The Secret to Guerrilla (Or Any Other Kind of) Success

This is one of those "duhhh" bits of advice, but it nevertheless seems to elude many indie filmmakers on a regular basis. What I am about to tell you is life advice that you will find helpful in getting any number of things or outcomes that you desire. It has served me well since Junior High School and I've never regreted applying it to any given situation. Are you ready for this bombshell? Here goes:

Whenever seeking the help of another person or organization you should always try to create a win-win situation that will benefit both you and them.

That's it. That's my mind-blowing filmmaking revelation. Let me elaborate. (I promise, I'm keeping this post short.) Too often I am consulted by young filmmakers who plan or are in the process of approaching some organization or person to get some thing for free. It might be an equipment donation, a free location, a sponsorship, an introduction, etc.

(PHOTO: One of my guerrilla allies, Director/Producer Pete Chatmon, of the upcoming film "Premium". I help Pete's company Double 7 Films with some of their video and production needs and he helps me with business consultations and introductions for the Down and Dirty DV Project. That's Win-Win, Baby!)








A classic amateur guerrilla mistake is to assume that somehow these people will, out of the sheer generosity in their heart, want to help YOU with YOUR project. The reality is that people want to help themselves much more than they want to help someone else. That's just human nature. Always has been.

How often do you go around looking for ways to help other people that doesn't benefit you? (FYI- Doing it just to feel good about it counts as a benefit.) We'd all like to help other people more and in more ways, but we are so pre-occupied with our own needs and problems that we have little extra energy to devote to efforts that solely benefit other people. The most stable and productive partnerships are all win-win. Win-win situations are how you form allies in filmmaking and life. And you need allies for both.

Assess your skills and resources, then assess the people who are in a position to help you further your project and figure out what you may be able to offer that they might need. All you have to do is put yourself in their shoes and pretend you are them listening to your pitch from their perspective then ask, "How will this benefit me?" (not you-me, but you-them).

If you train yourself to look at any given situation from the other person's perspective, you will almost instantly know when you are wasting your (and their) time and you will be able to anticipate where you will get resistance to your requests and how to best overcome it before a single conversation has even taken place.

Approach by focusing on mutual needs. Never pitch something as a favor.

Unless someone owes you a favor, this is a turnoff. By the same token, don't contact someone out of the blue with your idea for how you can do them an unsolicited favor, because they will likely be suspicious and question your motivations. They know you want something in the end and they will just tune out your pitch until they know what it's going to cost them. It's like when a cheery telemarketer calls to tell you that you've just won a "free" trip to a resort and starts telling you about the lovely amenities before telling you the real catch.

Instead, just be honest and approach with a realistic and thought out plan for how you can both help each other. Explain what you need from them and explain how it will benefit them. People respect this kind of honesty and it will take down some of their defenses since they already know what you want and they see that you've taken their situation into consideration as well.

There will be cases where you seemingly have nothing to offer someone, because they have considerably more resources than you already. You should certainly still ask, but don't waste a lot of time begging for things or pleading to convince someone of how great your project will be. Instead look for more suitable people to trade favors with.

(My long time allies, Rebekah and Christie, who run Filmtrix.org gave me an interview for the Down and Dirty DV Podcast (coming soon) and I'm giving them some additional promotion. That's Win-Win, Again!)

Some typical trade offs in guerrilla filmmaking are:

Locations - Exposure
Crew - Experience
Talent - Demo Reel
Equipment - Credit or Experience
Crew (your film) - Crew (their film)
Products - Product Placement
Food - Credit or Exposure
Professional Services - Points on Film
Post Production Services - Points on Film

And the list goes on and on.


Don't look for handouts. Look for allies.

You may be able to scrouge up one or two handouts here and there, but an ally is a powerful long-term resource that will serve your objectives long into the future as you serve theirs. You absolutely can't make a film without them.

And that's all I have to say about that.

-Ant.

Long Time, No Posts

So it's obviously been waaay too long since my last entry. As I pointed out before, I've got all theses balls in the air and I'm trying not to drop any, but alas, I let the blog hit the floor for a month to focus on finishing the book and lining up things to complete the video podcast and the guerrilla DVD. I also dipped down to the Miami Film Festival for my man, Pete Chatmon's film, "Premium". (I'll be writing more about that project in the near future.)

So the new release date for "Down and Dirty DV - Vol. 1: Documentaries" is April 28th. I was really busting ass to get it out by April 15th, but I ultimately realized that I would've compromised some of the content. I've seen some self-publishing efforts that I thought were a little shabby and half-assed and I definitely don't want anyone to put my book in that category., so I've spent most of the last month just really focusing on quality control: new graphic illustrations, better photo illustrations, fact-checking, a chart of the latest cameras, tweaking the cover, etc. After a very difficult time finding someone that could work with my tight guerilla timeline I just secured a book editor, Darren Hackett.

Darren is one of my best friends going all the way back to 2nd grade. No joke. He's a talented screenwriter and has been copy writing for a long time now. Part of my end game to this whole Down and Dirty DV effort is to produce his screenplay, "Growing Up Thirteen", which is a drama loosely based on our crew back in the day at Woodlawn Highschool in Baltimore, MD.

Darren is actually the whole reason I got into filmmaking. Growing up the idea that I even could make film and television completely eluded me. It just seemed like some magical inaccessible process, until the Darren came back home from Boston University and showed me his first film. Then it clicked instantly.

I immediately signed up for my first film class at U.M.B.C. (Univ. Maryland Baltimor County) which is an excellent affordable little school in the U.M. system. After I took my first film class and spent a semester in a work fellowship/filmmaking seminar at Disney World I was completely hooked and transfered to NYU's film program and never looked back and the rest is Down and Dirty history. So thanks, D-Money, for putting a brotha down!

The idea that guys like us could actually make films simply blew my mind. It was just never presented to me at Career Day or anywhere else. Once it became my passsion, I had the revelation that kids, especially kids of color, simply weren't being educated about opportunities in this field, let alone encouraged. So while I was still in college, I began speaking at school career days and organizing little workshops for kids. I've always been interested in teaching, but knew I couldn't deal with teacher's pay and lack of growth opportunity, so teaching video was a perfect melding of passions which all lead to Down and Dirty DV.

I can't wait to get the whole thing out to the public. I truly think that this project will democratize filmmaking even further. So many people in this business are about putting up barriers and coveting in formation and guarding their "secrets". I think that's just some insecure bullshit by insecure people in an industry that is run on fear.

I'm all about sharing information and opening doors and I've never regreted it and made a lot of allies in the process. I'm not afraid that I will help people become "more successful" than me. I hope I will. It's all blessings to me. I don't know everything about digital filmmaking (not even close), but everything I do know I'm gonna share through the Down and Dirty DV project, so that others can avoid the same mistakes that I've made in the past, many of which were expensive and painful.

The whole Hollywood system is based on "paying dues" which I do believe in, but there's a fine line between making sure people have paid their dues and making things unnecessarily difficult just because you had a tough time finding your way or nobody helped you. Shit! I'm still having a tough time, but somebody has to break this cycle of self-defeating idiocy. I'm about doing all I can to make it easier for those after me.

If you get to the top before me I think that's great. Then, I've got another friend that can give me a hand. And if somebody doesn't reach back, that's cool too, because it's all about karma, Baby. Everything I've ever done in life, good or bad, has come back to me whether from the original source or not. We all have ambitions and this is a crazy competitive business, but we've gotta be in this together. So don't be stingy with knowledge. Don't covet helpful information. Tell everybody how you pulled off that cool shot. Point out when you see another filmmaker making a fatal mistake. Volunteer some time for the next generation of filmmakers... it always comes back in ways you never imagined. And that's my soapbox rant for today,kids.

'Til next time, peace, love and video y'all.

-Ant.

Podcast Resources

If my extensive rants have convinced you that podcasting is something you should check out, here are some links to help you get started:

• Create Podcasts Using Your PC, from O’Reilly Windows Dev Center
• Start Your Own Podcast, from Macworld
• Create Your Own Podcasts, from the Washington Post
• List of Podcast Publishing Software, from Podcasting News
• Audacity Tutorial, from Transom

Anthony’s Top 5 Reasons Why You Need to Get Down with Podcasting

1. Get People to See Your Trailer
If you’ve got a trailer for your project, there’s no better way to get it out to the masses. You can just post a straight trailer or you can get creative and dole it out in pieces, show entire scenes, or add additional content similar to DVD extras to entice people to check out your film. Because podcasts are portable the chances of people sharing a trailer they like with friends is much greater. If you’re really smart with your promotion and people respond to the material, your podcast could become “viral” and begin to spread on it’s own momentum driving traffic and media attention to your project. That’s exactly what happened to the media makers I interviewed for Sundance. (see last blog)

2. Digital Film School
Filmmaking education is not just established institutions with professors and formal classes, it’s anything that helps you learn your craft. DVD extras and filmmaker commentaries are mini-film courses in themselves. Similarly, there are a growing number of podcasts (soon to include my own) that cover the subject of filmmaking. Pretty much every week I listen to a few hours of content that helps keep me abreast of new equipment and technologies, industry trends, tips and tricks, and generally how other filmmakers are dealing with the same issues I encounter. It’s specialized education for free. In a few weeks (or sooner) I will begin posting a small portion of the video lessons from the Down and Dirty DV - Vol. 1: Documentaries DVD in podcasts… free for you to download and share. Film school, workshops, and media all cost money. Right now the filmmaking podcasts are all FREE. It’s a great way to try before you buy. Oh and did I mention podcasts are (currently) FREE? That’s a no-brainer.

3. Get People to See Your Movie
If you have a short that you want to get out there, I think this is the best thing to happen since Ifilm.com for all the same reasons I listed above in reason #1. However, I think the potential for features is just being tapped into. You can dole out your movie in pieces and tease the audience. If you’ve got a project just languishing on the shelf, it could find a whole new audience in the podcast world. While it’s admittedly a long shot, it’s possible that in the best-case scenario you could get a distribution deal out of it like the filmmakers from Four Eyed Monsters. If you’ve got a “calling card” film a podcast could help you get funding for the next project or gigs as a director for hire. Most importantly, it’s a cheap way for you to get direct feedback and interaction with your audience. Now it’s not the same, but just so you won’t have to stretch your imagination quite as far, check out this PBS documentary from Frontline posted in 23 parts…now imagine instead of streaming video that those segments are podcasts put out every week.

4. Take Your Projects Anywhere Ready to Show
If you have your videos in a portable format, you’ll always have something to impress that agent you just happened to meet at the gym or that new crewmember you’re trying to recruit. The bottom line is that you can carry all of your video projects with you without the need for a computer or dvd player to show them off.

5. You Can Still Get in on the Ground Floor
The last stats I heard on podcasting just a few weeks ago (on a podcast ironically), said that only 10% of people surveyed even know what a podcast is. 10%! If you’re thinking 10% is lame or why should you waste your time if there is only 10% penetration, then you’re looking at it the wrong way. To me that figure means that this thing is just getting started. Podcasting today is like having an online business was in 1992- It’s cutting edge and the field is still open enough to get attention because there is not as much competition for eyeballs. That’s the situation today, but it’s changing as we speak. Four Eyed Monsters is getting a distribution deal. Anni Rudegair of Soccergirl Incorporated is now in an excellent position to command sponsorships and sell related products. (I don’t know, but suspect that some negotiations may be taking place as I write this.) Both have pulled off these feats after podcasting for less than a year. Feel that draft in the room? Well that’s an open window of opportunity, baby! However, this window of wide-open opportunity closes a little with every new and corporate sponsored podcast that hits the digital airwaves. If you’re in now, God willing, you’ll be well positioned and established when the other 90% catches up in the next few years.

Down and Dirty DV Factoid:
The new Oxford dictionary has officially declared podcasting to be the “Word of the Year - 2005”.

I’m talking infinite possibilities here, people. A few of my associates think I'm overhyping podcasting. Ironically, none of these people have actually tried it. If you just subscribe to a few decent video and audio podcasts, you'll get it right away. So that's it, my whole podcast rant... for now. I'll shut up about it for awhile and get back to video production issues, but I hate to see my fellow filmmakers sleep on such a powerful new medium and miss the boat. Just don't say ya boy, Anthony, didn't try to put you down with podcasting from the get-go.

'Til next time...peace, love, and video, Baby. I'm out.

-Ant.

Too Many Balls in the Air

It’s taken me longer to get up the rest of the Sundance coverage than I thought… had to dub tapes, make transcripts, edit, ran out of hard drive space, blizzard, and still work on all the other elements of the project, blah, blah, blah… you know all the usual daily obstacles of a major project.

I’ve decided to hire a transcriptionist and an editor to put together the first few video podcasts. The more I started doing it myself, the more I realized I needed some new people onboard to help out. Since Sundance I’ve kept all the Down and Dirty DV balls in the air at the same time: book, DVD, website, and blog. The Down and Dirty DV podcast was the final deal-breaker.

It’s a lesson that all guerilla filmmakers pick up sooner or later.

YOU CAN’T DO IT ALL YOURSELF.

Even if you are capable of doing each individual task of a larger project, it’s still an unwise practice. You’ll burn yourself out and eventually hit a wall and get frustrated if you don’t have at least a few trusted people periodically (if not regularly) helping you pull off your vision.

Speaking of which, I’m looking for some motivated guerilla-minded individuals to contribute to this blog as regular writers or just commenter. Feel free to use the handy comment button below to leave your two cents. (This is a moderated post, so it may take a day or two for comments to appear.) If you're a guerilla filmmaker and want to write for this blog or have an article or rant or just info on a particular DV tool, simply post it as a comment or hit me up with an email at anthony@downanddirtydv.com and we’ll take it from there.

So back to Sundance… I ranted pretty long on my thoughts about podcasting and how I think it’s going to completely change the way we watch and distribute media, including indie films. I can’t emphasize enough how important it is for indies to familiarize themselves with this new technology, so I’m going to continue the rant just a little longer i my next post with:

Anthony’s Top 5 Reasons Why You Need to Get Down with Podcasting...

…Stay Tuned.

Guerilla Reflections on Sundance - Part 3: Meet the Podcasters

I know it’s been 2 weeks since the last blog entry, but seeing how the last entry was so ridiculously long, I figured you'd read it in 2 parts. I’ve been busy cooking up some new stuff for you in the Down and Dirty DV guerilla kitchen. Be patient while I hook up a few more of the side dishes. In a few more weeks I’m gonna drop the full soul food meal that is Down and Dirty DV on y’all. In the mean time, here’s an appetizer to hold you over…

I finally found the time to put together some crude video clips of my conversation with Sundance Podcast Panelists, Susan Buice and Arin Crumley, the filmmaking team behind Four-Eyed Monsters. And I also have some short clips of my interview with Soccergirl a.k.a. Anni Rudegair who has been described as the female Howard Stern of podcasting. All three are pioneering video artists in the digital frontier of podcasting and have some valuable things to share about the power of the medium, self-promotion, and building an audience. Listen and learn…

Susan Buice & Arin Crumley











"Soccergirl" Anni Rudegair





More of these interviews will appear on the soon-to-be-released Down and Dirty DV Vol. 1: Documentaries DVD. That’s all for now. ‘Til next time.

Peace, love and video, Baby. I’m out.

-Ant.

Guerilla Reflections on Sundance – Part 2:
Why You're Crazy Insane if You're Not Podcasting

One of the more interesting panels I attended was on Podcasting and Vlogging and how it’s changing the media landscape. For me this was a must-attend panel, because I think that people (in and out of the industry) have no real clue of the huge impact that this technology is going to have on film and tv business models, advertising, and distribution. I'm definitely, going to put a few pages in the book about podcasting.

*NOTE: For sake of brevity I’m using the term podcasting to cover all the new portable forms of video including cellphones, PSP’s, Palm Pilots, iRivers, etc. They are all different devices that more or less do the same things in similar ways. (Full Disclosure: I own a whopping 2 shares of Apple stock. That's about $160.00 worth!)

The Sundance Podcasting Panel included:

Jason Calacanis (moderator): CEO/founder of Weblogs, Inc. which recently sold to AOL for a very healthy sum.

Susan Buice: half of the team of filmmakers of the popular Four-Eyed Monsters podcast which serializes the struggles of making their feature film of the same title.

Anni Rudegair: a.k.a Soccergirl: Visual/Performing Artist and "blue" comedienne of the popular Soccer Girl Incorporated podcast

Mika Salmi: founder of Atom Entertainment as in the Atomfilms.com video site

Ken Rutowski: a consultant and podcaster

I could tell you about the panel, but Randall Bennett who blogs for the good people at DVGuru.com already wrote a thorough article and posted a quicktime file of the actual panel discussion. Click this link for Randall's Sundance Podcast Panel coverage and video coverage.

So as not to be too redundant on covering the panel, especially when you can watch it for yourselves, I'm just gonna wax poetic (i.e. rant and rave) about my thoughts about podcasting and the unfolding portable video revolution. Enjoy...

INDUSTRY IMPLICATIONS
With the proliferation of broad-band internet access and portable media , creative and bold independent’s can now cut out the middlemen and gatekeepers to communicate and get their work directly to an audience.

Obviously, nobody can really say exactly how a new technology will play out, but the very real possibilities already happpening include:

a) film and media makers finding corporate sponsors for online projects

b) building a “viral” audience that is able to rapidly spread the word about a project, build buzz, and/or even directly support the project financially

c) attract potential distributors who always follow the smell of audience money.

WHAT'S SO DIFFERENT ABOUT PODCASTING?
Now you could argue that video on the web is nothing new and you’d be right. However, podcasting has made it 10 times easier for consumers to find, get, and control their viewing experience.

They aren’t tied to their computers or at the mercy of their internet connections once they download the video. Video consumers click a single button to subscribe to a podcast, and from then on, it’s delivered to their computer/iPod automatically every time it’s updated and waiting for them to watch when they're ready and how they want. One click! That's it!

TWO REAL WORLD VIDEO PODCAST CASE STUDIES - COMING SOON!
To help you understand the full implications of podcasting for guerilla media-makers, I sat down one-on-one with two of the panelist who are at the bleeding edge of this new podcast distribution model: Soccergirl a.k.a. Anni Rudegair and the Four-Eyed Monsters filmmakers, Susan Buice and Arin Crumley. If you want to know why some big media executives are pissing in their pants just look at the numbers for either of these podcasts that are less than a year old:

Each has more than 50,000 downloads per episode.

Wanna know how they did it? You'll have to check back and peep the interviews I did with them as soon as I'm done editing. We covered a lot of ground in both interviews, so I think I'll give them their own post when the interviews are ready. Below is my rendition of what the links would look like if I were done editing:

Soccergirl Interview
(Still Editing -Video coming!)

Four Eyed Monster Interview
(Still Editing - Video coming!)

DOES SIZE REALLY MATTER?
I know a lot of people in the industry are caught up in the whole screen-size thing with podcasting (and similarly with the Sony PSP). “The screen is too small! Whose gonna watch a movie on that small screen?”. Listen up people, forget about the f-ing screen! If you are hung up on screen-size in the portable media revolution, you’re missing the boat, man. Here’s why:

1. Not one, but two, whole generations of young people have spent their entire lives staring at small portable game screens and have little issue with great resolution on a small screen. The basic trade-off for portability is size. (How many times do you see the words "large" and "portable" in the same description? Portable = small… always has.
   
   
2. If you’re stuck in this screen-size camp, you’re also overlooking a major feature of the video iPod… it plays video out to any tv with standard RCA inputs (the little yellow, red, and white ports). It is not restricted to a small screen. All you need is a $15-$20 cable and you will discover what the video iPod really is… a tiny Portable Tivo Unit.
   

THE TRUE POTENTIAL OF PORTABLE VIDEO & CONVERGENCE
As I write this the quality of iPod video played out to a TV is a little below VHS, but we’re talking the 1st generation of a machine from a company who updates and improves their products at an exponential rate. I’m betting that it’s only a short matter of time before that quality goes up and people begin to realize the true potential of the video iPod and similar devices which is as a portable and universal media player/recorder.

The exact same way that many people have sold off or boxed up their cd collections once they had their music on an iPod, is the exact same thing that will happen to dvd’s and possibly even Tivo units once people realize they can have all that media in one- portable and always available place. There are already deals to download content direct from Tivo and other DVR's and soon I suspect, you'll be able to record video signals direct from your tv or camera right into the iPod.

Show clients your demo reel or entire body of work anytime, take your entire movie collection with you everywhere you go, catch up on your tv shows on the plane, watch training videos during your commute… are you starting to get it now? Now imagine broadcast-quality tv output. How about wireless capability? Am I blowin' your mind yet?

I would equate the video iPod in it's current incarnation to that quiet librarian with her hair up in a bun and the nerdy glasses reading a classic novel, who at the end of the week let's her hair down, losses the glasses, and starts pounding margaritas and dirty dancing on the bar. Just like that quiet librarian, the video iPod's full potential is just below the surface. (Actually, that sounds more like my Soccergirl fantasy!)

Anyway, the point is this portable media/convergence thing is just getting started. Smart film and media-makers had best jump on the bandwagon, because as I write this it's last call to ride this new wave and grab some attention for your project, before everybody and their mama has a podcast and the Studios jump in wholeheartedly to exploit and lock down this new medium for all it's worth. Guerilla Filmmakers this may be your last chance to bypass the gatekeepers and get your voice heard unfiltered, uncomprimised, D.I.Y., down and dirty, baby!

Guerilla Reflections on Sundance – Part 1

I’m tired to the bone after 3 days of straight hustling to get the word out about Down and Dirty DV at the Sundance and Slamdance festivals and all the other -dance festivals in Park City, UTAH. I have that all-too-familiar post-wrap exhaustion. You know the way you feel after shooting a few 16-20 hour days in a row? Well, it’s just like that, only imagine that it was open-bar happy hour on-set every day from 4:00pm-8:00pm. Yeah, it’s kinda like that.

This was my second time going down. (The first was at Slamdance a few years ago for a feature I produced called Shelter, which starred Ray Santiago who also appears in this year’s Slamdance entry from the Napoleon Dynamite team, The Sasquatch Dumpling Gang which seemed to be getting some good buzz.) It was extremely energizing. I stayed on the move, but I met a lot of really chill filmmakers and other people from all over the country. I went down to let people know about the whole Down and Dirty DV project and put the preview version of the book and dvd trailer in some people’s hands.

It’s a little nerve-racking when you keep a big project under wraps for awhile before finally letting people take a look at it, you really don’t know how it’s going to be received. You put it out there and hold your breath and hope that people like it, or at least get it. At Sundance, it was both. I got a lot of great feedback and encouragement on the project and shot some great new material to boot. I tried to dispatch Down and Dirty DV T-shirts all over the country. So I'm back even more fired up than before to knock up out the rest of the project and put Down and Dirty DV out to the masses.

Ghengis Blues is Down with Down and Dirty DV
I met and did a short interview with Adrian Belic who made Ghengis Blues, along with his brother Roco. If you never saw it, it’s a great little doc that won the 2000 Sundance Audience Award and was nominated for an Academy Award. It's about a blind bluesman who teaches himself the unusual talent of multi-harmonic Tuvan throat-singing and ends up traveling to the isolated region that birthed the music to perform and form friendships that cross expansive cultural barriers. It's definitely worth owning or putting in your Netflix queue if you haven't already seen it.

Talk about energy and enthusiasm for guerilla filmmaking! If you talk to this man for just 10 minutes, you will probably want to go right out and make another film that instant, even if all you have is a vhs camcorder and some lint in your pockets!

Adrian is a colorful character to say the least. You can't help but be affected by his sincere passion for filmmaking and encouraging other filmmakers. Adrian and his brother, Roco, can definitely get Down and Dirty when they have to. (They shot Ghengis Blues on Hi-8 in rugged mountains!) When I put the book in Adrian’s hand, he instantly got it and saw the value for other guerilla filmmakers.

If you want to know some of Adrian's thoughts on guerilla filmmaking and hear his impromptu prasie for Down and Dirty DV: Documentaries, check out the quicktime clip below. (*When the podcast drops later this month, I'll put up some of the actual sit-down interview that I did with Adrian later the same day.)

Adrian Belic on Down and Dirty DV
and Guerilla Filmmaking (QT 2:39)

Who goes to Sundance?
Everybody seems to go to Sundance/Slamdance for different reasons. Obviously, if you have a project in one of the festivals, you go down to promote it. However, there are also a lot of filmmakers (established and aspiring) that go mostly go to attend the various panels and to meet and network with other filmmakers. And of course there are DP’s, Agents, Actors, Distribution Companies, and Equipment manufacturers all promoting themselves, their films, or their companies. There are also a surprising number of just film fans, who only go for the movies and parties (if they can worm their way in that is).

So it’s a real hodgepodge of the entire film community and you don’t have to have a film in the festival to make it worthwhile. Personally, I think it’s more enjoyable when you don’t have a project to promote, because then you can actually see some films. It takes an incredible amount of planning, energy, and hustle to really get the word out about your project. (I got to see all of a one-hour block of shorts and attended 0 parties this year. )

Despite my best intentions to see more films, I was just too wiped out at the end of a long day of walking up and down Park City’s steep Mainstreet with a backpack full of fliers, t-shirts, books, and DVD’s… not to mention the camera and sound gear I was lugging to grab more interviews for the video podcast and companion DVD. Sadly, I was in bed before 11:00pm most nights. If it wasn’t for the free RedBull at the Slamdance events, I would never have made it through the days! Thanks guys. I met a lot more people doing some interesting projects that I want to shout out, but more on my Park City adventures in my next post...

5 SOUND RULES TO LIVE BY

Some rules were meant to be broken. The following are not. Break these rules at your own risk:

RULE #1: GET AS CLOSE AS POSSIBLE WITHOUT GETTING IN THE SHOT

The most basic rule for recording dialogue is to get the mic as close as possible without being in the scene. The closer the mic, the better the quality of the recording. This is why boom mics so often end up creeping into scenes. The sound person is trying to get as close as possible and ends up accidentally entering the frame. The sound person should always try to confirm the frame line with the DP before shooting starts to avoid this problem.

RULE #2: ALWAYS USE HEADPHONES… ALWAYS

There are a wide variety of things that can ruin your sound that can only be heard by monitoring your recording with headphones. Simply watching sound levels on a meter or relying on the naked ear will not reveal the following: a cable clunking against the boom pole, air conditioner noise, hum from a computer, a distant plane, a loose mic in the zeppelin, excessive street noise… on and on.

Also, whenever possible, the sound recordist should plug their headphones into the camera itself, rather than a mixer (if one is being used) so that they are monitoring the actual sound being recorded as opposed to just the sound coming from the mixer & mic. The bottom line is to always monitor the sound at it’s final recording destination, regardless of whether you run through a mixer or other sound equipment.

RULE #3: WATCH THE SOUND LEVELS ON THE CAMERA

audio level display on a Sony PD 150
The absolute worst thing you can do audiowise, is to record distorted over-modulated (too loud) sound. Not even the most skilled sound technician can do anything to fix over-modulated sound in post. If you record sound that is too loud you’ve just gotten on a one-way train to Stinktown. If you are using a mixer, remember to match levels between the camera and mixer. Once your levels are set use the mixer controls, but monitor sound by watching the levels on the camera, because they represent what is actually being recorded to tape and that’s what counts.


RULE #4: SCOUT YOUR LOCATION FOR SOUND WHENEVER POSSIBLE

It is vital that you make a serious attempt to observe any location you will be shooting inside and out for any source of noise or sound problems that could interfere with your shoot. Murphy’s Law of whatever can go wrong will go wrong is always in full effect when it comes to location shooting. If you do not take sound into full consideration when location scouting or even worse, if you haven’t observed your location beforehand, you are personally inviting Murphy to wreak further havoc on your shoot.

This is a very common mistake, even on big budget shoots, as illustrated by an episode of Project Greenlight in which an entire team of seasoned film professionals didn’t take note of the fact that the perfect location they picked below an elevated subway track was… well, below an elevated subway track… with an elevated subway train… that ran by every 5 minutes and ultimately costs them tons of ruined takes, time, money, and headaches on the first say of shooting. So how can you avoid such a catastrophe? Always think about sound in addition to those beautiful images in your head.


RULE #5: ALWAYS RECORD “WILD” SOUND

Recording wild sound is simply recording the natural sound of any location… all the little buzzes, hums, birds, traffic, and background noises, that often go unnoticed in production. The purpose of recording wild sound is to smooth out audio inconsistencies in editing. This comes into play in two primary situations:

Situation A: You need to do ADR (additional dialogue recording) after a scene was already shot. The ambient sound under the dialogue you lay in will not match the shots you recorded on location unless you lay in the ambient sound from location… your room tone.

Situation B: During location recording, background noise elements that you have no control over or failed to notice such as air conditioners or computers were not there for certain takes and you need to restore that particular noise for these shots in order for them to sound the same as the other shots when edited together in the same scene.

The procedure is simple. During a break or as soon as picture is wrapped, have everyone on location be silent and freeze where they are. No packing or adjusting equipment… no nothing for at least 1 minute while the sound recordist captures the natural ambient sound of the location that will save your butt in the edit room.

MANUAL CAMERA CONTROLS VS. AUTO FUNCTIONS

A primary difference between pro and amateur shooters is that the pros know how to manually control their camera image and many amateurs simply let the camera decide how the shot should look and sound by relying heavily on the camera’s auto controls. The hectic and unpredictable nature of documentary shooting makes it tempting to just shoot everything in full auto mode.

The problem is that most of the auto functions on DV cameras are unreliable. Think of it as driving around the city with your car’s cruise control turned on… it’s great until you zip past a police car above the speed limit. The cruise control doesn’t know (or care) that you’re going to get a speeding ticket. It only works well in the most ideal setting… open road with no traffic lights or change in traffic or speed limit. The same is true with most camera auto functions. As soon as something outside of the ideal happens, they become much less reliable.

Your camera is not nearly as competent as you are. (Or will become by the end of your training.) Do not rely blindly on auto-focus or auto-sound levels or auto-iris. Take the time to learn and understand how to manually control the most important aspects of your video. The buttons and features will vary from camera to camera, but the principles of focus, exposure, and sound will always operate the same.

Auto Zoom vs. Manual Zoom
One thing most DV cameras will do better than you is zoom. The servos (zoom motors) on most of the DV cameras made in recent years are pressure-sensitive and capable of very smooth and controlled moves. This is also practical because you will often have to zoom to adjust your frame and manually refocus at the same time.



Surprises and Panics
At some point in production a fleeting moment may come that you need to capture right that second. The president might walk into the room a few minutes earlier than expected. You may just be passing by and see that elusive C.E.O. slipping out of his office. The rare white leopard is about to pounce on his prey from a tree… whatever. Do whatever you gotta do to grab that image. Don’t waste time fussing with menu screens and white balancing. Just get the shot, man! Your sharp manual focus and perfect white balance mean nothing if the white leopard has already killed the antelope and made off with the carcass. In that case, you may as well be the antelope.

If you totally panic or have a brain fart in the moment, it’s okay. Just quickly switch the camera into auto-lock or full auto-mode. (That’s auto-everything.) You will most likely still get a pretty decent image and sound. It will be just like using a consumer camcorder. Better to go full auto and sacrifice some image and sound control than to have unusable footage because you forgot to adjust the sound level or re-white balance the camera. Don’t worry. Using manual controls will become second nature with practice. Just remember, getting the shot is numero uno.

Run and Gun Shooting
Run and gun shooting is when you are on-the-go and things are happening so quickly or under such confusion that there isn’t ample time or calm to concentrate on all the technical details you need to consider. This includes situations such as covering unfolding violence like a riot or shooting in the crowd of a loud rowdy nightclub. Similarly, it may be wise to go with auto-functions when covering a short or sudden event where many visuals are happening all at once and you need to get full coverage before it all ends. Lastly, anytime you are shooting with unfamiliar equipment or all by yourself as director, cameraperson, sound recordist, and interviewer is an acceptable time to spread out some of those duties to the auto-functions.

Peep out the list below for a simple guide to help you figure out when auto-functions are most useful and when they are the video kiss of death...

AUTOFUNCTION DISFUNCTIONS:

AUTO FOCUS

Most Likely to Fail When:
• A person, car, or object crosses in front of your subject
• Lighting is low
• Objects are in the foreground (leaves, mic stand, crowd, etc.)

Most Useful When:
• You have an inexperienced operator on camera
• You are having difficulty seeing the viewfinder
• You are legally blind

AUTO-IRIS

Most Likely to Fail When:
• A bright object is in frame
• A scene is backlit
• There is snow on the ground

Most Useful When:
• You are shooting in a “run and gun” situation
• Lighting conditions change frequently or unpredictably.


AUTO GAIN CONTROL (AGC) SOUND

Most Likely to Fail When:
• An audience claps or laughs
• Naturally sharp/loud sounds (gunshot, subway, scream,etc.)
• There are silent gaps in sound

Most Useful When:
• The sound level does not fluctuate much
• You are solo in a “run and gun” situation
• You don’t have headphones