Indie Category: Digital Rebellion Blog

Perfect Sport to premiere at WorldFest Houston

Sat, 22 Mar 08 02:32:13 -0600

If you're in the Houston, TX area this April, I thoroughly recommend going to see Perfect Sport at the 41st Annual WorldFest International Film Festival. This festival is one of the oldest in the world and is responsible for discovering Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Ang Lee, Ridley Scott, The Coen Brothers, David Lynch, Brian De Palma and many more.

To paraphrase WorldFest's site, Perfect Sport is about a young up-and-coming high school wrestling champ who must come to terms with his personal demons and his sister's ability to win against him on the mat. It stars Anthony O'Brien, Jessica Rose (of Lonelygirl15 and Greek fame), Gary Hudson (Paradise Falls), Stella Keitel (as in Harvey), Shawn Aly and Nick Richie.

I'm just going to come out and say it: this movie is awesome. Great script, excellent acting by all of the cast, stunning cinematography, great editing, superb soundtrack - you name it, it's excellent. It was shot for around $600k but you would be forgiven for thinking it was at least 10 times more. It's a rollercoaster of emotion - you'll laugh at the beginning and cry at the end. This movie is not to be missed.

Right now the showtimes are listed as Sunday 13th April at 7:15pm and Monday 14th April at 5:00pm but the schedule is described as a "work in progress" so this could change before the final event.

Man creates feature film visual effects in his bedroom

Mon, 04 Feb 08 16:48:08 -0700

I love stories like this. Similar to my previous post about the recreation of the Omaha Beach landings using only three actors, Gareth Edwards directed and single-handedly created 250 effects shots in his bedroom for the HD feature film "Atilla the Hun".

His toolkit was Adobe After Effects and Photoshop, and he averaged 2 shots a day over a period of 5 months. It shows that epic movies can be created on a budget with a limited cast and crew, and still hold up to their considerably more expensive brethren. Ok, this guy is a professional visual effects artist, but it shows that it is possible to create high-quality effects with relatively inexpensive software and hardware.

It will be broadcast on the BBC on February 13th. It will be broadcast on the Discovery Channel in the USA at a later date that has not been set yet. Here is a trailer to whet your appetite:

I found this on FXGuide, which has some nice before-and-after pics and an audio interview with Edwards.

Bloody Omaha

Fri, 11 Jan 08 15:52:14 -0700

For the BBC history show Timewatch, they did a reenactment of the Omaha Beach landings - using only three actors. They used all kinds of camera and post tricks and managed to pull it off believably. Here's the making of "Bloody Omaha":

[via ProLost]

RED CES news - 4K delivery and Scarlet

Wed, 09 Jan 08 04:55:03 -0700

I know I'm late to the party but there were some important announcements at CES (Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas) by the creators of the RED camera.

Jim Jannard (head honcho) yesterday announced a 4K delivery system in response to the 4K displays announced at the show by Panasonic and Sony. He was not specific about what this delivery system would be comprised of but he has stated in the past a desire to create 4K projectors and it was interesting to note that he said "in the home as well as on the big screen".

I'm wondering what sized screen (and what sized house!) you would need to get the full benefit of 4K in your home (Panasonic's one is 150"), but I guess all will be revealed at NAB (the National Association of Broadcasters conference) in April.

Earlier in the week, Jim also revealed that there is a "pocket professional camera" in development called Scarlet. Further details will be given at NAB, but Jim did imply that it was intended to compliment, not replace the RED One.

That Jim loves to tempt us. It's a great way of getting people to talk and speculate about his products though. Apple adopts a similar strategy.

Matrox MXO now runs on Leopard

Thu, 27 Dec 07 15:02:21 -0700

Matrox has just released a patch for its MXO HD monitoring system. The patch offers "Mac OS X v10.5 (Leopard) support, Apple Color v1.0.2 support, Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 v3.1.1 support and genlock timing offset controls."

The Matrox MXO is a box that you connect between your graphics card and an Apple Cinema Display that allows you to perform accurate high definition monitoring for under $2000. This is a great product for indies, as monitoring solutions normally start at about $8000-9000, and the Matrox MXO is definitely comparable with these higher-priced solutions. The best experience will always be on a CRT monitor but this is a close second for a fraction of the price.

Visit Matrox's MXO support page to download the patch. Note that you will need to be a registered user on their site in order to do so.

[via Broadcast Engineering]

Persepolis trailer

Fri, 07 Dec 07 06:43:30 -0700

I regularly check out the latest trailers on Apple.com and today this one caught my eye. It's a foreign-language film that toured many festivals and was eventually picked up by Sony Pictures Classics, Sony's independent distribution arm.

What caught my eye was the uniqueness of the film. It's a film set in Iran during the Islamic Revolution, told from the perspective of a nine year-old girl. It is based on the graphic novels of Marjane Satrapi and remains completely faithful to the visual look of the books. It's not a bloody, stylized Sin City-look, it's more the look of a children's animated TV show. It reminds me of the old animated show Madeline, about the schoolgirl in France. This kind of look and feel is an interesting approach considering the bloody nature of the story.

Persepolis trailer

Looking to monetize your online videos?

Fri, 23 Nov 07 21:40:54 -0700

If you're looking to gain money from online videos, you should definitely check out this report at TubeMogul.

The PDF file lists 11 video sharing sites that they monitor and shows statistics such as whether or not they offer a revenue scheme, how much of a share content providers receive and, uniquely (and most importantly in my opinion), gives user opinions on the site.

Very valuable if you're looking to make money from your content online.

RED cameras delayed

Sat, 10 Nov 07 11:06:13 -0700

RED has announced that it is delaying the shipment of some of its cameras in order to resolve issues discovered with some of the earlier models. They are fitting a new daughter board to the cameras which should increase dynamic range and reduce noise at frame rates 25fps and below, and they are designing new PL lens mounts. The old mounts were causing focus issues.

They are adding these modifications to cameras 1-100 which means that cameras 101-200 will ship a month later on November 30th, with this update included.

RED has stated that it is taking on the full cost of the updates.

[via CamcorderInfo]

Moby offers royalty free film music to non-commercial films

Thu, 08 Nov 07 21:00:36 -0700

Moby is offering royalty-free film music to "independent and non-profit filmmakers, film students, and anyone in need of free music for their independent, non-profit film, video, or short."

If you are using it for commercial use, you can apply for an "easy" license with all proceeds being given to the Humane Society.

This represents the third example this year (that I can think of, let me know if I missed anything) of a major artist bypassing a record label. The first was Prince, who released his album Planet Earth for free in a UK newspaper, then Radiohead released their album In Rainbows on the internet for whatever price downloaders were willing to pay.

Life is getting harder for the record labels because the viral nature of the internet means that some established artists are questioning the need for a middleman.

[via HDForIndies]

The results of Radiohead's experiment

Wed, 07 Nov 07 19:39:17 -0700

iTWire is reporting that Radiohead's experimental approach of allowing listeners to choose the price they would be willing to pay for their album was, largely, successful.

Predictably, the majority (62%) of people chose to pay absolutely nothing. However, 10% of people chose to pay a price comparable to what they would pay in a store, whilst the majority of the remaining customers paid between $4 and $8.

Radiohead earned, on average, $2.26 per album sold. Not very much when albums sell on iTunes for $10. But if they were to sell the album on iTunes, they would only make $1 per album with the rest being split between Apple and the record label. It's also interesting to note that not only did they make more money (even with hosting costs), they lost none of it to piracy.

The article raises the question of how successful this approach would have been if it had been an unknown band adopting this approach. My personal belief is that although there will always be freeloaders in life, if the content is good enough there will always be people who want to see more good content in the future. The internet is the perfect place for viral marketing, if you know how to exploit it.

The album, In Rainbows, is available here for whatever price you'd like.