Finally I have a date for this little compositing workshop at our facility.
It’s called “digital compositing with eyeon Fusion” and covers in 7 hours technique, theory and real examples for compositing.

Mo, 31.03.08 from 16.00-20.00
Tu, 10.04.08 from 17.00-20.00

Free for all our students. Check details at our course managing system.
Please register with an email.

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It is a bit late but there is an excellent Berlinale keynote by Don Tapscott called “Rethinking Film and Film industry for the 21st Century” [1].
You will find the presentation as pdf here [2].
Mainly he talks about changing markets and how motion picture will/could change. Actually he gives examples that we are just in a big change called web 2.0. I hate the term. It has the “multimedia"-taste to it but he really uses it correctly.

Think about the kids
One thing that really opened my eyes is that we may not draw conclusions from our consumer behavior to the market cause the market is changing. Kids and teens are used to short clips on youtube, watching movies on mobiles or the Internet so there will be no problem for them to consume this way. This calls for a new way of thinking about motion picture and entertainment markets and that is what this keynote is all about.

Where’s the money?
This results in a need for new strategic sources of income. Copyrights and property for digital information is old fashioned. Look what happened with mp3 and what it could be. It’s better to claim no property at all but to look for alternative sources like service, advertising, donations or subscription fees. For example just think how accurate user statistics are in the world wide web compared to estimated values in tv advertising.
That is in a way the big thing behind what a production company noticed in the conversation “Show Me the (Advertising) Money!” [3] on the 41st International Quorum of Motion Picture Producers Conference. No need for big agencies. Direct contact with the customer! No unnecessary long ways.

YOU BENEFIT!
This enables great possibilities for independent creatives because you don’t depend on the distribution structures of big companies. The web is free. You can get your customer base with a great product and word-of-mouth advertising. That is what happens with the music industry right now. The artists directly benefit from it instead of paying the big labels and record companies.

[1] Rethinking Film and Film industry for the 21st Century (medienboard.de)
[2] Berlinale Keynotes (medienboard.de)
[3] Show Me the (Advertising) Money! (studiodaily.com)

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Following post is in German because it is about German law

BANG!
Wie kann das nur sein. Der Bundesfinanzhof hat entschieden, dass ein freier Grafiker der in der Werbung arbeitet keiner künstlerische Arbeit nachgehe bzw. der Arbeit Gestaltungshöhe fehle [1]

So sei es ein Gewerbe
Ok. Grad wurde mit einem Beschluss der ganze Beruf des Grafikdesigners zu einem Handwerk erklärt. Einfach so. Und das beste ist, dass sich das Gericht zumaßt so etwas bewerten zu können ohne die Gestaltungshöhe von einem Gutachter, wie vom Kläger gefordert, bewerten zu lassen. Ist klar, dass das Gericht seine Rundmails mit MS-Word Cliparts in Comic Sans verfasst und somit nicht den Unterschied zu einer gestalteten Anzeige sieht.

Teste deine Gestaltungshöhe
Ich werde es wohl nicht schaffen das Gericht zu überzeugen, aber dafür werde ich in 2 Minuten jeden Volldeppen auf der Erde beweisen wie man die künstlerische Gestaltungshöhe in einem Grafikdesign Job nachweißt:
Man nehme einen computerkundigen Menschen, wichtig: nicht Gestalter, und bringe diesem an einem Tag alle wichtigen Funktion einer Gestaltungsapplikation wie Indesign bei. Man gebe diesem Menschen einen aus der Realität entnommenes Briefing für die Gestaltung einer Seite, mit “vorgegebenen Materialien und Formen” und lasse diese Person an der Anzeige werkeln. Was rauskommt ist eine potthässliche Anzeige. Was fehlt? Die vom Gericht so streng geforderte Gestaltungshöhe. Wenn sie nicht erkennen warum auch Anzeigen Werke sind, dann heißt das, dass wir als Gestalter keine Grundlage für den Schutz durch das Urheberrecht genießen dürfen! Eigentlich sind damit alle Agenturen sehr angreifbar.
Geht in die Welt und klaut Anzeigen!

Was sagt denn die AGD dazu?

Disclaimer
Die vorangehende Text ist mit Ironie und schwarzem Humor versetzt. Bitte entzieht mir nicht die Gestaltungslizenz. Und JA ich habe bewusst drei hässliche Smilies benutzt! Diesem Post fehlt Gestaltungshöhe.

[1] BFH-Beschluss vom 1.6.2006 (IV B 200/04) BStBl. 2006 II S. 709

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Here are concepts that help me throughout my work. These are based on the work about documentary film by Thomas Schadt, a known German documentary film maker [1]. Unfortunately I haven’t found an English translation of this book. The following thoughts take his definition and extents it to my own experiences and ideas.

Thesis
If we define reality as the super objectivity, the world as it is happening, then we quickly realize, that there is no final reality for us. Our perception works with conventions that we learned and experiences that we made. The perception of reality has always a layer of own interpretation between what there is/we perceive and how it results in what we think it is.

Easy enough?
Here an example. If the reality is that I’m standing waiting for the bus at a bus station then this is not the final reality from my point of view. It is connected to how I ended up there, what I do there, why I wait, what is my mood etc. For example for someone who is standing there and never saw a bus before there is a much different perception of the standing at the bus station. Also two people who wait for the bus have a different perception of the situation. And lets now pretend we see the picture of a guy at the station waiting for the bus. What we all may think of is: a guy waiting for the bus. But each and everyone will have it’s own interpretation, association and so on for this situation. Maybe I don’t like buses cause they are often delayed. Maybe I met my wife at a bus station. Maybe I love riding the bus and can’t wait. Maybe I lost my keys and can’t think of anything else. The situation or picture of something doesn’t imply the reality but the truth which can be different for every single person. Although the first thing most of the people might say is: “A guy waiting for the bus!” that may not be completely what they feel or think. Often, the less information or the more abstract the object the more we relate to our own interpretation. Think of a real situation you stand in, a video clip about the situation, a photograph, a painting, a abstract painting, a narrative text etc. And then just imagine in how many ways you can influence a picture, by color mood, technique, sharpness, perspective without really touching the content.

Your role
You, as a creative, work with these factors: Your truth as an abstraction of reality. It is a good time to catchup with documentary films and their main problem. Documentary oughts to be real. But it can not. It’s only the truth of the movie maker from the cameras truth of perspective. And there a hundreds of other factors. A motion picture always has a certain layer of abstraction to it as well as the decision how authentic the movie has to be.

Cinematic examples
When I saw Sweeney Todd by Tim Burton [2] lately in a cinematic theater there were people laughing while Sweeney hit his first victim with a kettle and then slit the throat of the victim with a razor. Blood splattered all over the place. Of course there was a special kind of graphic abstraction to the pictures and the victim but how would you think the people would react if they knew it was real in the news or were standing next to the victim? Of course Tim Burton is an great director and that is why he must have chosen a very unrealistic graphic style in this movie, so that the people keep sympathy with the protagonist while he kills people. Think of Pan’s Labyrinth by Guillermo del Toro [3]. Captain Vidal, the villain kills a farmer with a bottle. I didn’t hear any laughs. Guillermo del Toro held this scene for very long. I thought, god please give us a cut! And that impression, as first bad incident of the villain kept to the end of the movie. One similar reality: a guy kills someone by brutaly hitting his face with an object. Two different truths.

Truth as a tool
Directors always have the audience in mind if or how much abstraction they expect. But it is not possible for them to show reality. A good documentary often needs a dramaturgy which doesn’t have to be staged. But it can be. Often a medium like a video needs a certain level exaggeration to have the same effect as a live performance/situation. The reason is that the audience feels save in their seats, with the screen as a defending layer of abstraction. Thomas Schadt relates to a situation where a colleague filmed a scene which was beautiful timed, looked great, almost perfect as if it was staged. It was so perfect that the filmmaker left it out because the audience would think it is staged. And this would challenge the whole level of authenticity in the rest of the movie.
Here is another layer and tool for shaping the truth: editing. With direct connecting, leaving out, adding, mixing, blending different pictures a filmmaker has a great power to influence a situation. Not to think of what is possible with visual effects/image manipulation [4]. This all sounds very negative but think of it like this: Every movie has a truth which has to fit the story, its audience and their expectations. A film maker like Michael Moore is known for constructing a truth which critics abuse to be lies and manipulation of facts. His movies’ intention may be to see our society in the mirror. And that may be why he constructed his truth which may not be reality. What does this teach us? There is no reality, but only subjective truths. And don’t believe that press is reality. It is (in good cases) the best try to construct a truth which is as close as possible to reality. But only close [4]. Often struggles, conflicts and even wars happens because people can’t judge the difference. That’s why it is important not to believe truth but always to leave room for doubt. But also to doubt in your own truth. Get practical: Just think of yourself. How many times you turned out to be wrong? But before you realized this, you could swear that you are right, that your opinion is real though it turned out to be, for whatever reason, a truth your mind constructed due to misinformation, misinterpretation, oblivion etc.. So better not to take your truth for reality at any cost. Isn’t this what is called tolerance?

And the conclusion?
As a director you have to be mindful of the difference between reality and truth. You are a designer of a truth which an audience is confronted with. You have to be clear, how close or far away you want to go to reality and you have to make clear that the audience realizes this distance. A film is a powerful emotional expression and you have a responsibility not to exploit the trust of the audience.

Disclaimer
I am not a scientist, a smart guy or what so ever. This is just a very subjective idea (truth ) which I want to share. It doesn’t have to be your truth or reality. But it may come in handy for you.

[1] Gefühl des Augenblicks (amazon.de)
[2] Sweeney Todd (imdb.com)
[3] Pan’s Labyrinth (imdb.com)
[4] Image manipulation at reuters (aish.com)

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The project I’m yakin’ about like a excited child is … Paris!

…

Well that’s all for now. I don’t know what it will be. I have some pictures, ideas but I didn’t think too much about it on purpose. I want to catch the character of the scene, the city, while I’m there and think there about the picture. Also I look forward doing this with my production partner Marko.

So my tickets are in front of me. March 13th till 16th, and after this 6 days of location scounting, subject finding, photographing, plot inventing, brainstorming, creating and creative writing I hopefully will be able to tell more about this project.

But what I CAN do here is to prepare the equipment. And get it. While thinking about my - btw first serious project, where I will be seriously directing - I decided that I want to go for a film look. And I don’t mean just the technical aspect, but from the feeling the footage should have to underline it’s artistic and technical level.

I would love to shoot in 16mm, being a film lover lately in photography. As executive producer (which means I dump the bucks for this project) for now, and since I would need a experienced camera operator for film I quickly searched for different solutions. Video is the only possible way to go for me on a mini crew. So a 35mm Adapter is the only solution. That’s basically a adapter you can mount on your video camera to attach film or photo lenses to it. Since the image plane is 35mm and the lenses due to their specs produce a short depth of field you get something which comes close to a film look. Close since there are many more things to consider. Like speed, color and there are certain new limitations. Biggest might be that you can only focus manually. Like shooting on film cameras.

There are many things to be tested. For now I was looking for the best affordable solution and came up with a set of Canon FD photo lenses, SGPro [..], a matte box imported from india, ohrwurm II as environment audio input device, X4 Tech Zelo M8 as monitoring solution (maybe instead a Grunding Davio7) and some gadgets here and there I will have to build.

I will have some intensive testing when I’m back from Paris, possibly the kit is complete by then. But that’s not what I’m concerned about.
I do care more about the suspense… will have to create green shit!
(will be explained in further posts )

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The babylon underground participates at a rock band contest sponsored by the beer brewery becks.

The bands get 3 tasks. One involves a video clip on how they write a new song. Together with Chris Bucanac on the camera I directed and finished this video based on the band’s comical and ingenious idea: a little recording studio in a little box.

You can view the clip and daily vote for the band at the becks on stage website [..]!

For lazy fellows I will post the video here next week.

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Welcome to my blog.

I finally finished the design I started way back last year. Hopefully you will get some personal information, photos, tutorials and thoughts in this script to my life.

Feel free to comment and write suggestions. It’s worth to register, especially as a friend: check the about page.

See ya around!
Cheers
blazej

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