Watching a movie

Intergage

Intergage

Hey all,

Recently I have been thinking / attempting to create short movies or clips / shorts (Depending what you say)
and have been enjoying it a lot more then I thought I ever would.

Watching The Book of Eli again last night, instead of sitting back relaxing and enjoying the movies I picked at how they filmed it, tried to figure out how I could replicate shorts / scenes with a No Budget setup I have going on. How did they color correct it so well and so smooth in between shots (Inside / outside) it all looks natural so on so forth. Very tired at work today as I haven't had much sleep because I stayed up all night watching movies and picked at them.

Just wondering if anyone else has / did notice this when you started to create shorts / films?
 
You've got the bug Intergage. I think you'll find everyone here knows exactly what you are talking about. And it won't just happen when you are starting out. The cinematographers will be watching aspects of their craft when watching a film as will the sound guys etc...... I get quite antsy if I don't watch at least one movie a week in my studio where I'm in my working environment immersing myself in the score. And I can't watch any TV without thinking about how the music is working with the picture. You are blessed and doomed.
 
Michael Allen said:
You've got the bug Intergage. I think you'll find everyone here knows exactly what you are talking about. And it won't just happen when you are starting out. The cinematographers will be watching aspects of their craft when watching a film as will the sound guys etc...... I get quite antsy if I don't watch at least one movie a week in my studio where I'm in my working environment immersing myself in the score. And I can't watch any TV without thinking about how the music is working with the picture. You are blessed and doomed.
Click to expand...

Kind of cool, kind of bad.. Enjoying a movie isn't quite the same anymore haha. Although, them big budget movies you have to appropriate the planning that goes into them.
 
i do try to turn it off and am successful up to a point.
Click to expand...

Meant to add this...this is of utmost importance. It's great to immerse yourself in the creation of films and wonder and deduce and emulate how your favorites did what they did, but it's also important to remember to lose yourself in movies from time to time as well, to remember why you got into them in the first place.
 
Uranium City said:
Meant to add this...this is of utmost importance. It's great to immerse yourself in the creation of films and wonder and deduce and emulate how your favorites did what they did, but it's also important to remember to lose yourself in movies from time to time as well, to remember why you got into them in the first place.
Click to expand...

This is an EXTREMELY good point, I never once thought of that.
Thinking of 40 different things each cut / scene in a feature film will end up seeming more like work then fun therefore losing interesting in movies all together. Is this what you meant?
 
Uranium City said:
Meant to add this...this is of utmost importance. It's great to immerse yourself in the creation of films and wonder and deduce and emulate how your favorites did what they did, but it's also important to remember to lose yourself in movies from time to time as well, to remember why you got into them in the first place.
Click to expand...

Yup, if it's a good movie, i try to lose myself in it and then if im interested in how the shots were done, rewatch with a different pov.
 
I do it all the time-to the point it affected my enjoyment.


Now, I have a rule: First time through is enjoyment-and then I give myself permission to break it down on multiple viewings to see how things are done, angles, lighting, ect.
 
Tinalera said:
I do it all the time-to the point it affected my enjoyment.


Now, I have a rule: First time through is enjoyment-and then I give myself permission to break it down on multiple viewings to see how things are done, angles, lighting, ect.
Click to expand...

Good plan, I might adopt that. Just scared I'm going to be turning my bed time movie into a learning session every night! :P
 
I reckon I'm pretty good at switching it off.

Things like bad acting or bad writing still grate with me in the cinema but only occasionally do I stop to think about the actual shots (and then it's usually only for things I think are really cool). It's definitely something that I've started to think about more since I got into filmmaking but I am, first and foremost, a film love and that's why I watch movies. Movies are made to be watched, not dissected so if you want to make movies you should watch movies, not dissect them. ;)
 
This was exactly what drove me to really getting into film making. When I bought my camera I did a terrible little short just so I could mess around with editing video. After that I started noticing myself paying attention to how things were shot/edited/etc. That made me more interested in doing things myself, which led to more paying attention, which led to more interest and so on. I guess I'm lucky because I'm able to enjoy and watch for information at the same time.
 
I can't find the exact scene but it is where Eli and the girl (Forgot her name and too lazy to look it up) are walking and she stops and starts crying (Just after she almost gets raped) and the sky has been replaced or blown up..

That scene REALLY caught the cinematographer in me. I plan on doing something similar in the web series I am making at the moment.

Also, take a look at the Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-maDBOai7hc
The look and feel of the scene's is basically what I want for my web series.. A little less drastic though. Everything about this movie got me off guard when I first watched it a couple of months ago.
 
As an assignment from our sound supervisor of a film I completed recently, we had to watch The Hurt Locker 12 times in a row to study the sound design. The reason we needed to do this 12 times was so that we weren't apt to be lost in the story and not concentrating on how the soundtrack was put together.
 
ROC said:
As an assignment from our sound supervisor of a film I completed recently, we had to watch The Hurt Locker 12 times in a row to study the sound design. The reason we needed to do this 12 times was so that we weren't apt to be lost in the story and not concentrating on how the soundtrack was put together.
Click to expand...

That's actually a pretty cool idea. Were you able to start focussing on the soundtrack first viewing(assuming you hadn't seen it before), or did it take the first viewing to get the "story out of the way" :lol:


I know I do the opposite when I am studying the physical shooting of a film, I'll mute the sound, maybe have the subtitles for reference, but I use it study angles, lighting, ect-without the sound-I also use it to appreciate cuts/wipes, ect so I MYSELF can watching later (with sound) appreciate more of why the sound comes in where it does.
 
Last edited:
ROC said:
As an assignment from our sound supervisor of a film I completed recently, we had to watch The Hurt Locker 12 times in a row to study the sound design. The reason we needed to do this 12 times was so that we weren't apt to be lost in the story and not concentrating on how the soundtrack was put together.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a long day. Exactly what where you studding about the sound track?
 
Uranium City said:
it's also important to remember to lose yourself in movies from time to time as well, to remember why you got into them in the first place.
Click to expand...

Others have made reference to and re-enforced UCs statement.

I can turn off the professional part of my mind when I sit down to watch a movie, unless, of course, something pulls me out of the film. While working on a project it's a whole different story.

Part of being a professional is the ability to switch between a sound designer (editor, actor, director, fill-in-your-own-blank) and an audience member. It is very difficult to do, turning off the artist/critic in your mind and viewing/listening objectively. I get better at it all the time. When I first got started I took some advice literally - I would take off my ball cap, get out of my editing chair, sit on my couch and listen back. I literally "changed hats" and my physical location to make it difficult to reach for the mouse as a reminder to myself that it was time to be Joe Six Pack and watch/listen, and not make changes without a complete (hopefully objective) listen through, even if it was only 90 seconds. Now I can just lean back and listen - and wish that the client would shut up so I and they could hear the changes before deciding it's great or it sucks.

I've been told, but not (yet) experienced it personally, that the best can run both mindsets simultaneously.

I've found that DVD extras, peer forums, etc. can give you perspective. A film may sound great but you also need some insight as to why the decisions were made. In "Children of Men" Richard Beggs and David Evans underplayed unusual sounds when editing and mixing the sound (like the explosion and its aftermath in the opening sequence) to make it commonplace, just another part of everyday life to the characters - that to the audience is a very unusual world. Richard Hymns and Gary Rydstrom went to incredible lengths to create extremely authentic sounds and yet impart huge amounts of emotion to those sounds in "Saving Private Ryan"; a most difficult task. BTW, Paul Ottosson did an absolutely amazing job on "The Hurt Locker" on a (relatively) limited budget.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top