Living in a fantasy Land. 750 Words Friday, 26 August 2011

I Haz Camera

My opinion on the more, for lack of a better word, Popular Youtubers, and what they are doing wrong.

 Reading an interview with an Editor in _'The Guerilla Film Makers Pocketbook'_ and i came across a paragraph which i think is something that all Youtubers need to read and listen to, I see so many bad videos (Not films) being put on Youtube and most of them have the same problems, the most important are story and characters. But another fundamental problem is this, they live in a fantasy land;

 Page 170 Paragraph 5.

_"Editorial mistakes that i see often are that films are too long. They haven't screened the film enough times, or only screened to people who have an emotional connection to the project or the director, so they will never give honest feedback on whats is and what isn't working. The Director will be living in a fantasy world where they think that their film is better than it actually is"_

I see this so often on Youtube, especially the Tier 1 tubers. Sure its only Youtube and it really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, but these guys put so much time and effort into making something that they truly believe is great. But if you try to tell these people what you think is wrong with the video, you get branded a hater and they fail to recognise what you were trying to say. Sure they get tons of hater comments, but haters and trolls never usually give specifics of what is wrong, they just say it was shit, they never mention things like pace, bad edits or poor dialogue and delivery, so any helpful feedback is ignored.

 They have the technology, the Canon 5D's or 7D's. The have all the peripherals for their cameras, viewfinders or monitors, shoulder mounts and such, they edit on Mac Pros using Final Cut Pro 7 or X. They have great equipment and they have the resources they need to make videos (Not Films) but they all lack a basic understanding of good story telling, dialogue that flows and the basic editing needs of any project.

 The ones that don't seem to have this problem are those that have actually worked, in some capacity, in the industry. Like Cory Williams (Mr Safety) and Freddie Wong (FreddieW) but the rest, i guess as they all help each other and preview each others work they can't or won't tell themselves what doesn't work, maybe through the fear of straining a friendship. But all this means is, they don't learn to make better videos (Not Films), they move forward under the impression that their last video was brilliant. They never learn form their past mistakes because they don't seem to understand when they make them, because no one is telling them or they can't hear them over the haters and trolls. And so they continue to make the same mistakes over and over.

 And at some point their work, which they hold so dear, will become stagnant and repetitive. If it hasn't already. Personally i would love to help these people make better videos (Not Films) and i try to, but i'm always branded a hater when i do.

 So thats it, I finally had something worth, well I thought it was worth it, only hope some of them get to read it and understand it, I mean actually understand it. I’m not sitting here typing out hater comments because I think they make shit and post it on Youtube, I would seriously love to help these people, I really would. But they would have to accept what I say was feedback and not hate, if I say that I scene ran to long or the dialogue wasn’t very good and that it felt forced then then so be it, they can then choose to listen to me or ignore me, either way I’m giving them something to think about and hopefully they will make sure that next time they recognize something early on and fix it. Everyone on Youtube can edit these days, but that doesn’t make them good editors, everyone on youtube and make a video with a narrative, but that doesn’t make them good film makers, anyone can tell a story, but that doesn’t make them good story tellers. If you can’t recognize your mistakes, you can help yourself to learn and become better at what it is you are doing. You’ll just continue to make the same mistakes.

 Oh and before you chatter on about me thinking I know everything, I’ll let you guys in on a secret that every professional film maker already knows. No one knows everything about film making. No One. Some know more then others, but no one knows everything.

 Let me give an example or this default hater thing. I watched a video on Vimeo yesterday, its basically a skateboard video, pretty good skillz actually. The guy who edited the video added a song, I forget which, but he kept cutting from the HD skateboard footage to VGA quality music video footage which looked like it was pulled from Youtube. And I honestly thought that it ruined the video, the feel was just gone every time it happened. Now this editor had only posted the one video so was most likely just posting it everywhere he could for free. I mentioned, just like a few others, that the music video footage is a bad idea. And we were all branded haters. Haters for giving actually feedback, I even said that I liked the video and if it wasn’t from the music video clips it would have been better, but no, I’m a hater because I didn’t like it out right.

 It used to be that a hater was someone who simply hated on stuff because they could. But now-a-days even giving out feedback that is not conducive with someone else’s view is hater’ish. First the internet gave everyone a voice. Then the haters used that voice to tell people that what they were doing was shit. Now trying to give helpful feedback is hater’ish.

Blah blah blah. 750 Words Thursday, 25 August 2011.

Aliens are attacking

Okay so today started off pretty good. Go a tax rebate, only 30 quid but I can’t complain and I found a tenner in my jeans. A Scottish tenner but a tenner none the less. Odd, that I haven’t been to Scotland since last year. Which mean its been there for a year. I made 40 quid today yayy and i should be getting my JSA check tomorrow. Yayy again.

 So now that I have a few quid I’m happy again. Not sure why though as I have nothing to buy so having the money doesn’t actually do anything for me right now, I should really save it, as I’m usually skint right before my next JSA check comes in.

 Key;

Quid = Pounds. Like Bucks is to Dollars

Skint = I HAVE NO FREAKING MONEY!

 I took that tax rebate check to the bank and deposited it and picked up a crossword puzzle book for my Day, he’s not well and likes to keep the grey matter exercised. After that I’ve pretty much just read a book all day ‘The Guerilla Film Makers Pocket Book’  its amazing how much you can learn by reading interviews with industry professionals who also work for free (Sometimes) on micro/no budget films. Its good to know that you can get these people for little or nothing or even talk to them for help, nice bunch of people.

 I wonder if the diet coke is cold yet? Hasn’t been in the fridge long.

 So, not much else going on so I’ll just lie.

 Anyway after a few chapters of this I felt the ground shake, and seeing as there was a recent Earthquake felt in New York and Washington DC I wondered if we too had had an earthquake, And as I’ve never actually been somewhere thats had an earthquake I have no idea what one actually feels like. But a few moments later there was another, and another, and they all felt the same, I soon realized that it wasn’t an earthquake but more like an impact. I stopped what I was doing and went down stairs then out the front door as I did the road before me was torn apart by some kind of energy blast and as I looked up into the sky I saw it, a giant mechanized machine.

 So I read a book all day.

 And now I’m getting a little tired. Fighting off aliens take it out of you. Okay that didn’t happen. If it did I think Twitter would explode.

 I then watched a bunch of videos on the more inspirational (Then Youtube) Vimeo, some good stuff, skateboards and BMX bikes “tearing” it up in some “Sick” moves. I try to sound cool but I always fail. Oh well. Some good stuff from Kessler Cranes, Astro-Photography, again awesome. I like Vimeo. I know that I’d most likely be able to find these Vimeo videos on Youtube, but I never see Youtube as a place to post seriously art, films, or animations but on Vimeo it just seem perfect. Most of the stuff I watch on there is extremely well shot, edited, filtered and produced. Youtube is more like “Just get the shot it’ll be fine. (Sometime later) oh shit” I’ve even been told not to put showreels on Youtube because pros in the film industry don’t want to hear “Go to Youtube to see my showreel” Thats not to say they want to see a showreel on Vimeo either. I would on Vimeo but I wouldn’t tell people to go there to see it, I’d burn of a few DVD’s but having it online is good for easy quick access and it helps if someone is checking you out and comes across it. But don’t tell them to go there and not to youtube, as its just a video sharing website filled with trolls, dicks and copyrighted material. Vimeo is a film makers website and more appropriate for your showreel and I con’t imagine your showreel will exceed 500mb so its also free. If your on Shooting People (www.shootingpeople.org) which is a film makers database UK and the US so having it there is also a good idea, if your looking for cast and crew it lets people check you out before wanting to work with you, also, if other want to work with you you can check them out. All is good. But there is a yearly fee to join and unlike Vimeo you can’t upload anything without it. Shame, its a cool site. As when I was a member there I was able to get a discount on Final Draft 7. And Movie Maker magazine and MovieScope magazine. It was because of Shooting People that one of my own shorts (Do Not Bend) was screened in a small theater in Covent Garden, London. Great experience by the way.

More film stuff, again. 750 Words Sunday, 21 August 2011.

I shaved

So, today (Saturday) I write these a day early. And if you just asked why, I just do okay, deal with it. So today I looked at an outline for a short film and I thought I might need to cut it down and simplify it a bit. As it turns out I didn’t.

 So I did what I’ve been doing all week, I turn on iTunes and clicked on the Classic Rock playlist where I have housed my Led Zeppelin and recently purchased Deep Purple albums, grants I only have one Deep Purple album and a best of Led Zeppelin album, I hit play and started to write the screenplay. Of course making sure shuffle was selected. And so I write.

 Every now and then I would just save my work and get up, go down stairs and make a cup of tea, and as my sister, on her weekend visits, brought her two pups down as well, so I would sit down stairs and play with them a little for a bit. I guess to waste time or think about where the script was and where it was going.

 It was around that time I remembered that I have another best of album in iTunes, ‘The Who’, so once back up stairs I threw that double album into the classic rock playlist making 83 tracks of mid 60’s to early 70’s classic rock. Its a good playlist.

 Having a new set of music added to the magical mojo playlist, I started up writing again, and every now and then I would take a break pop down stairs and play with the pups and make a new cuppa tea. Go back up stairs and write some more. I did this routine a few more time. Maybe 6 times in all.

 And after 4 hours of classic rock I had finished the short film script, 12 pages of it. Ok its not “finished” its in a rough draft, need a little bit of work, but I think it’ll be fine.

 I can’t remember a time when I wrote for so long and kept the quality of writing up the whole time, like the rest of this week, I think it’s been the breaks, I’ve usually just gotten my head down and typed until I couldn’t type anymore and I’ve always noticed a significant drop in quality which has alway meant that I’d have to go back and retype it, always a pain to do. So my mantra for writing is now to break often, get a cuppa tea and where possible, play with puppies. I’m so confident I think I could take that script out now and shoot it with out much trouble. But I won’t. Or can’t. Yet.

 So now I’m at 8 scripts in a week, I started last Sunday and since then I’ve written something every day, weather it be a treatment an outline or the script I’ve written something and that is key to everything. Even if its just this 750 exercise, its something written, keeps the skills sharp so to speak/type.

 I just took a comedy break, I have Comedy Central on the tele and it was distracting me, but instead of turning it off I figured I’d just watch it.

 I now have a total of 15 ideas for short films, some I might not be able to do, or even get them to work, but I’ll just move forward, I added another idea today, its a VFX video rathe rather then a short film, but lets face it, if you can’t have fun doing this then why bother doing it. So I would like to make a few video that are just for shits and giggles, no story or plot just visual effects on a grand scope, and a little ridicules. I think only making short films with a message or for recognition would get tiresome after awhile, so taking a break to make something silly and fun is needed for someone like me, if I can’t have fun with it then I don’t want to do it.

Something else I realised today, and that is that when I watch videos and films on Vimeo I get inspired, even if its a video on BMX bikes or skateboards I still feel the need to shot something that likes that good. Vimeo for me equals inspiration. And Youtube, not so much, I watch videos on Youtube, made by the tier 1 tubers and all I feel is sick, all those resources and nothing to show for it, I doesn’t inspire me at all. And as there are people on Youtube uploading great content, but not getting the recognition they deserve because the tier 1’s always do the same thing, and that is, at the end of their uninspired poorly presented badly acted diarrhea ridden dialogued videos, they do a ‘talk to camera’ section where they say how happy they are that you watched their utterly putrid pile of insect infested bile they also ask you, or their “fans” to like, favorite and comment “and lets see if we can get this video to the featured section”, I mean they have enough viewers that that will most likely happen anyway, it might take a day longer, but it will happen eventually. The way I see it, there are videos out there that deserve to be on the featured page far more then their dog vomit, but because they ask you to do all that crap their video might and I’m guessing does, push the better videos out of sight, so they never get seen. That is criminal. But I guess we can all live in the hope that at some point the tier 1 tubers will slowly disappear from the front pages allowing new, more inspiring video to shine through the mist of youtuber bullshit. My message to them, you’re already the most popular people on youtube, mostly because you were there in the beginning, so if you see a video on youtube from someone not very popular, and you love the video or the film, tell people, promote that video, give these people the opportunity to shine. Or maybe the reason you guys don’t do that, is because you don’t want better people with better material pushing you off the front page. You game the system because your in a position to, and to those that aren’t, I guess its tough shit. You say that you youtubers are all one big family, so act like it, or is it that the younger or better looking or better film makers in your extended family are basically the competition in a race, a marathon where they might be fitter then you and be able to run faster and longer then you, but don’t have mopeds like you.

 Congratulations, your stunting the content on your beloved Youtube to shit contrived fart jokes, making sure to keep your videos short enough so not to exceed the attention span of your prepubescent viewers.

 The last two paragraphs were for the tier 1 youtubers, the people you see on the features and front pages of youtube every fucking day. And no, I’m not a hater or a troll, I’m a fucking realist.