Want to watch a movie on your cell phone? Well, maybe not a movie, but perhaps a short film or music video? One Hollywood company is banking we will (at least kids will).
The New York Times has a good piece on News Corporation's new cell phone entertainment company Mobizzo.
In what is the boldest venture yet by an established media company to insinuate itself into millions of cellphones, the News Corporation has created a mobile entertainment store called Mobizzo and a production studio to focus exclusively on developing cellphone entertainment in much the same way that 20th Century Fox creates movies and television.
Analysts predict that the number of global mobile phone customers will double to four billion in five years. And that has spurred a wireless gold rush among media companies that, as in the early days of the Internet, do not want to be left behind.
This is to me the obvious next step in the "new world of distribution". I have actually encoded the movie trailer for my new film "Killing Down" to play on my Motorola Razor phone (soon I'll post it to my movie's website for anyone to download). It's very cool technology.
Only problem is most people in the U.S. don't have video capable phones yet. A lot of folks in Europe and Asia do though. And I never understood that? Why does most of Europe, often Korea, Japan, etc. always get the newest toys and technology before the United States? Don't we invent half this stuff? Didn't Al Gore invent the Internet (or that's what he claimed - although his new "invention" Current TV is doing some cool things). In Korea they have web bandwidth double or triple the speed we have. I know it's actually their governments that embrace and make this newer technology available, but it still is odd to me that we (the United States) often lag behind these other places when it comes to the latest and greatest techno toys. But, I digress...
Mobizzo looks like a pretty good idea. They are going to sell content directly to consumers, in lieu of going through a third party company such as the cell phone service provider. You'll be able to download content directly to your phone on a per use basis (for $1.99 to $2.99 per show) - or subscribe to the service for $5.99/month. This pricing structure is very new and I'm sure will change, as I'm sure the entire model will too as it's embraced or not embraced.
I'm sure too that sources will come about (if they're not already there) allowing indies to make content available for mobile phone download.
Of course as a filmmaker I find it rather ironic that all the latest "distribution" opportunities are coming in the form of the small screen. We all tout the unbelievable high resolution picture quality of HDTV and all the acquisition formats to achieve this look (HDCAM, HDV, DVCPRO HD, and even 35mm film). But where are most of the newest outlets for distribution popping up? Places like Google Video, Apple's iTunes, Sony PSP and now Mobizzo. All interesting models, but with one main thing in common - a small screen to watch your "HD wide screen production". Note though that Google Video actually does play it's content "full screen" - but it's streaming and is definitely not high resolution - albeit not the size of an iPod Video screen or a mobile phone (and to me, PSP screens are actually pretty good size and the image quality is great).
Maybe in the future indie filmmakers will not dream of seeing their movie on the "big screen". They'll dream of seeing their movie throughout the entire world on a "billion small screens". Maybe even simultaneously? Man, talk about a wide release. :)
-Blake
Good article in the Fort Worth Star Telegram on Julio Cedillo who stars in the new Tommy Lee Jones film "Three Burials" and also my new film "Killling Down"...
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/entertainment/13940891.htm
Check it out. There's a nice plug for me and my movie in the piece too! :)
-Blake
Nothing to do with indies... BUT the new season of the "Sopranos" starts March 12th on HBO and the trailer is online now.
Can't wait...
-Blake
This has nothing to do with indie filmmaking or new technology - BUT, my
good friend and one heck of an actress Natalie Raitano starred in this show with Pamela Anderson - and I'm very happy for her (and all the "V.I.P." fans in the world - and there are a lot of them) that the DVD of season one is finally hitting the stores on March 14th.
If you pre-order from Amazon you save almost $15.00 (it's only $34.99).
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000E33VZY/103-4420793-5579826?n=130
I know what you're thinking, but come on, you know this show is fun... it's definitely one of those guilty pleasures! I know I used to watch it... a lot. :)
-Blake
Fun and insightful interview with the five nominated Best Directors for this year's Oscars... 
Speilberg for "Munich"
Clooney for "Good Night, Good luck"
Haggis for "Crash"
Miller for "Capote"
Lee for "Brokeback Mountain"
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11077661/site/newsweek/
-Blake
This is an interesting Q&A with Robert Altmans's son (Robert Reed Altman) who is a camera operator on his dad's movies. This is from HD Studio:
60-Second Q&A:
Acclaimed director Robert Altman's new feature film, A Prairie Home Companion, was captured on Sony F-900 HD cameras and three different Fujinon HAe10x10 (10-100mm T1.8) and two HAe5x6 (6mm to 30mmT1.8) HD zooms. Clairmont Camera supplied the HAe10x10 lenses while Fletcher Chicago provided the HAe5x6 lenses.
Altman's son, Robert Reed Altman, served as the A-camera operator (along with Pete Diazzi), and said his father chose HD video for this production because he wanted to shoot for 30 minutes straight without re-loading. The final scenes in the film range up to 23 minutes in length. Some of the environments, such as on the stage and backstage make-up rooms, involved lower lighting levels, which Robert said was another reason why Sony's HDCAM video cameras worked so well for this shoot.
The total shoot took six weeks in and around St. Paul, Minn. The HD video was transferred to film at Technicolor's facility in New York. Ed Lachman, ASC, served as DP while Ryan Sheridan was HD Engineer on the set.
Q: Being such a well-known film director, why did your dad shoot in HD?
A: We did The Company in HD back in 2003 because there were long dance scenes in it. We find that HD allows us to experiment with longer scenes and not have to worry about film stock. He decided to do the same thing on Prairie Home Companion so that he could shoot long takes. One scene was 9 pages long (about 23 minutes). We used four Sony cameras that were supplied by Panavision for The Company because we wanted the renders to match between the cameras, but we were not happy with the results. So we did a lot of research for this movie and chose the Sony F900s tied to two SRW-1 HDCAM SR VTRs, which allowed us to capture more information on the tape. We used two cameras most of the time and three for some of the scenes. My dad also liked the quality of the image of the Fujinon lenses and the wide zoom range that they provided us with. He likes to zoom in on his subjects a lot.
Q: How did this production differ from a traditional film set?
A: The whole film was shot on a stage in a theater or outdoors, so we were shooting at very low light level range. We think HD works a lot better than film in low light situations. Other than that, were able to be a lot more mobile than usual because we were using an Evertz fiber-optic cable system (configured by Clairmont Camera) that connected each camera to a centrally controlled engineering station where the DIT sat. This cut down the number of cables in the set to from about 15 to a single cable, which made a big difference between this shoot and the Company shoot. Another difference [was] my dad used two large 20-inch Sony monitors on set to watch the output of both cameras as we were shooting. He also had a mic which he used to talk us through the scenes. It was much better than watching a small video assist screen like we usually have on a film set. And it saved us a lot of time in post because we got what we wanted on the set.
Q: How did the Sony F900s perform?
A: They were great. We did a bunch of tests and realized that shooting in 4:2;2 was fine for what we needed. The nice thing was we could record video in the camera as well as to the SWR-1s at the same time. This gave us our dailies and a back-up tape in the camera. The SWR-1 tape became our master because you get one-third of the color information on the deck while you get about one seventh of the color on the tape inside the camera. This allowed us to produce the best image possible with the Sony cameras.
Cool stuff. I never saw "The Company" (my girlfriend did though and said she didn't like it - and since it was about a dance company and she didn't like it - I could only imagine I wouldn't), but I find it interesting that it was shot on HD. I don't recall hearing that at the time. I'm always glad when I hear of an A-List Hollywood director choosing to shoot on HD, thus making it more acceptable in the eyes of distributors, the public, etc.
Altman films though are always hit or miss in my opinion. I loved "The Player" and enjoyed "Mash" (sort of), but a lot of his other films don't do much for me. Nonetheless I do think he is an innovative director and I'm very glad to see him embracing the HD revolution. Slowly but surely we're getting there...
-Blake
A few nights ago I Tivo'd the broadcast premiere of Werner Herzog's "Grizzly Man" on the Discovery Channel. 
I just had time to watch it last night and it is a really interesting documentary. I'm surprised it got snubbed at the Oscars (of course I am also surprised that "Three Burials" was snubbed too).
Anyway, if you get a chance to see this doc definitely check it out. It's not at all what you think it is.
Yes, it is about a guy living amongst bears in the Alaska wilderness who gets killed by the bears he loved - BUT it's a whole lot more. It's a mystery, it's a character study into the state of this guy's mind, and it's a story about finding something in life that really makes you happy.
I highly recommend this film.
-Blake
UPDATE: There's a lot of buzz on the web about this doc being a fake. Kind of like "The Blair Witch Project". I don't buy into that camp, but there are some odd things that aren't explained very well by the film.
For instance, Tim lives in the Alaska wilderness for many months at a time in only a tent with very limited supplies - so how did he charge his video camera batteries? Also, how did he keep his food away from the bears and other critters (and have enough with him for months on end)? I also read an article that said he had a satellite phone on at least his last trip - again, how did he keep this charged? Also, in the documentary a lot of the "scenes" were obviously staged and the real folks involved were trying to act or recite lines given to them by the director. This was done to add drama and interest to the film, but it did come off as "bad acting", which helps fuel the fire that this documentary is not real.
If this is a fake, it's the best PR job I've ever seen. I mean, Tim Treadwell went on the David Letterman show and was also on Rosie O'Donnell's show. He was a real guy. So there would have to have been a lot of people involved to pull this off. I don't believe that it was a fake. It was and is a real story and a real documentary, but there are some very strange things involved that keep you guessing. Kind of makes it more fun actually! :)
What does Tommy Lee Jones' directorial debut "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada" have to do with my new film "KIlling Down"? Well, they were both primarily shot in Texas, they both were made by Texas filmmakers, and they both feature a great performance by Texas-based actor Julio Cedillo.
Last night was the Texas premiere of the movie at the Angelika Theater in Dallas and Julio was in attendance (and I was there as one of his invited guest - thank you very much Julio!).
Let me first say that I had no idea what to expect from this film. I have been following it for a while though. When I first cast Julio in "Killing Down" he was wrapping "Three Burials" (this was in the fall of 2004). So I was introduced to the film then, but really didn't have many details on the project. The only real tidbits Julio shared were his experiences living on Tommy Lee Jones' ranch for four months of his life (in Van Horn, Texas near El Paso) - and his time spent with Tommy and the cast and crew. So I knew little of the story except for what I had read on the Internet (which wasn't much).
In May 2005 the film played at the Cannes Film Festival in France and ended up winning two awards - one for Tommy Lee Jones as best actor and the other for best screenplay by Guillermo Arriaga.
After Cannes, a trailer was finally posted online and I checked it out. The original trailer almost played like "Three Burials" was an action movie... I asked Julio about it and he said the trailer didn't really represent what the movie was about. But, the trailer was good nonetheless. Just before the Christmas holidays I saw a different version of the trailer that showed more of the real depth of the film and more of the real story. So now, all these months later, I was finally getting an idea of what the film was about.Boy, was I wrong.
The movie starts out with the discovery of Melquiades' body being eaten by coyotes. So you know right off the bat that he was killed, but by who?
The story then unfolds in a non-linear fashion. We're introduced to Pete Perkins (Tommy Lee Jones) and to sheriff Belmont (Dwight Yoakam) as they find out about the killing. Pete is Melquiades good friend and employer (we learn this through a series of flashbacks peppered throughout the first half of the film) and wants to know who killed him. Belmont doesn't really seem to care who killed him and ventures to call Melquiades just another dead "wetback". I couldn't decide if the sheriff was just an asshole, or if was just stupid. Probably a little of both.
Mixed into the discovery of the body and Pete trying to find the killer, we're introduced to Mike Norton (Barry Pepper) and his wife Lu Ann (January Jones). They've just moved into town from Cincinnati. Mike has a new job with the Border Patrol.
The couple buys a new mobile home (in a great scene with a very funny salesman) and tries to settle into their new life. It's obvious they are not happy. Not just with their new surroundings, but with their life in general (i.e. marriage). But they are here for Mike's new job. A job that I'm not sure he likes either. Most of the time he sits alone in his Border Patrol truck looking at dirty magazines. When he does get a call to confront some illegal border crossers he completely over reacts and beats the hell out of a couple Mexicans. It appears he's taking his aggressions out on them.
The two stories collide when we learn that Mike was the person who killed Melquiades (this is NOT a spoiler by the way - it's actually known in the trailer). From here the story gets quite interesting.
Pete wants the sheriff to arrest Mike. He won't do it and tells Pete to just let it go. So Pete decides to take matters into his own hands. He kidnaps Mike at gunpoint and takes him on an insane journey (on horseback) to bury Melquiades in his home town in Jimenez, Mexico.
I don't want to give away any more of the story here, but suffice it to say the journey is a wild one.
The thing that surprised me the most about this movie was how funny it was. I mean laugh-out-loud funny moments. The dialog and the situations. I did not expect that at all coming from a movie like this. And it was my favorite kind of humor - dark. A black comedy treat!
Tommy Lee Jones is a funny guy. His rough exterior even makes him more funny. He showed this off very well in "Men In Black" and continues it here (only a lot darker in this film). But it wasn't just Tommy Lee Jones' character Pete - all the characters had their moments. Like when sheriff Belmont was just about to shoot Pete (as he was riding away on horseback through a canyon with his kidnap victim Mike). He aims his rifle, feels the trigger... Then can't shoot him. He's laid out on his back on top of some cliff surrounded by desert landscape - and his cellphone rings - pulling him and everyone out of the tense moment. I enjoy tense situations with sly humor (a lot like Tarantino movies). Good stuff!
And speaking of good... Julio does a great job in the film. Virtually all his scenes are in the flashbacks of the story. And almost all his lines are in Spanish (some people who have seen the movie don't realize he's actually American and speaks perfect English in real life!). For the rest of the movie his corpses is being carried on a horse or set on fire or dumped in a makeshift grave. Think "Weekend at Bernie's" in a desert (although not slapstick comedy of course). But when he's "alive" Julio is very, very convincing as Pete's good friend. They have a lot of chemistry and you believe they share a tight bond.
So, In the end, this movie is about friendship and redemption. It's about the bond that two friends can share for each other. The love if you will. I've read some reviews of this film saying there were "homosexual" undertones to Pete's fondness of Melquiades. This is ridiculous. Obviously these critics are confusing this film with another cowboy movie out there that is about gay love - but this one is NOT (or they're trying to justify the other movie by saying - "Hey, look, this film has gay cowboys too!" - of course not true at all).
"The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada" is about brotherhood. It's about forgiveness. And it's about redeeming yourself as you figure out what's good in life. And, it's damn funny!
Check out this film. It definitely made my life better.
-Blake
Today I shot with the new JVC ProHD camera - actual model number is GY-HD100U. This is one of the several new HDV cameras on the market (others are from Sony and Canon, and Panasonic has a new 1/3" HD camera - similar specs to HDV).
This is my third time to work with the camera, but my first time to shoot with it. The first time we were capturing footage into an Avid, and the second time I helped set the camera up for a shoot, but did not actually do the shooting.
So anyway, on to the review...
The shoot today was really an ENG style shoot - I used available light and shot handheld. You could also call this "documentary style". This was a good way to "test" because A LOT of news, corporate video, indie films, etc. are shot this way.
To start off the camera is very sturdy and well built. I like the feel of it a lot (I should mention that I own the GY-DV500, which was the 1st DV-based "full size" camera on the market back in 2000, and I've been very happy with it over the years). The camera rests on your shoulder easily like a "real" camera. This is crucial to me when shooting handheld. A lot of the smaller prosumer cameras don't rest on your shoulder at all - you have to hold it out away from your body while shooting and your arm can definitely get tired.
The controls on the camera itself are nicely laid out and easy to find for the most part. They remind me of a watered down version of my DV500 (or a Betacam) with the white balance switch (with A, B and Preset), an ND filter (but no color temperature filter wheel), a gain switch, etc. One thing I don't like is there is no switch for the color bars - you have to turn these on through the menu (although there are User settings and I bet you can configure one to do this).
Speaking of the menu - it is easy to navigate if you have any experience at all using menu controls on any of these type cameras. It felt fairly intuitive to me. There are quite a lot of settings too, which is a good thing.
For this project I shot HDV 30p (the camera has a variety of SD choices too). I could've shot 24p, but to date no NLE will ingest the 720p24 footage over FireWire. This will change at NAB 2006 though.
My only real complaint during the shooting was that I do NOT like the viewfinder or the LCD flip out monitor. Neither one of them has very good image quality. They both looked kind of desaturated and focusing was a slight issue too. I hope on a future version they'll improve at least the viewfinder - maybe a higher end LCD with TFT display? They both definitely need to be better.
Oh, and the other thing is that the supplied battery sucked! It's a standard battery like you'd see with an XL1 or any Sony/Panasonic camera. Although it was the bigger size and it ONLY lasted 30 minutes! JVC is offering an IDX battery solution though (for free right now I think) that will remedy this - and I know Anton Bauer makes a rig for the camera too. Just be forewarned - you'll need to upgrade to the larger battery system!
Got back to my office and fired up the Sony LMD23WS HD monitor to view the footage. I watched it from the component HD outputs of the camera. Overall the footage looked pretty good. A lot better than I thought actually since it didn't look especially good in the viewfinder. Most of the stuff was in focus too! :)
In the future I will need to turn off the "detail" in the camera. I noticed the edges looked too electronic (to harsh, not soft enough). Also, quick pans or tilts caused some interesting effects. On pans the image looked like it was "stuttering with blended fields". I know this sounds weird - especially since I shot in 30p and not 24p. But it was definitely there. I think it has something to do with a JVC camera function that "smoothes" out jaggies. Not sure if I like the look. Might turn this off in the future too. Tilting caused these slight "bands" to appear and then disappear when the camera stopped. Not sure if it was just on my monitor (it is an LCD) of if it was generated by the camera. Either way, I don't like it. Although it was subtle and not near as noticeable as the panning issue.
Even with these image issues the camera produces some excellent results - especially when you consider it's only a $6000 camera. If you read the DV.com article (I posted earlier) on the HD shootout you'll find that the JVC stood it's ground nicely against the other competitors.
I personally think this is a really good camera choice for several reasons, but especially because you can change the lens (using 35mm film lenses) - and it has true 24p capabilities. Mandatory for shooting narrative films (the only other camera in this price range with 24p is the Panasonic).
I look forward to seeing the next version of this camera - hopefully at NAB 2006. I should be in the market for a camera then. :)
-Blake
