The ultimate filmmaking resource on how to do more with less.
Learn the entire pre-production workflow, from brainstorming to asset allocation all the way to actually pre-shooting your project. This course is geared to filmmakers working with small crews, but it offers essential lessons and resources for all content creators.
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This is your chance to join an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker on location! Get a unique view, from concept to delivery, and experience how to capture stills, video, and sounds to produce a commercial for a boutique winery in beautiful Oregon.
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/video-for-photographers-1-filmmaking-essentials/welcome
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Expand your creative options and the range of services you can offer to clients by incorporating video and hybrid projects into your new 2020 skill set.
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I have been studying Ira Glass and Anthony Bourdain for a very long time.
Ira Glass is very well known in the U.S. because he is the producer and host of a very well-known radio show called “This American Life.” Bourdain was a celebrity chef, writer, host and producer of travel programs for The Travel Channel and CNN, exploring cultures and foods around the world.
The way the show works is as follows: a team of 12 people go out and find simple stories about everyday topics with normal subjects and characters, and produce fascinating stories about them.
For example, every highway has something called roadkill, which are the dead animals like deer, cats or dogs on the side of the road. Well, someone needs to go and pick them up. So many years ago, Ira Glass produced a story about the person who does that job, and it’s very appropriately called “Dead animal man.”
“I’d have given half my life for that squirrel at one time. I was a prisoner during the Korean War and I’d set up off at Han River and watch seagulls fly over, I’ll be laying there thinking I fry one. That’s how hungry I was.”
Clarence Hicks
The way Ira Glass asks and sequences the questions, and the kind of sounds he includes are all masterfully executed.
Ira Glass and his team approach pre-production in a similar way. Every Monday morning a group of 12 people meet, and each person pitches at least one story idea. As a group they pick and choose the best six ideas, and spend the rest of the week producing them. The following Monday they go over the six stories, pick the best one or two, and only those are the ones that get broadcasted. The other stories either die or get a second chance in the future.
The stories we hear on “This American Life” are incredibly good, not only because all the team members are super talented and work extremely hard, but also because they start with 12 stories, narrow them down to six and then hand-picked the best two.
Bourdain stories, on the other hand, were all about traveling to different locations and exploring local food.
“A prego is a steak sandwich slash booze mop that puts you right over the edge in a protein overdose, which is to say, happiness.”
The setup for all Bourdain’s shows was fairly simple. It was always Bourdain with a guest, talking about politics, culture and current events over food.
The way the shows were shot was very efficient. Two cinematographers recording sound on camera, and one director/producer/C Cam operator. Most of the time they used available light.
When one watches the show it’s hard to believe they only had a 2 or 3-person crew. And I believe a reason to achieve this high level of production is possible because they started researching each location a month before production, and spent a lot of time in pre-production.
Before each shoot the crew had pre-pro meetings to discuss core concepts, looks, shooting approaches. They found inspiration in movies, songs, books and researched about the history and the place in its current state. Yet, they didn’t use scripts, and Bourdain never wrote anything for a show beforehand.
“If you think you’ve already figured out what the show’s going to be about or what you expect out of the scene, that’s a lethal impulse.”
On location Bourdain and his crew spent on average a week of frantic work, and they shoot a LOT, between sixty and eighty hours of footage (on average) to produce a single one hour-long episode.
Most of us don’t approach our projects the way Glass and Bourdain did. We might have one or two projects or stories, we work on them, and then we might decide to publish them or not, but we don’t produce a high volume of content, and pick only the absolute best of the best to be shared with the world. That constant search for perfection is what makes them so great.
DISCLAIMER
This article is not paid or sponsored by anyone. It reflects my own independent opinion. I only recommend companies and products that I trust. Some links might be affiliates, which means I may get a few pennies if you decide to purchase something.
Thanks in advance for your support!
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Tennis? What? Did I come to the right website?
Yes. Chill and hear me out.
About two months ago I shot an interview with a highly successful businessman. The interviewer asked this gentleman “is there a book that you’d recommend to anyone starting or running a business?”
And he answered “Absolutely! I’ve read, re-read, and gifted “The Inner Game of Tennis” many many times in the past 20 years.”
Twenty years? I thought. How come I’ve never heard of this book? And tennis? Nonsense.
Until this past weekend, that is, when I found the audiobook version, and could not do anything else, but listen carefully and take LOTS of notes. The book is truly fantastic.
Here’s the first minute of “The Inner Game of Tennis” audiobook’s introduction and the transcript.
“Every game is composed of two parts an outer game and an inner game. The outer game is played against an external opponent to overcome external obstacles and to reach an external goal. Mastering this game is the subject of many books offering instructions on how to swing a racquet club or bat and how to position arms legs or torso to achieve the best results. But for some reason most of us find these instructions easier to remember than to execute. It is the thesis of this book that neither mastery nor satisfaction can be found in the playing of any game without giving some attention to the relatively neglected skills of the inner game. This is the game that takes place in the mind of the player and it is played against such obstacles as lapses in concentration, nervousness, self-doubt and self condemnation. In short it is played to overcome all habits of mind which inhibit excellence and performance. We often wonder why we play so well one day and so poorly the next or why we clutch during competition or blow easy shots. And why does it take so long to break a bad habit and learn a new one. Victories in the inner game may provide no additions to the trophy case, but they bring valuable rewards which are more permanent, and which can contribute significantly to one’s success. Off the court as well as on.”
Why post a book review on a website for filmmakers? Because the whole book it’s about something I strongly believe; learning how to use the tools of our craft is important, but we should also learn how to control our mind, our inner game in order to craft better stories.
DISCLAIMER
This article is not paid or sponsored by anyone. It reflects my own independent opinion. I only recommend companies and products that I trust. Some links might be affiliates, which means I may get a few pennies if you decide to purchase something.
Thanks in advance for your support!
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Most nights I feel like I’m eating at a Michelin-rated restaurant.
During the past year, my wife has been testing new recipes and the results are both stunningly beautiful and delicious.
This got me thinking on how similar two seemingly different crafts, cooking and filmmaking, really are.
Sometimes tackling a complete video production as a 1 Person Crew feels like running a restaurant by yourself. Possible, but borderline insane.
But the key question you should be asking yourself is “WHY am I doing this?”
If you have a restaurant serving multiple “sittings” each night, and striving to offer safe food, prompt service and an overall good customer experience, you most likely need a team of people working with you. Most likely you’ll also have a huge overhead and anxious investors expecting to see great reviews and even greater profits.
But what if your goal isn’t running a restaurant, but to improve your cooking skills, eat healthier, prepare dishes that are hard to get by where you live and/or simply have a relaxing time with your family or friends? Then you don’t need a commercial kitchen or a team to cook. You can do this alone.
I truly enjoy working “lean and mean” on short projects, learn as much as possible, and apply those new skills to the next project.
Working as a 1 Person Crew offers several advantages, including more intimate conversations with your subjects, the ability to work extremely fast, and forcing you to prepare well in advance, as more often than not, there are no opportunities for retakes (or blaming anybody else for the screw ups!).
Seeing how much time and effort it takes my wife to prepare even a simple meal that will be consumed in a short period of time is mind-blowing. And that’s not including cleaning the mess afterwards!
My wife needs time to find the right recipe and buy fresh, seasonal ingredients at a fair price.
I need time to write the script and shot list, determine a “look and feel” for the project, and test my gear.
She needs enough time to marinate the dish and to actually enjoy the prepping time.
(Lounge music and wine work great, by the way).
I need to allocate enough time to scout locations, get permits, props and go over any logistical challenges.
She needs plenty of time to cook, which often requires following many steps in a specific order and having the right temperature and amounts.
I need cameras, lenses, lights, microphones, monopods, and some sort of plan, or recipe, so I have enough footage to work with in post.
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The finished meal is often enjoyed by others within minutes or sometimes even seconds.
After days and days of prepping, location scouting, shooting and editing, and running like a madman, I might have a 2-minute video that most people won’t watch until the end.
So, unless someone is really into cooking or filmmaking, few realize how much time and work is behind each meal or video production.
The funny/sad thing is that, as a cook, you don’t have time to get attached to the finished product. Whether a dish is uneatable or it’s an art piece, you have to start from scratch the next day. Same goes with filmmaking. We can’t spend 10 years making sure our video is “perfect” before getting it out!
The best dishes are the ones tested and improved over time. The only way we can master any technique is to consistently practice and do our best to improve ourselves at every new opportunity.
Salud!
The traditional story structure taught in film schools is obsolete. We should be telling stories the same way we are consuming content, jumping from one story and/or platform to the next, almost never following a linear path.
The explosion of interactive video platforms is happening for a reason. And when you have not one but two 800-pound gorillas (Netflix with Black Mirror and HBO with Steven Soderbergh) competing to be “the leader” producing interactive stories, the writing is on the wall.
When is comes to non-linear storytelling, the platform we chose to publish our stories should shape the content; so having a clear understanding of your target audience is key.
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