audio interview with the director of Wall-E, Pixar's Andrew Stanton that makes for a great listen. The Creative Screenwriting Magazine podcast has a bunch more of these that are definitely worth checking out.

Via the Disney Blog.

Monday Morning Inspiration: Set To Screen

Director Baz Luhrmann talks about the filmmaking process in a series of videos on Apple.com.

Apple is currently running a great educational podcast with Baz Luhrmann that features behind the scenes work from his upcoming film Australia. I love Baz Luhrmann's films and I've been a fan of his ever since I was first introduced to his work in high school by a great photography teacher I had named Glen McGuire, whose wife was working on on Romeo + Juliet in Mexico at the time (we studied Strictly Ballroom in class).

In Set To Screen Baz talks about every step of his filmmaking process. If you make your own movies (or want to) this is definitely worth checking out.

Via Indy Mogul.

Writing For Puppets and Animation

Muppet writer/director Kirk Thatcher discusses writing for puppets on the latest On The Page screen writing podcast.

Kirk Thatcher was a guest on this week's On The Page screen writing podcast along with David Skelly (a Writer/Director and Pixar story artist who's also worked with the Muppets) and together they discussed writing for puppets and animation. Kirk talked a lot about the unique technical aspects of writing for puppets and together with David emphasized several key points, including:

• It's all about telling a good story and creating characters the audience cares about and can relate to.
  
• Physicality is very important; sometimes things that aren't funny on the page are funny when they are performed and vice-versa.
  
• Also on the subject of physicality, it's important to make sure that animation and puppetry works with the sound off.
• If you can do it with live action, you probably shouldn't do it with puppets or animation (Kirk says this was a big part of Jim Henson's philosophy).

At one point Kirk also quickly name checks Duck Walks In To A Bar, which I thought was kind of cool.

Via The Bubble Boy Blog.

Puppet Film & Video Tips: Composition, part one

Composition in an important, but often overlooked aspect of puppetry.

I've mentioned this several times before, but composition is an aspect of their art that puppeteers rarely discus, yet it's an incredibly important concept for any visual or performing artist to understand. The basics of composition in a two dimensional mediums like film and video are governed by what are known as the rules of composition. You don't have to necessarily follow them - in fact some of the most interesting videos deliberately break them - but you should be aware of them, if you're not already.

A really good book that goes a great job of explaining basic composition for film and video is Setting Up Your Shots by Jeremy Vineyard. There are also several old posts here on PuppetVision dealing with composition and how it relates to puppetry, including:

• Rex and Boots: Super Swazzle Puppetry
• Puppet Staging and Composition
  
• Puppet Staging: Creating Emphasis
• More on Composition
  

I'll be following this up with a few more links and resources later in the week. Until then, if you dig this kind of stuff you can check out more about puppetry theory in the PuppetVision archives.

Quick Green Screen Tips

I spotted these green screen tips from Brian Richardson (he of WhatTheCast and Dragon*Con TV) in the famous Yahoo Videoblogging Group. I think they will be helpful for anyone doing puppet podcasts who is a little mystified/frustrated by the green screen process:

• The main trick is even lighting across the screen and the people in front of it. Much like a Babylon 5 episode, shadows are the enemy.
  
  
• Try using four lights on your screen. Two 1,000 watt softboxes are good to light your green screen and two 500 watt umbrella lights can be used to light your subject (if you're not familiar with the difference between these types of lights, try Googling them).
  
  
• A learn what colour temperature is. All of the light bulbs in your setup should use the same color temperature (I use 3200K).
  
  
• Don't get too close to the green screen. Once you get within three feet of the screen, shadows start to form and they will mess up your key.
  
  
• Another trick is to take your camera off of automatic. Letting the camera adjust color/white balance in the middle of a green screen shot might cause problems editing (the value of "green" will change as people move in & out of the scene if the camera tries to adjust).

Want to try creating some green screen effects, but don't have the right software? Check out this green screen tutorial on Instructables that explains how to create green screen effects using Debug Mode's WAX (it's free to download).

Quick Directing Tips

I've only recently gotten in to the excellent series Heroes (it hasn't debuted on television in Mexico yet; I discovered it via the Internet) and I started reading Beaming Beeman - the blog of Heroes Director/Producer Greg Beeman - just a few days ago. One of the neat things Greg does in his blog is provide insight in to his creative process and how he and his colleagues approach making an episode of the show. I found this list of questions Gregs asks himself before shooting a scene especially helpful:

1. Which character controls the scene? (this sometimes this shifts within a scene)
2. What is the inherent emotional quality of the scene? What do the characters feel and what do should the audience feel? Sometimes they’re the same, sometimes they’re different.
3. What stylistic techniques – i.e. what colors, compositions, camera movement and camera lensing – will support the character's emotions?

Now that there's video equipment, mass distribution and tons of information about puppetry and puppet building available at low/no cost anyone can great puppetry and broadcast their work to a potential audience of millions. That's an incredible opportunity that's only recently become available. Now, the challenge for film and video puppetry artists using the web is increase the quality of work that's being done (not that some of it isn't already good).

After all, if you want to produce your own work on the web and make it great it's not enough to just be a great puppeteer or a great builder. You need to understand writing, directing, lighting, and editing and every other aspect of the filmmaking process.

DIY Filmmaking

One of the things I love about the current state of webcasting/podcasting/whatever you want to call it is that it's still in its infancy. The medium has yet to be totally defined and people are learning by doing with a real do-it-yourself mentality (I think this is a very good thing). Case in point, the most recent entry on Brian Hogg's dotBoom Blog:

I’m happy to report that I’ve nearly got the filming of episode 1 scheduled...How long will it be after filming before the episode is put online?

Hell if I know, I’ve never edited a tv show before.

One day you'll be reading stories like this in a book on the early days of the digital video revolution.