Things We Like: Star Wars Episode VII The Force Awakens

Posted on December 17, 2015 by D Standard 1

Was there ever any doubt?

Really?

Well, sure, OK, a little. We didn’t know for certain that JJ Abrams was going to deliver an extraordinary and beautiful cinematic experience. We thought he would. We hoped.

And…

[insert Poe Dameron whoop of SHEER UNSTOPPABLE JOY]

… JJ gave us the Star Wars movie we wanted and needed. The Star Wars movie we dreamed of. The Star Wars movie that we deserved.

Yeah, JJ nailed it.

From the glistening Lucasfilm logo, to that gorgeous blue “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…” to the BLAST of John Williams’ iconic theme as the crawl begins… JJ nailed it and then some.

Along with writers Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine, Toy Story 3) and Lawrence Kasdan (the grand master behind The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi), Abrams has crafted something wonderful and exhilarating, moving and hilarious, devastating and thrilling, all in equal measure.

This will be spoiler free, but it’s not spoiling anything to let you know that BB-8 is a more-than-worthy addition to the droid-you’re-looking-for crew. Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren is an extraordinary bad guy, full of resonance, hurt and rage. John Boyega’s Finn is a joy to watch and the source of much of the movie’s off-kilter but brilliant humor. And, in Daisy Ridley’s Rey, we have one of the greatest characters in the Star Wars universe.

Ridley, who only had a handful of TV screen credits prior to this, plays Rey with heart and nuance, giving us loss, hope, bad-assery, ass-kicking, wise-cracking… and many more things we can’t share with you (spoilers!). Ridley’s story mirrors Rey’s in a lot of ways, and Ridley uses her natural energy to really bring Rey to crackling life.

Adam Driver, so volatile and uncontrollable on HBO’s Girls, dials that up even more here. He’s the only person who could have played Ren, and he brings a tremendous energy to it all. Boyega, who was SO GOOD in Attack The Block, kills it as Finn — he’s hilarious and heartbreaking — while Oscar Isaac is in the ZONE as the chilled-out greatest pilot in the galaxy. Bodega and Isaac make you root for them immediately, as does Ridley.

And that’s what’s at the heart of this extraordinary journey — you are invested emotionally from the very beginning, and even more intensely as the movie goes on. The story is powerful, and the movie is shot beautifully, unafraid to linger on stunning vistas and bustling scenes of alien life. But it never feels slow. This thing reaches hyperspace right out of the gate, and drops out of it only at the dizzying, thrilling end.

Throughout, this is great storytelling, with wonderful, fully-realized characters, shot in a gritty, intense way, that gives you the feels. All of them. All the feels. #feels

It’s exhilarating, mind-blowing, full of danger and threat, and, gloriously, joyously, wonderfully… it just feels like Star Wars.

Because, also: John Williams.

We have new John Williams Star Wars music on a Star Wars movie. And it gives you chills to hear it. As the story flows, so does his music.

The story ends where it needs to, and opens up the door to the next two movies. The blend of the old and the new is seamless, naturalistic, and provides the perfect hand-off to what is to come. We get all our Original Trilogy feels, and plenty of new trilogy feels alongside.

In short, The Force Awakens is nothing less than the reawakening of something powerful, a new force in the universe. It’s everything you want it to be.

FIVE OUT OF FIVE JEDI MIND TRICKS

Random awakenings:

HOW CUTE IS BB-8 THOUGH???!!!
The sound of Kylo Ren’s lightsaber is basically the most bad-ass thing in cinema history
Han and Leia’s theme will MAKE YOU CRY SON
Captain Phasma is cool
“Chewie, we’re home…”
When the credits roll, this is how you’re going to feel:

Making your short film: what equipment do you need?

Posted on December 3, 2015 by D Standard 3

You might want to make a short film, but feel like you can’t because you don’t have a RED camera or know anyone who does. You might believe that because you don’t have access to professional sound and lighting, you won’t be able to make anything good. Basically, you might think it’s all about how expensive your equipment is.

You’d be wrong.

It may have been true even 10 years ago, when digital was still not the norm, and you had to deal with actual celluloid — there were a lot more logistics to handle back then. Now? Honestly, you can do it all on your phone or iPad. Seriously. You can shoot using your iPhone’s video, edit using the free iMovie software, and upload right to YouTube, all without ever needing any other devices or equipment.

Of course, there are some technical limitations to that approach — sound and lighting could be limited, and your movie will have that high frame rate iPhone video look. Here’s the thing — you can come up with a story to make those limitations work for you, just make it a feature of the story, e.g. your short could be a “found footage” movie based on video that your characters have been shooting.

One of the key skills you need as a low budget short film director is making your limitations a virtue. Since equipment costs money, it’s usually the case that you need to work around visuals, sound and lighting, to some degree. We’ll go into detail on that in a second, but back to the camera itself.

You can use an iPhone as is, or you can start tricking it out, depending on your budget. The two things you can do are use apps to film the movie, instead of the phone’s native video function, and add lenses to the phone. Both of these can immediately give your short a more cinematic look and feel, and for a relatively low price. For example, the critically acclaimed Sundance movie Tangerine was shot on an iPhone 5, using the FilmicPro app and the Moondog Labs anamorphic lens for iPhone. The lens is around $150, the app is $10 or so. Still an expenditure, but a relatively affordable one, given that a RED camera will set you back a substantial five figures.

Tangerine, directed by Sean Baker, shot using an iPhone 5

If the phone isn’t an option for you, consider regular digital cameras/camcorders, which you can get hold of for a couple hundred bucks, although if you don’t already have one, you almost certainly know someone who does (and hopefully they’ll lend it to you!). This can be an easy, low cost way to get decent quality shots. Put it on a tripod, MacGyver a dolly track of some kind (that’s basically a way to move the camera through a space smoothly) to give you more fluid movement, and you’re on your way.

When shooting, you also need to think about sound and light. If you know your camera, you’ll know what kind of light it likes — basically, what light conditions does it perform well in. If you’re not sure, take it out for a spin and find out. We’ve covered lighting before, but if you don’t have a professional you can work with, or a student cinematographer, then do lighting tests to work out how you can work with everyday light sources. You’d be surprised how far you can get with some well placed lamps, funky-cool IKEA lights, and even strings of lights. Experiment until you find the perfect blend of natural and artifical light that gives your actors enough of a glow so that they don’t look washed out or overlit. And so that your movie looks cool. Improvise.

You can record your sound using the phone or camera onboard mic. It won’t be the best quality, but as with all of the above, remember this: what will really hook viewers of your short is a good story and good performances. Those are the top priorities for you. Remember we talked about the Duplass brothers’ Sundance-winning short in a previous post. That used on-camera sound. And won Sundance. It can be done. If you prefer to step it up a notch, you can buy a microphone to mount on your camera, as well as a boom pole to get your mic much closer to the actors, for under $200. This will make a noticeable difference in your sound quality, and again, is fairly affordable.

With all of these things, of course you can spend more. Your budget will dictate whether you spend low three figures or north of four on equipment to shoot the short. The key thing is to make use of what you can get your hands on — and make it work for you.

Once you’ve shot the movie, you then have to edit it. We’ll get into the art of editing another time, but you do have to decide how you’ll edit. As mentioned earlier, you can do a lot with iMovie. It has a timeline to allow you to edit clips and move them around. You can add filters to give your movie a certain look (including black and white). You can add songs and sound effects from Garageband, and you can upload to YouTube. Very simple, very easy, and free.

If you want something more robust which will give you more control over your picture, consider Adobe Premiere, or Final Cut. Both of these feature a complex and exhaustive array of sound and visual editing capabilities. Final Cut, for example, which is what we use, gives you extensive sound editing capabilities, so if you were forced to use on-camera sound, you can clean it up to a certain extent. Same for the visuals — there are sophisticated color correction controls that really let you give your shots a filmic look (even if they were taken on a camcorder).

Rachel Keefe in our short film The Real Quinn Hardy, shot using a camcorder, lit using IKEA lights, and edited on Final Cut for a moodier look

Final Cut also allows for “plugins” — paid extra functionalities that you can “plug in” (see what they did there) to the software, to give you additional editing powers, like cleaning up visual noise from low lighting conditions, or even more advanced sound enhancing options. Some are free, some cost money. Final Cut itself is $299, so not cheap, but if you plan to make more than one short, it could be a sound investment.

The point is, you can have access to all the equipment you need for under $500, or under $1000, depending on what you already have or what you can borrow. You might have everything you need right now! Of course, an awesome script and wonderful actors are pivotal, but we’re assuming you took care of that. Now you just have to make sure you do your story justice, and make your actors look good. And the good news is, these days, it’s very easy to do that for free, or close to it.

Or as JJ Abrams put it recently in a Star Wars Twitter Q&A when asked if he had any advice for aspiring directors:

Go make your movie! You have in your pocket (I assume) a camera good enough to make a feature! #tangerine – JA https://t.co/Itr7VjVJaI

— Star Wars (@starwars) December 5, 2015

Costume design and set design: not just the icing on your short film cake

Posted on October 22, 2015 by D Standard 1

Wardrobe and set design may seem like frivolous aspects of filmmaking, as if they’re the frosting on top of a cake — nice when they’re there, but not necessary to satisfy your hunger. Wrong! Trying to capture an audience without a setting is like serving a cake without having mixed the ingredients together first. And without icing. And who wants that?! Wardrobe and set design are what give the ‘cake’ its shape, and are often what holds everything together.

Mmmm… cake

Visual clues give the audience a deeper understanding of a character or situation; they appeal to our visual intelligence. It’s a way of communicating a ton of information without saying a word. Visual clues give the audience the time: are we in the future, the present, the past, an alternate reality timeline? They can also convey the financial and social standing of your characters, their points of view, as well as where they’re from. You can reflect their beliefs, morality, even their education, just by giving them the right background and attire.

So, not going to a rave, then?

In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Black Widow wears a simple arrow necklace. As a spy, her clothes, even her hairstyle, are often arranged to fit the job she’s working. That necklace was the only piece that was her: unconnected to any SHIELD assignment. The arrow reminded the audience of her relationship with Clint Barton, and that underneath her killer moves was a person with relationships that she would break her own rules for. It was pivotal to the story that the audience remember that Natasha has a history, and isn’t just an action hero to provide backup to Steve.

Statement jewelry. Steve not pictured.

The wardrobe can give the audience all they need to know about a character, and the set design can ground the story in less than a second. The messy desk of a lawyer in a well-tailored suit shows us someone who presents themselves as having it all together, but has a messy hidden life. A woman in flip flops on a cream couch surrounded by nautical-themed accents has the audience smelling salt in the air without a shot of the ocean or the sound of waves crashing.

You can hear the seagulls. Seagulls not pictured.

Design is especially important in a short film, since you have limited time to tell your story. You need to use as many short cuts, visual or otherwise, as you can. However, coupled with a limited budget, design can cause some massive headaches. As with every aspect of making a low budget short, you’re going to have to get creative to to work with what you have. We hate to break it to you, but you’re not going to be able to build that Nancy Meyer kitchen set. But (assuming you don’t know anyone with a Nancy Meyer kitchen willing to let you use it, or Nancy Meyer herself), you can find a kitchen island at IKEA, put it in front of a large window, and have your cast orbit around it, giving the impression that there’s a large kitchen around them, just out of shot. As long as you evoke the impression of a large fancy kitchen, your audience will see it.

No one fights in this kitchen.

The key things to remember are:

No blank spaces (sorry Ms. Swift). Actors standing in front of blank walls gives off a vibe — the boring kind. Everything the actors say to one another will be infused with that vibe. Don’t undercut the dialogue and their performance by sending out the sleepy signal. (The only exception to this is when a character is about to say or do something integral to the story and you want all the attention on them. Which bring us to…)
Don’t overwhelm. Everything in the space should serve a function. If it’s not there to reflect something about the location, story or characters, it shouldn’t be there. You don’t want your audience so engrossed in your beautifully designed backgrounds that they lose focus on the unfolding story.
Downsize. If the scene is taking place in one location, you only need to create a part of that location. Like the kitchen example above, why create a huge set if your actors are just sitting in place? Dressing up the corner of the room can be all you need — just remember to ensure that all your angles are covered, so wherever you want to point your camera, we’re seeing what we need to.
Reuse-Recycle. This is where it’s good to be a hoarder. Or know one. If not, try craigslist, eBay, garage sales and flea markets. Felicia Day even picked up abandoned pieces of trash off the street for some props in The Guild! Home decor magazines, Pinterest, and of course movies and TV shows can provide inspiration. Just make sure to keep your characters in mind. A pig-shaped cutting board may be cute (and hopefully cheap), but ask yourself, would your character have that in their kitchen? (If you are going for a Nancy Meyer’s look then the answer is definitely not!)
Have fun. You know what makes movies repeat-watching worthy? All the little things you discover each time you watch them. Keep that in mind when putting together your set. On the God’s Work episode of SouthLAnd (moment of silence for that AMAZING show), in one scene children’s alphabet letters were arranged on a table to form the producer’s initials (admittedly, this is not character-based, but it’s a fun easter egg, which is another reason to spend a lot of time on the details). In every J.J. Abrams movie there’s an R2 D2 hidden somewhere (probably won’t be too hard to spot in his next film). In Supernatural’s season 2 episode Playthings, the Shining homages didn’t end with the desolate old hotel.

That’s a spooky room number you got there…

As we mentioned before when talking about writing, characters don’t often say what they mean. With an absence of history or internal dialogue, the setting and wardrobe are what raise the volume of what is not being said.