Skip to main content

Ok we got the HOW but where is the WHY?

Nowadays there's tons of tutorials and discussion about the technical aspects of filmmaking and animation BUT next to nothing about the actual real creative side... coming up with ideas... story...... how to create mood+ emotion.... developing characters....editing decisions...etc... To sum it up there's tons of info about the HOW but next to nothing about the WHY... 

As far as the HOW goes if you take Video Copilot, Freddie Wong, and Greyscale Gorilla tutorials and learn those techniques... you'd be able to make some great looking visual fx and shiny stuff for the films you want to make BUT then WHY would you want to do those things? If you just have the visual fx and visual gags you are making demo reels... 

Now it seems short videos with nothing but one or two visual gags or fx are very popular and are making lots of people lots of money... so if that's as far as you want to go fine... but I'm not talkin bout the Michael Bay school of filmmaking... 

If you want to make a long form or even short film narrative film that doesn't totally rely on visual fx and gags to somehow make it relevant to the viewer... where can you go for information+ discussion? 

I myself don't know?! BUT I get a lot of questions from yall about such things... mostly about ideas... and how to take those ideas and make them into a film... NOW I'd like to answer such questions and I do when I can BUT when I do only that person gets my answer and I think the answer might help more than one person... so if you think its something that would be interesting or helpful let me know!

So I want to have a page or a site where people can submit filmmaking questions to me and I can answer them and the answers can be seen by anyone and they can ask follow up questions... I'm not sure what form this should be in or what technology to use... so I'd appreciate any suggestions you have...

Would it be a blog type site where people can submit text questions and I answer in text? Would it be a live streaming type thing where I answer questions live? What do you think would be the best way for me to start putting some WHY out there in this sea of HOW? 

I'd like to start an ongoing collaborative conversation about the WHY in film... because that's always been important to me and the films I make.

Comments

  1. a forum maybe? if its a conversation you want that would be the best way to go in my opinion.looking forward to see whatever this becomes.

    ReplyDelete
  2. A blog like this seems like the perfect format for Q&A, where you A the Q and then other people speak up in the comments. Better than handling a Twitter account or whatever. I'm totally with this, though. Discussing ideas, influences and M.O.s without being app specific or step-by-step about it would fill a huge gap in the internet learning machine.

    ReplyDelete
  3. doing a podcast kinda like what grayscaleguirilla's been doing for the past few months might be a good way to do something like this. a Q n A chat room with a recorded audio suppliment. i know a lot of people actually don't know squat about story telling, like why they care about a character or characters.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I think getting into discussions about writing would be great. That is what you're talking about, when it gets to the "why."

    Either forum or blog would be good, imo.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I would like a weekly Q&A post with a video summary on the questions the generated the most interests/buzz/are the most important to you.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I would like a weekly Q&A summary post complimented with a monthly video summary of the questions, comments, and concerns that generated the most interest/confusion/stuck out in your mind and you would like to dive deeper into.

    Since you are just starting it could be like maybe every two weeks with the third post being a vid.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I think you should continue this on your YouTube channel under your Film Skool playlist. You're a YouTube staple and you have a lot invested in your channel there.

    People can leave questions in the comments section and make video responses connected to your videos. Plus, you can still take questions via email, twitter, and your blog.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Great ideia. Not shure HOW without being to much time consuming for YOU (my respect for Greyscale podcasts, but he does´nt go into long features).
    Cheers

    ReplyDelete
  9. I agree with others about what Nick Campbell does...a live chat session that gets archived with the best questions/answers.

    I don't know if that's a pain to set up.....if it's too annoying, a forum-style thing would be nice, so it can be more of a discussion.

    ReplyDelete
  10. DUUUUUDE!

    I plan on making fun animated videos talking about story.

    I think lots of online videos suffer because people making them don't know much about the creative process.

    They're too busy parodying video games, satisfied with making animated loops, or working with clichés.

    I hope an animated video will help people take that extra step to think before they leap. Ya know?

    ReplyDelete
  11. @all

    Thanks for the suggestions... ok I'm screwing around with a little forum I'm going to link to from this blog...for Q and A.... Hmmm as somethin a little different from just a live video with people asking questions via chat.... so what if it wasn't live but instead a pre-recorded skype video chat discussion with 1-3 filmmakers? .. then I released those videos? So like people sent me questions then I got a few people I think would be good for the discussion then we answered your questions and discussed the topics....

    @Ed

    Sounds like a great idea d00d! AND if I do this video discussion thing I HAVE to have you on it! ^_^

    ReplyDelete
  12. Yea man this sounds like a great idea. I think that a blog format where people send questions and you answer in video format may work well, since that will allow you to easily add visual aides and stuff, plus the videos could also be on YouTube so people who don't read the blog can still stumble upon it

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What format should I render out of Cinema 4d with?

UPDATED 2_27_13!  RENDER USING EXR Lossy Zip16! Since I'm working on a new feature film that will generate over 1500 shots made up of image sequences I need to make sure I choose the right file format to render to lest my hard drives explode. What I need from my format is  at least 16bit, an alpha included and preferably small size. I rendered out a frame from my film tallied up all the file sizes here- their all different types of codecs listed from smallest file size to largest. The render includes an RGBA pass, Depth pass, and Material Luminance pass because thats what I always render out. 1.00mb 8bit-Photo Jpeg %100 1.27mb 8bit-PNG 4.65mb 16bit- EXR lossy ZIP16 5.75mb 8bit-PSD 6.23mb 16bit-EXR lossy PLZ 6.44mb 16bit-PNG 7.94mb 8bit-TIFF 8.50mb 16bit-EXR Lossy 24 9.05mb 16bit-EXR Lossy Run Length 14.6mb 8bit-TARGA 22.4mb 32bit-EXR ZIP16 24.6mb 32bit-EXR Zip1 25.6mb 32bit-EXR PLZ 29.3mb 16bit-TIFF 29.3mb 16bit-PSD 40.0mb 32bit-EXR Run Length 58.7mb 16

Aggregated feedZ

So I totally aggregated all meh rss feedZ...So in this one handy like feed thing you can get... -Meh blog posts -Meh EXCITING Facebook status updates (ex. "I'm so FACE") -Meh youtube videos -Meh Vimeo videos -Meh Blogtalk radio episodes - and much more (actually just like some other xml code that i don't understand) Just subscribe via this link and you can get all that for a low low price of...oh wait it's totally FREE ^ ^

So a guy is trying to take credit for my film...

TLDR- Scroll down to THE THIEVERY My name is Mike- I make films under the name "M dot Strange" and I have done so for the past 10+ years- this is my story as a filmmaker culminating in a recent event wherein a "filmmaker" tried to take credit for my life's work Here's my imdb page with my film credits  My web site Here's a reel with stuff from my original films in which I wrote/created/designed/animated etc everything that you see- I can and have performed all aspects of animated film production on my films- thats sort of how I made a name for myself- by being a one man animated film studio Here's a presentation from 2014 with me discussing the production of my last film My first animated feature film "We Are The Strange" premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2007 Sundance archives link Article about the film Link to the film Film's site Because of the buzz that film generated I was given offers to sell the