Justa Junkie » Filmmaker

Zacuto’s FilmFellas

Brian Paris — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 18:08:06 +0000

Just found Zacuto has a Vimeo channel where they are posting some great webisodes called FilmFellas. It is a lot like Dinner for Five the show on IFC. Instead of Jon Favreau, we get Steve Weiss sitting around talking to filmmakers talking about film making. Good thing about this series is that these are people like me. They have done some good things, but aren’t big time successes that you see on the IFC show.

Check out the first one here and look at the other episodes on Vimeo.

FilmFellas - webisode 1 from Steve Weiss, Zacuto USA on Vimeo.


"Web of Opportunities"

Cast One:  Steve Weiss, Philip Bloom, Peter Hawley, Steve DaDouche

“As long as I can remember, I wanted to be a filmmaker”, if this is your mantra, then you’ve got to see FilmFellas!  Zacuto is excited to announce their new webisodic series, FilmFellas.  A behind the scenes peek featuring influential and emerging new filmmakers who are making, creating and challenging the independent film scene and how we view entertainment.   Follow this continuing series, you won’t want to miss a webisode as the cast and topics change.  Watch in full screen HD with new webisodes premiering every two weeks.  Producers Steve Weiss, Jens Bogehegn & Scott Lynch sit down and dine with industry movers and shakers where talking film is their family business.
The premiere webisode "Web of Opportunities" introduces Steve Weiss' passion for the web.  Can the web really be a delivery medium for entertainment?  Can money be made on the web?

Zacuto and Vimeo presents: FilmFellas

Shutter Speed vs Shutter Angle

Brian Paris — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 18:45:48 +0000

There is something special to the picture that you see in films. There is a blur to the motion that you don’t really see when you watch video. Some of this is explained by the lower frame rate, but the Shutter Angle has a lot to do with it also.

With film cameras there is a rotating shutter that lets light in during part of the rotation and blocks it out for the rest. If a circle is divided up into arcs, the Shutter angle is the part of the circle that lets the light in. For example if the shutter angle is 90 then only one forth of the circle is letting in light. If the angle is 180 then it is letting in light half of the time. This is the normal set up for cameras and anything wider open or smaller can be used for different effects. The wider open angles create more motion blur, while the tighter angles make for sharper motion for high speed stuff.

Most people coming from still photography are used to setting the exposure with shutter speeds. In photography the shutter is usually a gate that opens up for a specific time and then closes. Since it is one picture at a time, the shutter speed can be any length of time that you want, from thousandths of a second to many minutes. In cinema that isn’t possible since the camera is shooting at a specific frame rate (normally 24 frames per second). If the shutter angle is 360 degrees then the light is hitting the film for the entire 1/24th of a second. If the shutter angle is 180 then it is only half that time – so it would be 1/48th of a second.

Both shutter speed and shutter angle control the time that an image is being exposed; they just get there with different ways. This is one of the primary adjustments that you can make when setting proper exposure.

Digital cameras use an electronic shutter to achieve their shutter speeds. The camera just records for a certain amount of time for each frame. The exposure come out to the same result, but there are subtle differences when it comes to the look of the finished product. The one good thing about electronic shutters is that they can be set up to compensate for changing frame rates when you are ramping the frame rate in a shot. For example, this allows you to go from a normal 24 fps to a slow mo of 60 fps without the change in exposure that you would expect if there was no compensation.

Wikipedia has all of the details of shutter angle and shutter speed.

There is a good recap of a REDuser thread on the ProVideo Coalition Website that talks about how to convert from shutter angle to shutter speed.

The Director

Brian Paris — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 18:36:15 +0000

So you want to be the top dog, the film director. This is the guy who is oversees all of the creative aspects of a movie. He has the vision and uses his own talents and those of the cast and crew to bring that vision to light. The director is the manager on set. There are others who assist him and will make decisions in his absence, but the ultimate responsibly comes down on the directors shoulders.

Every director is different. Some are very technical and have a lot of say in the shooting, lighting, production design of the film (some even shoot their own pictures), others really play a big role in producing or editing, still others just want to work with the actors and let the tech people do the tech stuff. There is no one correct way of doing it as long as you find a team of people who can compliment your skills and style.

Some go to school to learn the skills nessacary to become a filmmaker, but if you don’t have time for that check out Robert Rodriguez’s 10 Minute Film School:

This seems like a good time to pose a question. Who is your favorite director? Post a comment and let us know why.

Additional Information: Wikipedia: Film Director