MicroCinema Scene

Get ready for another Savage Experience. Indie auteur Rock Savage is back with Savage Film School 3: How to Be a Professional! Don’t miss Part 1: Confessions of a Dangerous Filmmaker or Part 2: Low-Budget Secrets.

By Rock Savage. There are a lot of people out there calling themselves “professional” but really, what is a professional? A professional gets paid for what he does. So if you ever made any money off your films or got paid to make a film for someone then you are a “professional.” Now, it may not be your main source of income but, hey, you made some bread off it!  Let me share some of the ways that I have made money as an independent filmmaker!

Read more

Here is another interview from THE VAULT! Wayne Alan Harold is the writer and director of Townies, a sleazy feature-length flick about a group of strange characters in a town called Schlarb, Ohio. Imagine a black and white Hal Hartley movie cast with recently discharged mental patients. In true b-movie tradition, it is these freaks and goons that are the heros of the piece. It’s the “normals” that you have to watch out for. 

Read more

Well, after you read this, it won’t be a secret will it? To be honest, all the things I will tell you should not be a secret but many low budget filmmakers don’t have the information to save big bucks on their film projects! Everything that I’m about to tell you, I have learned from the school of “hard knocks” so you won’t have to spend a lot of bread!

NEVER GET PERMITS!

One of the reasons that film schools suck is that they don’t teach you how to save money and get stuff for free! First, lets talk about location, you need a place to film, and you don’t want to rent a place because you’ll have to break your piggy bank! Don’t bother to get permits, they cost too much and in order to get one, you may need some sort of insurance (more money!) so lets say you need an office, first try to get a “home office”, you may know someone who has one!! In Hardboiled Heroes there is a scene in occult investigator Harry Gross’ office which is really a home office but looks damn good and I got it for free!

Read more

The above title is no joke!  I have been called “dangerous” and other things as well!  Well someone who reviewed two of my films said that the Savage Film Group was “art” disguised as fun and this made my films “dangerous” (he thought this was a good thing!!) I have also been called “dangerous” because I pack heat & my films are very vengeance driven!  An angry feminist said that we ran on “high octane testosterone”.  Also, we have done some dangerous things for our movies!

Read more

The Robert Rodriguez sponsored GRINDHOUSE trailer competition made all kinds of noise prior to SXSW, but then kind of dropped off the radar. I did some investigating to figure out who the winner was and didn’t find any mention of it on the SXSW or GRINDHOUSE sites. So I made a few phone calls to people who attended the presentation and I can now confirm that the winner is: Hobo With a Shotgun.

Hobo With a Shotgun was the grand prize winner out of three finalists which also included The Dead Won’t Die and Maiden of Death. All three trailers were screened during the presentation. We’ve already posted the trailers for Hobo and Maiden, but just so we don’t leave anybody out… here’s the trailer for The Dead Won’t Die.

Movies that are shot on digital video suck.

Right?

Somebody forgot to tell Miguel Coyula. 

And since Miguel didn’t know any better, he went out and shot an ambitious feature length drama with a Canon GL1 and a budget of around $2,000. The movie is RED COCKROACHES and it’s pretty amazing. The film is set against a surreal futuristic backdrop and explores complex themes like alienation, betrayal and incest. The film has already developed a huge buzz among low-budget filmmakers thanks to the slick website and incredible trailer. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to track this guy down and see this movie.

I had the chance to interview Miguel about his background, digital video and filmmaking in general.

MicroCinema Scene: I know you made a lot of films in Cuba. Of course, I have only seen RED COCKROACHES. But can you tell me a little bit about your past work? Did you shoot on film or DV? How did you get started making films?

Miguel Coyula: Yes, RED COCKROACHES is my first feature, but I started out by making shorts at 17 when my aunt gave me her old VHS camera.  Before that, I had been writing short stories, drawing comic books and with a group of high school friends, we even attempted a radio show. So the camera was the manifestation of all these mediums coming together.  My first “film” was a 31-minute experimental piece, which had the peculiarity (since I didn’t have editing facilities) of having been shot chronologically (edited in the camera) and thanks to that film I got into EICTV (The International Film School in Cuba) where I experimented with all the different formats (16mm, Hi 8, BETACAM and finally my thesis in 35mm).  After I finished film school I produced a six-minute short (shot with my old faithful VHS camcorder), which ironically is my most awarded work to date.  I have to say that I don’t believe much in formats

I think I am one of the biggest fans of Digital Video.  It has allowed me to remain creative without having to worry too much about the financial resources. However, growing up and learning filmmaking in Cuba provided excellent training in achieving great results under the most difficult conditions.  The stories I like are usually dark. I consider myself a hybrid I like to mix several genres, drama, science fiction, noir, etc. But always being consistent throughout, I’m obsessed with creating an atmosphere using all the elements (sound, color, editing) that this medium provides you.

MicroCinema Scene: You describe yourself as the worlds biggest DV fan. Do you run into many film snobs that think DV is beneath them? What is your response to those people?

Coyula: Well, yes there are a lot of people like that. I really don’t care. Even if I had the budget to shoot in 35mm I would still use DV and use the money on other areas of the production.  I shot a film in 35mm, and frankly I didn’t enjoy the experience very much. There is a lot of pressure with running out of film, lots of people needed to operate everything, and EVERYTHING is very time consuming, and to what end? To achieve a “film texture”? I mean c�mon! For me a film is much more than that.  Another pro: film technology is stuck, but DV keeps improving and revolutionizing all the time, who knows where it will be in 10 years, it’s really unstoppable.

MicroCinema Scene: Are there any filmmakers currently making films that interest or inspire you? If so, who and why?

Coyula: I like David Lynch a lot. I think MULHOLLAND DRIVE is a masterpiece.  I also like Michelangelo Antonioni’s films from the sixties and my old time favorite of all times is Andrey Tarkovsky’s original SOLARIS.  I saw that movie in the theater when I was 17 and it blew me away. Despite being slow for some people, it has amazing ideas wrapped in a dark, enigmatic yet beautiful atmosphere, solid acting, great cinematography and a very subtle and moody soundtrack.  It stills haunts me and inspires me, both in form and content.

MicroCinema Scene: When did you first decide to make RED COCKROACHES? How long have you had the idea for this project?

Coyula: Three years ago I wrote OCEAN a still unpublished sci-fi drama.  My plan was to make it into a film.  But the novel is huge with lots of characters, special effects, and a complicated storyline. The main conflict in RED COCKROACHES: “Adam and Lily, brother and sister separated when kids and now reunited as young adults” was an old idea I had back in Cuba that was based on a real story I heard.  So I adapted it into the world of OCEAN so that RED COCKROACHES serves as prequel, an appetizer of what OCEAN will be. 

So I came to New York on a scholarship to the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute.  And I thought “I’ve got do this now!” and so I got really busy and wrote the screenplay in four months.  And with a miniDV camera that a friend bought me, I started shooting, with no money, no permits and no crew.  When I look back; I see now that it was pure madness. It took one very long year to shoot and it was indeed quite draining to all involved.  But in the midst of it all, I met my future wife and she in turn got drawn into the excitement of making a movie and became one of the executive producers of the film.  The total cost of the film was less than $2,000 (a big budget production compared to all my previous projects).

MicroCinema Scene: RED COCKROACHES is one of the rare “science fiction” films that stays focused on the characters and uses the science fiction elements as a realistic backdrop. You seem very interested in focusing on the strangeness of the human character. Was this focus on characters a result of the film being a very low-budget movie, or can we expect this intense focus on characters throughout the rest of OCEAN?

Coyula: That’s always a question that I ask myself, I will always try to give some life to characters, even if they are small.  RED COCKROACHES takes place in an “alternative reality.” It’s not really the distant future although it has lots of futuristic elements. Science fiction for me is some kind of an excuse to create atmosphere, call it a backdrop. I’m very interested in creating a world that you don’t know exactly where you are or what’s going on: A science fiction without many scientific explanations.

There is a person about to be born towards the end of RED COCKROACHES who will be the troubled protagonist of OCEAN.  I like unusual, alienated characters living in strange worlds that somehow I cannot totally comprehend myself.  For some reason I can’t bring myself to do realistic everyday type of stories, I need to resort to some element of surrealism or science fiction. I think that’s the main theme of OCEAN: The inability to relate to a society, to people, in this case the future. But OCEAN takes place in a more advanced future, which will require lots of resources to produce, that’s why I decided to do RED COCKROACHES first. RED COCKROACHES takes place about 30 years before Ocean, but it sets up the basis for that world and besides it’s easier to make without a budget.  Although I have lots of characters, I think OCEAN’s protagonist is strong enough. The storyline however is very complex and non linear, it still scares me to think about-facing that production. But that’s my dream project, I will wait, 10, 20 years if I have to do it right.

MicroCinema Scene: One of the things that most impressed me about RED COCKROACHES was your editing style. I’m not sure how to describe it, but it’s very unique. I’m referring to the way you transition, often not through straight cuts, but almost through layers of the image. The way you’ve edited seems to not only increase the tension, but to increase the seamlessness of the movie. Is this a style that developed naturally or is something you set out to consciously experimented with on RED COCKROACHES?

Coyula: I’ve been obsessed with transitions from the very beginning when I made my first short.  I think transitions should either act as punch on the jaw to wake you up, or should serve as a catalyst to merge the ideas and concepts of two scenes. Creating a transition can be like creating a scene in itself.  By merging those two scenes in a specific way you create a concept that adds a new layer to both scenes.  Also, the strategy in RED COCKROACHES was not to have the same camera angle used twice in the film.  I believe that every moment in a film has its own meaning and therefore I don’t believe in cutting back to the same angle, instead a different setup should be used to express a different message.  With all this in mind, I storyboarded all the shots of the film. Then with the computer, I created a lot of masks, compositing, filtering, and color correction to enhance the image and disguise its low budget beginnings.  And as you pointed out correctly, I wanted everything to be seamless. There is a lot of stuff that you would have pay very close attention and maybe even have to play in a frame-by frame mode to be able to spot it. I wanted all this to operate more on a subconscious level to increase the tension, so that someone watching the film might stop and ask himself “I think I saw something but maybe it was my imagination” and not be able to pinpoint exactly what the source was.

MicroCinema Scene: You really tell the story through images which I very much respect. In fact I think the film is so visually rich, that it would still work on some level if you totally took the sound and dialogue away. So I’m curious about your process for storyboarding and deciding your shots. Is it fairly organic and free-flowing? Or is it a systematic deconstruction of the script?

Coyula: Yes you are right. I’m very much into telling stories through images.  They’re the most important component in my films.  Sometimes while I’m storyboarding, I realize that I don’t need certain pieces of dialogue, because the images are already doing all the talking. But let me start from the beginning: Only after I have a final draft of the script do I start creating the storyboard. I always discover new stuff when storyboarding, new little actions or lines for the characters that may slightly alter the script itself and create new layers of meaning. I think storyboarding is important because it allows you to revisit the script from a different angle and then all kinds of new stuff come up.  For example, while storyboarding I decide which scenes should be handheld and where to switch smoothly from hand held to a shot using a tripod. I didn’t have a steady cam or dolly, so I knew that the only travelling shots could be done outdoors from a car.  However, transitions between scenes are always scripted beforehand. That is the one thing [transitions] that I’m always very clear about from the very beginning. It also happens that while I’m shooting, I get an idea for a new shot but I do it only after I cover my storyboard, that way I know that it will work in the editing.  I go through four stages in putting together my images: Script > Storyboard > Shooting > Editing.  In a way, you could say that storyboarding is like editing before the film is even shot - storyboarding is the most important stage. To conclude, my approach to storyboarding is mostly a systematic deconstruction of the script.  Once on location the storyboard pretty much dictates what I�m going to shoot but I’m always open to improvising a thing or two.

MicroCinema Scene: Is there one part of the filmmaking process that you like more than others?

Coyula: Well, shooting can be really stressful, especially when you’re on a low budget, but it’s also fun and with lots of sudden adrenaline rushes. On the other hand editing, even though it can get tedious and boring at times, makes you feel safe and in control. The biggest reward comes when you finally reach the end and you get the results just the way you envisioned it. For that alone, I would say that editing is my favorite.

MicroCinema Scene: RED COCKROACHES is easily one of the best looking low-budget DV films I’ve ever seen… and I see a LOT of them.  You’ve set a new standard for what can be done with practically no money. Can you describe how you worked to get such a high quality finished product.

Coyula: I took me two years to get it done the way I wanted.  Two years where the only life I led was this film. I think sometimes people rush to finish on a tight schedule and that affects the final result when you don’t have the right budget. I have to thank the actors for staying with me to the end, even if it was such a draining experience, sometimes doing 30 takes and shooting mainly on weekends. You’ll laugh at this but I actually used the same tripod from my old VHS camera (now 10 years old). I bought two 500 watt scoop lights at a hardware store and a few color gels.  One of the things I was really trying to avoid is the graininess of dark scenes in DV, which really annoys me when I see it. So I took special care to avoid that. I practically used no diffusions in the light when I had night scenes. It is harsh, with very high contrast. I also did a lot of filtering in postproduction, sometimes obsessively. For example I shot a scene in the summer that was supposed to be in the fall. So I had these trees with green leaves that I had to turn brownish. I had to Key out the green (with a Green Screen Filter) and then replace the color. There is a lot of stuff like that throughout the film, sometimes to create a specific effect and others to solve problems.

I also color corrected and masked like a maniac (sometimes 5 different areas on the same frame). Changed the color of the sky there, adding a painting here, futuristic buildings merged with real ones, putting flying cars, clouds, rain, smoke, removing grain.  Sometimes frame by frame, putting 2 actors in the same shot after being shot separately, making things glow, darkening others, etc. All of the stuff that was beyond my control during the shoot. For example: people walking, traffic, overexposed skies, or improper backgrounds. All that was corrected in the computer. The timeline of the projects would sometimes have as many as 30 tracks causing endless hours of rendering times.

Same for the sound, since I was doing the camera with one hand and the microphone with the other, I had wide open shots in which the sound was unusable, so I would always do a sound take (in the set) after each scene, and then replace word by word, sometimes syllables or consonants in the editing. I did the music track with Skake Tracker a Windows based software, which I like a lot.  Two friends of mine in Cuba did a little CGI creature that I needed in 3D, but other than that the special effects I did them with painful 2-D animation and compositing in post.

MicroCinema Scene: Speaking of post… what was your post-production set-up like? I’m sure our readers want to know the geeky information like what computers and software you used.

Coyula: The post-production set-up was as basic as you can get.  Hardware: Apple Mac G4 800 MHz [single processor] with two 80 Gig IDE 7200rpm HDs and an external 120 Gig firewire drive for backups. I had no NTSC monitor and was forced to color correct by eye. Software: Final Cut Pro 3 for editing/sound mixing and Photoshop 7 for miscellaneous stuff.  For music scoring I used Skale Tracker, a sample based windows software that I really like (http://www.skale.org). Since I couldn’t afford to buy the latest double processor Power Mac from Apple the rendering times required for those very complex multi-layer timelines were painfully long. That’s when I would switch over to my PC and work on the score. Overall I was very happy with Final Cut Pro, which I might add I had never used before and had to learn from scratch.

MicroCinema Scene: Do you have plans for your next project yet? Are you going straight into OCEAN?

Coyula: The script for OCEAN is ready to go. Yet I have this other idea in the back of my head, which takes place in the same world of RED COCKROACHES and OCEAN.  So maybe I’ll have a trilogy, but I’m not sure yet. At the moment OCEAN is next in line and I’m gearing up for the pre-production.

MicroCinema Scene: You obviously have a lot of creative and technical talent as well as some very challenging ideas and concepts.  What kind of films do you see yourself making in the future? Is your goal to make films as part of the film “industry” or will you be content making films as a true “independent”?

Coyula: Well that’s hard to tell. I used to do promotional videos in Cuba to make money.  I can see myself someday making one of those stupid Hollywood films just so that I could make some money to finance my real work—but not really.  The day may come when one of my films catches the attention of the industry, but I’m not banking on that.  I don’t think my personal films will ever be blockbusters and I’m totally OK with that, actually I’m quite happy about it.  As far as I can see right now, I will continue to work as an independent.  I’m not sure that I could give up the creative freedom that I know enjoy for the highly structured safety of a studio project.

For more information about RED COCKROACHES and Miguel Coyula visit http://www.redcockroachesmovie.com.

By Omar Corral. Miguel Coyula is the creator of what may well be the cheapest feature film ever to be released commercially. Red Cockroaches (2003) [Review Link] could also be one of the most celebrated in the independent film festival scene worldwide. However, this is not the first project that he shot in the United States, as many believe. Some years ago, he was invited to the Rhode Island Latino Film Festival for a showing of his short student film Dancing on Needles (1998). As soon as friends and relatives found out he was coming over, he was able to travel to Miami, New York and San Francisco, also.  During those two or three weeks or so that he spent in the country, he took the opportunity to shoot what his acquaintances might have thought as just souvenir footage in different formats. On a couple of occasions, he got Adam Plotch, the award winning star of RC and a couple of other actors to perform what seemed to be only disjointed acting exercises. He even borrowed Plotch’s high school graduation videotapes and other memorabilia. Wherever he would go, he would always carry a plastic fork with him. Nobody would have guessed that once back in his native Cuba, after shooting a couple more scenes in Havana, and months and months of exhaustive editing, Coyula would be able to give enough coherence to such variety of material and actually make a movie out of it.

The reason why he carried around that mysterious piece of disposable silverware all the time was explained once he gave title to the results of his work. The Plastic Fork (2001) could pass for an experimental film at first sight, like most of his work as a student. However, it makes a whole lot more sense than any of the films he directed before RC. A closer look reveals that, even in a highly non-linear way, which obviously breaks the units of time and space; it’s not at all detached from the narrative format. Considering the way it –actually- presents a story and that it was truly shot without any budget, as opposed to RC, this movie could have gained Coyula more recognition than his best-known movie so far. Unfortunately, a popular public figure appears in the film without having given him authorization to use his image, and warned him not to show it in public without removing the footage in which he appears. Since Coyula would not subject his work to any kind of censorship or alteration of what he first intended, only a few have been able to see it privately. This movie is, to those of us who have been fortunate enough to watch it, his true legacy to independent filmmaking for its groundbreaking treatment of a story and the audacity he had to shoot it. By the same token, it’s also his testimony of the legal and moral limitations an independent filmmaker must face if he/she intends to have his/her work shown and given the respect it deserves.

A synopsis for this movie would roughly sound like this. Adam, a geek-looking character, dreams of a beautiful girlfriend like he’ll never have in reality. One night, in one of those dreams, his best friend warns them that there’s a murderer coming after them. They run away, but the mysterious killer catches up with the girl and injures her mortally. In her agony, she makes Adam swear to avenge her with an “ancient” plastic fork that she gives him. Once he awakes, he grows obsessed with finding the killer, although he knows that everything that happened was just a dream. Meanwhile, two gangsters who are dating the same girl confront each other after Adam threatens one of them over the other’s phone. The girl they are fighting over turns out to be Adam’s sister. At the same time, in Miami, a child girl grows more jealous of her younger sister every day, and plots a murderous scheme to get rid of her once and for all. All of this happens while an unnamed character that’s also accumulating frustration on her own counts backwards until the end, in which the plastic fork connects each one of these stories.  Even though all of them destroy themselves somehow, the possibility is open for the story to continue.

Coyula plays with different scenarios and possibilities. He leaves the audience to figure out which ones are really taking place. It’s never clear if the characters, especially in the plot line that concerns Adam, are really there or if they are only the product of each other’s imagination. One moment he’s talking to his best friend in a full baseball stadium, and the next there isn’t anyone else but the two of them. This character also disappears and reappears giving us the impression that Adam is only talking to himself among the loud baseball fans. In another scene, one moment Adam is arguing with a girl in a restaurant and the next he’s waiting in a subway station. There, he recognizes his best friend, who acts like a he had never seen him before. In both of these scenarios, he looks like he just came from his high school graduation; an event that was supposed to have taken place years ago. It’s almost like Adam is in several different places, confronting those who’ve wronged him all at the same time. Considering that the rest of the plot lines have the same gruesome ending as the one he’s in, it could also be that Adam is imagining he’s different people. On the other hand, he and everybody else in the story may live only in the imagination of a girl in San Francisco, who appears to be the only one who knows what’s going on since she’s counting backwards and finishes when all their fates come to a dead end, even hers. 

Coyula, an atheist, tries to find an explanation for the workings of the universe in terms of a strange dependency among its conscious beings. In his belief system, objects and thoughts link creatures rather than place or time. The filmmaker is also the true God among entities who have the power of manipulating their reality at whim, like gods themselves, whether they are aware of it or not. There’s a particular sequence in which a doll, an object typically made in resemblance to its creators and not able to act by itself, comes to life and impales itself in the fork. The only certain thing is that the main characters in each story line confront their greatest fears and give way to their frustrations by destroying them and themselves with the same object, unthinkable as a weapon. The banality of the means they use for this purpose reinforces the belief that fears are only as strong as we let them be. The plastic fork symbolizes such banality, or otherwise what their opponents see as the main characters’ weaknesses. The fact that they destroy themselves when they kill their enemies shows how their deep-rooted fears had become part of their very own essence. It also symbolizes, once somebody finds the fork broken along the seashore, the only common thing in landscapes all over the world: Trash, which is said to define individuals, and evokes contamination, and therefore, evilness. Adam also represents those unable to compete according to the standards of physical strength and beauty in a consumerist society, which by definition tends to destroy itself.  The fork as a symbol of this and Plotch’s hysterical performance set the tone for the entire movie, which leans more towards the farcical and the absurd.

In order to reflect these ideas and make up for his lack of time and resources, Coyula took many risks in the completion of this film. He makes close-ups of bystanders and freezes the frames in which they appear to insert lines of dialog into volutes, thus giving them an active role in the development of the story, without them knowing it. Any of them could have had the chance of taking advantage of their unawareness of his intentions.  He could have been accused of image misappropriation by any of them, just as the aforementioned “public figure” did.  Even some of the performers who willingly participated in the making of this film didn’t really know Coyula’s purpose. He also inserts footage from certain religious ceremonies. Considering the overall tone of this film and the author’s despise for religion, one could easily think that the sole purpose for this was to make fun of other’s people’s beliefs.

Nevertheless, this film has the free spirit that characterizes that remain a source of inspiration to new filmmakers and classics among film viewers, despite their commercial failure, and being widely misunderstood in their day. It brings to memory such titles as Fando & Lis, by Alejandro Jodorowsky, a seemingly disjointed piece, shoot almost just for fun, which the most conservative factions of Mexican society tried to keep from being shown and was thought lost for a long time. A better-known example would be Luis Buñuel’s An Andalusian Dog, which defied rules in the same fashion and made no concessions in its intention to communicate an artistic vision in all its integrity. Hopefully, there will be a way for Coyula to overcome these objections and have the wider audience this particular work deserves. It is a challenging piece that calls for the active participation of the viewer, and teaches the aspiring filmmaker that, when there are not enough resources, the only way to say something meaningful through cinema may be to take as many chances as his/her intentions call for. 

Director Marc Fratto and the Insane-o-Rama crew garnered quite a bit of attention for their vampire-gangster debut Strange Things Happen After Sundown. Now they are poised to release a brand new feature that will put a twisted spin on the zombie genre: Last Rites of the Dead. For their second production, Fratto decided to up the quality by shooting on HDV. The format was brand new at the time and many “experts” were not convinced it was an ideal format for shooting a feature. We decided to ask Marc a few questions about the new movie and the new acquisition format.



MicroCinema Scene: Okay, tell us a little bit about your second feature?

Marc Fratto: Well, much like Strange Things was made because I was sick of lame vampire movies with no balls, I made Last Rites of the Dead as an answer to how boring and formulaic zombie movies have become in the last 10 years. In fact, zombie movies became so formulaic, that people actually made a huge deal over 28 Days Later’s decision to make the zombies run.

Last Rites of the Dead plays with the scenario that the recently deceased are walking the earth as walking, talking, functioning zombies. They go about their jobs and lives as if nothing ever happened. Zombie hunting hate groups form to hunt them down, and some of the zombie’s themselves form terrorist groups to fight the living. The hero of the movie is a girl named Angela, who is shot to death in the opening scene, and, as a zombie, becomes a pawn in the brewing war between the living and the dead. We have a lot of fun with the concept. I won’t give too much away, but I will say, one of our investors instantly signed on after reading the scene in the script where Angela joins a zombie support group.

MCS: What went into your decision to shoot with HDV? At the time you made the decision, this was a BRAND new format. This would make a lot of filmmakers nervous.

Marc Fratto: I wasn’t all that happy with the way Strange Things Happen At Sundown looked. Shooting wide shots became frustrating because of how we would lose detail. I never entertained the 24p route because it was the increased resolution I was looking for. I had my eye on Hi-def for a while, and it was the seeing Collateral and Once Upon A Time in Mexico really convinced me that I had to make the High-def jump. For a couple of years, I watched the price come down further and further on those cameras, and finally, HDV came out, and I made the leap.

I did a little looking around on the internet for reviews of the camera. Because the image was compressed onto DV tape, I was suspicious. But I found a site that had a sample of an HDV image and it was unbelievable. That’s when I plopped down my hard earned money and bought the camera and editing suite.

MCS: What specific camera did you use for this project? And why did you choose this particular camera?

Marc Fratto: I used the Sony HDR-FX1. At the time, that was the only camera offering HDV and it was cheap. It cost me a little over 3 grand.

MCS: Can you tell us a little bit about what you decided to do as far as camera-setup (the internal settings). Also did you use any kind of 24p mode during production.

Marc Fratto: I shot the movie on 30 frames a second, interlaced (or 1080i). The Sony cam has a de-interlacing feature in-camera but I read that its not true de-interlacing. Instead of combining the two feilds into one frame, it just drops one, and doubles up the other one, filling in the gaps but also cutting your resolution in half. Instead, I decided to De-interlace in post.

I’m going to make a 30p and 24p master. We’ll have to use the 24p if we need to do a film transfer. But if the movie is going straight to video, we’ll probably leave it at 30p. either way, I’ll have to look at both masters and see which I like better.

MCS: You mention that you bought an editing suite to go with the camera. Can you tell us a little more about this. What kind of suite and software are you running?

Marc Fratto: I had to do some serious updates, so I just bought a new computer. I got Adobe Premiere Pro, with 2 gigs of Ram, and 700 gigs of hard drive spice. I also picked up adobe after effects and magic bullet as well. And then I picked up Cineform’s Aspect HD, which delivers real time editing workflow for Premiere pro. Frank Garfi, who handles all of the sound on our movies also picked up ProTools for his computer as well. He’s cutting the sound as we speak.

MCS: In post production have you run into any problems with the way HDV uses groups of frames (gop)? When I edited Exile on Final Cut Pro I didn’t even realize it was handling the frames like this, until it came time to use some color correction filters - then it totally killed me with render times.

Marc Fratto: No. Actually, its all been extremely easy. The only snag I found was that my footage only loads when I capture to the C Drive and then transfer it into the Hard drive. If I load it directly into the hard drive, it pixelates.

MCS: So now you’ve got the movie pretty much in the can - are you happy with the image quality? What kind of response have you received to how the movie looks?

Marc Fratto: It looks incredible. And now I’ve filmlooked it with magic bullet and de-interlaced it, I couldn’t be happier. People who’ve seen it have been blown away by the clarity and look of it.

MCS: Have you picked up any tips or tricks from shooting in HDV (or even specifically with the FX1) that you could pass on to other guerilla filmmakers?

Marc Fratto: I think shooting on HDV is a bit easier than shooting on DV, because the camera handles light better. Shooting on DV, you had to be real careful with your lighting, because if something was lit too bright, or to harsh, it would get blown out. Especially on the wide shots. But HDV seems to handle harsh lighting a lot better. Because of the increased resolution, you also have a lot more freedom to get the kind of shots you want. Like big wide landscape shots. I used to shy away from those with DV, but not now.

For more information about Last Rights of the Dead, visit Insane-o-Rama.com!

In many ways, J.R. Bookwalter epitomizes the spirit of what MicroCinema Scene is all about. This may sound like a strange claim to make about someone who is best known for directing a sprawling Super8 zombie epic financed by the director of Evil Dead II. Infected with a love for filmmaking at an early age, Bookwalter has brought his visions to cinematic life by any means necessary. Throughout his career, his has continually pushed the envelope, undaunted by lack of money, industry connections or geographic proximity to Hollywood.

But for cinema elitists, Bookwalter is an easy figure to overlook. Not only does his oeuvre consist mainly of blood-splattered horror, but the majority of his films are shot on videotape. Bookwalter was shooting features on Super-VHS and Hi-8 video before DV was even an indie buzzword. In fact, his sci-fi action flick Polymorph may actually be the first legitimate DV feature, beating The Celebration and Julien DonkeyBoy by years. 

In addition to his filmmaking, Bookwalter started a video production and distribution company and published Alternative Cinema, a nationally distributed magazine to promote both his work and that of other low-budget filmmakers. Several years ago, Bookwalter sold Alternative Cinema and ceased production of his shot-on-video movies. He has since moved to California and repositioned Tempe Productions as a post-production company for the independent film industry.

Read more

“Don’t let the bastards get you down.” – Kris Kristofferson

We all catch colds.  Each and every single one of us knows the sting of a sore throat, the force of an unexpected sneeze and the burn under the nose from blowing it too many times without the comfort of Puffs Plus.  But as the majority of the visitors to this website are creative artists, most of us have also been similarly felled by another, occasionally more long-lasting virus:  self-doubt.  Like the common cold, self-doubt can make you feel tired and lazy.  Your feet will drag and you won’t be able to bring your chin up.  Your drive to do anything other than lie in bed and watch TV overrides everything.  Like a cold, self-doubt has a number of different causes and when you get it, you feel like you’re the only one in the world that has it.  This is to let you know that all creative artists get saddled with this virus because we all experience, in some form or another, very comparable symptoms.

Read more