Most of you who follow indie film probably know that Sundance announced its 2013 slate this week. What you might not know is that two of the films in the dramatic competition, yes TWO, were produced in Dallas.

The films are David Lowry's AIN'T THEM BODIES SAINTS and Shane Carruth's UPSTREAM COLOR.

Only a handful of films get accepted into Sundance, and from those only a handful get picked to be in the competition, so this is a pretty big deal for David and Shane, and for Dallas. (Btw, Shane's film PRIMER won Sundance in 2004).

But what's even more interesting to me is that BOTH of these films shared a studio space for portions of their pre-pro, production and post.  That studio is IDEAMAN STUDIOS in Dallas, where I office out of along with owner David Maddox and several other producer/director/editors. And this was largely due to Toby Halbrooks who produced David's movie and also co-produced (among other duties) Shane's movie (Casey Gooden produced it). Oh, and did I mention that David edited Shane's film?  And that Tom Walker worked on both in art direction. A lot going on around Ideaman this past year.

So this post is not to brag about this per se, but to congratulate the filmmakers on these very cool accomplishments and to recognize the flourishing indie film scene in the great state of Texas - and specifically Dallas - who I feel is often left off the "best" indie film scene lists compiled by the "experts" each year.

See you in Park City...

-Blake

I didn't see this coming... Disney buys Lucasfilm for $4 billion from George Lucas.

That's everything from the film franchise to future films and including Skywalker Sound, ILM, etc. I HOPE they don't stop supporting indie film at Skywalker... Skywalker Sound especially has helped many indie filmmakers finish their projects at indie rates.

Seems almost every week or so a new camera is released these days... Just this week there are new offerings from Sony, Canon, Panasonic, and Blackmagic.

I'm exaggerating a tad bit of course on the weekly release, but it's not far from the truth.  And this is a good thing... no, GREAT thing for filmmakers everywhere.

Since the release of the Canon 5D three or four odd years ago filmmakers have had the ability to create very cinematic images at previously unheard of low prices.

But it wasn't always like this...

When I started making films in the mid to late 1990s we used 16mm film.... and it was very expensive to shoot. Not necessarily because of the camera rentals (very few folks owned their own rigs then) but because of the purchase of the film, the processing and then the transfer to video (DigiBeta or Beta SP back then, no HD!).

Before the rush of affordable video cameras began (in the late 90s and early 2000s), we were all in awe of an affordable Russian made 16mm camera called the K-3 (Krasnogorsk-3).  At the time it was revolutionary for it's functionality and price (around $700) - I bought one and used it a lot. It of course wasn't a sync sound camera - way too noisy and wasn't blimped.  So we'd shoot a scene and then have the actors do the scene again - right after we shot - to record the audio (with no camera running). Yes, seriously, that's what we did.  But again, never before had we been able to afford such a "professional" camera (we had used 30 year old Bolex cameras prior to that).



In 1997-ish (as I recall) the Sony VX1000 was released and it took the indie film world (along with the corporate video world) by storm.  It was a sub $5000 camera that shot to Mini DV tape but only in the NTSC interlaced format.  It was revolutionary at the time.  And I put my K-3 on the shelf (for the most part).



The big rage then was finding software that would make your interlaced video "look like film". Of course it never really did, although we thought at the time it looked pretty good and compared to the footage directly out of the camera, it did.  Wow, were these the dark ages, huh?

The Next Big Thing didn't happen for several years.

It was around 2003-ish when the Panasonic DVX100 was released that shot 24p... now this really looked like film!  This was the go to camera for indie filmmakers for several years - and to think that it was originally only a 4x3 aspect ratio camera. I don't think it was every truly a wide screen camera, but a later version did have a 16x9 "mode". I say this because it's unfathomable to shoot anything but widescreen today.



And speaking of today... we're now all so very spoiled.

I mean seriously, you can get 1080 HD video out of an iPhone that rivals or is even better than full on video cameras from just a few years ago. It's really amazing if you think about it.

During my 16mm film time in the 90s the main kind of video camera was a Sony Beta SP camera. Those could easily cost $50,000 or more. And DigiBeta were $100k!  To that point, when I hear folks today complain about a $15,000 camera (like the Canon C300) I seriously have to roll my eyes. As I mentioned, we are all so very spoiled now.



But I guess in reality, that too is a good thing.

Filmmakers today really have NO excuses for not making great looking films. None.

The hard part of course is making good films. And that's really what it's all about these days (or should be).  The camera is no longer an obstacle.

In the past you were often commended for making a good looking film, even if it wasn't very good. It was very, very hard as an indie to make a "real" looking movie just a few years ago. I used to take it as a huge compliment when my friends or family would comment on my work and say, "wow, that looks like a real movie" (usually meaning it was shot on film).

But today, pretty much anyone can make a "real" looking movie with the help of all these great cameras at our (affordable) disposal.

To name just a few of these incredible devices:

1. RED Scarlet (4k/5k camera)
2. Canon C300 (and soon to be released C100)
3. Canon 5D MkIII
4. Panasonic GH3 (just announced)
5. Black Magic Cinema Camera (rolling out as we speak)
6. Sony FS100 or FS700 (amazing bang for the buck)



And there are a dozen more that are all within reach. These are all affordable cameras (purchase or rental) to every filmmaker out there. Like I said, no excuses for making good looking movies today.

Now if we could all just concentrate on making good movies (myself included).

Maybe that'll be the Next Big Thing.

-Blake

Just a quick post to show off the new key artwork for my latest feature film project PHOBIA...

The film is in the final stages of post-production and we'll be taking it out to sales agents, etc. soon - along with most  likely attending AFM in November in Santa, Monica.

You can check out more on the film by visiting its Facebook page.

-Blake

The sci-fi blog Giant Freakin Robot posted a solid review of my indie sci-fi series Continuum.

Overall the author liked the show, although he was picky about a few things as most critics usually are. :)

One minor thing he noted was that our "Bridge" set was only two chairs and a desk and he thought that was lame... well, that's fine, but what he doesn't realize is it was designed that way purposely as all the controls are floating monitors and virtual touch screens, etc. - the monitors have appeared in Season 1, but the other controls don't appear until Season 2 (spoiler alert!). Lol.

Anyway, I appreciate them taking the time to review the show and hope other sci-fi bloggers will do the same.

Right now you can watch the series episodically (commercial-free) on indie subscription TV network JTS.tv or as one "long episode" played back-to-back via our VOD partner Distrify, and starting July 10th we'll be releasing it weekly on our YouTube Channel (ad-supported).

Note though, the YouTube release will most likely be a limited one, meaning the show (minus a few preview episodes) will be removed in the future. The plan is to use the "free" YouTube run as a promotion to build up awareness for the show and for Season 2, which will premiere this fall (date TBA). It'll also be a preview for folks to hopefully buy the full season via Distrify and/or DVD that will be released later too (with lots of extras). I'm still figuring all this out however.

The main idea though is to make the show easily available in a variety of ways for fans to enjoy, and at the same time allow us (the creators) to monetize it and continue to do more work!

-Blake

I'm producing a new tech-related show called The iPhoneographers that primarily concentrates on the video capabilities of the iPhone and the iPad - from apps, gear, accessories, movies and more. And it's not just for pro level filmmakers... we're covering all angles for hobbyist and pros alike.

This is my first attempt at a hosted "lifestyle" type series. All of my other online work has been narrative (Pink, 88 Hits, Exposed and Continuum). I'm not abandoning the narrative stuff at all by the way, I'm just working to create a slate of shows that cover a wide variety of topics and interests.  We've got several other shows in the pipeline too including a cooking show, fitness show, an interview-style show and even a movie parody show - all with a twist of course. ;)

2012 looks to be a pretty busy year!

Here's the main site for the new iPhone series:
http://www.iphoneographers.tv

And then of course you can follow the series on Twitter or Like it on Facebook.

You can also watch it directly on YouTube and Blip.

Let me know what you think!

-Blake