Category: Let’s Make Better Films

Don’t settle. There’s always more to do.

Conquering The Mind Through Better Editing?

Post author By Ted Hope
Post date March 9, 2010
62 Comments on Conquering The Mind Through Better Editing?

FilmmakerMagBlog tipped me to this NY TImes article on “evolution” of editing to mirror the way the brain works or likes to.

The basic shot structure of the movies, the way film segments of different lengths are bundled together from scene to scene, act to act, has evolved over the years to resemble a rough but recognizably wave-like pattern called 1/f, or one over frequency — or the more Hollywood-friendly metaphor, pink noise. Pink noise is a characteristic signal profile seated somewhere between random and rigid, and for utterly mysterious reasons, our world is ablush with it.

Movies today are, on average, much pinker than the films of half a century ago. Their shot structure has greater coherence, a comparatively firmer grouping together of similarly sized units that ends up lending them a frequency distribution ever more in line with the lab results of human reaction and attention times. “Roughly since 1960,” Dr. Cutting said, “filmmakers have been converging on a pattern of shot length that forces the reorientation of attention in the same way we do it naturally.”

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Let's Make Better Films

The Digital Cinema Revolution (and Che)

Post author By Ted Hope
Post date February 11, 2010
93 Comments on The Digital Cinema Revolution (and Che)

Che and the Digital Cinema Revolution from high rez on Vimeo.

Scott Kirsner tipped me to this video (from the Criterion Collection) about the first film shot on The Red — that little thing called CHE. I just shot with The Red on SUPER and had a great experience. Among the joys were incredibly quick dailies (truly living up to their name) while on location. It definitely played a big hand in how fast we moved on that show (38 set ups/day!) as we never had to reload. The technology has progressed rapidly since Che Hearing though of it’s development, and what Soderbergh and team went through using it on CHE, I am so thrilled that others got to work out the kinks first! Thank you.

I like how Soderbergh speaks about how digital gives you time to get to a “point of reflection” quicker so that you can sit back and consider your work on a macro level much sooner. I find that most innovations in our field that I have gotten to experience first-hand ultimately matter most as creative tools and not economic solutions.

Tags Che, Red Camera, Steven Soderbergh

Let's Make Better Films

Places To Film: Abandoned Asylums

Post author By Ted Hope
Post date February 9, 2010
3 Comments on Places To Film: Abandoned Asylums

Environmental Graffiti does a great job sourcing fantastic locations to film. Check out their latest post on Abandoned Asylums and just drool with desire to take your cameras there. These are some of their selections but take the full tour.

Tags Environmental Graffiti, locations

Let's Make Better Films

Movin’ On Over

We have had a nice brief stay over here in Blogger town, but Let’sMakeBetterFilms is going to join on comrades at Hammer To Nail. We will be posting more regularly over there. For the next few weeks we will be listing and describing the qualities that in my humble opinion “make better film”. Please give us a visit as we build our new home.

And if you haven’t been to Hammer To Nail this week, you definitely need to come on over. It’s new! It’s improved! It’s a home for ambitious film!

Tags Hammer To Nail

Let's Make Better Films

The Pervert’s Guide To Cinema

Post author By Ted Hope
Post date January 15, 2009
3 Comments on The Pervert’s Guide To Cinema

One of my favorite viewing experiences last year was Sophie Fienes’ playful and thoughtful essay film on rockstar philosopher Slavoj Zizek’s rant on the role of cinema. As my friend described it “a clarion call for cinephilia”. Lucky for you, Sophie is distributing it herself and it is now playing at the IFC here in NYC. She’s even going to be at the theater friday and saturday evening. I almost got on the plane and flew back from Sundance just so I could see it again!

IFC describes it as:

To explore the power and mystery of movies, the charismatic, garrulous psychoanalyst/philosopher/cinephile Slavoj Zizek revisits Vertigo, Duck Soup, Dr. Strangelove and dozens of other classics. Walking through locations and sets and even inserting himself into key scenes, he declares cinema to be “the ultimate pervert art. It doesn’t give you what you desire — it tells you how to desire.” Whether untangling David Lynch’s labyrinthine work or upending everything you thought you knew about Hitchcock, Zizek illuminates the movies with passion, insight and an unfailing sense of humor, resulting in what The Times of London hailed as “an extraordinary reassessment of cinema.”

Check out the website here.

I also had a great encounter this fall when my wife spotted Zizek at a street fair. We went up for a talk, hopeful of the wisdom from one of the world’s great minds. We walked for over a mile but I could barely get a word in edgewise as Zizek and my eight year old son discussed Yugi-oh! cards and their super-specific economy and how it varied across the world. The guy knew the spell power of Green-Eyed Dragon!