Slashdot Mirror
The Future of Student Films
EL-34 writes "With professional visual effects tools and technology readily available in film
schools across the country, students have been able to do more than ever before.
At the USC School of Cinema-Television,
SCFX
teaches the trade, and helps create VFX for various student films. With endowments
from Robert Zemeckis, EA, AlienWare, Intel, and Adobe, cinema students are able to
achieve feats
never before possible in animation,
rendering, and compositing.
At the Robert Zemeckis
Center for Digital Arts, students even have access to HD equipment, a Vicon 3-D Motion
Capture System, and a green screen stage."
Shoot, when I was a film major in my first year of college, I was stunned to find out that seniors were spending 12-15 thousand dollars on their final film projects. Recently, I had the privilege to see some of the recent films of some current film students and I was really quite pleased to see what was possible with even iMovie, a DV camera and an iMac. Beyond that, for about 66% of what we would have spent on our senior projects just a few years ago, you can practically have an entire G5 editing studio.
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Yeah, this is all great, and the more tools the better for the students. But technology does not make a great film. The story does. This treads a dangerous line where students attempt to solve problems with green screens and special effects, ignoring simple blocking and story-telling.
Just my opinion, but I saw this with the advent of graphic-design software, where kids open up Photoshop without even thinking about hitting the sketch-book first.
Kip Hawley is an idiot.
I don't think that this is just student movies, but rather all independant movies. More and more I've been seeing independant films- and they look good, and are actually good movies. A programmer friend of mine in Santa Barbera even had his hobby/independant film play in a theatre. I'm happy that finally you don't need a giant budget to produce a nice film.
- dshaw
This looks like a great thing, even if the trailers so far are a bit lame.
Imagine if a new generation of students trained in digital effects and hungry for exposure meets up with the right young writers...
Together with the next generation of HD video discs, this could easily lead to a revolution in indie film, with high-quality FX-laden goods coming at you through Netflix and the like.
On the other hand, that's what everyone said about "normal" indies when Final Cut Pro caught on.
This Like That - fun with words!
Unfortunately, USC made a huge investment in PC-based Avid workstations, just at the time the whole industry was moving to Apple's Final Cut Pro. But it proves something I've been saying for many years: college will only train you on the LAST generation's tools, which may or may not prepare you for the NEXT generation tools that you'll be working with for the rest of your career. Better to study theory and fundamentals than expect a college to equip you with actual skills, you have to develop those on the job anyway.
It's all in the percentages. We'll see 100 shit films heavy on special effects/bad acting, but there'll be one in there that is a gem. Some kid already had his idea, and was just waiting for the price to come down so he can fulfill his dream. I think it's worth wading through the chaff to see the pioneers rise through it and become an outstanding director. History repeats itself...
Kip Hawley is an idiot.
Today much of the effort focuses on the eye candy, so we have crap like the second two Matrix movies and the Star Wars prequels. There's a lot of flash and dazzle but it's not necessarily good art, and it often is done at the expense of the story, instead of contributing to it. Some directors can get it right- Lord of the Rings and the latest Harry Potter movie did a good job of using the visuals to further the movie rather than vice versa.
Cross your fingers for the new Scott Baio module, too. It's just as good as the Tony Danza module, but is far cheaper to operate.
Grayson is another great. It is actually just a trailer (~7 minutes) but if you saw this on TV you would not for the life you be able to distinguish it from a multimillion dollar production. Well, except for the tell-tale signs of an original plot. :p
Another great is Batman: Deadend. This is just a short. I believe it was shown firts at last year's ComicCon. Like the previous, there were obviously professionals involved, but it was still just a group of friends who put it together, though they happened to be familiar with production methods. The costumes all incredibe. Don't read this if you don't want me to spoil it, but they have Batman, Alien, and Predator costumes that are not in any way inferior to those you saw in the actual movies (personally, I think the Batman costume is better). The dark cinematography is really good too.
Now, nothing I linked to disputes that producing a film is a major effort that requires a lot of work and resources; but it does dispute the idea that you need millions of dollars to do so.
And I figure it's a good opportunity for some of my fellow slashdotters to enjoy some great movies. :)
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
I graduated from USC Cinema about 3 years ago, just as all these wonderful toys were being set up. My experience with student filmmaking is this:
Many of the students there would spend boatloads of money on their thesis projects to put them on 35mm Anamorphic film, get a Dolby Digital mix, put in glitzy special effects, etc... (one I helped out on had a $100K budget - no joke). The problem was that their films ended up looking like beautiful pieces of nothing, because they had spent so much time on production issues that they never had time to really nail down the script. So they were great to look at, always technically proficient, but lacking in story. So to have SCFX is great for people who want a technical training, but I went to USC to understand visual storytelling, and you really don't need much in the way of effects to do that properly.
As a side note, a classmate of mine (he was a few semesters ahead of me) spent a minimal $11,000 on his thesis film, shot it on 16mm black and white, optical sound, and it won the Palm d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Go figure.
That's the one with the big clock on the front of the building, dangling power lines and huge flaming skid marks on the street next to it... can't miss it.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
the whole industry was moving to Apple's Final Cut Pro
1. The whole industry is not low-budget independent movies cut on the director's personal Mac.
Avid is still the major editing equipment, be it in television or for film. What percentage of major hollywood movies are cut on FCP? My guess would be something between 1 and 10%?
But, more important is
2. The equipment used is irrelevant. Editing is not the skill of pressing the right buttons. They could learn it on an old Steenbeck: no technology at all, absolutely nothing to learn other than how to tell the story, and how to cut it well. Instead, they loose probably more than half the time learning technical details which change anyway as the tools change, and which they could learn in the relevant user manual when they need it.
3. Separate from editing, some basic technology lessons would certainly be useful, and not only for editors. But for the technical aspects, they shouldn't be taught Avid OR FCP. They should be taught some very basic computer stuff (I know young filmmakers who don't really know what a hard disk is! or a directory/folder), and basic non-linear editing principles, and an overview of both Avid AND FCP, because in the real world they will be using both for a while, and then maybe something else.
There are already far too many "editors" who only know pressing the right buttons very quickly, but don't have a clue about how to build a good film out of the material the director brought into the editing room.
Putting these incredibly powerful tools in the hands of more and more people is definitely A Good Thing.
But in the end, Good Storytelling is more important than stellar visuals. People will sit through claymation if the script is great, with high stakes, believable characters, conflict and a sense of humor.
Lucas????? Are you listening????
It makes you wonder if all they're teaching the students is effects and animation. A whole new generation of Jerry Bruckheimers and Jan De Bonts. Technology and special effects are great and all, but a good storyline is what most movies lack these days. Who cares if you can make a great looking movie if it lacks substance? Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within anyone? Oh boy, ground breaking special effects, but the fantastic storyline like Battlefield Earth. I can't wait!
-W
I've seen some demo's of Vegas working with some of the under $5k prosumer HD cams and it is amazing.
This was originally made by Sonic Foundry (of Soundforge fame) but the company was bougt by Sony a year or two ago. Surprisingly they have not appears to break this family of tools.
--- Liberty in our Lifetime
It isn't about production values or being able to pull off some nice special effects. Those are all icing: the cake is baked by a good story, and good process. University or expensive film schools just seem to lack that heart, and the process is usually borked.
The problem, to me, is pedagogy. The indie spirit is collaborative, vision-driven, passionate, and do-it-yourself. Constraints become creative possibilities. At a well-endowed school, the tech is alluring, taking energy away from the fundamentals of telling a good story and getting a good camera angle. Usually, the schedule is dissipating, so that from one week to the next, there are huge gaps in production, which mean gaps in memory and experience, and gaps in the energy. Life there is full of distractions and other claims on your attention.
The reason film 'boot camp' (and I mean camp, away from the bright lights) is so effective is the continuity of purpose, the ability to truly focus on your work and peers. The pedagogy is what film students need most. The ability to use the latest and greatest is always going to be a race up a sand dune anyway.
Damn those pesky terrorists
If you're interested in what can be done on extremely small budgets, check out a movie called Primer.
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a chi_budget.php), and it got him a million-dollar production deal with Columbia. He went on to make Desperado, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, From Dusk Till Dawn, and the Spy Kids movies. He wrote a great book called Rebel Without a Crew about the experience of making El Mariachi on a shoestring budget.
i on.html) was made for. The director put it together from home movies shot on Super 8 and edited it with iMovie.
http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/prime
http://www.primermovie.com/home.html
Primer is a time-travel sci fi flick that was made for about $4000, shot entirely on super 16, and here's the best part: it won the Grand Jury award for best drama at Sundance this year. From the buzz I hear, it could be this year's Memento.
Robert Rodriguez shot El Mariachi for $7000 (http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/winter1993/mari
If you don't have $4000 or $7000 to spend on a movie, how about $217? That's what Tarnation (http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/tarnat
He was probably talking about the Palme d'Or du court metrage (short film), which was given to a USC student in 2001. It took about 15 seconds to google for "USC palme d'or" and figure this out.
When I saw the /. post on "The Future of Student Films" I got excited...
...but did anyone *not* think both those trailers were god awful? I mean, Star Wars Fan Films made by people who have never seen the inside of a film classroom look 1000 times more professional. Let's call a spade a spade people.
I'm a huge believer of DIY on-the-cheap professional looking effects...
It ain't about having access to the tools, its about knowing how to use them. Occasionally talent and talent-education accidentally meet up, but this is just further proof that talent is talent, and most film schools are filled with an enormous lack of it. Bad effects don't help bad filmmaking.
I'd be embarrassed to put that sh*t online...
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Well, if your script calls for something you can't acquire, maybe you should just change the script. I had to do that multiple times. Granted, getting the sets/locations one needs is difficult for a student project (unless your dad's a millionaire or you have very good connections) but it doesn't help your film any to blame the drag on inadequate sets. If they were that inadequate, you shouldn't have used them in the first place.
While special effects programs can give you the backgrounds you may need for a particular scene, you then have the problem that you will most likely be working with student actors who do not have much experience and will certainly not be used to doing greenscreen work. CG tends to also be more time consuming for student projects, because as students, you will just be learning the software as you need to use it.
There are problems either way - technology does not solve all problems, it merely changes the ones you have to deal with. Production, our teachers told us repeatedly, is all about problem solving. Two big rules are KISS and "If it's simple and it works, it ain't stupid." Some people will be able to solve the problem with sets, others with CG. The issue is not the problem, but whether it is solved effectively. The audience doesn't care that you couldn't find just the location you needed or that you didn't have the software you needed - all they care about is whether the film was any good.
No good deed goes unpunished. - Avon, Blake's 7