In the past, we have always had to figure out how to capture an album record successfully. Do we use more cameras? Do we need more lights? Perhaps we need to get the talent to do more? Need better camera operators? But in the end, none of it seemed to make life easier.

Well coming off our recent album record, I am currently cutting some of the songs and to be completely honest, it looks like some of the best stuff we have ever shot (at least from a TV point of view).

Now in previous years, it’s not that the footage or coverage was bad per say, but I always felt like we had to substantially grade and push stuff around too much to kind of get the mood and desired lighting effect we wanted. But this year it seemed golden (figuratively of course).

Speaking to our television technician Luke Irvine who is pretty much the tv guru on our staff, he eluded to the fact it isn’t so much the quantity of lights you use or the number of cameras you have that will set you up for a win, it is in fact WELL PLACED lighting that will give you a good result.

Let me explain.

The biggest concerns we had in previous years was the fact the lighting (from a tv point of view) always looked flat and lacked a lot of depth and certain colours looked terrible (if you look at the album of Faith + Hope + Love, Yaweh has a terrible blue colour all over it which caused a terrible solarising effect which unfortunately we were unable to get rid of, and sent our skin tones into a purple which we eventually colour corrected!)

But more than that, it was also how we placed the lights so got some great contrast and great definitions out of our cameras. So Luke, Ian (our lighting director) and Nathan (creative director) worked tirelessly to not neccessarily use more lights, but use the right amount to create the desired effect.

And on the night we found that the camera operators were shooting amazing footage, the crowds were lit really well,  and the whole edit flows really well.

So light your stuff well, make sure you’re audio is good and the cameras will probably be the least of your problems

Well there is nothing official yet, but I am pretty sure there will be one.

Starting last year, we had our first inaugural Easter Film Festival called “Art from the Heart”. Yours truly put in a killa film, amongst some other greats from the film making community including Glenn Stewart [I-Heart] , Ben Field [Home & Away] , Annette Sicari [Bruno] to name a few.

In any case, if any of you out there is thinking about making a film for the Easter Festival, now is the time to start! One of the things that helped me get started on making the film is pretty much writing everything and any idea down no matter how good or bad the idea was. Ideas ranged from a Jesus style anime, to romantic comedies,  dark dramas to scifi.

IDEAS ARE FREE!

I think as filmmakers we should always have a bank of ideas ready to go, cause the reality is you’re going to run out eventually and there are going to be days when you are just not inspired. So if you any idea, no matter how you feel about, you should write it down, grab that PDA or iphone or crackberry or post it or napkin and jot it down. I promise you won’t regret it!

And with that I’ll leave you with a video my friend/colleague/guru Glenn Stewart made for the Art for the Heart Festival last year. It’s pretty kick arse so I hope you guys enjoy it!

PS. for all the Twilight fans out there, New Moon was hilariously bad, but I can see why girls like it. Shirts off anyone? And yeah Team-Jacob all the way!

So there is this awesome site hosted by Brad Zimmerman over in the states who thought our “the making of church news” doco was soooo cool, he put it up on his site!

churchmediadesign.tv

It’s a pretty nifty site. He has some mad tutorials and some very interesting tidbits of info for your design and videophiles out there.

Enjoy!

Or something to that effect. I don’t really blame my tools, I generally blame ppl

That being said, a question I get asked a lot is what software  I use. So I thought I’d share a little of that with you today.

EDITING : My current program of choice is Apple’s Final Cut Pro. Mostly because I find the Mac platform really stable and lets face it, it’s a brilliant program. Robust and has a lot of brilliant features.

However if you are not on the mac platform, I would suggest Sony’s Vegas. Why not Adobe’s premiere pro you ask? Well to be honest I haven’t been happy with premiere since 6.5. And historically 6.5 was the worst, but it scarred me so bad that every time I have revisited the program, it just brings back bad memories. Plus Vegas is waaaaay more stable. Even on PC it doesn’t crash nearly as much as premiere. But the Vegas editing workflow is pretty different than most PLUS it doesn’t port across to other Adobe apps as seamlessly as Premiere. But perhaps the price tag could convince you otherwise (Vegas is significantly cheaper than Premiere!)

COMPOSITING : Adobe After effects. Well there is no other app I have used for compositing other than Combustion 2 (but that was way back in the late 90s!). Not exactly nodal based like the rest of the other compositing programs out there, but it can do a surprising amount more than it looks like it can do. Videocopilot.net anyone? It’s probbably the cheapest of the compositing programs out on the market anyways and in the right hands, can give you the extra “oomf” your video needs.  (BTW if you don’t know what compositing is, check it out here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compositing) PLUS these are the list of plugins I currently use:

• Trapcode Particular 2

• Knoll Light Factory

• Automatic Duck (converts the FCP project in After Effects)

• Trapcode Horizon

SOUND MIXING AND MASTERING : I personally don’t do the sound mixing, I just design the layout and timing of sequences in Final cut and then OMF them to ProTools. But the sound guys swear by this and honestly, it really comes down to the engineer more than the program. But the plugins and hardware you can get for protools is pretty sick.

GRAPHICS : Adobe Photoshop. Nuff said.

3D : I actually use Blender cause I can’t be stuffed buying Maya and learning it. But the other boys here use a mixture of Maya and 3D studio Max ( of which 3D studio Max has a slightly easier learning curve).  But if you can’t be buggered buying software for 3D cause you’re too cheap like me, check out www.blender.org . You might be surprised at what you can do with this app. Surprised me!

Ok now for the list of programs I will never use (cause I am a snob and if I catch you using them, I’ll smash you!)

• Premiere Pro – I’m sorry have I made it clear how much I hate this program?

• Livetype – it’s kinda fun when you start out, but it’s pretty bad.

• Apple Color – Slow as molasses and not quite getting the results I want. Has a lot of potential though.

• Windows Movie Maker – tragic tragic program.

But seriously, everything I have listed here is nothing without good creativity. Like the guys from Pixar say, let the art challenge the technology and the technology challenge the art.  Have a good balance of both and you should be in a good place

Something that has been on my heart of late is the word collaboration. I (like many of my esteem colleagues) have learned to work in different areas which we are uncomfortable in out of necessity rather than choice. But like many of my heroes, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarintino, these guys are very much a DIY filmmakers. And rightly so, they have pioneered a generation of filmmakers who have learned to make films all by themselves and have taught me that money should not be the defining factor in you telling the story you want to tell. But as I continue to work with people I am learning more and more of the shortcomings I have as a filmmaker and as a director, and how much better my work becomes as I work with very talented people. The documentary “the making of church news” you see below was an amazing group effort and I believe that without those people, the product simply would not have shone as well as would have. And to be honest, the stuff I am proudest of is rarely the stuff I work on alone, it’s actually the stuff I have collaborated with people on. In essense, I have come to the realisation that I NEED people to make great stuff. And collaboration with the right people is always going to yield better results than you trying to do it all on your own.

Now this is not to say as a filmmaker you should try to avoid some common pitfalls:

• When you are directing a film, appoint someone the director. Co-directing can be difficult cause you’re always going to have differing opinions and for the sake of your crew and sanity, make sure the crew knows that the director will have the final say even if no one else agrees. I don’t care if you are all friends. Pick a director and make sure you respect that director!

• Pass your script around and make sure it makes sense and don’t be too proud for them to ask you the hard questions. You’ll be happier for it I promise.

• ALWAYS test screen your film before you show it to the world. Nothing worse than showing the world your beautifully crafted movie and finding out it has terrible undertones to it. ugghhhh… Yes Jess if you are reading this, this one is for you

Throw your ego aside, and let someone else help you. I promise you’ll at least be surprised by the results.

Finally got this bugger online!

Ok earlier this year we made a documentary on how we made church news from the initial script writing to the final playback on a sunday. It covers everything from camera operation, post production skills, editor management and dealing with departments. I hope you guys enjoy it! I think it turned out alright!

So tomorrow morning I am going to go the live broadcast of the UNITED I-Heart release which is getting beamed around the world for the release of the I-Heart Revolution movie : We’re all in this together (It’s a mouthful I know). And from what I am hearing from some of the privileged few who had seen it, it’s going to impact you in a big way. If you haven’t already got your tickets, go get them and see it tonight! you will not regret it! Look for me in the audience on the screens! I’ll be the asian guy with black hair sitting in the dark!