The Indie Film Blog

By: Andrew Seltz

You have found the perfect house to be your 'beach cottage.' One problem - it is nowhere near the beach.

Are you doomed... No!

1+1=498

One of the coolest aspects of filmmaking is that adding two shots together can suggest a reality to the audience the is greater than the sum of the parts. When you do this to make two different locations appear to be one it is called cheating a location.

How Do You Cheat a Location?

Cheating a location requires finding two places that can be plausibly connected (a house that opens up to an underground cavern is a tough sell.) In the case of our opening example it is a house and a beach.

For this to work well, the houses lawn and the beach must look like they can be connected. (It is possible to build a partial lawn on the beach or beach on the lawn to help with the transition, but try to find locations that have similar characteristics.)

Steps to cheat a location:

• Move a character through both spaces
• Create a Visual Anchor
• Match the lighting closely
• Pay attention to screen direction and wardrobe details

Moving a Character Through The Space

To link the locations together we will show a character walk out of the front of the house and toward the camera. Then, in the next shot, we will turn the camera 180 degrees to face the beach and show the character walking away from the camera toward the water. When edited together, the character will appear to walk out of the house and down to the beach in one continuous location.

Creating a Visual Anchor

To firmly link the two locations together in the audience's mind you must create a visual anchor which will subconciously make them believe that the two places are one. The anchor is an object that is present at both locations.
If you place a pile of children's toys in the yard that the character walks past and include it in both shots, the audience will connect them in their minds. It will distract their attention away from any inconsistancies in the transition. You could also choose a picket fence, a lamp post, or anything else you can include at both locations.

Watch Your Light

It is very important that you carefully match the lighting direction and quality. If it is high noon in the first shot and sunset in the next, the illusion will be broken. The same will happen if one location is shot on a clear day and the other is overcast.

If you are linking interiors, take notes about your lighting setup at the first location (some digital camera still shots are good too) and recreate it at the second location as closely as possible.

Don't Forget Wardrobe and Screen Direction

Since you are likely to be shooting the locations on different days, it is easy to forget a costume detail or the exact direction you had a character walking or looking during the first shoot. This is another instance where taking digital stills is very helpful. Careful notes and visual reference material will help insure that you don't accidentally get something wrong and spoil the illusion.

If you can, have a copy of the first location's footage available to review.

Summary

It is exciting to realize all the ways in which you can invent new realities when making movies. A few datails and a little creativity are all that is required to create your illusions.

The first time I cheated a location it was a rush. Everytime I watched the sequence playback on the screen I knew that making movies was what I wanted to do.

By: Andrew Seltz

It only needs to look real!

Reality is an artificial limitation in the world of film and video production. When you let it cloud your judgment you make unnecessary compromises and miss the opportunity to raise your work above your budget.

I once worked on a shoot where the director wanted to create a visually dramatic sequence where one character was looking out a window through the verticle blinds. He would then turn away revealing another character standing in the doorway across the room. A quick rack focus and we would have a nice opening to a scene that created a little tension.

One Little Problem

The trouble with our situation was, we were shooting on location and the room we were in just happened to be on the second floor. There was no way to get the camera up high enough outside to get the shot. There was also no way to get a light up high enough to create a moonlight effect on the outside of the blinds.

If you have not already picked up on it, that is the voice of reality talking. It is the one leading you through conversations about how you will need to build a platform outside or that the shot is impossible and you must cover the scene with more conventional camera placements.

It is important that you learn to tune this voice out of your head. Making movies is not about respecting reality, it is about manufacturing the illusion of reality to dramatically tell your story. You need to find the voice that says, "who said the blinds have to be on the window?" That voice will steer you to creative solutions.

Robert Rodriguez makes the point in Rebel Without a Crew that lazy filmmakers throw money at a problem. Creative filmmakers invent solutions. When you don't have money you spend creativity, and that is what we did.

Our Solution

Realizing that the blinds easily unhooked from the window was the first key to solving this shooting challenge. The blinds were the visual clue that told viewers that the character was looking out the window. We could move them 3 states away into a garage and, if the rest of the visible set looked similar, the audience would accept the shot as being 'at the window.'

To solve our challenge, we hung the blinds from 2 light stands. They were placed about 5 feet away from the actual window to allow room for the camera and a light (we needed a blue gelled light for our 'moonlight' effect.

In order to keep the visual feeling that the characters are across the room from each other, we used a slightly wider angle lense which exaggerates the distance.

One light with a blue gel helped create the illusion that the blinds were being lit my moonlight, and the rest of the room was lit the same way as it had been for the scene.

The actual setup for this shot took about 15 minutes and the finished product blends perfectly with the rest of the scene and provides the dramatic effect the director wanted. It 'looks right!'

Don't Let Reality Box You In

It is easy to feel boxed in by the reality of the locations you are shooting in. Walls and ceilings and furniture can feel like very real boundaries. But, 'cheating' is a tool as much as your camera and lights. Good filmmakers use it all the time.

The next time you find yourself trying to solve a complex problem on a shoot ask yourself, "what does the audience need to see to believe this scene?" The answers will surprise you and your movie will be better for it.

By: Andrew Seltz

I've used a bunch of 3D software packages over the years. I started out with Imagine on my Amiga 2000 system and have Blender 3D (a great open source software package) and Animation:Master today for my occasional 3D needs. I've played around with a number of other packages, including some of those 3D Home Design packages, in an effort to create some quick models for design visualization and shot planning. Today I found my dream 3D software!

SketchUp is an amazing 3D package whose claim to fame is exactly what you'd imagine - sketching in 3D. I downloaded their free version today to test it out. (In partnership with Google they have a free version for personal use.)

It's as close to sketching with a pencil on paper as I've ever found!

Within seconds of loading it up, I was happily building a 3d set. Not only was it easy to push and pull the shapes around, but the measuring tools ensure precision when it comes to capturing details. I wish I'd had this a few weeks back when I was drafting a floorplan for the theater set I built for Angels Fall. I used Visio and it took me a long time to make what I wanted and with no ability to visualize in 3D!

I was attracted to the software because of it's reputation for designing sets for movies and creating storyboards. You have to pay up for the full Professional version to get all the tools for choosing camera lenses and animating storyboards, but it would be money well spent. It's so easy and fast to use that I could imagine previsualizing the entire movie before beginning production. This would save a ton of time on set (and time is money) and free you up to experiment with lots of different approaches to a scene. In the mean time, you can create sets and experiment with the free version and go Pro when you get your funding together. You can save all your files in the Sketch format with the free version - just no exporting of models.

As the name implies, the output from this program looks like a sketch. It doesn't try to make photo realistic images. This is a good thing when you're experimenting as it keeps you from falling in love with the pictures and losing perspective on the process. But, you can export the models you make (Pro version only) to all of the major 3D programs for refinement and rendering (I see the beginnings of the next Sin City).

I've wish I'd had this on my first movie. I could have worked out a lot of problems ahead of time. I'm already looking forward to using it on my next project.

Check it out!

By: Andrew Seltz

Well, at least I'm working on it again! Elevation Due West is the independant feature film I directed and shot back in August 2001. I was deep in the throws of working on it when the Twin Towers fell and I lost my momentum. Once you've lost momentum, it's hard to get going again - particularly when you are mostly working by yourself.

Now, I didn't shut down after 9-11, I just worked on everything but my movie. I shot another movie, Under Surveillance, for director Dave Campfield, I've created a bunch of short promotional videos, traveled all around the country shooting interviews and covering events, I got married, I won a couple of awards, and even designed and built the set for a recent Off-Off Broadway play. But I'm not going to let this movie linger any more!

Today I re-digitized the footage from my camera tapes onto a hardrive in preparation for working with a sound designer. I've got a meeting scheduled for Saturday to go over the sound cues. I'll spend the next few evenings reconstructing the timeline for the project (lost during a recent computer meltdown) and getting all of the sound files together.

I've accomplished a lot already toward finishing the movie, but you can read about all of that on the movie website. I plan to resume writing on the producer's notebook there to get the story going again. But, when I take advantage of new technologies and techniques, I'll be sure to post about them on this blog.

Wish me luck!

The May, 2006 issue of PC Magazine has a couple of great articles on digital movie production. The first is Hollywood Reboots and looks at the history of digital technology in the movie production world.

The second is titled Making an Indie Film and cronicals the production of Scott Dacko's all-digital feature film The Insurgents - a $200,000 political thriller starring Mary Stuart Masterson, Henry Simmons, Juliette Marquis, and John Shea. This article takes a behind-the-scenes look at how this film was put together and what technology was used. It's very well written, I highly recommend you pick up a copy of the magazine and read it.