Life-Long Education

Recommended Reading:

Directing Actors by Judith Weston

If you are, or plan to be, in a position to direct actors, models or any other humans on camera or on stage, read Weston’s book. The book covers a set of questions I’ve been interested in for a long time. Weston discusses these questions: How do I communicate ideas not directly in the script? How do I make sure I’m understood on set? How do explain physical action I can’t show? How do I discuss a through-line with the cast? How do I get a slightly different performance or even get the same one again? and a multitude of others about performance, script and rehearsal at length.

Weston’s interest, and it should be the director’s interest, is that we must be communicating directions that are “playable”. This means that your directions must be understood by the actor in a way she can return them in the form of a performance by their character. On set the cliches “once more with feeling” and “that was perfect do it again” have become running jokes. Weston hammers home the idea that actors are constantly given direction that is unplayable: Can you give it more energy, Can you make it more quirky? Can you play him aggressive but pleasant? If you think you’ve given this direction, immediately click on the Amazon link above and order her book for 1-day delivery. These directions might honestly come from your desire to see a more quirky, pleasant, aggressive, or energetic performance but they will not help your cast. Results oriented directions like these will distract the actor into trying to see them-self through the lens instead of being inside the character they are portraying.

Weston’s thesis is around a director-actor relationship where through careful preparation the actor internalize their character and then the director helps to free the actor to be that character on set. Starting with the introduction Weston tells directors that its on them make an active choice to engage with the actors in their process and she posits that taking that choice gives the director freedom.

Until you’ve worked with actors they appear to be extremely over-paid, over-indulged and accorded far to much credit for the quality of a movie. When you start to understand how hard it is to get a good performance and how easy it is to get a laughable performance it gets a lot easier to see the value a great actor brings to a production. That said, I’m afraid that in today’s celebrity driven market actors are often being asked to be stars and not to play characters.

I have two criticisms of this book. One is that in her effort to help directors understand actors Weston has implied that the director is the Doctor in a psychiatrist, patient relationship with the actor. I would hope that a healthier less paternal relationship is possible. My other note is about her writing and the poor overused exclamation mark. Weston tells us repeatedly that the director must be very careful in delivering playable direction to the actor lest it be misunderstood. She should be as concerned with her reader’s needs.

If you’ve read Directing Actors or any other books on acting, directing or film-making please share your insights.

Filmmaking / Life-Long Education / RED / Uncategorized — No Comments
14
Aug 12

Lectrosonics vs. Shure Vs. Sennheiser for Scarlet and Epic Audio

I’ve been shopping for a wireless mic for my Scarlet. Here is what I’ve learned about single system audio. First, hire a pro when you can, we just worked on a shoot with a great guy and the audio is 100 times better then I could do myself. When you have to, audio into the camera can work well. The first thing is to make sure that the 1/8″ cables you use are actually wired the way they appear to be.

Out of the box there are many mono audio products with 1/8″ connectors. Logically one would assume a mono audio tool with a 3 pin 1/8″ connector would be TRS. (Tip, Ring, Sleeve). It turns out this is not the case. Many companies try to help you by sending that mono signal on both the tip and ring pin. These connectors will not work with Epic or Scarlet. There is a thread on Reduser.net telling you how to cut the white wire in a Rode Video Mic pro to turn it from bi-mono to a proper mono TRS connection. That thread is worth following, I fixed up my mic in 5 minutes.

The same issue applies to both the Sennheiser G3 and Shure FP15 wireless lavaliers. They are both mono sources but they both come with 1/8″ 3-pin jacks that are wired for “bi-mono”. You can either replace the wires that come with these kits or try to cut the wire running to the RING pin yourself. Getting a wire that has mono pin – to pin TRS from either system will make it RED friendly.

Here is a quick review:

1)The Lectrosonics 100 series comes out-of-the-box working with Epic and Scarlet. This is very nice gear made here in USA. If you have the means I suggest this wireless system. For me, I’d save the extra money and use it to hire pro-audio. I’m not buying audio gear to replace working with a pro, I just need the ability to get decent sound into the camera. So I’m not investing in Lectrosonics. These units are around $1300 for a transmitter, receiver and lavalier mic.

2) The Sennheiser G3 is ubiquitous in recording, so it might be a good way to go. Out of the box it is not RED friendly, the nice screw-lock 1/8″ wire that came with the kit is wired up with signal on both ring and tip. However since it uses 1/8″ you probably have a 1/8″ male to 1/8″ male stereo wire that is wired up pin to pin in your drawer, plug that in and you’ll be good to go. If you want to find a wire with screw locks on the Sennheiser side it’s probably out there, I’ll add a link if I find one.

3) Shure FP15: I was excited by this because it is over $120 cheaper then the Sennheiser and it boasts being easiest to setup. This system is also wired with signal on Tip and Ring so the wire it comes with doesn’t work. This is bit harder to fix because the connector is TA3F (aka mini xlr) on one end and 1/8″ 3 pin on the other. I can only find this wired properly as a very expensive custom cable. If one were to open the TA3F end and cut the black wire it would work with RED. If money is the primary choice this is a good bet. Though I can’t hear much sound difference between the Sennheiser and the Shure the Sennheiser has a smaller microphone and it’s levels seem to match the Scarlet better.

In the end I’m going to keep a Sennheiser G3 and a Rhode Video Mic Pro in my kit. I may add a boom and another wireless set. Really I’m happier working with a second system sound and a pro sound recordist. The takeaway should be this: Just because a wire appears to go from XLR or TA3F or TRS to TRS doesn’t mean that’s what is going on inside the cable. Many posts have complained about the use of non-locking connectors on RED. I think the bigger issue is the non-standard ways many device manufactures are using these wires. You can’t look at a 1/8″ mini plug and know if its’s stereo, mono, balanced, unbalanced or “bi-mono” for some of these wires we literally had to put a multi-meter on them to know how the pins were mapped.

Audio sample comparing Shure and Sennheiser:

Book Reviews / Filmmaking / Life-Long Education — No Comments
16
Feb 12

Robert Rodriguez: Rebel Without a Crew

Since I’ve been writing these book reviews as a way of sharing my own film-making self-education. The first thing to mention is what kind of audience I think Rebel without a Crew is appropriate for. In some ways Rodriguez’ book is most appropriate for those of us who want to make movies. However it is so entertaining and the El Mariachi stories are so cool that I think any indy film buff will like this book.

Everyone’s heard of a bucket list, how about a cold beer list. After reading this book and watching 10 minute film school, I’d put Robert Rodriguez on any top 10 list of people I’d like drink a beer with. He is funny as hell and tells a great story.

As the title suggests, this is not a book about making Hollywood movies. Rodriquez made El Mariachi with his buddies, a borrowed 16mm camera, some cash he got from selling his body to science and a script he thought of as something to practice on. If Neil Young is the godfather of grunge, Rodriguez is the Patron Saint of indy films. The problem is our idea of an indy film is still a millions of dollars affair. His idea of being a true one-man-band is really worth some thought before your re-finance your house to make your first film.

“The creative person with limitless imagination and no money can make a better film then the talentless mogul with a limitless checkbook every time.”

In the film Inception the story turns on the concept that a single idea can be really powerful, that it can change someone’s life. Rodriguez had one of those singular life-changing ideas. He wanted to write a script. Someone told him that everyone has two bad movies in them, so the advice offered was write two scripts and throw them in the trash. Then write a script to shop around. Rodriguez didn’t think he would have the discipline to write something knowing it was going in the trash. So his singular life-changing idea, write a script and make a movie from that script. That way he would get practice at both. To sweeten the idea he figured he could make it on the cheap then sell it to the Mexican film market for just enough to cover the costs of making it and one more practice movie. You guessed it, he didn’t make a movie for the trash, he made El Mariachi.

Not only did he make El Mariachi, he kept a diary of the whole wild ride. That’s the meat of Rebel Without a Crew. It’s fully worth reading the story, it’s not only highly entertaining it will motivate you to make your film.

Rodriguez really is a rebel. Just like David Mamet, who says Hollywood producers have no souls, Rodriguez doesn’t have much patience for capital “P” producers. He is so convinced that breaking the rules is the first step to creativity that he urges you not only to break all the Hollywood rules but to break his rules too.

“question everything because it can all be rethought and improved… in the end the only techniques worth knowing are the ones you invent your self.”

Here is the original 10 Minute Film School:

As if Robert hasn’t taught you enough about filmmaking here is 10 Minute Cooking School, as I said this is a guy you want to have a beer with.

Book Reviews / Filmmaking / Life-Long Education — No Comments
1
Feb 12

Recommended Reading: David Mamet’s On Directing Film

I stumbled upon David Mamet’s now twenty-year-old book On Directing Film while looking for something else on Amazon, Jeff Bezos should be happy. Whatever algorithm is working behind the scenes spit out just what I was after.

I bought the book because I like Mammet’s writing for films like House of Games, The Spanish Prisoner, Wag the Dog, Ronin and State and Main. Like Aaron Sorkin’s double speed writing you can really tell a Mamet script by the halting cadence.

On Directing Film comes from a series of lectures Mammet gave at Columbia University after directing House of Games. The format is a transcript of Mamet’s lecture with his student’s responses to his questions.

There will be two moments to give you pause reading this book, one in the beginning when you pull out a dictionary to understand what Mammet means by uninflected a word he uses again and again. Another when you wonder if the book should be titled, On Writing for Film. Mamet does have a Pulitzer.

Mamet’s key point is that a movie is a story told in cuts. It should be created by juxtaposing uninflected images which tell the story. By uninflected he means something like unrelated. This is essentially Eisenstein’s theory of montage. Show the audience a series of images that move the story forward; tell the story in the simplest way without narration. There is an entire chapter on this here: David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross: text and performance

For a moment I wondered if this book was really about directing or if it was about writing drama. Really it’s a book about preparing. I think Mamet is very right when he says that being unprepared on set will not cause you to be creative, at the best you can copy something that you know works or do something interesting that may not be right for the story. He says that directing is all done before the cameras and crew show up.

Mamet shows his students how to see a film in manageable units. The largest unit is the film, the smallest is the shot and the unit of most interest to the director is the scene. Each scene should be a tiny drama of its own where the protagonist has a goal to achieve (or not). Then we are to break the scene down into beats and shots. For Mamet preparing this road map from shot to beat to scene to film is directing.

To better understand this, think of a scene. For example, the scene is “flee from a crime”. The protagonist’s goal is: get away. The beats are: a) get to the car, quickly b) start the car, c) drive away, unnoticed. At this point the shots start to fall into place: Running from a distance, tight shot of feet showing speed, looking over his shoulder, getting to the car, working the key in the lock, starting the car, hands on wheels, foot on pedal, eyes in mirror, tires spinning, car moving through the lot, turning onto the road, disappearing into traffic.

Mamet explains it much more convincingly then I could here, read the book. What you will learn is that this concept of looking at each scenes as a drama told in beats and shots provides a check-sum. An opportunity to see the story very close up (shot by shot) or to pull back to the beats or scenes and make sure that everything contributes to the through-line.

Filmmaking / Life-Long Education / Winokur Photography — 1 Comment
4
Dec 11

Red Studios Hollywood

Red Studios Hollywood, the historic Ren Mar lot was home to productions including I Love Lucy, The Jack Benny Show, I Spy, Hogan’s Heroes and The Dick Van Dyke Show.

I’m off to Red Studios in Hollywood for three days. I’ll get to work with the Epic and Scarlet and I’m sure there will be other really interesting stuff going on.

Red Epic

Filmmaking / Life-Long Education / Winokur Photography — 3 Comments
23
Sep 10

Sarah’s Practice

Sarah’s Practice from Michael Winokur on Vimeo.

I believe in life-long education. I’m not going back to school. I taught myself most of what I know about photography by trial and error, with the guidance of mentors, through self-assigned projects. I’m currently doing the same with motion. I hope you’ll enjoy Sarah’s Practice, a short film about my friend Sarah Barnard, a yoga instructor here in S.F. I have three other projects in various phases of production, stay tuned.

Huge thanks to Sarah Barnard for all her time and help.

-Michael

Filmmaking / Life-Long Education / Winokur Photography — No Comments
21
Jul 10

Bridalveil Falls home movie – the hdDSLR is the new bolex

Bridalveil Falls Yosemite from Michael Winokur on Vimeo.

I’m teaching myself about motion step by step. In the near future I expect to have motion work that applies to my still portrait photography. In the meantime I’ve been enjoying playing with the movie mode on my Panasonic GF-1. It’s The 2010 version of the Bolex home movie.