What is CGI (Computer-Generated Imagery)? Definitions & Examples

It’s a technology that involves the creation of realistic-looking images, which are usually for movies, television or other forms of visual media. If you’ve ever watched a movie, then you’ve probably seen computer animation. It’s the process that creates animated images. Static images are also created using this method. Computer animation only refers to moving images.

It is also used in computer games and virtual reality. While the term “virtual reality” has been around for decades, it is only recently that it has started to gain traction in mainstream culture. So what does CGI stand for?

What is CGI technology?

The year CGI (computer generated imagery) was invented is difficult to pinpoint because of the evolution of computer graphics. It was most likely around the 1960s when various inventors and companies played with the new and evolving world of computer animation.

Most of this was 2D in scope, but all of it was being used in disciplines ranging from science to engineering and medicine. As CGI technology evolved, so did the ways filmmakers sought to use it in their films. This includes 3D models of people, monsters, buildings, cars, explosions, and so much more.

The best way to describe CGI is as an industry of visual effects (VE) and visual effects artists. This means the people and companies that create VFX work for film and television, and it includes not only the big names but smaller studios and individuals who specialize in one type of VFX. CGI can be seen in movies like, Avatar, Star Wars: A New Hope, and Avengers: End Game. It can also be used to fill in details in environments and create realistic scenarios.

For example, CGI can be used to show a car getting blown up by an explosion. CGI is one of the best methods to create realistic looking images. If a lot of the images look believable, it is because the creators used good CGI techniques.

This includes using high-quality software, and choosing models that are similar to the objects they are representing. CGI is a big part of the industry today, and the more it is used, the more demand there will be for those who use it. As this industry continues to grow, so does the need for new jobs. A number of VFX companies have started hiring for their own projects and for freelance jobs.

Some VFX companies are very large, and others are small. The size of the company is important, because it determines the number of VFX artists they employ. There are many ways to get into the business. For example, you can become a student, work for another company, or start your own. The most popular way is to find work as a freelancer. The internet is a great place to find work.

Companies and individuals can hire you directly. However, it is also possible to find freelance work on sites like Upwork.com. When working for other companies, you must be careful to keep all of the details about the project and client confidential. It is best to create an account on Upwork that only lists your name, email address, and website. When searching for work, it is important to have a portfolio that shows off your work.

This will help the artists get more work. You can show a lot of examples of your work, but make sure to include more than just your best work. In fact, it is best to include examples from your entire career. Another thing to remember when searching for work is to keep your portfolio up-to-date. This will help you stay in touch with what is going on in the industry.

What is CGI Animation?

As we all know, computer graphics have come a long way in the last decade. Today, you can find 3D CGI animations, which are just as realistic and engaging as traditional 2D animated films. Even though these productions are more expensive to make, they can compete with even the highest-grossing animated films of the last twenty years.

And while it’s not as fun as being able to see the actors moving, the audience can still enjoy these productions. Animation is the most exciting development in the movie industry right now, as it’s moving away from 2D (traditional animation) and 3D (imported), to using advanced computer animation and artificial intelligence.

How does CGI work?   When you watch a CGI film, you are seeing the final product that has been rendered by a computer. The computer takes the original 2D drawing, and then manipulates the image into 3D form.

It uses software to create a virtual camera, which looks at the model and creates a digital representation of it on the screen. Then, the computer can manipulate the images and animations in the model to make them look like they are moving in real life.

For example, if the model is a person walking, the computer will manipulate the head, legs, arms, and body to make it appear as though the person is walking. This is how CGI works. What are the benefits of CGI animation?

The biggest benefit of CGI animation is that it’s very cost-effective. When you see an animated film, you know that the people who created it made thousands of drawings before creating the final film.

Pixar Animation and Toy Story

There’s no cinematic style that has embraced this new technology more than fully animated CGI movies. Stop motion animation has been a popular style for years, even while many movies were still hand-drawn. It was the closest filmmaking got to true three-dimensional animation, but it takes a lot of work and it takes time.

The computer graphics used in movies today are completely new, far more advanced than what was available ten years ago, and the tools that make these advancements possible can be used by anyone to make their own movies. Pixar were among the first to experiment with fully computer generated animation, and Toy Story (1995), which became known as the first CGI movie.

It’s not quite accurate to say that it is fully computer animated. It was a combination of hand-drawn and computer animation. In the film, there were a number of scenes where the characters were fully animated by a computer, but other parts of the movie were drawn on paper and then scanned into the computer, and then modified in the computer.

The scene where Buzz Lightyear is launched into space was done entirely by computer. There were also a number of effects that were created entirely in the computer, like the fireworks. But the main animation was all done on paper.

It’s difficult to overstate how much has changed since the release of Toy Story. It’s not just that we’ve gone from hand-drawn to fully computer generated animation. In the last decade, computers have become incredibly powerful.

They have become fast enough to render the images needed for animation, and they have become inexpensive enough that many people can afford to buy one. That means it is now possible for anyone to make their own movies. All it takes is a computer and a few hours of time. And the tools to make movies are easy to use.

The movie was critically acclaimed and a financial hit. It is known as one of the best animated movies of all time and inspired beloved sequels.

Other studios decided to try their hand at CGI animation, like Dreamworks, who first put out Antz (1998) with positive results. However, if any movie put them on the map for good, it was Shrek (2001), which was a massive success and has a major influence on children’s animation.

With the rise of CGI, more kids were interested in watching cartoons, and since the 90s, there was also a new generation of computer games that made it easy to create 3D graphics. This lead to many popular franchises coming to life, like The Incredibles, Ice Age, and most recently, Toy Story sequels.

The 80s and 90s also saw the rise of 3D technology, which allowed us to see things in a new way. Today, we live in a world where people are constantly being exposed to visuals in all forms of media, from film to video games and even our social lives.

We have access to a wealth of information at the touch of a button, and this has lead to an increased interest in learning.

Children’s television is now used as a teaching tool for everything from reading to math. Even though there are other types of media, like movies, that can also be educational, children’s television has an advantage because it’s usually tailored specifically to children.

How to Create Realistic CGI in Movies

In order to make the image appear realistic, it is necessary to make it a photo- realistic image. The final image is created by the artist using the computer’s drawing and painting tools to create a virtual camera, background, foreground, etc. A number of elements are added to the virtual world that make up the image, such as buildings, people, vehicles and so on. The virtual world is rendered by the artist in order to make it look real.

Depending on the complexity of the image, this process can take a long while. In some cases, the process is done by other artists in another location. The basic idea for an animated image will be the same as for a static image. The same techniques may be used for the static image as they are for the static image. There are some differences in the way the images are animated.

In order to animate an image, a number of different elements must be created and added to the image. These include:

  • A camera
  • A background
  • An object (such as a car)
  • A character (such as a person or animal)

There is a wide variety of techniques that can be used to create the virtual world and the elements that are part of the image. Some of these techniques have been mentioned earlier. In this section, we will discuss more specific techniques that can be used to create animated images.

Camera animation The camera is an important element of any animation. If the camera is not realistic enough, it will look like it is moving around the scene instead of being stationary. If it moves too quickly, it will appear as if the image is moving and not static. There are a number of different ways to move a camera.

For example, you can use a panning method. In this technique, the camera moves in a straight line from one side of the image to the other. This method is used to create the impression that the camera is moving through the scene.

Another method is called dolly-pan. This technique involves the camera moving back and forth on a track. This creates the illusion of the camera moving closer or further away from the subject.

Camera animation is used for the majority of animated images. Camera animation is used for the majority of animated images. The main advantage of camera animation is that it is simple to do.

Camera animation is used for creating the basic impression of movement in an image. It is used for the most important part of the image. It is the first thing that people see and it must appear realistic.

When the camera animation is done correctly, it gives the viewer the impression that the image is moving. Background animation A background can be used to create the impression that there are people or objects moving around the image. The background can be animated using either a flat animation or a 3D animation.

Flat animations can be created using a photo-realistic image or a cartoon-like image. 3D animations are used for creating a more realistic image. In this type of animation, the background is animated using a 3D modeling program. It is possible to create a realistic background using this method. For example, you can make a model of a building and place it in the virtual world.

You can then move the model around and add elements to it to create the impression that there is an object in the scene. You can also use a 3D modeling program to create characters.

The program will automatically render the 3D model of the character. This creates the impression that there are objects moving in the scene. Background animation is used to create the impression that there are people or objects moving around the image. Background animation is used to create the impression that there are people or objects moving around the image.

A background can also be animated using a flat animation or a 3D animation. If you are creating a cartoon-like image, you can use a flat animation.

In this case, you can animate objects that are not part of the main character. You can also create a flat animation of the background. For example, you can make a photo-realistic background and then animate it using the 3D modeling program.

Object animation The camera is only one of the elements in the image. There are a number of other elements that must be animated in order for the image to appear realistic.

Some of these elements include:

  • Background objects
  • People
  • Characters
  • Animals
  • Creatures
  • Vehicles
  • Object animation is used to animate the background
  • Foreground and the objects in the scene

Object animation is used to animate the background, the foreground and the objects in the scene. It is possible to create objects using a variety of different methods.

The Future of CGI

There are still innovations to be made, and Lucasfilm and Industrial Light & Magic are at the head of this innovation with a technology called StageCraft. It’s used on the hit Disney+ show The Mandalorian.

It’s an immersive, interactive experience that’s more than just a way for people to watch TV. “This is a brand new approach to storytelling,” says executive producer Dave Filoni. “This isn’t just about taking something and putting it in front of you.

StageCraft brings together the most powerful of computer and video technology. It’s an outstanding product that incorporates several well-known companies: Epic Games, whose Unreal Engine has been behind the VFX for other productions over the last few years; (and video games, of course).

The system is built to handle any size of project. But it’s designed to make the most of the power of your computer. It offers a full range of tools to help you create your project, from compositing to rigging to animation. The system comes in two versions: a PC-based version, and a Mac-based version.

Inside the Mandalorean

We’re creating a world that is so real, you can almost feel it.” Filoni is talking about the Mandalorian’s opening scene, which takes place in a space port on the planet Jakku. He’s describing what StageCraft allows his team to do: to create an entire living, breathing universe with a believable cast of characters.

“Imagine being able to step inside that world and have a conversation with one of those characters,” says Filoni. “You could even go inside their mind. You could even go into the cockpit and feel what it was like to be there.

“That’s a level of immersion you’ve never seen before.” This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

The Mandalorian isn’t the only show using StageCraft. It’s also been used for Star Wars Rebels, and it’s been used for the new Netflix show Lost in Space. And if you want to see how StageCraft works, I suggest watching The Mandalorian. It’s the best introduction to the technology. StageCraft is a platform developed by ILM and Disney Research.

It’s a software-based tool that allows for a much more immersive experience than just sitting in front of a TV screen. Imagine that you’re inside a building. There’s a set that you can walk around, a costume that you can wear, and a character that you can interact with. It sounds amazing, but there are some challenges.

“We have to make sure that there’s enough space to move,” says Filoni. “We have to make sure there’s enough light to be able to see the environment. We have to make sure that it feels believable.” There’s another challenge too.

When you’re using StageCraft, you’re not just walking through a set. You’re interacting with it. That means that if something goes wrong, you’re in the middle of the scene, and you might not be able to get out.

This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

“You’ll see a lot of people have this fear of it because it’s such a new thing,” says Filoni. “But once you actually do it, you realize that the danger is minimal.” The fear that many have had about StageCraft is based on the fact that it hasn’t been used before. “It’s a new technology. It’s never been used before,” says Filoni.

“We’re trying to build a system that’s safe. We’re trying to make sure that when people do it, they’re going to have a good experience.”

A big part of that is making sure that people know what’s going on. The creators of The Mandalorian and Lost in Space wanted to make sure that people knew that they were walking around in a set. “It’s a little bit like walking into a movie theater,” says Filoni.

“When you walk into the theater, you know that you’re walking into a set. You don’t have to worry about being in a real environment. You know that you’re going to be safe.

Stagecraft isn’t quite ready for prime time yet, but there are already some impressive results. And since StageCraft is a technology that Lucasfilm has access to, it’s safe to say that it will find its way into other projects at some point, if not in the next few months, then in the coming months and years. The new Disney+ Show The Book of Boba Fett will take the technology to the next level.

Down the VFX Rabbit-Hole

We’ve covered the basics of computer-generated imagery, but now it’s time to go down the rabbit-hole and see how it’s used in a number of different types of visual effects in movies. Up next what is VFX?

How to Make Prop Money for Your Indie Film

If you are making an action film, thriller, or crime drama chances are you’ll need a briefcase FULL of prop movie cash at one point or another. To create a fake money supply, you must first decide how much cash you are going to use in your production. You should figure out what amount of prop money you need to create.

Then, get some real bills and photocopy them at a copy shop. It is illegal to make color photocopies of U.S. bills, so you’ll have to do it in black and white. Once you’ve got your photocopy money, change the ratio. If you want your prop money to be slightly larger or smaller, then go ahead and print the bills.


The counterfeit bills are generally used to show the difference between the counterfeit bills and real ones. The film crew can also use money to make the scenes more realistic.

Prop money can be used to show an important event in a story, such as paying for something, or showing the audience how much a person has at his disposal. Prop money can also be used to make the audience feel like they’re watching a real movie, since they would use real money if they were in the film.

Check out some other tutorials below to help you on the way.




If you are not the DIY kind of filmmaker or just don’t have the time you can just buy some ready-made prop money. For $25 might be worth it.

PROP MOVIE MONEY Real Looking New Style Copy $100s FULL PRINT Stack – Total $10,000

  • $100 NEW STYLE FULL PRINT prop money stack with current bank strap.
  • Each “FULL PRINT STACK” comes with (100) double-sided production prop money bills.
  • The “BEST” quality and designs on the market used by the major movie studios worldwide by PROPMOVIEMONEY.
  • NOT SHINEY OR GLOSSY! Best and most realistic quality for on-camera use, training, or novelty.

Please note: Counterfeiting Money is a Federal Crime. Be smart and only use the above techniques for prop money used in film or TV. You don’t want to go to jail, do you?


Here’s a bonus. If you are needing prop money for your film you probably also need realistic and safe prop guns alternatives. Check out the video and link below for more on that.

How to Get Bad Ass Prop Guns for Your Film

Spoiler

The mogul, backyard effects the internet show where we show you how to spend a little bit of money to get huge effects. Speaking of spending money, today’s episode is all about how to make a briefcase full of money do you need some money? I mean, a lot of money. I mean, a lot of money like a briefcase full of money.

Yes, you could go to Walmart or Kmart or target or wherever you want to, and buy a board game and get Monopoly money or something like that. But then it’s gonna look just like that. It’s gonna look like Monopoly money. That’s why this is a much better technique than just, you know, skimping out and getting the little cheap stuff. And now to show us how much it’s gonna cost is the return of puppet Zack.

Thanks, Zack, it’s suck being dead. I know actually building the prompt this week. I’m going to bring in my build team member Julian to build it since he’s already built it for his movie through the I O Julian. Yes. Are you ready to build this course I puppets how much we spending on this week’s bill even though I already that’s how much it costs $20.

One ream of white paper, the package or tank clothing dye, a briefcase from a thrift store, a straight razor, some money wrappers from your bank, a deep baking dish and a printer this bill difficulty level is first, I took my paper to a local print shop to have them cut me dollar bill shaped stacks this will form the body of our money they charge me about 75 cents a cut.

Then I went to my bank and asked them for $10,000 Money wraps they gave me these for free when I told them I was making a movie prop after that I took a glass baking dish put into my sink so I didn’t stain my counter with the clothing dye that I’m using to dye the paper with. I use tan you can use green, mix it with some cold water.

You could also use coffee or tea if you don’t have clothing dye. Then take your money stacks and put them in for about three seconds on each side. Don’t forget to get all the edges and the tops and bottoms and let it drip dry after you complete it. Once you’re done with the dyeing process, you can set it aside and wait for them to dry.

While these are drying, take a piece of white paper and put it into your dye solution. Make sure to cover both sides evenly and then let it drip dry. This is what we’ll be printing the face of the money on to dry it I put into my microwave for about a minute and 45 seconds keeping a close eye on it or you can let your sit and dry. Make sure to check your paper often just in case. Mine turned out great. Now we take this over to the printer.

To use the template that Julian made for this effect. Go to the link below to the blog.

From here I had File Print and double check to make sure that Scale to Fit media wasn’t clicked in Photoshop so it didn’t miss size the dollar hit print and you have the face of your dollar bill. Take it over to your cutting board with your straight edge and your razor and trim it off of your paper. And you’ll have the first face of your dollar bill.

Double check to see if the sides are nice and even. And trim it if need be. You can then repeat this stuff with the backs of the dollar bills. Take your now dried stacks over to your table and put the front and the back onto the stack of money along with the money wrap. And there you have it one beautiful looking stack of money. Now repeat this 25 times and buy a thrift store briefcase to put it into and there you have it. One case of Prop money.

Keep in mind that this is just a prop and just like weapons and things like that. This can be dangerous for you if you use it the wrong way. You might not think fake money will be dangerous, but prison is dangerous, you know because of the and because of the.

And that’s it for this episode. Backyard effects. Leave a comment below and let us know how you thought Julian did on his first effect. And tune in tomorrow for the test film. And I’ll see you guys next week. And watch out for the


Guys, don’t miss out on any video, just go and subscribe, turn on notification button on now. And this girl yoga is just one little brand new video. So today I’m going to show you guys how to make some fake Prop money. Let’s go okay guys First things first, you’re going to need to get yourself some paper, draw a template, then cut it all out. But that’s going to take long, nobody’s got time for that, it’s going to take so long to do all of that. To be honest, that’s what I’ve done originally go, some people drew a template and cut it all out. And it took a few hours and further found an easier way to get it all cut. So this is what I’ve done.

So hence your local office supplies, pick up some paper and they should have a service where to cut paper for you. And if they do, find somewhere that does handle those paper, tell them what size you want to cut, and then it just going to cut it for you. They’re going to handle that people back to you in a box full of nice cut paper versus exactly what you want. And how long does that take, it probably took them about 20 minutes to run it for a machine. And then all that paper is exactly the same size.

Exactly what you want. Just stacks and stacks are fake money ready to go to pull up. That will take you sermon by hand. And that only costs a few pounds. So you can spend about 10 hours cutting yourself off, spend a few pound and get all cup stacking up money. So it’s up to you. By no I’d rather do now you’re going to need to get yourself some money sleeves. Where do you get these go into the bank, ask for some money sleeves and handsome over free of charge. You can do different type ones, I’ve got 1000s depending on what note you’re going to be printing, ask for a pilot MC you send in a car or you run a lottery, anyone’s money sleeves, and they hand you a pole.

Also cool things, what I like to do is stick less bands around them like this stack here. If you want a big stack, it’s up to you. Or like floaties Fundy straps, wristbands, whatever you want to stick around your stack of money. If you have loads of real money said about but you’re not using you might as well just use that. So I don’t have this much money. So I have to make it fake. You can buy fake money online, but it’s a lot cheaper if you just make it yourself and you can make as much as you want.

Like literally stacks and stacks. I’ve got more than this as well. Okay, so now you’ve got your paper cut, you’ve got your money sleeve, all you want to do next is print some money. So obviously you can’t print real money because it’s illegal and your printer won’t let you I’ve tried it scan it and it won’t print, it just comes up all websites and it’s legal to print money. This is the tricky part. You can even try and find templates online where you can prove money like this, this is all blurred really badly like none of the details in it, which is a shame. So on a close up, you can actually see it’s not that detailed. And it’s obviously fake on pal notes, they actually have a bit of shine on them.

So you can see they’re fake, because there’s no shine on that to guys, you can try and print some notes. If you’re having trouble doing that. There’s another easy way where you can get some nice detailed ones somewhere. Where is it? Where is it gone, then I found these which you can get online as well. These euros, euro notes, 500 euro note. So these are actually sticky notes.

So you can actually write this and I’m sick of it. But I thought hang on well what sticky notes when that when I can actually use it as a template, stick our pot of money. And there we go. And you can get all different types of them as well. Nice and cheap. So once you’ve printed your money, the next stage is going to look cool ready. So you can either double sided printing oversized as well. So now to make it more realistic, what you’re going to want to do is get a T bag, dump the edges of your money in t just to get a bit of color.

Because real money is dirty. This is my most realistic stack of money, just very good retail stuff and about fender for the edges and stuff like that, because real money is a mess. And look how much more realistic that looks. If you want fresh money that looks like this just come out of a bad habit like that. It’s up to you. Obviously, I’ve got a bit of a variety here. So once you’ve got all your money, it looks really good. If he’s putting cases stack it up, have you in the background at the tables and stuff like that always looks awesome in a cool scene. If you want to make an extra realistic for your scenes want to get some close ups just to show us real.

Get a real note and stick it on top of your money. So when you’re doing some close up shots, makes it look a lot more realistic. I can get $1 Stick it in there and close up that’s gonna look real because it is real. And it’s gonna it’s gonna make it look so much better. But that’s entirely up to you. But guess what I always do when I do a close up shop. I always stick real money on the top layer or they’re not loser, as 40 quid bother to make some fake money nice and fast. Nice and easy. Doesn’t take long at all. Yeah, so yes, guys, thanks for watching. I hope this video come in useful. If you’ve got any questions, leave them below in comments.


One of these $100 bills is real. And the other one is a piece of Prop money made for movies. Can you tell which one is which they both have a blue security ribbon, textured ink and even the smallest detail like text from the Declaration of Independence. The answer is obvious when you flip them over. Bills as detailed as this one are required to be blank on the other side. That’s because if Prop makers like prop movie money in Florida print money that looks too real, they risk getting in trouble with the US government. That’s what happened 20 years ago on the set of rush hour to money is more work than it’s worth in the long run.

That’s Greg Bilson Jr, CEO of the Los Angeles based ISS props one of the biggest prop houses in the world. In 2000, Greg got an order for and printed $1 trillion of Prop money for rush hour two, most of which was going to be blown up on screen. And the Prop money looks good in this scene, too good. In fact, Benjamin, the fake money looked so real that some extras on set pocketed some of it and tried to spend it at real stores that alerted the US Secret Service, which confiscated and destroyed the fake bills and the digital files used to print them. It had cost $100,000 to print all of that fake money. So losing all of it was a financial blow to Greg and ISS, we didn’t try to make fake money to do the public. We made fake money to make a movie, but we just made the prop too good.

The rush hour to incident underscored an obvious dilemma for printing fake money. The money needs to look realistic on camera, but it can’t look too realistic up close, or people might try to spend it in real life. The problem has become even greater in recent years, with better cameras capturing more and more details from the background of scenes.

So the prop industry has come up with two different types of Prop money, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. For scenes where the cash is filmed from far away, productions typically use standard great bills. The iconic money scene from Breaking Bad uses these bills, which were rented from Greg and ISS.

These bills look real from afar, but up close are obviously fake, with lots of clear differences when compared to the real thing. The portrait on the bill is poor quality compared to the real one. And instead of $100 it just reads 100 the smaller details on the bill are also altered. The seals are a different design, and the signatures on the bill have been changed.

Then there are the obvious additions like the prominently displayed for motion picture use only. In fact, if you zoom into this scene from Breaking Bad, while it’s blurry, you can actually see that each bill says for motion picture use only. These changes should keep the Secret Service away. But they also mean standard fake bills are no good for close ups.

So for those shots, movies will often use high grade bills. High Grade bills are identical to real money, but are printed on only one side so that they can’t be confused with the real thing. Like the one we showed you earlier, which was printed by RJ are props in Atlanta.

You can see an example of a high grade bill in this scene from the 2014 movie, let’s be cops. An alternate solution that Greg and ISS have been using for the past several years is to simply use real bills. This is the first version that they offer, ISS will take a pile of completely blank Bill notes and then place one real bill on the top of the stack and one on the bottom, making it appear as if the entire stack is full of real bills.

The second method for using real dollars has a bigger risk attached but it may be the best option and entire stack of real bills. I SS will get stacks of $10,000 from the bank and then deliver them to set while having this much cash lying around make some productions nervous. It looks great on film and eliminates any risk with this secret service. That’s what they did in this shot from Ozark.

I see fake money used all the time and I think it is appalling because I’m a property master. And I want things to be authentic and accurate and look right.

Take a look at this season one up sewed of girlfriend’s the fake looking money is distracting to the audience. While productions may prefer to use real money, sometimes it’s unavoidable. Like in scenes where bills are destroyed, or in scenes that require an absurd quantity. In cases like these, Greg says that he will still use fake money, except he certainly doesn’t print the fake money himself, as he still has his cease and desist from the Secret Service.

So he buys it from Prop movie money. One of the few printers that make Prop money. The ultimate irony of printing Prop money is that it actually isn’t very profitable, standard and high grade bills sell for roughly $45 for a stack of 100 bills. Greg still has two bills from rush hour two that the Secret Service didn’t confiscate. Even though these bills look less realistic than modern prop bills, he still has them encased in plastic so that no one can try to use them in real life. They’re a physical reminder of the risks prop makers take and the rewards they reap to get that perfect money shot.


Hey everyone, today I’m going to show you how to make this a briefcase full of fake money. For filming, of course, there’s something about a old briefcase full of us money

that tends to really grab the attention of your viewers. Maybe on the scene where someone is laundering cash. Warning, do not attempt to use this film Prop money in an actual cash transaction.

This is for filmmaking purposes only. So let’s go ahead and get started. To make film Prop money you’ll need printer paper, scissors, a glue stick, teabags. gIass money, also known as Chinese funeral money, you can find this at the Asian grocery store or in your local Chinatown, and an old briefcase. The trickiest item to find is the gIass money. So let’s go to Toronto Chinatown and I’ll show you where to find some and what to look for.

So in case anyone’s wondering why Joyce is part of this blog, because these are her people work on a better deal. Hopefully it’s getting your photo taken Alright, Sally’s getting scary getting hit by a car. Get these little knickknacks stores. Chinatown is where it’s finding, finding this stuff, but it is not Canadian denomination. This is basically a napkin.

Okay, that’s no problem. We’ve been told no video. It’s like an episode of Hoarders. What areas this when we got here? All this obviously held bank notes. Awesome. But same deal. So what do you think we’re getting closer and closer. It’s $2 per bundle to feed the meter decisions made 12 that dollar per bundle money well spent right.

Here’s the money looks like in the briefcase here. Here’s something really funny in goo we trust. Our next step is to add some volume to the money so we can really fill up this briefcase. Get your printer paper and start cutting out rectangular pieces that are the same size as your dollar bills. Next, fill up a large container with water. Add three or four tea bags squeezed the tea bags to release the color and let the tea bag sit in the water until it’s a nice darkened opaque color.

Submerge the rectangular paper cutouts into the tea water and make sure that every piece of paper is stained. Now lay the paper out to dry. You want the fake bills to be completely dried out. We’ll start making our best stacks. Take a small handful of rectangular cutouts and place one fake bill on the top and one on the bottom. Next step is to make our currency straps. Take a piece of printer paper and cut out a thin strip.

Make sure it’s long enough to wrap around your bill stack. Then use your glue stick to glue it together. Repeat this for the rest of you jobs, money and paper. And there you have it our briefcase full of money and he shouldn’t have spent more than $25 on this. So for more video making and filmmaking tips, follow me and we’ll do more of these. See you guys later. Explain yourself. Does it work? Holy Jesus a busy day in the market today.

Close-Up Shots: Why They are a Powerful Tool in Filmmaking

Filmmakers are constantly looking to capture every detail, emotion and nuance in the moment, making close-up shots a valuable tool in their arsenal. When you’re on a film set, your director will tell you to get in closer with the actors. It’s not about getting too close; it’s about getting the actor’s full attention and getting that face-to-face interaction.

That’s what I love about the art of close-ups. A look into the filmmaking process and the various ways in which you can utilize close-ups to tell a story.

What is a Close Up Shot?

Close-ups are a type of camera angle, focus, and design that frames an actor’s face. The close-up is usually used to frame a face, but they can also be used to capture a body part, such as a hand, leg, or foot.

A director of photography uses a close-up of an actor with a long lens to capture their strong emotional connection with the audience and to help show intimate details in the actor’s face that would normally not be seen in a wide shot, long shot, or full shot.

The close-up shot is usually used to:

  • Focus the audiences attention on a crucial part of the story
  • The highlight emotion and nuance in a performers faces
  • Develop a tone
  • To indicate importance
  • Story exposition

Many close-up shots in movies show important scene details that are helpful to understanding the story. These include clues, foreshadowing a later element of plot development, or adding to the mood or tone of the film.

The History of Close-up Shots

Close-ups have been used to enhance actors and actresses’ appearances in films since the early 1900s. Some early filmmakers, such as George Albert Smith, James Williamson, and D.W. Griffith, used close-up shots to enhance the appearance of movie characters.

In the 1910s, the close-up was used to display an actor’s facial expression. At first, the close-up was used primarily for dramatic effect. Gradually, filmmakers began to use it for many other purposes, such as to show an actor’s eyes and lips and express emotion.

Artists have been using close-ups for centuries, even before cameras existed. In 1656 Dutch filmmaker Antonie van Leeuwenhoek was the first to use a microscope in order to observe details that would otherwise be invisible to the naked eye.

Since then, filmmakers have used extreme close-ups when filming intense scenes like a duel, or a fight between two characters. Director Steven Spielberg uses similar techniques to create emotional effects in his films.

Types Of Close-Up Shots

Close-Up Shot

This is a classic framing, where the actor’s face and shoulders are in focus and a little background is usually visible. It’s also common for this kind of shot to be framed by a background that’s slightly off-center, so the audience has a clear view of the actor and a little of the background.

Medium Close-Up Shot

A medium close-up shot include your actor’s upper body, and the background will include some of the environment or setting where the scene takes place.

Extreme Close-Up Shot

An extreme close up shot is used in dramatic moments in a scene. It allows us to see everything about a character as clearly as possible. It could be a close-up of their eyes to show them reacting to a moment, or a close-up of a character’s mouth to reveal what they are thinking.

Insert Shot

When a prop or scene detail is particularly important, the director will insert a close-up of that prop or scene detail into the story. Robert Rodriguez famously used inserts shots of his dog or a turtle in the street to save him in the editing process.

Considerations for Using Close-up Shots

With great power comes great responsibility. Before you use close-ups considering these important points.

Editing Close-ups with other shot.

There are two ways to combine close-ups with other shot sizes. You need to pick one way and then use it consistently. This will help you to tell a story and create meaning for the audience.

Combining Close-up and Wide-shot The wide-shot is usually used to show a wider view of what is happening in the scene. It can also be used to show a larger or more detailed view of what is happening in the scene.

Using the Close-up.

One of the most important parts of using a close-up is deciding what camera movement or technique you’ll use to arrive there. It’s easy to use a slow, smooth camera movement when moving closer to your subject, but the effect can also be very powerful if used aggressively.

When to use close-ups.

A good director will carefully select the type of shots he or she uses in a film, because different shot types help convey information to an audience. A movie with too few close-ups and other shots may not connect with audiences emotionally, but movies with too many close-ups may make audiences confused about the movie’s context.

Good filmmakers choose which shots to use carefully, and they choose them based on the story, acting, and visual effects that are present in the film.

Examples of Close-Up Shots Throughout Film History

There are several examples of close-up shots in Hollywood films, such as when a character is about to be killed and his last moments are shown in a close-up. In television, this technique is often used to emphasize the emotion of an actor or to add visual interest to a scene.

Close-ups can be used to show off the best qualities of the actor’s performance, such as their eyes, lips, teeth, hair, hands, or any other body part. However, they may also be used for emphasis or to convey a mood. Below are examples of how master filmmakers used the humble close-up shot.

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

Close-up shots are used in westerns to emphasize the characters and give them a better visual presence. One of the most famous and recognizable is from Sergio Leone’s classic western The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. It features Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach, and it uses a series of close-ups and insert shots to intensify the action.

The Shining

Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is a chilling horror film classic starring Jack Nicholson as a father who loses his grip on reality due to a mysterious disease and turns into a deranged, murderous maniac. The moment when he sticks his head through the door of the bathroom and screams, “Here’s Johnny!” is one of the most iconic close-up moments in film history.

The Jonathan Demme Face Close-Up

The close-up is one of the most beautiful and conventional shots in cinema. Close-ups share the same conventions, but the late, great film director Jonathan Demme put a signature twist on this old and practical technique. Most filmmakers choose to employ the close-up shot during crucial dialogue scenes, where the scene cuts back and forth to the characters’ respective close ups.

In most films, actors are placed in the center of the frame and are looking directly at the audience. Demme, on the other hand, places the characters in the center of the frame and has them look directly at the camera. This approach gives the camera an additional perspective and feeling of urgency, conveying a unique sense of poignancy.

What is it about this film that makes us feel such sympathy for the character? Are these characters merely looking at us as they do things? If so, then what is it about their actions or looks that make us connect on a deeper level? We’re almost inside their heads.

In fact, we’re really just outside the fourth wall, because we’re watching it all happen on screen. Here are some of Demme’s signature shots in his feature films.

The Steven Spielberg Face Close-Up

Master filmmaker Steven Spielberg is famous for using the slow dolly shot to create awe-inspiring moments in his movies. The great thing about the close-up is that it gives you complete control over the audience’s attention.

You can direct them to do almost anything. And if you can do it with your camera, you can also do it with your screenplay. The actor’s talent, the director’s experience, and the director’s ability to get the right performance are the three ingredients that make a good film or TV show.

Close-up shots are highly effective tools in creating strong emotions and developing exposition and plot. Indie Film Hustle Academy can help you learn more about this technique and many other types of close-up shooting in one of our comprehensive filmmaking programs.

IFH 560: Getting Your 1st Film Off the Ground with Brian Petsos

Today on the show, we have actor, writer, director Brian Petsos. Brian is the writer director of the new film, “Big Gold Brick” starring Andy Garcia, Oscar Isaac, Megan Fox and Lucy Hale just to name a few.

After graduating from art school, Brian Petsos eventually began acting and improvising. While in the conservatory at Chicago’s famed SecondCity, he started writing; and later he began making films. Since leaving Chicago for New York City, he has carefully expanded his repertoire to include varying wor ks that he has written, directed, produced, performed in, or some combination thereof.

Petsos started his company, A Saboteur, with the mission of producing innovative, original, boundary – pushing films that challenge traditional expectations and underline artistic integrity. His work has run the gamut, from short form content on HBO and spots for commercial clients, to full – length feature films and writing scripts for major studios.

But today he is primarily focused on writing, directing, and producing his own distinctly flavored work. Petsos’s highly anticipated feature debut, BIG GOLD BRICK, will be released by Samuel Goldwyn Films in North America in winter of 2022.

The film recounts the story of fledgling writer Samuel Liston (Emory Cohen) and his exper iences with Floyd Deveraux (Academy Award nominee Andy Garcia), the enigmatic middle – aged father of two who enlists Samuel to write his biography.

Golden Globe winner Oscar Isaac, Megan Fox, Lucy Hale, and Shiloh Fernandez round out this incredible cast in key supporting roles. The film was written and directed by Petsos, and produced by Petsos and Greg Lauritano under Petsos’s A Saboteur banner, with Executive Producers Isaac and Kristen Wiig.

Prior to BIG GOLD BRICK, Petsos wrote, directed, and produced the highly lauded LIGHTNINGFACE (starring Isaac, executive produced by Isaac and Wiig; lightningface.com). The film was an Official Selection of over 30 festivals around the world — including the 60th edition of the BFI London Film Festival, among other high lights.

It received a Best Actor nomination for Isaac at the 2017 Vaughan International Film Festival and a nomination for Best Narrative Comedy at the 2016 Miami short Film Festival, and it was the winner of both the Vortex Grand Prize at the 2016 Rhode I sland International Film Festival and Best Short Film at the 2016 Filmfestival Kitzbühel.

The film premiered online in summer of 2017 as a highly coveted Vimeo Staff Pick and received an abundance of press coverage — from The Hollywood Reporter to The Huffin gton Post, from Indiewire to /Film, to Slate, BuzzFeed, Gizmodo, Film Threat, Nerdist, and many other outlets globally — which ignited virulent enthusiasm and a continuing flurry of social media chatter.

Film School Rejects referred to it as, “Quite simply one of the most intriguing short films of 2017,” adding that, “if LIGHTNINGFACE is eligible for an Oscar Nomination…the other contenders should look out.”

Brian and I had a very raw and open conversation about how difficult it was to get this project.

Big Gold Brick recounts the story of fledgling writer Samuel Liston and his experiences with Floyd Deveraux, the enigmatic middle-aged father of two who enlists Samuel to write his biography. But the circumstances that lead up to this arrangement in the first place are quite astonishing—and efforts to write the biography are quickly stymied by ensuing chaos in this darkly comedic, genre-bending film.

We really get into the weeds about how difficult it was for them to get it going off the ground. Just because he had major talent involved doesn’t mean that it got any easier getting the budget together and so many other little gems.

Enjoy my conversation with Brian Petsos.

Right-click here to download the MP3

Alex Ferrari 0:00
I like to welcome the show, Brian Petsos. How you doing, Brian?

Brian Petsos 0:14
Really good, man. How are you?

Alex Ferrari 0:16
I'm great, brother. I'm great. Thank you so much for being on the show. Man. I'm, I'm excited to get into the weeds with you on your new film, big goal break, dude, because like I was saying, I want to ask you in a little bit. How the hell did this get produced in today's world is fascinating to me. But before we go down, that the insanity that is big old brick, what is how first of all, how'd you get into the business man?

Brian Petsos 0:41
Sure. So I actually Well, I went to art school. And part of my education, which I sort of designed my own program was, I started off kind of on the directing path in film. And I was I grew up a film buff, both of my parents are like huge film buffs. And so it was just always a thing that I really wanted to try to see if I could do and, and make stuff and was very discouraged. Actually, after a year with that kind of focus. I kind of always been like an ideas person. And that was so vocational, that it sort of set me off doing other art making, basically, and then was sort of coerced into going to Second City by a bunch of friends repeatedly goading me. And so I ended up at the Second City doorstep one day and started studying there. And absolutely loved improvising. And then I started kind of studying with improvisers would used to call straight acting. And, yeah, and then, you know, it's funny, because like our first day of class, I remember we all went to the bar after and pretty much everyone wanted to be on SNL course, and I wanted to make movies. And that's kind of what I raised my hand and said, I was there to do and I know it's a super kind of circuitous path. But I knew that was something I always wanted to do. So then I started writing, I actually got an agent as an actor in Chicago, then I moved to New York, that agent got me a new agent in New York was very kind to sort of set that up. And then I kind of kept getting more and more agents eventually ended up at UTA as an actor. And then there was a point where I mean, I was writing and producing like short films. And there was a point where I just realized I, I had to, like, stop performing, because I really wanted to take a crack at trying to be a fancy pants writer, director, dude. And I just felt like I didn't want to be that guy who I with all due respect to my friends who do everything. We're like, Yeah, so I'm acting on this TV show. And then I'm also trying to get this thing I'm directing doing and then I just, I just was like, I need to go like, full priests style. And just give over and like, just see just, honestly, if it takes, like bleeding over, then I'm going to bleed. And so that's sort of where that one.

Alex Ferrari 3:17
So you went full monk, full monk mode. Full monk.

Brian Petsos 3:20
Yes. Yes. Minus the haircut.

Alex Ferrari 3:22
Yes. minus the haircut. So you did a lot of you did a little bit of right interacting with Funny or Die back in the day when when they were kind of launching and it was early on, right? They were only a couple years old or something like that when you were working with them. Right?

Brian Petsos 3:36
Yeah, that was, they were so kind to me, they were you know, I did some stuff that was a little bit higher production value, but the stuff that I was personally directing was like, really low fi. And, you know, still absolutely had its own kind of voice and stuff. But, but then we started, I was performing and writing and producing, we kind of made some higher production value things that they picked up for the HBO show. And they picked up two pieces of ours and sort of featured them as like movie of the week in the in sort of inside the show. And she gave it a like little premiere kind of moment. And that was really cool. And then yeah, and so that, you know, that was a great help and definitely got some of that stuff out there. And so I'm very thankful to them still.

Alex Ferrari 4:26
What were some of the lessons you learned from doing all that kind of work? Because you mean you were that I mean, I know a bunch of guys who worked in at Funny or Die and you know, that's kind of like running gunmen like you do everything?

Brian Petsos 4:38
Yeah, yeah. I mean, well, you know, it's, it's, I'm, I come from a long line of, like hardworking Greeks. And so this kind of entrepreneurial thing is been something twin a constant in my life. And I, for me, the only logical thing to do even when I was acting You know, I'm like new to New York is like, let's just start making stuff. And I think that served me really well. You know, initially, as as I do think there's a point where you need to slow down and not just make tons of stuff and really kind of tried to, you know, concentrate your resources and try to make bigger, more impactful stuff. But I think initially, it served me very well just get out and kind of gather, gather the troops and make stuff. So that entrepreneurial thing I think is a is absolutely a thing.

Alex Ferrari 5:32
Now, you, you hooked up with a couple of little actors, Kristen Wiig, and Oscar Isaacs, back in the day, you were doing short films with them and working with them? How did you get hooked up with those guys?

Brian Petsos 5:44
Well, I mean, Chris's are known for a while Oscar and I had the same age. And we're all here in New York, New York is a very small, very big town. So you end up kind of, you know, running into people and becoming friends. And, you know, both of them were involved. With lightning face, the short that preceded, they go brick, and you'll find a lot of the same people that were involved, because I kind of developed those two projects in tandem. Because I was writing big gold brick, and I knew it was gonna have a bunch of visual effects in it. And the only sort of, kind of higher production value short film that I directed was ticky tacky, which I shot in one day, by one day, I mean, I think we had eight hours of the actual set. So you know, so with lightning face, I knew that I could incorporate some of that visual effects stuff. And I felt like that was gonna really help buffer out conversations, when people got this big goldbrick feature script. And they're reading all these crazy visual effects sequences. I was like, I can do it.

Alex Ferrari 6:53
Here's, here's a proof. Here's some proof.

Brian Petsos 6:55
That was the whole but evidently, it worked out a little bit, I guess.

Alex Ferrari 6:59
So then you you've been acting for for many, many years. What from your acting experience did you bring into your directing and writing?

Brian Petsos 7:08
For sure, I think, to start with the writing, actually. You know, I, I've been told that I tend to shed light on even smaller characters, or at least give smaller characters. A moment here, there, which is something that I really appreciate, especially as an actor, because I do try to really think about creating a moment for everyone. But process wise, you know, improvising, is really informed my process as a writer, so just me alone. I'm kind of improvising a ton when I'm when I'm writing. So that means me sort of going through and playing multiple parts in a scene. Probably talking to myself probably pacing around my apartment. So yeah, there's there's a lot of that. Yeah, I know, it seems kind of crazy. So there's that whole side, which is, which is absolutely thing, the irony is when it goes, turns to time to be on set and shoot stuff. I actually don't do a ton of improvising. I probably am trying to come out of the Hitchcockian School of let's like come with a plan and try to stick to it as much as possible. It's not to say that I don't like I will absolutely let takes go places for sure. But I just I really need to know that what mechanically worked for me on the page, like at least we get that. And I also don't think of improv is like, I need my actors to try to be really smart writers while they're acting, you know, that's let's have them just be really good actors and hopefully trust the text. So that sort of, you know, I also think you can improvise in space and it doesn't have to be saying crafty stuff. I think you can think about performing an improvisational way that doesn't include necessarily having to create dialogue. Think that type of thinking I really hope I can foster but I really work with everyone differently. I feel like everyone has their own kind of needs. Hopefully my past as an actor, even though I never reached any real heights. I had a fair amount of experience in different venues. Hopefully, there's a commonality there and people can feel comfortable and at the very least, that comfortability will allow them to explore and I can guide them the best that I can.

Alex Ferrari 9:25
It's really interesting from from someone who comes to have such a strong improv background, you are more militant, a little bit more militant to the page than I would have thought because I would thought that you'd be much more loosey goosey on the page but I feel that you probably doing all the loosey goosey stuff in the prep in the in the in the development.

Brian Petsos 9:43
That's exactly what it is like and you know, I've I sort of consider my job is being like a perpetual student of the medium. Perpetual student of everything really, but definitely the medium as well. And, and I've read a lot about people that I admire that have similar kind of flow He's on this. I'm, it seems to me that that's gonna be the way it is for me. I really, I spent so much time writing a screenplay. Like I just, I just finished my next script, and I've been working on it for several years, you know, a fair amount of that full time. Right? So, yeah, it's, it's, um, you know, I write a pretty deliberate script. You know, hopefully I've done I've worked out a lot of the kinks by the time you get the PDF.

Alex Ferrari 10:30
Exactly. You know, and in any other any other profession, you walking around talking to yourself, they would commit you. But as a writer, that completely makes all the sense of the world. I've done that myself, like, as long as I'm writing dialogue in the scene, or something like that, I'll be like, and I'll catch myself like, You're mad. But this is a process. This is the process.

Brian Petsos 10:51
I don't know that I was ever a big talking to myself person until I started actually acting.

Alex Ferrari 10:57
That's probably a good, that's probably a good thing, sir. I'm just saying you shouldn't generally talk to yourself.

Brian Petsos 11:02
Like, you know, you're you're you're, you're on the subway, and you're running lines before an audition show, your mouth is gonna move a little bit, right, and then you just start to just not really give a blip.

Alex Ferrari 11:14
And if it's if you're in the subway, really, who cares? Really in New York,

Brian Petsos 11:17
New York subway, like, after the pandemic.

Alex Ferrari 11:21
No one, no one really cares. Let's just be honest, no one really, you're the on the on the scale of things that people are looking at. In the subway, you're probably really low on the totem pole, the guy talking to himself with a script, just a guy talking to him. It's just a guy talking himself. That's completely fine. Now I've shot a couple I've had my last two features were mostly improv. So I know as a director and as an editor, that it is fairly difficult to edit improv. So because it's just like, every takes different. So you're trying to find gems, and moments, and takes at least when you when you have scripted stuff, it's like, you get the same line 20 times. But when you don't, when you have every line is different. Every take is different. It's so difficult. Do you have any advice on how you put that together in the edit room and all of that, like, I usually try to get whatever's on the script once out. And then I kind of let them kind of go, generally, that's what I did.

Brian Petsos 12:23
I think, you know, you've I've not done a ton that I've directed that has been largely improvisational, I've performed in stuff that has been filmed that has been largely improvisational, but I always remember hearing about Christopher Guest having to wade through, like 80 hours to get down to to write and, you know, I that sounds to me, like

Alex Ferrari 12:47
It's insanity it's insanity,

Brian Petsos 12:49
Which is one of the reasons why, you know, I probably don't want to do that. I mean, it's it's hard enough wading through stuff that was planned. Um, but I think, you know, it's tough again, also, because time truly is money, especially when you're trying to be conscious of a budget, it's, the stuff really comes into play, but I would say, you know, to me, managing a bunch of improvised material is, I think, in the Edit to me would be largely organizational write, um, you know, finding a way to sort of, you know, filter through segments, like story beats as fast as possible. And then kind of honing from there. I mean, the closest thing I can think process wise is the way I actually work as a writer is I catalogue tons and tons and tons of notes. And my process is very editorial in weeding out or moving notes from one area to the other. So I think thinking about like, that massive amount of material that way is probably to me the most logical way to do that.

Alex Ferrari 13:55
Now, how do you? I mean, how do you direct any advice on directing improv improv because you've been involved with a ton of improv in your life. And you know, some people like Mark Duplass and, and just Winesburg and Christopher gas and these kind of guys who do a lot of heavy improv like, to the point where it's just an outline, a scriptment, and they're like, Okay, guys, you got to get from point A to point B, however you get there is up to you. That's how I basically did my first two features. And it's I always, for me, as a director, I always like I'm just there to catch, capture the lightning, like that's my job. That's my job is to capture lightning and make sure it doesn't go too far off the reservation and just kind of keep but as opposed to script, it's a scripted story. Your your, your lane is very thin, whereas within privates a lot wider, but there's still a lane that you got to control.

Brian Petsos 14:47
For sure, for sure. I mean, I think, you know, obviously, you're dealing with you want to sort of you want to be there to support a performer. I think, to me, good filmed and improvisational stuff Is, is not good until you have performers that you can really trust to do that. Because to me, you know, it's interesting because coming out of, you know, Chicago, at least the second city thing when I was there as a student, you know, all the way through the conservatory it was, it was, yeah, be funny do good improv but do good acting to correct. And I know in the conservatory program, and this the way it used to be, you know, it was pretty rigorous audition wise that it tends to, like really scale down to less and less people as you go through that whole program there. And I think the people that end up kind of the last people standing are really good actors that are also really good at improv. And so I think that duality, that's going to probably yield the best results if you're a director who's, you know, I mean, the level of collaboration is just different. It's a different kind of, you know, kind of arrangement you have with the performer, I think. And so it's to me, it's really more of almost, you know, playing the role of conductor, right, a very real way, whereas I am more of a voyeur, I think in my stuff. Sorry about the siren. Yes,

Alex Ferrari 16:12
You're in New York. It's completely acceptable.

Brian Petsos 16:15
This is This is white noise.

Alex Ferrari 16:21
So if you guys didn't know, we're not in a studio.

Brian Petsos 16:25
Certainly not.

Alex Ferrari 16:28
No, but I really do agree with your, your analogy of a conductor because that's what it felt like for me, when I'm directing that you're just like trying to move the different the brass over here, and the, you know, the the horns over here, and the drums over here, and, and all the different kinds of components to make the scene work. But they're kind of, they have a guiding force, but they're on their own. And it's really exciting for me, directing that kind of movie, it's like you're on the edge as a as a creative, and there's no met. And it's super exciting to know, again, you're making a half $1,000,000.02 million $3 million movie? Um, no, absolutely not. But if you make a lower budget film that you can do, it's super exciting as a director to play like that with the actors.

Brian Petsos 17:20
Yeah, I would imagine it is again, I've got much more experience performing right, and directing the stuff. But I mean, I, I still love improv, I'm very grateful for the education that I have and the experience that I have. And again, like I said, I don't discount it in any way I do try to think about it differently. Sure, you know, for me, I will tell you, you know, with big Olbrich being my first feature, and me also being a producer, I mean, every page I'm looking at, you know, there's there's money being spent, and I don't cripple my own, you know, creative side of my mind thinking about that, but I am absolutely cognizant of it. And it's very real. You know, the dollars they are swimming away.

Alex Ferrari 18:07
Oh, my God, it's, it's, it's, I still remember when I was shooting film back in the day, and it was like, when film would start turning on you here. And it was just a money burning, just money burning. And that's every second you're on set. Money is burning, it's very valuable, some of the most expensive time on the planet.

Brian Petsos 18:26
I know. And that's, you know, I've talked about before, it's so ironic that, you know, you spend all this time kind of, you know, in advance of actually shooting, and then you get any of this huge, very concentrated amount of time where you're working to the bone everyone is, and you know, you're making yourself ill and you just try to cram it all into the sausage casing. And it's super expensive.

Alex Ferrari 18:51
It's, it's an expensive sausage. It's an expensive sausage.

Brian Petsos 18:54
Certainly, what a strange medium.

Alex Ferrari 18:57
It is, it is it is a weird and wacky world that we live in, especially in the film industry. It's just and it's getting more and more interesting. Which, which brings me to how in God's green earth did you get the financing for big gold brick? And how did you get that film off the ground? Because you know, when you see it, you're just like, I am glad that this exists in the world. I truly am. How did you get this thing off the ground, man?

Brian Petsos 19:24
Well, first of all, thank you for being glad that that exists. Yeah, absolutely. It's so fun. Oh, that's I say that about a lot of movies. I'm like, I'm so glad this movie exists. Oftentimes, those are the movies that I cherish the ones that I say that about. I'm not saying you know, you necessarily cherish big break but the it's it's a it's a great place to be. You know, I'm someone as I mentioned, you know, an ex art school, dude, and you know, I It sounds pathetic. Just put, like the art side of it is like really, really important to me, the medium happens to also be entertainment. And that's something that I never want to disrespect. And I love movies that are just pure entertainment. But for me, the stuff that I really kind of worship on screen is the stuff that really takes that intersection and sort of savors it. And so that is kind of, you know, especially for this, this first one, I was very deliberate in kind of, you know, what I wanted this thing to sort of do when it got out there, that the thing that I just finished writing is much bigger, and probably a little more straight ahead, that that there isn't a couple snazzy parts here and there. Quote, unquote, snazzy. But But yeah, I, you know, this one had to sort of be what it was. And, you know, I think having the two short films precede this screenplay, getting out there. This is something I've talked about before, where, you know, there were certain people, both on the financing, and on the talent side who were like, this is just too much.

Alex Ferrari 21:09
Likely you want to do all of this, and you've only done two shorts. Are you out of your mind?

Brian Petsos 21:14
Yeah, absolutely. And then there were other people who were like, you know, I'm down, like, Let's go crazy, like, let's get this done. And, and, and that happened, both with on the finance, the financial side, and, and with actors kind of coming and committing. You know, Oscar was, was the first person attached, because, you know, the whole lightning face thing, the genesis of all that, and Oscar is always just been such a huge supporter. And I'm tremendously thankful, I think, you know, when the scripts started floating around the agencies and stuff. I was very pleasantly surprised with, you know, kind of, you know, it's like I said, this, you know, you got a script out there circulating. The next thing, you know, Andy Garcia was just calling you and saying, let's talk about your crazy movie. And so, you know, that's a real moment, but

Alex Ferrari 22:07
I'll just stop for a sec. I gotta, I gotta unpack that for a second. What's it like, Andy? Like, Andy, for Andy Garcia to call you and you have that conversation for the first time. I'm like, Are you like, just kind of grabbing yourself a bit?

Brian Petsos 22:20
Yeah. Yeah.

Alex Ferrari 22:23
Just like literally just say. Yeah.

Brian Petsos 22:25
I think because I have just been such an Andy Garcia fan. Oh, like, I just his body of work is incredibly. He's amazing. And, I mean, it's, you know, I could I could talk about him for hours. But when he calls your phone and you've never spoken to him, yeah, you kind of need to stop shaking. And then you need to start talking about stuff. You know, you're aware of the fact that he's worked with Hal Ashby, Francis Ford Coppola, Brian De Palma, Steven Soderbergh. And then this is the list in the list here with his hat on. You know, so it's Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's,

Alex Ferrari 23:02
And then me, yeah, like Francis Ford Coppola, Brian De Palma, Steven Saab, and me. Yeah.

Brian Petsos 23:09
And other people as well. But it says, yourself in that, in that in that context, it's absolutely fine. You know, so yeah, but I mean, you know, the way this there's such a dance, if I can just talk boring producer stuff. Sure. There's such a dance between compiling the cast and actually closing the money. And this was a film where, you know, I wrote a film, what you see represented, I think, ultimately, is pretty close to the script. Pretty damn close to the script. There were a couple sequences that I had to I had to peel some layers off because I, we didn't get quite where I wanted to financing wise, but I will say having having friends who make movies, I feel like we did okay, we did pretty good with the amount of money that we had to spend first feature especially I'm you know, I'm very thankful for that. But yeah, it's a process you know, you you get the cast and you get the money and you close the money and you make sure the cast is gonna show up and next thing you know, you're in Toronto shooting and it happened.

Alex Ferrari 24:10
Okay, the waiting for the money to drop phase of the project must it's just just torturous. Like, any day the money the money is gonna drop tomorrow, money's gonna drop tomorrow. And you're like,ohh god!

Brian Petsos 24:22
Well, especially when you have like, it's coming from disparate sources, right? I'm person drops out, you know what, like, now I have to go get this $500,000 chunk. And it's, you know, it's, it's a thing, man and I do have to say, like, there were two times I think we thought we had all the money and we didn't and delayed our start date. And, you know, it's, you know, you break down I mean, these I'm a pretty sensitive person. You know, I am no stranger to letting myself feel emotion. There's just gonna rip your hair out. And you know, I mean, that's your shed.

Alex Ferrari 24:59
Yeah. I want I want to make a point of this is that you had you know, Oscar Isaacs, you know, and, and Andy Garcia, and you had a decent a really good gas, not a decent gas, an amazing cast. And yet you're still having struggles to Close to close financing on films like that. And I want everyone listening to understand that that did like, oh, it's like, oh, well, you had Oscar on board. So it just must have been cake all the way. I'm like, No, that's the beginning of the conversation is having an Oscar or an Andy aboard? That just starts the conversation and then when that got the beginning of the beginning, exactly. And if money drops out and you got to go find 500,000 Well, Andy might be going on to the next Steven Soderbergh film, and you might lose them, because scheduling.

Brian Petsos 25:46
True as well, this schedule thing comes into play, you know, people are representative of very big agencies. And, you know, the whole agency system is is you know, I don't want to I don't want to like rain on the mystique, but it's, that's a businessman in a very real Oh, yeah, they're trying to make money and that's great. That's that's what their job is, is to make money. And if that means like carding an actor off to the next project like you're Sol and that's that and you're right. It's there's so many the plates that spin it's unbelievable. And you know, I've also talked as you said, like, yeah, Oscars my friend Oscars done stuff for the Oscars attached to this, like this. The pain involved in getting this movie together. I think it'd be impossible for me to put into language. It is not easy. It's not easy for anyone. Making an indie, as you said, doesn't matter how big the indie is. If it's an indie, any Hey, even if you have fancy pants, actors, it's torture. I would never advise anyone to do what I do

Alex Ferrari 26:51
I should have been independent filmmaker, absolutely not go get a real job.

Brian Petsos 26:57
I I've said before, like, film is the closest thing I have to religion. Yeah, if you want ledges go be religious man.

Alex Ferrari 27:05
Yeah, no, there's there's no question. And I just I always like to demystify this for people because some people just think because there's certain costs involved. You know, look, Scorsese has problems getting projects off the ground. Spielberg has problem getting projects off the ground. They're obviously at a much different level than you and I are talking about, but they still at their level, they're still having struggles. You know, the only person that probably doesn't is Nolan. He's the only person I think in Hollywood, you could just basically walk in anywhere and go, I want to make a movie about Oppenheimer. And I need $100 million. Who else?

Brian Petsos 27:35
Yeah, gets one hand is the amount of people that can just ease into something it's always difficult from what I gathered from from as a student of other directors and just doing a fair amount of reading and hearing some stuff, you know, through through people. It's, it's always difficult. i It's probably though it's probably a little easier for Scorsese,

Alex Ferrari 27:57
No question. But the thing is, is that it's just not trying to make a $25 million movie because he can make those movies all day he needs $100 million movies about two months

Brian Petsos 28:06
$200 million movies,

Alex Ferrari 28:09
Exact $100 $200 million movies with like two monks that are you know, going off and are silent for most of the film. Like that's, that's what he wants to do it. It's relative. I mean, look at Coppola. He's like, he can't get financing with Oscar. He's gonna Oscar is gonna be in this movie. And he's like, Screw it. I'm just gonna drop $120 million out of my pocket for my crazy wine money.

Brian Petsos 28:31
You know, I had heard that. Right. I believe I read it. If I didn't read it. I heard that for Gangs of New York. There was a point where a Scorsese wanted another 20 million bucks or something. Yeah. And studio was like, Sorry, man, you're cut out like we given you more like one or two times. That's it. He's like, okay, cool. And he just threw 20 million of his own dollars. And now, I'm happy to say I couldn't throw 20 of my dollars. Did her but to be able to buy coffee from my art department that day was was humbling.

Alex Ferrari 29:04
Wait a minute. How many coffees are you buying here? I mean,

Brian Petsos 29:07
He was like, well, Starbucks was like four

Alex Ferrari 29:09
Four I was gonna say there's not I was like, 20 How many coffees you buy with 20 bucks these days?

Brian Petsos 29:14
Canada man, so

Alex Ferrari 29:15
Okay, just five, maybe five, maybe five? Exchange? No, but I'm glad but I'm glad we're talking about this because it really kind of demystifies it a lot for for filmmakers coming up with they have these delusions in their head or illusions in their head that it's a lot easier once you get to a certain level. And dude, absolutely. Having Oscar attached to your project opens doors, but it's the beginning of the conversation. It's not like how much money do you want? Where do I send the cheque? That's not the way this business works with anybody really? It really is very few people who have the ability to just make things on a whim.

Brian Petsos 29:51
Yeah, I mean, I think I had the advantage. I did have some money attached right away. That helps. Yeah, it wasn't a ton, but it was it was it was a little chunk of the budget that was sort of pledged by, you know, someone who's have a fair amount of net worth. And that that also, I think helps, you know, even the agents here that at least, this isn't like a total fantasy and, and especially when they know, they know some of the finance years and, you know, it's it's a whole sculptural game, like I said, I've just kind of the money in the cast, and you're kind of piling all together and using your hands to, to work out the undulations of what the sculpture looks like. And it takes a little while. And then like I said, in retrospect, it seems like it didn't take as long but it's it was, it was a slog, man,

Alex Ferrari 30:36
Yeah, and then that's another piece of advice, if you can have some money up front in you, nobody wants to be the first one to the party. So if you can have even a little bit of money, it makes everyone feel a little bit more comfortable, that there is some money involved, you know, out and specifically, outside money, because even if you threw in the first 20%, that'd be like, yeah, that's nice. But you know, you don't have anybody at the party, still your party.

Brian Petsos 31:03
They're looking for faith. Right. And I think I think that's, that's what it is a lot of times, and, yeah, I mean, it's, it's, um, you know, I, there's also two different kinds of businesses in the indie world, I think there are people that wish you had the next kind of horror film, or the next, whatever it is, and there are other people that aren't trying to make those kind of movies. And so I think you'll find, you know, as you go through these conversations, the group divides pretty quickly.

Alex Ferrari 31:28
Now on on big old brick, you know, as directors, we always have that one day, if not every day, but I always look for that one day, that the entire world come crashing down around you. And you're losing, you're losing the sun, the camera broke, the actors can't get out of their trailer, something happens. What was that day for you? And how did you overcome it?

Brian Petsos 31:48
Well, we shot for 30 days, I had about 40 days worth of stuff. And we had to do it in 30 days. So to answer your question, that was day 12345. I mean, there wasn't a day where you know, from from a generator blowing up to, as I've talked about this before, there was there we were on the 55th floor of a building, which is Megan's office or law office, and someone pulls a fire alarm. Elevators go out, Megan, start sprinting down 55 floors, takes her heels off and starts putting down to decline floors. had to sprint back up. 50 not a half hour later. I mean, to say that, you know, that's, that was that was the kind of thing that would happen about every other day. Losing locations, sure, oh, I need I need 100 feet of clearance on a ceiling and a studio and I get 50. You know, so I have to cut like three really huge signature shots. Sure, I have to lean on the visual effects more than I intended to, which is also an expenditure, you know, after the fact. I mean, it's every day man, like, and I'm the writer, the director, and I have my producing partner, my producing partner. And then we also had Canadian producing partners facilitating locally. I mean, it's, it's, it's a tough job, man, I honestly, I feel like just sort of that it was my first time and it was, it was just guns blazing all the time. I didn't allow myself to like feel discouraged ever. It was just, I need to have an answer. I need to have it now. You are the person that literally everyone from you know, from whoever it is, you know, the literally the PA out there gathering cones to Andy as a question for me, and I have to have the answer to it. So it's no waffling. It's have the answer and just, you know, take the beating.

Alex Ferrari 33:47
I mean, so if anyone still listening who wants to be a filmmaker, you could just look at the bottom line is look, anyone who listens to my show, you know, knows how I feel about making films. I love it. It's an it's an addiction. It is a I call it the beautiful illness, the beautiful sickness. Because it's it well, we're ill we're ill. I mean, we're not well, this is not a normal way. But artists in general are not well, and that's what makes artists great and makes artists so wonderful to be around. Because they're insane. And I say that with all the love in the world. But this is unfortunately one of the most the toughest businesses for an artist to survive and thrive in than any other art. Really. I mean, music even is is tough, obviously, as well. But music doesn't cost that much.

Brian Petsos 34:38
Exactly true. I mean, someone like me, I get paid every two years, man. I mean, it's it's that that alone is tough,

Alex Ferrari 34:46
Right! You get paid every couple years and you're just like, What am I going to do? It's like it but you gotta love it. It's this this this kind of love for it. And like when when someone asked like, you know, should I go into the business and I will say absolutely not. If you agree or my advice, then you might have a shot? For sure. That's that. Because if I say, oh, yeah, come on in, it's great. I'm generally you know, then I'm a giant film school that's trying to sell you an $80,000 degree, that by the time you're in, you'll never pay that off.

Brian Petsos 35:16
Like, exactly true. I do think it does help if you think of it, like a calling, correct and not a job. And, and something that I've touched on before in conversations is, there is a certain amount of sacrifice, be great to be Todd Phillips, and make a movie as crazy as the Joker and make a ton of money making it

Alex Ferrari 35:41
And and have and play in that sandbox, play with that character with that kind of those kinds of resources with that kind of caliber of talent attached. It That's the dream, obviously.

Brian Petsos 35:52
Absolutely. But, uh, you know, you can't just walk into that door and be that guy. I mean, and so you know, but I mean, look, those those, those scenarios are out there. I mean, you know, but for me, it's like, if you just keep your expectations low, and stay humble, and, you know, I don't live a very crazy lifestyle at all, I live a very, very simple lifestyle. And, you know, to me, any additional money is appreciated. But it's, I just, I just keep it to where I can get the next movie going. And so that's the only way I know.

Alex Ferrari 36:26
So after this movie that Hollywood didn't come with the truck of money, and just dump it on your that's not?

Brian Petsos 36:31
No, I mean, look, I think I think people have read this new script a bit quicker than it took them to read, of course. But um, yeah, I mean, it's like, do you know, am I am I buying a new apartment this Saturday? I don't think so. man

Alex Ferrari 36:45
Not in New York. And Idaho and Idaho yet, possibly. Now, what is something? Is there something you wish you You're what is there something that you wish you could tell you, you could have told your younger self? When you first started coming in from your experience so far in the business?

Brian Petsos 37:07
Yeah, I mean, I think, well, you know, that's a tough one. I, if you if I could have told my younger self that wasn't yet in the business, I would say, you know, are you sure, I would say, being who I am now, I would say, you know, like, it's possible to make cool stuff and survive. I was very concerned, like, especially right out of college, that I was going to be literally homeless, and especially when you have no desire to create, but it's, it's a condition that you have to, which is something that I have, you know, I wish someone would have came in and told me, like, don't be scared, like, stick to it. You know, what I was going to say, in terms of my time actually working in the business in the professional realm. You know, I spent a handful of years out there as an actor. Yeah, you know, with with a real agent, like, you know, a pretty big agent, actually. And, you know, it's even at the time, like Oscar and I had the same agent. Oscar has already worked with Ridley Scott at this point. If Oscar and I are getting the same script, I mean, Oscars like, five notches above me on the roster there. So, you know, your job for someone like me was to go in Audition all the time. And I would actually audition quite a bit. I mean, even getting auditions is I've found is miraculous. So I'm out there auditioning all the time. And, you know, it's, it's at a point what I stopped acting, I kind of started from square one with trying to be a director. And even though I've achieved, you know, no real height yet, as a director, I've already achieved more than I did as an actor, as a director. And so good for you. I think this directing thing was a thing that I was going to do when I was like super old and gray. And something always felt wrong. And I got to the point where I decided to be a director and I think even you really need to listen to yourself and what is going to be creatively satisfying to you.

Alex Ferrari 39:11
Now where can people see the film?

Brian Petsos 39:14
They can see the film, in theaters, on demand, and digitally all the same time. Friday, the 25th of February.

Alex Ferrari 39:25
My friend I'm very excited about the film coming out and I am I'm proud of you sir. That you got this damn thing off the ground. This has been his journey and I'm so glad you shared the journey warts and all with the audience. And with my tribe, so they understand even a little bit more how difficult things are and what it was like five years ago is not like what it is today and what in five years from now, it will you know, I don't even know where we'll be trying to get these kind of projects off the ground but they you were able to get this off the ground. It is a small miracle, my friend, and I'm so glad it was it was able to be made. And when you're saying films that I appreciate that are that were made, I always think of Mars Attacks. Like, I like that Tim Burton got Mars Attacks made. It's not as bad as a system. It's not as best film by any stretch of the imagination. But that it was made that it exists. It is amazing. And when I saw this, I'm like, I'm so glad that he's been able to get this off off the ground and it's out there in the world brother. So I, I applaud you, man and congratulations. And I hope everybody goes out and rents it, watches it in the theater sees it on demand wherever they get to. So thank you, my friend, thank you for the inspiration to hopefully, we've scared off people who were never going to make it and hopefully inspired people who now are like, You know what, I think I'm going to go for it. So I appreciate you my friend.

Brian Petsos 40:55
I appreciate you and thanks so much.

LINKS

SPONSORS

  1. Bulletproof Script Coverage– Get Your Screenplay Read by Hollywood Professionals
  2. AudibleGet a Free Filmmaking or Screenwriting Audiobook

Cinematography Books You Need to Read + Video – Top Ten List

1) Lighting for Cinematography

We can’t shoot good pictures without good lighting, no matter how good the newest cameras are. Shooting under available light gives exposure, but lacks depth, contrast, contour, atmosphere and often separation. The story could be the greatest in the world, but if the lighting is poor viewers will assume it’s amateurish and not take it seriously. Feature films and TV shows, commercials and industrial videos, reality TV and documentaries, even event and wedding videos tell stories. Good lighting can make them look real, while real lighting often makes them look fake. One of the best Cinematography Books out there. 

2) The Five C’s of Cinematography: Motion Picture Filming Techniques

With the aid of photographs and diagrams, this text concisely presents concepts and techniques of motion picture camerawork and the allied areas of film-making with which they interact with and impact. Included are discussions on: cinematic time and space; compositional rules; and types of editing.

3) Cinematography: Third Edition

Since its initial publication in 1973, Cinematography has become the guidebook for filmmakers. Based on their combined fifty years in the film and television industry, authors Kris Malkiewicz and M. David Mullen lay clear and concise groundwork for basic film techniques, focusing squarely on the cameraman’s craft. Readers will then learn step-by-step how to master more advanced techniques in post production, digital editing, and overall film production.

4) Painting with Light

Few cinematographers have had as decisive an impact on the cinematic medium as John Alton. Best known for his highly stylized film noir classics T-Men, He Walked by Night, and The Big Combo, Alton earned a reputation during the 1940s and 1950s as one of Hollywood’s consummate craftsmen through his visual signature of crisp shadows and sculpted beams of light. No less renowned for his virtuoso color cinematography and deft appropriation of widescreen and Technicolor, he earned an Academy Award in 1951 for his work on the musical An American in Paris. First published in 1949, Painting With Light remains one of the few truly canonical statements on the art of motion picture photography, an unrivaled historical document on the workings of postwar American cinema.

5) Notes on the Cinematograph

The French film director Robert Bresson was one of the great artists of the twentieth century and among the most radical, original, and radiant stylists of any time. He worked with nonprofessional actors—models, as he called them—and deployed a starkly limited but hypnotic array of sounds and images to produce such classic works as A Man EscapedPickpocketDiary of a Country Priest, and Lancelot of the Lake. From the beginning to the end of his career, Bresson dedicated himself to making movies in which nothing is superfluous and everything is always at stake.

6) Grammar of the Film Language

This unique magnum opus — 640 pages and 1,500 illustrations — of the visual narrative techniques that form the “language of filmmaking has found an avid audience among student filmmakers everywhere. This “language” is basic to the very positioning and moving of players and cameras, as well as the sequencing and pacing of images. It does not date as new technologies alter the means of capturing images on film and tape. Basic to the very scripting of a scene or planning of a shoot Arijon’s visual narrative formulas will enlighten anyone involved in the film industry — including producers, directors, writers and animators etc.

7) Cinematography: Theory and Practice: Image Making for Cinematographers and Directors

The world of cinematography has changed more in the last few years than it has since it has in 1929, when sound recording was introduced. New technology, new tools and new methods have revolutionized the art and craft of telling stories visually. While some aspects of visual language, lighting and color are eternal, shooting methods, workflow and cameras have changed radically. Even experienced film artists have a need to update and review new methods and equipment. These change affect not only the director of photography but also the director, the camera assistants, gaffers, and digital imaging technicians.

8) Film Directing: Shot by Shot – Visualizing from Concept to Screen

A complete catalogue of motion picture techniques for filmmakers. It concentrates on the ‘storytelling’ school of filmmaking, utilizing the work of the great stylists who established the versatile vocabulary of technique that has dominated the movies
since 1915. This graphic approach includes comparisons of style by interpreting a ‘model script’, created for the book, in storyboard form.

9) Lighting for Digital Video and Television, 3rd Edition

Enhance the visual quality of your motion pictures and digital videos with a solid understanding of lighting fundamentals. This complete course in digital video lighting begins with how the human eye and the camera process light and color, progresses through the basics of equipment and setups, and finishes with practical lessons on how to solve common problems. Filled with clear illustrations and real-world examples that demonstrate proper equipment use, safety issues, and staging techniques, Lighting for Digital Video presents readers with all they need to create their own visual masterpieces.

10) Film Lighting Talks With Hollywoods Cinematographers And Gaffers 

Film lighting is a living, dynamic art influenced by new technologies and the changing styles of leading cinematographers. A combination of state-of-the-art technology and in-depth interviews with industry experts, Film Lighting provides an inside look at how cinematographers and film directors establish the visual concept of the film and use the lighting to create a certain atmosphere.

Kris Malkiewicz uses firsthand material from the experts he interviewed while researching this book. Among these are leading cinematographers Dean Cundey, Dion Beebe, Russell Carpenter, Caleb Deschanel, Robert Elswit, Mauro Fiore, Adam Holender, Janusz Kaminski, Matthew Libatique, Rodrigo Prieto, Harris Savides, Dante Spinotti, and Vilmos Zsigmond. This updated version of Film Lighting fills a growing need in the industry and will be a perennial, invaluable resource.

What is Mise en Scéne? – Definition and Examples

Working in the film business you hear many “inside” terms on a set like Apple box, MOS, montage don’t cross the line (to learn about the 180 degree line in a past article), etc. One such term is “Mise en Scene” or the translation “placing on stage.”

This is a French expression that refers to the design or the arrangement of everything as it appears in the framing of a film i.e. actors, décor, props, lighting, costumes and others. The term essentially means “telling a story” both in poetically artful ways and in visually artful ways through direction and storyboarding state design and cinematography.

It is also used to refer to the many single scenes that are within the film to represent the film. The term is broad, and it is also used among professional and experienced screenwriters to show descriptive or action paragraphs between the dialogs.

This is because of its relationship to shot blocking. The term mise-en-scene is called the film criticism grand undefined term. The term is so broad, and it defines and classifies a lot in the filming industry. The term roughly means to put into the scene or to place on stage.

Mise en scene is used to describe filmmaking and the process involved in the filmmaking process. In filmmaking, the first process is creating ideas for the film. Here, the right books or plays are bought. These are the source of the initial ideas of the film.

Production Design

Production design is a broad term that covers all the steps involved in putting together a production. It includes everything from sourcing the location, hiring the crew, designing the set and costumes, to lighting and sound effects.

A good production designer should be able to understand the big picture and work closely with the director to bring the vision of the film into reality. They also need to have a solid understanding of film theory and history in order to make sure the visual elements of the story are translated accurately on screen.

There are many different types of production designers, each with their own unique responsibilities. The most common position is that of production designer (also known as production supervisor), who is often responsible for overseeing all aspects of the production.

Another option is that of art director, which involves overseeing the overall look and feel of the production and helping to ensure the film is visually coherent. Other options include production manager, set decorator, costume designer, and others.

Production designers also work closely with the cinematographer, writer, director, actors and other crew members. In fact, if there’s a problem with the set or costumes, it’s often the production designer who is called upon to fix the problem.

The set is the main space in which the action takes place. It can be built before or during the shoot. The set decorator (or set designer) creates a series of set elements and props, or other items on the stage that will be used to create the desired atmosphere.

The set designer plans out the appearance of the set, determining what furniture, decorations, props, and any other elements will be needed for the set to appear as desired. Once the set is designed, the set decorator may build the set, creating any necessary fixtures.

They are responsible for ensuring that the set elements are in the correct locations and orientations on the stage and for making sure that the set elements are functioning correctly. The set decorator may also arrange the set in a way that is aesthetically pleasing.

He or she may also be involved with the construction of the set itself. The set decorator may supervise and direct the crew who are building the set. He or she may also choose which materials to use and how they will be installed.

They may design the lighting scheme and oversee its installation. The set decorator may also be responsible for creating and maintaining the set’s props.

Costumes Designer and Staging

Costumes are the only aspect of mise en scene that is easily noticeable by almost everybody. It includes makeup, hair, and clothes or wardrobe choices that are used to show the personality of the character.

It is important that a costume designer chooses the costumes that will best convey the image, personality, and emotional status of the character. Special effects are another aspect of mise en scene. They are used to make the film more interesting and captivating.

A costume designer is a person who designs and makes costumes for movies, TV shows, and other films. This is a different job than a fashion designer. Fashion designers design clothes for the human body.

Costume designers design costumes for actors, dancers, and other performers. A costume designer is responsible for designing costumes for both men and women. They are also responsible for designing costumes for different types of people. They are responsible for bringing a character from the page to the screen.

You can think of a costume designer as a stylist on a big budget. Their job is to make sure the characters and actors feel like they fit into the world of the film by working with the director, production designer, and sometimes other designers to create the look of the film.

Staging means that you’re setting up your movie or TV show before it’s shot, but only once the cast and crew are ready to shoot. This is why many movie scenes start with a long take in which the actors are introduced to each other and the set.

This allows the director to get a sense of how everyone fits together, and this way, the actors will play off of each other’s body language and expressions as they start to develop a natural chemistry.

Make-Up Artist

The makeup artist is responsible for making actors look perfect. That may sound simple, but it’s actually much harder than it sounds. The main thing a makeup artist does is to make sure that the actor looks natural in front of the camera. There are some subtle things a makeup artist can do to enhance a actors looks.

For example, the actor’s eyes can be made to look bigger and more attractive by darkening the outside corners of the eye. It’s also a good idea to have an assistant or friend help with this job as well, because having someone else see how well the makeup artist did can give a much more objective opinion of the process.

One of the most important aspects of a makeup artists job is getting the right color scheme on the actor’s face. In order to get a good look, the makeup artist must use the right colors and shades. The colors and shades that makeup artist should be using will depend on what type of make up they are wearing.

For example, if the makeup artist is wearing foundation, then they should be using a light or medium shade of foundation. If they are wearing concealer, then they should be using a light or medium shade of concealer.

If they are wearing lipstick, then they should be using a light or medium shade of lipstick. The makeup artist can also use various tools in order to achieve the right look.

Film Lighting

If you’ve ever been in a movie theater or watched a movie on TV, chances are you’ve noticed that when actors appear on screen, they often use a different kind of lighting than you would see if you were watching them in real life.

Film lighting is used to create and emphasize specific things about a scene, object, or actor. The goal is to give the audience something to focus on—something to make them remember. This is why light, whether it’s from a spotlight or a lamp, is so important.

For example, actors appearing on screen may have some highlights (bright lights), some mid-tones (medium lights), and some shadows (dark areas) to them. A typical home light fixture produces only one of these three elements at a time, but movie lighting is controlled with a lot more precision. Lighting engineers call this “film lighting.”

Film lighting can be used for both front lighting and backlighting. Front lighting refers to the illumination that comes from the side of the subject. Backlighting refers to illumination coming from behind the subject.

Backlighting is used to create effects such as the golden glow on a subject’s face, or the bright highlight on a subject’s hair.  Front lighting can be used to create effects such as the deep shadows in a subject’s eyes, or the blackness that appears around the subject’s nose and mouth.

When you watch a film, you are seeing the front-lit image projected onto the screen by the projector, which is a combination of both front and backlighting. Backlighting Backlighting is a technique used in film production to create special effects in the form of highlights and shadows.

The lighting effect is achieved by using a light source (usually an electric light) that is placed behind the subject to be lit, and is aimed so that it shines on the subject. The amount of light that reaches the subject is controlled by the light’s intensity and its distance from the subject.

In the case of backlighting, the source of light is placed at a distance from the subject, so that it does not cast a shadow on the subject.

The Producer

The producer selects the story from the books or a novel or the idea can even be an original idea or based on a true story. The producer then takes the idea to the writers, and they work together to create a synopsis.

They then break down the story into simple paragraph scenes or the step outline as it is called.  The one-paragraph scenes are the ones that concentrate on the most dramatic parts or structures.

After this, they prepare a good description of the story together with its moods and its characters. This stage has little conversations, but it mostly consists of drawings that help them to visualize all the key points. This is also the stage where the screenwriter comes up with a screenplay, and this takes a period of several months.

SHORTCODE - SOUND FX

Need Sound Effects for your short or feature film project?

Download 2000+ sound effects designed for indie filmmakers & their projects for free.

The Screenwriter

The screenwriter has all the time to rewrite the screenplay if need be to improve clarity, dramatization, character, structure, and dialogue. At this stage, the film distributor can be contacted and informed of the project for him to assess the financial success of the movie and look for possible markets.

The producer and the screenwriter will then prepare the treatment or film pitch, and they present it to the financiers. The financiers will go through the movie and also assess the likelihood of the moviemaking any profit.

They will contact some known movie stars to get them to feature in the film for publicity purposes, and after this stage is successful, the film can now go to the preproduction stage.

This is the stage that determines if the film will continue or not because, without funds, there would be no cast or crew to work in the film production. The parties involved in the financing will draft the appropriate contracts and also sign them to make a deal.

After this, the preparations for the shoot are made. This is called pre-production where locations for the shoot are selected and prepared before time, the cast and the film crew are hired, and the sets are built.

Here, all the process in the production of the movie is carefully outlined to each and every involved party, and they are also carefully planned. Even with a lot of funding, if this process is not done carefully, the film production can halt or even fail.

The most critical crew positions are outlined and the people to take those positions are named before anything else goes on. The most crucial crew positions that must be there to make a good film are:

These are crucial positions in the film production, and their roles cannot be ignored if there is to be a successful production of the film.

The Production

The production stage is the next one after preproduction. Here, the film is created and shot. There is the recruitment of more crew in this stage due to the complexities of some roles. This is the most complicated process of film production.

Everyone involved in the film production has to take their roles seriously here for the production to be successful. A regular shooting day begins by the arrival of the crew at their call time. The actors usually have different call times, and the crew has to arrive early enough to prepare everything in advance before the actors come.

Set construction, setting, dressing, and lighting is done before because it can take many hours, and sometimes it can even take days. For efficiency purposes, the electric, grip, and production design crews are always a step ahead of the sound and the camera departments.

When one scene is getting filmed, these crews are already preparing for the next one. This means that the filming process will face no problems, and if there are any, they will be easily solved ahead. After the crew prepares the equipment, the actors are already in their costumes, and they attend the makeup and hair departments.

The Actors

The actors will then rehearse the script with the director, and the other departments make their final tries or tweaks.  The assistant director then calls “a picture is up” to let everyone know that the take is about to be recorded, a “quiet everyone” call then follows, and once everyone is ready.

He then calls “roll sound” if that particular take involves sound and then the “roll cameras “call is called by the assistant director who is answered by “speed” from the camera operator once he starts recording. The assistant directors then call “action” once he makes sure everyone is ready. The take is over when the director calls “cut” and the sound stops and the cameras stop recording.

In the film production process, we see mise en scene representing the film production in every step or every setting or arrangement. It, therefore, refers to the staging and acting where it is well known that an actor can make or break a movie, and it doesn’t matter how captivating the story is. It also refers to the lighting and setting of the production stage.

The setting creates a mode and also a sense of place and it can also reflect the emotional state of mind of the character. Lighting is essential in the production of a film, and there are different types of lighting, but each depends on where the lighting is coming from and the kind of illumination it is providing to the stage setting.

This video uses two scenes from the movie American Beauty to show how elements of how cinematic techniques related to mise-en-scène and cinematography can be used to help visually tell a story.

Spoiler

Transcription of Mise en Scene.

In the last video, we talked about how the placement of the camera can tell a story, but those are just the basic terms, the bread-and-butter shots. The true strength of a shot, its unique qualities comes through what’s called the mise en scène. This is a French term meaning placing on stage. It’s a broad term which describes the overall look of a film. So how do you place on a stage – let’s remove the camera from the scene and look at the decor. A director starts by setting a scene, by choosing a setting for the shot, whether it’s outdoors, indoors, a real place, a set or composited on a green screen. This is where the scene takes place. Once that location is chosen, it gets filled first with objects than with actors.

The objects if they are not used by actors, are called set dressing. They can show place, like how this studio backlot was first done up as a modern setting and then redressed as itself is 30 years younger, or the objects can show character like how these photographs serve as exposition for the action that left this man in a cast. Sometimes they can just add texture to a scene like how the water in this dilapidated set indicates decay. If the objects are meant to be used by actors then they are called props. These can range from simple things like papers, or complex things like this ornate sword.

They can also show character, like how these two characters choice of weapon emphasize their spiritual connection and ideological differences. Character can also be shown through costumeConsider how much you are being told about this character just by how they dress or this character, or this one under all that make up. These are all things that start telling a story even before the camera rolls.

Even before camera and action come the lights. It’s impossible to overstate how important lighting is for movies. Each frame is a photograph and each photograph is captured light bounced off its subject. One of the most common lighting setups is three point lighting, perfect for close-ups. There is a key light which serves as the main source of light in a scene, the fill light which fills in the shadows created by the key light, and the backlight which lights the back of the subject, separating them from the background. Most lighting setups use some variation on this basic triad of key, fill and back. Now there are many, many types of artificial lighting techniques with 1000 things to consider*that requires an explanation of F stops and aperture and focal length, but that’s only if you are lighting the scene yourself. If you are a moviegoer, it’s much easier to read the results than the process.

Aside from the standard three point style, there is high key lighting, bright lights, bright colors, strong key, stronger fill. Compare that with low key lighting. The lights are darker, the mood more somber. Weak key, weak fill, but a very strong backlight to emphasize the outline of the person. A contrasting mix of strong highlights with deep shadows creates a Baroque painterly effect, which in the Renaissance was called by the Italian name literally meaning light, dark, high contrast between the bright bits and the dark bits.

This kind of look is the stuff of film noir, of moral ambiguity and melancholy. Films shot with a style generally take advantage of a technique called hard lighting; bright, harsh key lights that create hard shadows making the scene tough, angular and unflattering. Its opposite of course is soft lighting where the lights diffuse through a filter causing it to wrap around the subject, sculpting the subject without harming it. It’s a romantic kind of lighting. Most of the time lighting doesn’t draw attention to itself, simply serving to set the mood and let the camera and the subject speak for themselves.

You can see this in ambient lighting which uses the light that’s there in the scene or in unmotivated lighting which simply shapes the scene without being an element of it, like how the light that hits the night and death*seem to be coming from two different suns, not realistic but still striking. Its opposite is of course motivated lighting where the light is an element of the scene itself as in this shot.

Directors can get creative with motivated lighting is in this scene. A woman above turns on her light revealing a key character. The light goes out and the character disappears. Creative lighting were two of the primary tools early directors used which would change drastically as film technology improved and directors could start experimenting with color. For decades, the default for film color was black and white. The camera takes in light and records everything just by luminosity, whether it’s light or dark. For about half a film history, movies were quite happy to use this, not only because it has a certain simplicity to it but because color processing used to have a hefty price tag. Now it’s just another creative option for filmmakers with classic taste.

There are a few examples of early color films where each frame was hand-painted for a fake color film effect, but the most common early color effect was tinting, where the entire scene is bathed in a certain color. You don’t see this much outside of the old silence or the more experimental corners of the avant-garde. One of the most famous forms of tinting is sepia tone. This was one of the most common colors to tint film in the monochrome area which gave it a dusty look. In this famous use of film tinting, Sepia is used for the drudgery of Kansas, but once Dorothy goes to Oz, the fantasy world is in bright, vivid color. Now it would be easy to list color film as its own term, but color is a complicated process which filmmakers can control the same way they can control their lights and not just through costuming and production design, but through a process called color grading where a film’s color is selectively adjusted for a distinctive look for each scene. Grading can involve adjustments to everything black-and-white filmmakers did, but it can also do interesting things with color like adjusting saturation, the intensity of a color in a scene.

A highly saturated scene can feel bright and exciting while a lowly saturated scene can feel washed out and desolate, but if it’s done in post or composed in frame, this makes up a film’s overall color palette. Like a painter’s palette, these are the dominant colors in a shot. The palette can be broad, taking in the entire spectrum or selective, drawing attention to a single color that dominates the others, deep erotic reds, cold and unfeeling whites, rich emotional blues, digitized unnatural greens, stately browns, reds and golds to make it feel antique. De-saturated reds, blacks, and golds to make it feel in ancient. Saturated blues and oranges to make it feel modern, whites and steely cyan to make it feel futuristic. Blacks and blues for a dark night, yellows, reds, and greens for a bright new day. There are an infinite number of combinations and each one can vary by context. Still, it’s an important thing to look for.

And finally, let’s look at how things are composed in the frame. The final thing that makes a shot a shot, space. We’ve already covered the basic types of shots, but it’s the use of space within the frame that makes a scene unique. There are thousands of ways to talk about space since there are thousands of ways to set up a shot. But to simplify things, let’s define some basic terms for looking at some creative examples. There is balance which gives weight to the frame. This shot emphasizes the symmetry between the man and the woman with the child in the middle as a fulcrum, but that’s a very controlled a shot. Even a wild shot like this has asymmetrical balance; the man with the mask in the foreground is balanced by the man on the chair in the background with the radial pattern below for added texture. This shot has a sense of balance staged in deep space, where the scene places elements both far and near to the camera, drawing attention to the distance between them from the people in the front of the scene who are talking about the child, all the way back to the child in the window whom the scene is about.

Scenes can also be staged in shallow space. This scene is staged flatly, emphasizing the closeness of the subject and the background objects, or even implying no depth at all. There is also one of the most important spaces, the offscreen space where a scene draws attention to something out of the frame. This shot uses a mirror to expand the space that this man is sitting in. This shot uses a look and an actor’s performance to imply something huge out of the frame. An actor’s performance can sometimes to be enough to set a scene and create space within the frame. All the movements an actor makes in the scene are called blocking. Though it may look freeform much like a dance, the actor’s movements are heavily choreographed, whether they are actually dancing or just doing a simple, powerful gesture. All of these things, all of them create a space within the frame. They create mise en scène. That space can be symmetrical, asymmetrical, round, linear, expensive, cramped, busy or deceptively simple – everything that makes a shot unique like creating something within the frame and without the frame. If the type of shot can indicate a word, the mise en scène can be the tone in which the word is said, harshly or softly, jokingly or majestically. But if you’re going to learn to speak a language, you can learn all the words in the dictionary and still be lost if you don’t know how to put them together.


Transcript: Mise en Scene – MIT

Some of you attentive viewers may notice what the students here would not notice that seven years have elapsed, there’s a new podium, some of you may have gotten that and a much older professor. I hope that our completion of these lectures seven years later will not will not result in a in a in a reduced or less energetic performance. I’ll do my best.

I thought it would be helpful to use today’s lecture, in part to create some perspectives on both the silent film The idea of the silent film, not just the particular films we’ve looked at, but more generally, the phenomenon of silent film, the whole the whole phenomenon, and some perspectives that will also help us look forward to what will follow to the to the sound films that will follow this week, I’d like in a certain way. To do this by complicating the idea I’ve already suggested to you about the notion of the film as a cultural form. What does it actually mean to say that a film is a cultural form? What in a concrete sense, does this phrase signify?

Well, one answer I think I can offer by drawing on your own experience. My guess is that all of you have watched older films films from 20, or 30, or 40 years ago, and immediately been struck as soon as you began to watch the film, by certain kinds of differences that the original filmmakers would have been oblivious to. And I’m talking about things like the hairdos of people, the clothing that they wear, the way automobiles look, or even a world in which there are no automobile, the the physical environment that is shown, one of the things that this reminds us of is that films always even the most surreal and imaginative, and science fictiony films, always inevitably, in some deep way, or in some essential ways reflect the society from which they come, they may reflect more than that.

And they may be influenced by other factors as well. But they are expressions of the culture that gave rise to them in certain really essential ways. And one of the things this means among other significance, one of the most interesting aspects of this recognition is the fact that films get richer over time, they become artifacts of immense anthropological interest, even if they’re terrible films, because they show us what the world of 50 or 25 or 30 years ago actually looked like, and how people walked in how people comb their hair, and what kind of makeup they were all of the things that many of the things, which in many respects, the people making the original film would simply have taken for granted as part of the reality they were trying to dramatize.

So one way of thinking about film as a cultural form is to recognize that as films grow older, they accrete meaning, they become more interesting, they become they become richer. And the corollary corollary implication of this idea that films are that films that films become richer is that is that the meaning of of the, of any individual artifact. cultural artifacts, especially cultural artifacts, as complex as films are, is always in process, that the meaning is never fully fixed or finished. But new significance and new possibilities, new meanings emerge from these texts, with the passage of time as if the texts themselves undergo a kind of transformation.

One final point about this just sort of tweak your broader understanding of these kinds of questions. One of the kinds of transitions that occurs with particular artifacts is they sometimes move or make a kind of transition from being recognized as merely ordinary and uninteresting parts of the society from which they go from which they grow, from which they emerge. Simply ordinary routine aspects of the experience of society. Later ages May May value these routine objects as profoundly valuable works of art. And in a certain sense, one could say that the films, the film in the United States underwent a transition of that kind That at a certain point in the history of our understanding of movies, American culture began to recognize that movies were actually works of art, that they both deserve comparison with novels.

This is plays and poems, it’s probably an idea that all of you folks take for granted. Your generation, probably many of members of your generation admire movie directors more than they do novelists and poets. A radical mistake, it seems to me, but that’s my literary bias showing through. I certainly admire great directors, certainly as much as I do good novelists. But the fact is that this is really not the case. This, this recognition of the film as an artistic object, as I’ve suggested earlier in the course, is not some fixed or stable identity that the film has had from the beginning. It’s an identity that the film has garnered of that the film has that has been laid on the film later, as cultural changes have occurred.

As other forms of expression have emerged, that have put the film in it kind of different position hierarchically from, from other kinds of from other kinds of imaginative expressions. And as I’ve already suggested, many times in this course, we’ll come back to this principle, because it’s such a central historical fact about the nature of the content of American movies, especially, it’s the advent of television, that is partly responsible for the transformation, although it takes some time for the transformation in American attitudes toward what movies are, because television became the throwaway item, the routine item, the thing Americans experienced every day.

The consequence of that was to change our understanding of what the film was. Now, of course, the Europeans had an insight like this long before the Americans did. And that’s something I’ll talk about in a bit later today, and also at other times in our course. So that’s one way of thinking about what it means to say that a film is a cultural form, it means that it’s an unstable in the sense that its meanings are not fixed. And the way in which our culture, categorizes and understands that particular artifact is also something that’s unstable, that undergoes change over time. But there are other ways to think about this problem of film as a cultural formation as an expression of society.

I want to tease out some of those meanings for you as well. One of them is kind of one way to come at this problem is to think of a kind of tension or, or even contention between our recognition that film is a global form. That is to say that certain that because the movies are watched across national boundaries, movies that are made in the United States can influence movies that are made in Europe, and vice versa. So this was all in one sense. But film, especially after film got going within the first 10 years of its life, it had become an international phenomenon, and American films were watched in Europe and European films influenced influenced American directors even at very early stages.

So that we began to get certain kinds of films that certainly appealed across national boundaries, and so that there is a kind of global dimension to what film might be. And there’s another way of thinking about what it means to talk about film as a global as a global phenomenon, not as a merely national expression. And that has to do specifically with the way in which particular directors in and films in particular societies can influence world cinema. And from the very earliest days of cinema, as I suggested, this has been a reality.

As as David Cook’s history of narrative film informs you want to hope you’ll read the assigned chapters on Russian film closely because I can only skim these topics in my lecture. What you’ll discover, among other things is that the great American director, dw Griffith, had a profound impact on Russian films. And, and that in fact, at a certain point in the history of Russian films, there was a workshop run by amending Kula Schaaf, who actually took dw Griffith’s movies and disassembled them shot by shot and studied the editing rhythms.

In his in his workshop, this had a profound impact on on not only on Russian cinema, but but the but Griffiths practice has had a profound impact on virtually all filmmakers. And and there’s a kind of reverse influence. Because certain Russian directors, Eisenstein especially, but also dziga vertov had profound impact. Their work had a profound impact on the on the films from Western Europe and from the United States. So it’s a two way process. It’s too simple to say that that particular films are only an expression of French culture only an expression of Russian culture or only an expression of American culture. They are also global phenomena and they were global phenomena from almost the earliest stages.

So it’s important to recognize this tension or this bell, there are dimensions of film that reach across national boundaries. Race. And as we’ve already suggested, one of the explanations for the successful American movies in the United States was in part function of the fact that they did not require language in nearly the same degree. They were visual experiences, and an immigrant population coming into the large cities of the United States at the turn of the century, with one of the primary factors that helps to explain that phenomenal, quick growth of the movies from a novelty into a profound embedded cultural experience, right. So it is a global phenomenon in a certain way it reaches across national boundaries. But there’s also and we need to acknowledge this side of the equation too. There’s also a profound a really deep fundamental sense, in which films, at least until very recently, are an expression of the individual national cultures from which they come.

I say until very recently, because some of you must be aware of the fact that a new kind of film is being made now. By which I mean, a film that seems to appeal across all national boundaries, that doesn’t seem to have a decisive national identity, at least some films like that. I think the Bollywood people are making films like this, Americans are certainly making films like this now. And sometimes, if you think of some of the action adventure films that will have a cast that is drawn from different cultures, right, a sort of multi ethnic and a multilingual cast, all of them, all of them Dubbed into whatever language the film is being is being exhibited in, you’ll see an exam that what’s begun to emerge now in our 21st century world is a kind of movie that already conceives of itself as belonging to a kind of global culture.

So far, I’m not sure these these movies have have as much artistic interest as one would like, but it’s a it’s a new phenomenon and the globalizing tendencies of digital technology are certainly encouraging new ways to think about the origins or the or the, or the central sources of movies. But until very recently, it is still the case that virtually every film, made in any society reflected in deep in fundamental ways, aspects of that society. And one of the reasons that this is such an important thing to recognize is it means that, especially in cultures, like your the European societies, and and those that in the United States, the movies are a profoundly illuminating source of cultural and social history.

Even if they had no artistic interest, they would be worth teaching and studying. And the fact that some of them are luminous works of art makes teaching, teaching them a particular a particular pleasure, a particular joy, a real vocation. So if we talk about films as a national as an as a national expression, what we’re talking about here is the extent to which the assumptions about personal relationships and the assumptions about the way society operates are going to be grounded in culturally, a socially specific phenomena, socially Specific Practices. And we’re also talking not just about the content of movies, but also about the structure of the industries, which end up providing movies to the public.

Part of what I want to at least allude to today in the in the lectures and materials that we’re looking at today is to crystallize or concretize this idea, but the variations that are possible within a within the, the broad universe of the cinema, so that, for example, the individual and atomistic system that developed in the United States, for the production of movies, the capitalist arrangements that developed in the United States for the development of movies are in many ways, radically different from the systems that were developed in some European societies or in the Soviet Union. And there’s a particular contract with the Soviet Union, which developed movies in a quite a quite different way and had a quite different notion about them. The emergence of the movies coincides in some degree with the turmoil in the Soviet Union, right?

The Russian revolution is what 1917 movies become the central, a central source of of information and propaganda for the emerging Soviet culture. Lenin called movies, our greatest art form, because he understood how important they were in promulgating certain ideals and in embedding those ideals in the society. And in fact, they were not in Russia, a series of independent companies that produced films, there was a top down arrangement in which the government controlled filmmaking doesn’t mean that they didn’t make remarkable and interesting films, but it was a different system. It was a top down system. We had central government financing, in which the genres of in Soviet films could be said to have had what we might call rip. coracle sources. For example, the revolution story is one genre of Russian film celebrates the heroes celebrating the heroic struggle of the people that were even sort of genres that we might call building genres or creating genres. And they were about make creating a farm or building a skyscraper, right.

Once the film was put in the service by the Soviet state was put in the service of this emerging society, it was understood as a, as a, as a system that would mobilize mass social forces for the betterment of society. And the differences, the these differences in attitudes toward the end in the way his films are financed, and, and and who makes the decisions about what films will go forward, of course, has a profound impact on the nature of those movies. our our our demonstration, instance, today will be one of the most famous passages from Eisenstein’s Potemkin to demonstrate some of the movie in a much more concrete way, some of the implications of this difference between American and Russian film that I’m suggesting, there are also profound differences.

I’ll develop this argument a little more fully to this evening, when we shift over to the great German silent films that will silent film that we’re going to look at tonight. There are profound differences between the American and German systems of moviemaking and attitudes toward the making of movies. And I’ll I’ll elaborate on some of those notions later, later today in the evening lecture, but for the moment, then suffice it to say that that movies that virtually all movies are going to reveal are going to embody the values and assumptions of the culture from which they come that that makes them anthropological artifacts have profound significance, and distinguishes French film from British film from American film in ways that continue to be illuminating and significant.

There are certain other contrasts or, or potential tensions in this notion of film as a cultural form that I’d also like to develop and will spend a little bit more time on one of them is this is the notion that there’s a profound even a fundamental difference more broadly, not just between French and American cinema, but between all forms of European cinema and the American version.

This is a principle we’ll talk about more this evening. But I want to allude to it now, one of the ways to crystallize This is to remind you of something we’ve already talked about briefly in the course, which is the migration of filmmaking from the east coast to the west coast, in the early days of filmmaking in the United States, the flight of filmmakers to California, and we’ve talked a little bit about why that’s a significant a significant transformation and a significant move. But perhaps the most important aspect of this trend of this of this historical fact, the migration of the movies to the west coast, is that what this meant is that the movies in the United States were able to develop in a culture whose intellectual and artistic and cultural authorities were on the East Coast, as far away as possible from where movies were developing.

In other words, the American movie is much more fundamentally in its emergence, a popular form a non art form that has no consciousness of itself as a work of art. It knows that what it’s trying to do is make money and entertain people. And and the earliest, very early, there were some directors like dw Griffith who recognize the artistic importance of movies, I don’t mean they weren’t directors who recognize that Chaplin truly thought of himself as making works of art, especially later in his career. But the fact is, the American movies begin on the farthest Western version of the society, nothing developed there, right, New York is the cultural center. Boston is a cultural center.

Maybe we could even say some of the great Midwestern cities have some kind of cultural authority, but there’s nothing on the west coast. And what that means is that all the writers, all the dramatists, all the actors, all the theater actors, all the poets, all the musicians, they were in the east, they lived in New York, and what there was a kind of freedom that this imparted to American movies.

And this is a very sharp contrast with the development of almost all forms of European cinema. Because partly because the the countries are literally geographically more limited, unlike the vast expanse of the United States, but also because of the much stronger traditions in these European societies have of high culture The much stronger respect in these in these societies, for for theater and for poetry, and for prose narrative. Means in the in the European societies, and this was especially true in Germany, but it was true in some degree in every European society, including the Soviet Union.

There was a sense that the movies were emerging in the shadow of older art forms, whose greatness and grander, shadowed minist, this emerging form. And in a way, the distinction I’m mentioning the difference I mentioning accounts both for the limitations and for the glories of both kinds of film. Because if the European film was more static, and we’ll talk much more, I’ll give you some examples of this tonight, if the European film was more static, let’s be it was less cinematic in a way in its early years, because it fought of itself as emerging from literature, from theater from poetry. And in fact, some of the important early German filmmakers especially were people who came from theater, and they had theatrical notions of what art was.

We’ll talk more about this this evening. So because that was true, the glory of the early European cinema was its recognition that it could be artistically powerful, it sense that it was talking about important subjects. But of course, the limitations were that it was often very boring visually, that it was serious, but not a movie that it didn’t, it didn’t exploit the properties of the medium nearly as quickly didn’t try to explore the unique properties of the medium nearly as a part because it was so in Thrall to inherited ideas of artistic value in artistic expression. This isn’t entirely a disadvantage, as I’ve said, because it also important to European filmmakers, a sense of dignity and the importance of their enterprise that served them well in certain ways and made them pick ambitious subjects. And you’ll see the outcome the final outcome once the film, once the European film was liberated into a greater cinematic freedom.

I’ll show you an example or two tonight of that. It became something immensely rich, in part because it had this legacy of high art behind it, and high artistic ambitions. The United States stories almost the opposite. In the United States, there was a kind of glorious sense of having no responsibility toward older art forms. There was something exuberant, experimental, joyous and, unembarrassed about early American films, they didn’t think of themselves as artworks, and it gave them a kind of freedom.

They were also vulgar as hell, they were often they were often trivial and silly. They often had had limited artistic ambitions. But they explored the nature of the medium in a way that became the legacy of the movies and a legacy that was communicated to other to other societies as well. Well, this distinction, then between American and European cinema is something I’ll develop a little bit more fully with examples this evening. But it’s a crucial distinction, it’s a crucial difference. And it tells us a lot about both forms of filmmaking.

There’s one final tension that I want to mention here, we’ll return to it, again, when we come to look at singing in the rain later in the course which dramatize is this subject, among others. There’s another kind of tension implicit in what I’ve already said, which is the tension between what we might call popular culture notions of culture that are enjoyed by the masses by everyone has against high culture like opera and poetry and theater, which which only the educated people go to right. And this tension is especially important. It’s important in many films, but it’s an especially important tension in the in American movies. And one of the things that we will come back to in different ways as we think about these American films is the way in which very often American films position themselves as the antagonists of high culture.

There are many films that actually do that in one of the Marx Brothers, some of the Marx Brothers films systematically dismantle the objects of high culture. There’s one Mark Marx Brothers film called A Night at the Opera, which takes place in an opera and the whole set comes crashing down the whole place, the whole place falls apart in the course of the, in the course of the film, acting out a kind of aggression against the older art form. And this is a tension also, that we will see played out in, in some of the films we’re going to be looking at a bit later in the course.

So this notion of height of Hollywood, as as the embodiment of a certain kind of demonic vigor and and, and populist energy, is is is a helpful way of thinking about how especially in the early years, American film was somewhat different from European film, and how it also very aggressively distinct was happy to distinguish itself from established art forms.

I want to take a quick of what will appear to be a digression but actually isn’t I want to talk about now about two crucial terms that that will be useful in our in our discussions of these of the matters I’ve already raised and some other matters that will come up later in the course. And then return after after work. clarifying these terms to an example from Battleship Potemkin, Eisenstein’s most famous film, to demonstrate something of what I mean by by the principles of top down organization and and fuel mass propaganda that I was talking about earlier, as well as calling your attention to some of the artistic innovations that we still attribute to to Sergei Eisenstein, the two terms I want to discuss by the terms montage and meson sin.

They’re contrasting elements of what is in all movies. in a certain way, the term montage and the term use onsen describe the most essential features of what movies are meson sin, a term drawn from the theater, which literally it’s a French word literally means what is put or placed in the scene, right? What is what is in the scene with unsane refers to the single shot to what goes on within the single continuous unedited shot of film, the single frame of film however long it lasts, right? And the means on scene of that of that shot is virtually everything inside that frame.

In other words, how the even even how the cat actors move in the frame is part of the DS onset, but it’s especially the music’s and emphasizes, what is the environment like, what’s the furniture like, what’s the relation between the foreground, the middle ground and the background, and in these unsent, the emphasis is on the composition within the frame. And sometimes very great directors will compose their frames with such subtlety that if you freeze them, they look like paintings, they’re, they’re balanced, or unbalanced, if that’s the artists attention in particularly artistic and complex and complex ways.

So, we can we can think of this in in some sense almost as an A as a, as having a kind of painterly equivalent. what goes on in the scene, you know, within the, the other great term montage, which is also a French term comes from the verb, the French verb montair, which means to assemble or to put together a montage means what is put together what is edited, what is what is what is what is linked together. So a montage means the editing of continuous shots in a in a sequence, right? So the montage of a film is the rhythm of attending.

So all films have both elements in the right. And in fact, we need to be aware of both. And when we look at a film, it’s often very helpful to ask yourself questions about the rhythm of the editing, to pay attention to how long the shots are held, to the way the film is edited. Again, the Eisenstein example, we’re going to look at an image that will give you some dramatic instances of why manipulating the editing in the montage can be so so dramatic and so signifying.

So it has, there’s a kind of convention that has now developed that has that has developed, and that will radically simplifies in some ways. It’s a simplification that’s immensely instructive. One way you can talk about directors is to categorize them as montage directors, or mes unsend. Directors, these unsend direct I’m over simplifying, remember, because there’s montage in every film.

So Amazon said director can be a master of editing to, and a director that we identify as a Montage Director certainly has to know how to manipulate his muse unsaid. So it’s not as if one kind of director doesn’t do the other thing. But what it does try to signify when it does try to indicate is that directors we call montage directors, our directors whose effects come in, in a central way, from the way they edit the film, from the from the, from the quickness of their editing, from the from the way they’re editing, manipulate to our controls, meaning in some sense, and we therefore would think of montage directors.

Eisenstein is a classic example. Hitchcock is probably the contemporary example, near contemporary example, that most of you might have in mind, in which the editing of the film the rhythm of the the quickness with which the shots develop, the way the music is superimposed on the on the on the on the editing rhythm, to increase your, your, your, your, your emotional response to the film. What we would say is that that’s, that’s, that’s what a Montage Director embodies the work of a month. So if we say that Hitchcock is a Montage Director, what we mean is that some of his most most of his most profound meanings come from the way in which he edits his film.

What a contrast would be, let’s say with the director, like the director, we’re going to see a few a few in a few weeks later in the term, john Renoir, a narrow a realistic director who might be called much more fully among a muse unsend director because he does edit his editing rhythms are subtle, but he’s interested in long takes. montage directors likes short takes shots that lasts only a short time in the in the most dramatic segments of the segment from bad Battleship Potemkin that I’m going to show you this afternoon in a few minutes. Sometimes the the edits are so brief that they don’t even less the second and a half the average number of shots in the film as a whole in Battleship Potemkin as a whole, the shots last four seconds, that’s not very long.

You know, in a, in a, in a in a Renoir film, they might last 1015 seconds, sometimes much longer than that, right. But that’s a very long time for a shot to be held. And if a shot is held that long, it means the camera will move. cacked action will occur in it, but it’ll still be a single shot. Can you see that? If you hold the shot for that time, and the camera moves like this, what is it encouraging? It’s encouraging you to think about the relation between characters on the environment, it’s encouraging a kind of realistic response to what the film is showing you. Whereas if you’re looking at a film in which the cuts occur every two seconds, you don’t have time to sort of take in what’s the relation between the actor and the furniture, you’re you’re disoriented inside. In fact, Hitchcock often brought his editing to a point just below the threshold of disorientation.

When Eisenstein was theorizing about the power of editing, he was one of the first great film theorists, he talked about the way in which you could control an audience physiologically by manipulating montage. And it’s true, you can, as you will know, and something that fascists societies are fully aware of and, and make and make use of. So this distinction between montage and these unsaid is immensely useful. And is and in some degree, if you apply the terms generously and tactfully, you can learn something about every film you look at by thinking about how these elements work in the film.

I want to turn now to what was arguably one of the most famous certainly one of the most famous films in the history of cinema and to a to a particular fragment from the film or an extended one. Which I think embodies and will help clarify many of the abstract ideas I’ve just been suggesting to you.

Let me say a word about the film that film Battleship Potemkin was produced in 1925, at a point when Eisenstein was now at the height of his power and authority. And it It commemorates a moment in the aborting and abortive revolution of 19 of 1905. so that by the time Eisenstein came to make the film, Battleship Potemkin was kind of like a founding story right in our face.

Or at least it wasn’t about it was about an abortive founding that would then occur years later, right. It was see it was this it, what it what it what it dramatized was, it was a historical fact, there was a rebellion by the by the crew of the Battleship Potemkin against its officers. And in the book, The battleship sailed into the port of Odessa. And its its new, its new nears, were welcomed by the people in the port of Odessa.

Then the Tsar angry that his that his Navy, and his naval officers had been mutinied against sent soldiers to Odessa to decimate not just the the mutineers, but the population of Odessa. And, and the passage, so the film was understood in a way it was a revolutionary document, or, or, or Park ordinate, or an attempt to sort of create a kind of founding myth for Russian society, right? Because everyone watching the film would have known that the real revolution occurred, only whatever it was 12 or 14 years later. And, and, and that this was a kind of rehearsal, and it would have been so so that the film would have had a kind of patriotic aura, for for its for its audience for the passage I’m going to show you is that is the is the famous is the famous passage, some, I think David cook calls this the most famous montage sequence in the history of cinema.

It was certainly profoundly influential. And as we’re watching it, I may interrupt it to say a few things as you’re watching, but I’ll try not to do too much interruption. What I want you to watch for especially is not only five will have to make some commentary, but I want you to as you’re as you’re watching it, among other things, watch for the way in which the length of the length of the shots is the time between shots varies.

And as the film as the moment as the as the film begins to this passage begins to increase in intensity and terror, the cuts that come even briefer, right, and then watch also the way in which certain other strategies of Eisenstein’s reinforce this strategy, these monetize strategies for example where the camera is positioned? Is it looking up at a cat character? Or is it looking down right? And very different thing if you look up you would large and you, you you miss a Fae, if you look down you humiliate and minimize right watch how he does that sort of thing.

You’ll find it I think, very, very illuminating and, and significant. The, the, the sequence is often seen today. And I rightly I suppose, as deeply heavy handed, because you’re not allowed when you’re looking at this film to sort of have an alternative view of things. The film doesn’t leave you room. Eisenstein strategies don’t leave you room for independent judgment.

You’re immersed in a in a spectacle so emotional and so wrenching. That, that you don’t have time to sort of sit back and think and come to conclusion. And one can say that this is one of the great differences between montage directors and me’s unsend. Director, not an accident that most horror movies or horror movies really are a form of montage, right? Because your your feelings are being manipulated, you’re not you’re you’re not supposed to be allowed to sit back and say how ridiculously implausible these events are. If that happened, it would spoil the film, right.

We’ll come back to these things. So here is the different step sequence from Battleship Potemkin. These are they are dessins welcoming the mutineers. One of the things that Eisenstein was fond of was a theory of montage that was based on two principles. One he called t paws typisch TYPG. And what he meant by T pars was the idea that there were ethnic, very racist in a way that there were ethnic and social types that could be recognized visually. So he would, he would take his, so he felt, if I show you this face, you’ll know he’s a working class character. If I show you, if I show you, a woman with a parasol, you’ll know that she belongs to the upper classes. And in fact, he’s probably right about that. Here are the Czar’s forces come to punish the mutineers and the city of Odessa.

So the soldiers are on top, and they’re forcing people down the steps, and they are presumably shooting them.Christina, freeze it for a second. I don’t want to distract you by talking while it’s running. So let me interrupt it for a second and say something else about the way the film works. One of the things Eisenstein understood was, and it’s actually a brilliant discovery.

He realized that he could create through his strategies, especially dramatic editing, he could create a situation in which the actual time of the experience that you’re watching was not real time but was what might be called emotional time. That is to say, what’s happening here, too. It’s probably in the film taking longer than it took in reality, because in moments of horror, the horror is extended. And watch how those kinds of rhythms operate in the film. Okay.

Seems like a naive hope freezing again, Christian. What one other quick observation. I mean, there’s I hope you recognize how awful This is, even if you’re not moved in the way the original audiences would have been. I think contemporary audiences often feel as too heavy handed they they resist, they resist the extent to which the film is manipulating them.

But think back to the earliest days of film, what an unbelievable shocking, incredibly exciting experience. It must have been for early film goers to have an experience that certainly for the Russian audience, but I think for every audience that was so intense, and so emotionally powerful, so full of fear and violence that can be evoked by really by the rhythms of the editing, by the music by how close Did you I hope you notice the way he mixes in close ups in incredibly powerful ways, trying to create certain effects. Again, you’re not given a choice about how to feel about this, you, you can set you can descend from it by withdrawing your interest, but you can’t say.

Oh, I really love those soldiers that we’re doing in the shooting. Let’s make a case for them. You’re not allowed the film won’t allow you to do that will it? And that’s in that sense. It’s manipulating you. But it’s telling. It’s telling us a story about the creation of a revolutionary society. Finally, what Remember I said that this is question about emotional about emotional time as against Real Time, think how long this has been going on, you think that this massacre is over? Right? But in fact, it’s only half over? As you’ll see. There’s going to be a moment when horse horse mounted Cossacks, horsemen, show up at the bottom of the steps and get them in a pinch.

I don’t think this soundtrack is the original soundtrack was very good, though, as this is a brilliant moment. I don’t know whether we can attribute to Stein’s Eisenstein or not

when it’s suddenly the music stops. Should be sound now. There’s something wrong with our print. I wanted to at least until you saw this because some of you may recognize this moment as as something that’s been copied in recent American movies.

I’ve seen that kind of illusion or a reference to this. See The moment I wanted you to think about is this baby carriage.

Okay, thanks, Kristen. blood in the eyeglasses. Can you think of a movie in which you’ve seen that recently? Maybe not that recently, it’s actually an ancient film now by by your standards about the Godfather. There’s a wonderful scene in The Godfather where a guy looks up from a from a massage table, and he shot through the eyeglasses. very memorable moment, it’s surely an allusion to this moment, let’s say How about the carriage going down that there have been several films that actually recreate that moment, but the one I’m thinking of is, Who is it? Yes from The Untouchables. Britt, who’s the director? Do you remember? Yes, Brian DePalma was filmed.

The Untouchables has a moment just like that. And apama, of course, is a kind of historian of movies. Virtually every scene in dipalma film is a reference or an allusion to an earlier film. And part of the importance of Battleship Potemkin is that it is still a fruitful and fructifying source of imagery for contemporary filmmakers. So let me conclude then by simply reminding you that, as cook suggests, in his book, this is the single most influential montage sequence in cinema history. And that it’s a wonderful instance.

For us, I think of the way in which film in a different kind of culture in an authoritarian culture, in a revolutionary culture, full of moral fervor, would be conceived both as an apparatus as a social as a, as a, as a as an engine of social transformation, by a society that control film, in a way very fundamentally different from the way in which film developed, let’s say in the United States. We will continue these arguments and I hope complicate them this evening.

Mise En Scene:

You will remember from our discussion of film form that the form in which a movies content is presented to audiences includes both the movies narrative structure, and its use of stylistic elements. In cinema stylistic elements are the visual and acoustic elements that are used to tell the movie story through images and sound. There are four different categories of stylistic elements that are used in movies. Mazon sends cinematography, editing and sound.

This week we’re going to take an in depth look at the first of these Mazon said as the reading for this week notes miss on San is French for to put in the scene. The term comes from theater, we’re first in the way that plays are staged. When it comes to movies. Mazon Sam refers to all of the creative decisions behind what appears on screen. So in other words, the way that the movies de Jesus the story world and the characters are visualized and brought to life on screen. Because all of the elements that make up a movies miss on Sun are central to the visual design and the staging of the movie story, what is written in the script, you can think of Miss Johnson in terms of the look or the visual style of a film. There are five components that make up a movies miss on sand, production design, costumes, makeup and hairstyles, lighting, staging, and performance or acting.

The first component of MS on sand that is discussed in the reading for this week setting can be a bit confusing. Since setting is also a component of movie narratives. It might be helpful therefore, to clarify that when we talk about setting as an aspect of the movies narrative, we are talking about when and where the story takes place. In contrast, when we are talking about setting as an aspect of MS on seven, we are talking about the visual appearance of the spaces both indoor and outdoor, where the movie story takes place. So when we are analyzing setting is a component of MS onset, we are analyzing how the setting looks, not what it is. Since production design is the film industry term for this it might be equally helpful for our purposes to discuss this and for you to start thinking about this as production design rather than setting. Production design includes the design, the construction and the decoration of all of the movie sets. So in terms of design and construction, we are talking about the architecture and the physical layout of all of the places where the movies action unfolds. In this image from the Darjeeling Express, The set includes the dimensions of the room and the shape of the window, as well as the placement of the furniture and then the decoration of the space.

The furniture and the decorations that make up the sets are referred to as the decor. In this image. The decor includes the bed, the sheets in the quilt, the night tables and lamps. It also includes the choice of color for the paint, the bedding and the lampshades. What is known as the color palette for the production design for this scene, well color is included in movies Mazon sand color is not a separate component of Mazon said. Instead, it is part of both costume design and production design. When it comes to production design, the term color palette refers to the range of colors used in a particular set. In other words for a particular location where part of the action of the movie takes place. In this example, from the rise of Skywalker, the color palette is made up of shades of black, grey, blue and white with a single splash of red for the lightsaber held by the character of Kylo Ren. In this example, which is from a different scene in the same movie, the color palette is made up of shades of brown, beige, gold, blue, and orange.

Well, it is common for movies to have different color palettes for different sets. There are also some cases where the production designer and the director might decide to use a single color palette for the entire film. In the short film Bartholomew’s song for example, every location in the film uses the same color palette of green, yellow and white feature films sometimes divis to arrival for example, has a color palette that is pretty consistent throughout the entire film regardless of the setting. When it comes to our first example from the Darjeeling Express, The color palette includes the yellow of the paint on the walls, the fabric on the headboard, the quilt on the bed, and the bathroom that the woman is wearing.

It also includes the white of the sheets, the lampshades and the towel on the woman’s head and also the lollipop stick, as well as the brown of the wood trim on the headboard which is echoed in a slightly different shade by the brass light fixtures. The pink of the flower petals on the matching fabric on the headboard and the quilt ends the maroon in the center of the flowers, the trim on the woman’s bathrobe and the Bloody Mary on the bedside table.

Well the choice of colors and the decor and the other aspects of the production design provide decoration for sets. Color also has other uses in movies. In some cases, color can be used symbolically. For example, in this scene from The Royal Tenenbaums the character Richie is contemplating suicide. Blue is the dominant color in the production design, and a blue filter is additionally used to give a bluish tinge to the entire shot. Blue is a color that we associate with sorrow in US culture.

So the use of the color in this scene is symbolically linked to Ritchie’s emotional state. Likewise, in this scene from body heat, the woman in Mati is trying to convince the man ned to murder her husband, red is the dominant color in the production design for this scene. Red is a color that we associate with danger in US culture. And so the use of the color in this scene signals the dead dangerous situation that Ned finds himself in, we see the symbolic use of color in a slightly different way in films like Pleasantville and medicine for melancholy.

Both of which used a color grading process in post production to bleed out most of the color, so that only selected areas of color remain in each shot. In medicine for melancholy, the colors are used alternately to symbolize moments of connection and moments of disagreement are contrast between the movie’s two protagonists, as in this shot, where the different colors of their shirts symbolically reflect more fundamental differences between them.

Well, in Pleasantville, the symbolic uses of color I tied to both the plot and the themes of the film. As color literally comes into the lives of characters in the film as they take risks, become open to new experiences or ideas, or otherwise step out of their comfort zones. We see a similar thematic use of color in the Wizard of Oz, where the scenes set in Kansas are filmed in sepia tone film stock, while the scenes set in the oz are filmed using Technicolor film stock.

We also see this in Wings of Desire, where the protagonist can only see the world in black and white and from an emotional distance as an angel, but experiences the world in color after he makes the choice to become human. In the case of both of these films, as in Pleasantville, and medicine for melancholy, we see intersections between production design and cinematography, as the symbolic and thematic uses of color in all four films depends not only on the colors chosen for the costumes and sets, but also the way that choices in the cinematography techniques used to film the movies affects the way that those colors show up on screen.

Finally, when it comes to production design, color can be used to both draw and focus the audience’s attention on a particular place, object or person within the image.

In this example, from 500 days of summer, the furniture decor and props in the conference room, as well as the costumes worn by the characters sitting around the table are predominantly in shades of Maroon gray and white. The woman standing at the head of the table stands out not only because she is positioned in the center of the image, but also because her green shirt and sweater are the only variation in color. When watching the film, our eyes will automatically go to her first because the color she is wearing makes her stand out from the rest of the content in the image. I just mentioned the props in the previous image.

The last part of production design for this set is the selection and placement of the props, the objects that the characters use or otherwise interact with. In this example, the props include the lollipop the woman is eating her drink on the bedside table, and the remote for the TV that is on her lap.

All of these aspects of production design that we’ve been discussing set design decor props and color palette, apply to all movies. They are used in scenes that are shot using sets that are entirely constructed on sound stages, as well as scenes that are shot on location using already existing real world places. This image is from the interior of the Ames mansion in eastern Massachusetts, which was used to film the majority of the interior scenes in the home of the character of Harlan thrombey.

In the movie knives out, the mansion was chosen as one of the locations for the film because the architecture fit the general look of what the filmmakers had in mind for what the house should look like. But that doesn’t mean that they just showed up and started filming. The production designer for the film still planned out specific designs for each room in which they filmed and props and decor like this art piece made of knives were brought in to reflect the personality interests and career of the character. Production Design in the case of location shitting is a good illustration of how this element of Milan San is used to create the world of the film.

This is the Bradbury Building in downtown Los Angeles. Originally constructed in 1893, it is one of the oldest architectural structures still standing in the city. Because of its distinctive architecture. It is also a popular location for filming. And it has been used as a setting in hundreds of movies. This is what it looks like in real life in which it is an office building.

This is what it looks like in 500 days of summer, in which it is an architectural firm. This is what it looks like in Blade Runner in which it is an apartment building. And this is what it looks like in the artist in which it is a Hollywood movie studio. In all three cases, it’s the exact same space. In fact, in the two images on the left, it’s literally the same place within the building, the camera is just placed further away in the shot on the bottom.

And yet even in spite of its very distinctive architecture. The building looks very different in all three films thanks to the production design, which locates the building in three very different story worlds with three very different visual environments and three very different vibes. In the same way that production design applies to both studio sets and location sheeting.

It also applies in the case of external locations shot using miniatures. This is one of the exterior sets for the film Blade Runner 2049 In which miniatures were used to visualize Los Angeles 30 years into the future. Production Design also applies to movies in which sets are virtually simulated using computer generated imaging or CGI. This is one such example from the movie Black Panther, in which the country of Wakanda was created by digital effects artists working in conjunction with the production design team.

As I were looking at the symbolic uses of color has already suggested productions design does more than just provide locations in which to stage the plot events that make up a movie narratives. Production Design is also frequently used to communicate implicit meaning, meaning that in the case a production design is implied through visual elements. And that can either be used to provide the audience with story information to create symbolism, or to emphasize the movies themes. Our next video is going to look in more depth at this aspect of production design.


As mentioned in our last article production design does more than just provide locations in which to stage the plot events that make up moving narratives. Production Design is also frequently used to communicate implicit meaning, meaning that in the case of production design is implied through visual elements. And that can either be used to provide the audience with story information, to create symbolism, or to emphasize the movies themes. In terms of how movie content the story is presented to viewers the form using production design, both story and plot information are communicated through sets and props. This includes characterization providing information about characters, as well as both story details and plot details.

So for example, in this shot from the movie Children of Men, the newspaper clippings on the wall in the background with the shot provide the audience with backstory, background information that in the case of the newspaper headlines is never directly referenced in the film. But that helps the audience to fill in some of the blanks in terms of figuring out how the world ended up in the state that we see it in when the film begins. Likewise, the plot of the movie arrival revolves around the main characters learning to understand and communicate in an alien language that is based entirely on visual symbols.

It was up to the production designers working on the film to invent that language, and then to come up with a way to represent it on screen, as well as to find a way to represent the aliens and the humans communicating back and forth using these symbols, which is what we see in this shot on the bottom right of the screen.

Implicit meaning related to both plot and themes is also communicated through production design. For example, in Bartholomew’s song, the high degree of conformity that characterizes the world of the film is visually communicated through the uniformity in the color scheme and decor of all of the rooms in the compound where the story takes place. This is production design. It’s also communicated through the similarities in the physical appearances of all of the characters, costumes, hairstyle, makeup, and the way that their movements are all synchronized staging and performance.

So we see here all of the elements of business on sin working together to help emphasize the movies themes. One of the ways that production design can provide story information is through the information that sets can reveal about characters in the film, their personalities, their tastes, their interests, their socioeconomic class, etc. This example from 500 Days of Summer is a shot that appears in the second scene in the film. It only lasts on screen for roughly 15 seconds. But in that time, the things that we see in the kitchen of Tom’s apartment hinted information about his character that we learn in more detail later in the film. Here are the photographs of historic buildings reflect his love of Los Angeles his architectural his history, while the drawings connect to his failed dream of a career as an architect. Production design can also provide us with information about characters emotional states.

In this scene in Spider Man into the spider verse, Peter B. Parker’s depression, his loss of confidence, and the crisis he faces concerning his commitment to his superhero mission, all of which are precipitated by the failure of his marriage, are reflected in the discarded clothing and take out trash littering the floor of his apartment, his unmade bed, and the fact that we see most of his possessions still in boxes, suggesting he has not yet been able to bring himself to unpack that.

In that same film, we also see an example of the symbolic uses of production design in terms of the mural that Miles paints towards the beginning of the film, and that functions in the movie as a motif related to both the coming of age and superhero plots that make up the movies narrative. In the same way that sets can provide us with visual information about characters. They are also frequently used to provide us with visual information about the world of the film. In the movie Elysium. The desperate and decidedly dystopian condition of Earth in the year 2154 is perfectly encapsulated by this shot of Los Angeles from early in the film.

The Rundown state of the building suggests the high level of poverty among those still living on Earth, while both the accumulation of trash and the smog hinted the rampant environmentalist Have a station that is ravaging the planet. The massive billboards hanging from the building suggests materialism and overconsumption while the ramshackle structures crowding all of the available space on the roofs of the buildings hinted overpopulation. Finally the police helicopters circling overhead provided glimpse of both the police state in the widespread civil unrest that characterize life in the city in the film.

The contrast in the film between the conditions in Los Angeles and those on the offworld colony of LeSean illustrate the ways in which production design can be used fanatically. In this film, the inhabitants of earth are made up largely of the poor and the working class who were exploited for their labor. While the wealthy all live in luxury on LeSean. The class inequalities there at the center of the film’s plot, and are also one of its major themes is emphasized by the striking visual disparities between these two locations.

Like sets props can also serve both a narrative function and a thematic function in movies, the whiteboards that the humans used to communicate with the aliens in arrival, Ernesto de la Cruz is guitar, the theft of which is the events that sets the plot in motion in cocoa. Both the Infinity Stones and the Infinity Gauntlet in Avengers Infinity War, and the reel to reel tape recorder in Bartholomew song are all examples where props play a major part in the plot of the movie.

One of the most famous examples of a prop that is used to communicate implicit meaning related to movies themes is the sled in Citizen Kane, which connects both to the title characters lost childhood and to the movies ruminations on what gives life meaning, as well as the existential question of what any one individual life amounts to in the greater scheme of things. We also see the thematic use of a prop in the dark night, in which Harvey dents habit of flipping his lucky coin at pivotal moments in his life, takes on thematic significance after a tragic loss drives him to give up the fight for justice and become a villain bent on revenge.

Harvey dents coin in The Dark Knight as well as the things we learn about Tom in 500 days of summer and Peter be Parker in Spider Man into the spider verse from the decor of their apartments are also examples of the ways in which production design can additionally be used for the purposes of characterization. Our next video we’ll take a look at the ways in which in movies Mazon Sanan can also provide characterization through costumes, makeup and hairstyles, as well as through staging and performance.


Part one of this discussion briefly touched on some of the ways that muslin sun can be used to provide characterization in movies through production design. Before we look at the other ways that this is done through costumes, makeup, hairstyle, staging and performance, it might be helpful to pause for a moment to consider that characterization is one of the places where we see two different elements of film form, narrative and Milan Sen intersect when it comes to investing characters with unique individual personalities and traits, as well as to bringing them to life on screen. characterization in movies is done primarily in three ways.

The script, which is what the movies narrative comes from, contributes to characterization by determining what characters say and do staging and performance contribute to characterization by determining how characters say and do those things. So how they speak how they move, and how they do the things that it is written in the script that they do.

Costumes, makeup and hairstyles determine how characters look, and also help to individuated characters by investing them with a personal style of dress and appearance. In movies, costumes, and costume design. Include everything that characters wear, both clothing and accessories, makeup and hairstyles and their respective design processes involve everything pertaining to the physical appearances of characters, things like hair color and styles, their overall grooming, eye color, skin texture and color, etc.

Because movies frequently require actors to go through radical physical alterations in order to become the characters that they portray. hairstyles in movies include the use of wigs and false mustaches or beards, while makeup includes cosmetics, but also the use of prosthetics body padding false eyelashes, false teeth, false fingernails, contact lenses, and digitally rendered alterations or enhancements to their physical appearances that are done using CGI.

So for example, in Citizen Kane, Director Orson Welles, who made the movie when he was 25 years old, also plays the role of Charles Foster Kane at various periods in his life from his 20s through his 70s to age him up to portray the character in middle age and as a senior citizen, bald caps, body padding and various percent acts were used along with cosmetics to alter both his facial features and his bodily appearance. Prosthetics were also used to create Kylo Ren scar in the last Jedi in the rise of Skywalker, as well as to provide Freddy Krueger with his burn scars in the Nightmare on Elm Street horror movie franchise.

In those films, the actor is actually wearing a latex mask that gives the skin of the character both the appearance and the texture of healed burns, and Guardians of the Galaxy cosmetics give Yondu his blue skin tone. Well in Black Panther computer generated imaging was used to transform the body of actor Andy Serkis who has not had an arm amputated above the elbow into that of Ulysses Klaw who has as with production design, costumes, makeup and hairstyles are another component of Milan Sen. They can be used to communicate implicit meaning that provides the audience with story information, character’s personal appearances and their individual personal styles in terms of dressing grooming.

The way that they styled their bodies gives us visual information about their personalities, their tastes and their interests. It also gives us visual information about character’s life circumstances, their ages, their gender identities, their socio economic statuses, and their jobs. Since these are all things they in our culture, we express their manner of dress and or body presentation. So for example, in Spider Man into the spider verse we first learned that Miles his mother’s a nurse when we see her dress for work in her nurse’s uniform.

In the Breakfast Club, the different high school cliques or social groups that each of the students identifies as a member of is signaled through the way that they dress and through their personal grooming. In Crazy Rich Asians the character of peak Lin has a quirky personality that is expressed through her offbeat style of dress and in medicine for melancholy. Joe’s t shirt identifies her as a fan of the filmmaker Barbara load in long before she shares that fact. While the Tom Waits t shirt worn by Pete and knocked up and the talking heads t shirt worn by Elio in call me by your name but Tell us something about their taste in music.

Likewise, just as with production design, costumes, makeup and hairstyles can also be used to communicate implicit meaning that is symbolic or that is thematic. In other words, symbolic but also directly related to one of the movies themes. There are a lot of different ways that this can be done, but one of the most common is the ways in which changes in characters physical appearances can be used to symbolize changes in those characters, whether it is changes to their life circumstances, changes to their emotional states, or some other kind of change.

This can be a relatively routine change, such as showing the process of the character aging through the years as in Citizen Kane, or it can be something more profound, such as using Ritchie’s change of appearance in The Royal Tenenbaums to symbolize the emotional catharsis that he experiences and the new approach to living his life that he embraces after surviving a suicide attempt. We also see this in Spider Man into the spider verse through the subtle changes in Peter B. Parker’s appearance as he regains his confidence and his sense of purpose, and he re commits to his superhero mission as a result of becoming Miles’s mentor.

In this case, his more put together appearance at the end of the film reflects the fact that he is in the process of putting himself and his life back together after his divorce, and also possibly putting his marriage back together. One of the oldest and still one of the more common symbolic uses of costumes, makeup and hairstyles is the way that villains are often visually identified by being dressed in dark colors. Not all villains dressed in dark colors, and sometimes heroes in movies like Batman do. So this is not absolute, and it is not true of every movie. But it is a long standing representational convention that is used in a lot of movies.

This is a representational convention that originated in movie westerns, where the villain was often shown wearing a black hat while the hero wore white hats. That color coding is a way of visually identifying the heroes and the villains in movies is still widely used today. The Star Wars example also provides an illustration of another representational trope that uses makeup to visually identify villains in movies. In the case of Kylo Ren the scar on his face follows a long and decidedly ableist tradition of using scars as well as physical disabilities, body traits that are both culturally perceived as physical flaws, as the signifier of inner character flaws or moral failings that are externally manifested on the body in ways that symbolically mark the villains as villains.

In Bartholomew’s song we see a thematic use of costumes and hairstyles with the identical clothing and haircuts with all the characters not to mention the exclusive casting of white actors which gives all the characters the identical skin tones, visually symbolizing the high level of conformity that defines the worlds of the film. Of course, we see this in the synchronized movements of the characters as well, which provides an illustration of how costumes makeup and hairstyles intersect with both staging and performance when it comes to characterization through Miss onset. In movies, staging refers to the arrangement of people and objects within the space that we see on screen in any given shots. It also encompasses the movement of people within that space, the technical term for which is the blocking of the shot.

So in other words, when a character moves and where they move to, none of these things happen spontaneously in movies, staging is meticulously and deliberately planned to help for every shot by the director, the DP or director of photography, which is another term for the cinematographer. And the actors. Staging has a practical use in that it takes the plot events and the character actions that are described in the movie script and enacts them on screen.

Staging can also sometimes have a symbolic use, in that it can also be used to communicate implicit meaning. This is what we see in terms of both the uniform positioning and the synchronized movements of the characters in Bartholomew’s song, which uses staging along with production design, costumes, makeup, hairstyles and performance in ways that are all connected to the movies themes. One of the more common uses of staging is to either visually suggest or visually emphasize relationship dynamics between characters in the film. Probably the most famous example of this comes from the breakfast table montage in Citizen Kane, which shows the dissolution of Charles Foster Keynes first Marriage over the course of several years, there are a series of brief scenes of he and his wife having breakfast.

At the beginning of their marriage, we see them sitting close together, smiling and talking. Towards the end of their marriage, we see them sitting on opposite ends of the table reading different newspapers and ignoring one another. In both cases, the staging of the scene reflects the shift from closeness to alienation, as the growing physical distance between them is used to symbolize their growing emotional distance. Similarly, the adversarial and deeply antagonistic relationship between two Chawla and Eric in Black Panther are suggested by their poses and facial expressions in this shot, while miles his admiration for Peter be Parker is likewise suggested by the way he mimics Peters pose, in this shot from Spider Man into the spider verse, finally in the Royal 10 involves the character of Marco who is adopted and feels like an outsider and the tenant bond family is frequently shown standing apart and at a visible distance from the other members of the family when they are all together.

In all of these examples of staging we also see intersections with performance, as implicit meaning is communicated both through the positioning of characters and through their movements, body language and facial expressions. Performance is another term for acting. It includes all of the choices that actors make about posture, body language, movement, gestures, facial expressions, tone of voice, speech patterns and vocal intonations as they perform their roles and bring the characters that they portray to life on screen.

Because performance is another place where we see aspects of narrative and aspects of Miss on Sun intersecting, I think it might be helpful to emphasize that when we are analyzing performance in a movie, we are not analyzing what characters say or do. Those things are determined by the script and are part of the mood of these narrative. So if a character cries, gets angry and yells or jumps up and down, because they’re excited about something that is not acting, the script tells them to do that.

Instead, performance is how the characters say and do the things that are written in the script. So how the actor chooses to cry how the ACT chooses to yell or jump up and down with excitement, since there are different ways that a character can do those same things. Before we move on to discussing lighting, which is the final component of Mazon seven that will be discussed in part three of this video, we need to consider one final aspect of both production design and staging, which is that they both can sometimes serve a purely aesthetic function rather than a narrative thematic or symbolic one.

When we talk about a movie as a static or about the aesthetics of a particular image in a movie, we are talking about the things that make that image either visually beautiful or visually striking. So for example, in the case of this image from Spider Man into the spider verse, or this image from last year at Marian dad, there is not necessarily any kind of deeper meaning behind the staging of these shots. Here are the motivation behind both the staging and the production design is to make the shots and visually pleasing as well as interesting to look at. We are going to see the same balance between narrative symbolic and aesthetic uses of MS on San when it comes to move the lighting, which is the subject of the third part of this video.


Movie lighting like staging has practical uses, as well as narrative symbolic and esthetic uses. There are very few scenes in movies that are shot using only the available ambient or natural lighting. The movie The Revenant was actually almost entirely shot using natural lights, but that is very, very rare. Most scenes in most movies whether shot on soundstages or on location outdoors, use electric lights and lighting reflectors and have specific lighting designs for where those lights and reflectors will be placed, and what kind of lighting effects they will produce.

On the practical side lighting is used during filming to make it possible for the images to be captured in a way that allows audiences to clearly see what is happening on screen. In the case of movies shot using analog cameras and celluloid film stock light is also needed to record the movie images onto the film. While it works in a slightly different way.

For movies that are shot using digital cameras, light is still needed to capture the images. So there is another practical use for movie lighting for digital cinematography as well. As the reading for this week explains movie lighting starts with the basic three point lighting system and then provides variations on this setup depending on the specific lighting effect that the movies director and DP the Director of Photography want to achieve.

All of the different lighting techniques that are discussed in the reading are dependent on the placement and relative levels of brightness or intensity of the lighting used to film. backlighting top lighting and under lighting for example, all depends on the placement of the primary lighting source for the scene.

While both high key and low key lighting depends on the relative intensity of the key light. We are going to be discussing these techniques and looking at examples in class this week. But before we do that, I do want to provide one clarification about high key and low key lighting to hopefully clear up some of the confusion that usually crops up around these concepts. high key lighting is not scenes in which it is daytime or scenes that have bright light.

And low key lighting is not scenes where it is nighttime or scenes that have dim lighting. high key lighting and low key lighting are lighting effects that have to do with the relative contrast between light and shadow, not lighting levels. In other words, it has to do with how much or how little shadow there is in the shot, not how bright or how dark the lighting is. Both of the images on the top of the screen are examples of high key lighting.

And both of the images on the bottom of the screen are examples of low key lighting. And understanding what high key lighting and low key lighting are and what the difference is between them, it might be helpful to think about it in this way. high key lighting either significantly reduces or entirely eliminates shadows, while low key lighting produces shadows, creating contrasting areas of light and shadow within a given shot.

Regardless of which lighting technique is used in any given scene in a movie. The choice of that technique is often based on more than just practical considerations. In other words, choices in movie lighting are often as much about film aesthetics and communicating implicit meaning as they are about the mechanics of providing adequate light for capturing images. When it comes to implicit meaning there are a number of ways in which movie lighting can be used symbolically as well as the magically. In this shot from Moulin Rouge, one of Sutton’s clients arrives at her door.

Backlighting is used to render him in silhouette, suggesting at once the illicit nature of sateen status as a sex worker, the anonymity of her encounters with her clients and the fact that they are all more or less undistinguishable and interchangeable. In this shot from arrival. Both low key lighting and backlighting are used to represent the grief that Louise experiences when her teenage daughter dies as the result of an incurable medical condition.

In this shot from Double Indemnity, low key lighting is used to cast shadow over felicitous face, suggesting her nefarious intentions and seducing Walter and later on in the film after she is convinced him to murder her husband. Low key lighting is used in this shot to cast shadows in the pattern of the vertical blinds across Walter visually mimicking bars on a cage or perhaps a jail cell. While in this shot from Spider Man into the spider verse.

Low key lighting is similarly used to suggest moral ambiguity and a metaphorical descent into darkness. After miles is Uncle Aaron is revealed to be the Prowler. In this shot from 500 Days of Summer, backlighting is used in conjunction with a diffusion lens on the camera to give the impression that the light is glowing, creating a halo effect around summer. A common technique in romance movies that is used to generate a literal aura of romance around the character.

A technique that we also see used in this shot minus the use of the diffusion lens from call me by your name. Lighting can also be used to set the tone of his scene, or to set the tone of an entire film. For example, both under lighting and low key lighting are staple lighting techniques used in horror films to generate feelings of unease and anxiety. Low key lighting is similarly used in both thrillers and mysteries to create a sense of suspense.

And in this very famous example from the movie suspicion, low key lighting is used to create a sense of madness, as we watch Johnny approach the bedroom of his bedridden wife with another dose of the poison he has been using to slowly kill her. A light placed inside the glass of milk containing the poison adds to the madness by making it appear to glow like a beacon signaling danger. Similarly, high key lighting is common in both comedies and musicals, where it works to complement the light hearted tones, the humorous or triumphant storylines, and the happy endings that are widespread features of both genres, though not exclusively in the case of musicals, because there are also musicals that are tragedies.

And in the case of those films, they tend not to use high key lighting as much. Just as with staging and production design. There are also cases where the lighting design for a specific shot or for an entire scene in a film is chosen to create an image that is visually beautiful or that is striking to look at. In this shot from Blade Runner 2049. The production design, the placement of the camera, and the use of the filter that gives the light a red tinge, all work together to create a very striking image, as well as a sense of desolation and awe as the protagonist walks through this desolate wasteland and pass the towering statues. In this shot from Tangled, the light cast from the floating lanterns creates a visually beautiful image, as well as working symbolically to create a feeling of romance.

This shot from atonement was filmed at the golden hour, the hour just after sunrise or the hour just before sunset, which gets its name for the quality of the light, which has a golden glow to it. The Golden lights along with the backlighting that creates the silhouette effect results in another visually beautiful image. And in this shot from the tree of life, the upside down placement of the camera, the use of a wide angle lens to create visual distortion, and the shadows cast on the sidewalk that are the visual focus of this shot, work together to produce an image that is both interesting and striking. Finally, both color and lighting can also be used to focus the audience’s attention on a particular spot within the image. In this shot from Moulin Rouge front lighting spotlights the two figures in the foreground of the image while casting the crowd in the background into shadow.

This focuses our attention on the two figures in the foreground, since the action involving them is what is important in terms of the plot development of the film, while what any one individual person in the crowd is doing is not important. Similarly, in this shot from Spider Man into the spider verse, top lighting is used along with low key lighting to focus our attention on Spider Man in the Green Goblin, who appeared in the soul pool of light in the image, as the conversation between them is what is important at this moment in the film. In the nice shot from Blade Runner, 2049 backlighting and low key lighting are used together to spotlight the woman walking towards the camera, while also concealing her identities since the backlighting results in her appearing in silhouette. This not only focuses audience attention on her but also works to create both mystery and suspense. In several of these images.

We also see examples of intersections between lighting and cinematography. As it is both the lighting techniques and the filming techniques, the placement of the camera the use of filters the use of specific types of lenses that work together to communicate implicit meaning as well as to contribute to the movies overall visual aesthetic cinematography is the next element of film form that we will be examining in our next video.

What is VFX? Ultimate Beginner’s Guide: Definitions & Examples

what is VFX, what is visual effects, motionvfx, composting in vfx

In Hollywood movies, visual effects (or “VFX” for short) are a huge part of the storytelling. A lot of the time, it doesn’t matter how well written the script is, if the special effects are not convincing enough, the audience won’t believe it.

There’s even a special Oscar® category just for them. But what about those visual effects shots—how do they work?

If you’re a fan of movies, chances are you’ve seen some really awesome visual effects. These are the special effects and computer-generated imagery that make movies like Star Wars, Avatar, and Titanic so great. Now, there’s a whole new wave of tools that allow for even more exciting and engaging storytelling.

As we all know, VFX is an expensive process and takes years to create. It’s also incredibly hard work. There are over a thousand different VFX artists and engineers working on each Hollywood blockbuster movie.

VFX (Visual Effects) 101

Visual effects are an essential element in movie production, especially Hollywood blockbusters. They  are a key part of today’s films, whether it’s for a Hollywood blockbuster or a television series.

They can give viewers a better understanding of the story being told and allow filmmakers to add a sense of scale to the experience. Visual effects are a key part of today’s films, whether it’s for a Hollywood blockbuster or a television series.

While visual effects have been used in film since its inception, the recent explosion in popularity and development of computer-generated imagery (CGI) has revolutionized how visual effects are created.

As a result, many visual effects artists now specialize in creating visual effects using CGI rather than traditional techniques such as stop motion, puppetry, claymation, etc.

The most common use of visual effects is in the creation of special effects such as explosions, fire, creature creation and the destruction of objects to name a few. If the director can think it up in his or her mind, VFX artists can bring it into reality.

History of Visual Effects in movies

The history of visual effects in film can be traced back to a French inventor named Louis Le Prince. His invention, an automated stage for motion pictures, was the first ever movie camera.

In 1902, Georges Méliès, a French inventor, began the first known use of stop-motion animation. In 1908, he introduced the first known use of a “double exposure” technique in film. In 1927, the process was further refined with the introduction of the first practical optical printer, which allowed for the creation of three-dimensional images.

The 1930s saw the introduction of a new technology, optical compositing, which allowed for the production of the illusion of depth in a two-dimensional image.

This became the standard for all visual effects in Hollywood films until the 1950s, when computer technology made it possible to create special effects that were previously impossible or impractical.

By the 1960s, these techniques became commonplace, and visual effects began to play a major role in the production of feature films. The 1970s ushered in a new era of visual effects. The advent of digital technology allowed for the creation of more realistic special effects.

This led to the development of computer graphics, or CGI, which is now a significant part of the visual effects industry. The 1980s brought with it another technological revolution: the introduction of the digital camera.

This gave rise to an entirely new genre of visual effects, known as “digital compositing,” which combined digital image manipulation with traditional visual effects. In the 1990s, the “look” of visual effects was greatly refined through the use of digital technology.

This resulted in the development of photorealistic visual effects (or PFX) which, in turn, inspired a new generation of visual effects artists. The new wave of visual effects artists came from backgrounds in film, animation, television, video games, and digital media.

The 2000s have seen a new round of technological advances. Digital photography has advanced to the point that real-time digital compositing is possible, making it possible to integrate live-action footage into CG-generated images.

What is a VFX Pipeline?

The VFX pipeline involves every stage of a movie’s production and post-production. Let’s go down the rabbit-hole as we explain the steps of the VFX pipeline in more detail.

Storyboarding and Animatics

Storyboarding and Animatics in movies is a process where the script is broken down into individual scenes and each scene is then animated. This process allows vfx artsits and animators to see how each element of the scene will look and move onscreen, before all of it is assembled and put together in the final cut of the movie.

The same method can be used to help you visualize the various sections of your content.

What is Pre-Vis?

Pre-vis is a process where visual artists will begin to draw out storyboards of scenes before a movie is even shot. This serves to help directors visualize what they want to achieve visually.

This process helps the director stay focused on the overall story while giving him or her a chance to refine it. Pre-vis is a very important step because it allows the director to see what the finished movie is going to look like before they shoot the actual movie.

This helps the director keep his or her eye on the big picture while the visual artist keeps his or her eye on the details.

Film director Alfred Hitchcock famously loved to storyboard ever single frame of his films. He has so much confidence in the pre-vis process that he rarely ever looked through the camera, he would just have his cinematographer follow his storyboards to frame the scenes.

Concept and Design Process

Concept art and design are two different aspects of the process, and sometimes they’re used interchangeably. When we think about concept art, we imagine images from movies, video games, or comics.

In fact, a concept art piece can be something as simple as a sketch on a napkin, to an elaborate rendering on paper or canvas. While concept art is typically not directly tied to the final design, it’s a crucial component of the entire creative process.

The movie director or designer may use a concept artist to help guide them in their artistic vision. The designer’s job is to bring those images to life. This is an important stage of the process because it often takes a few iterations to get to the final design.

Ralph McQuarrie was a famous concept artist for the Star Wars franchise who created a number of highly-recognized concept images, including the Death Star, Yoda’s home, and Darth Vader’s helmet.

His style can be seen in many of the most recognizable images of the original Star Wars trilogy. In addition, his work can be found throughout Disney history as well, including a lot of concept art from the Indiana Jones and James Bond films.

What the Heck is Matchmove and Camera Tracking?

Matchmove is an important tool in the VFX artists toolkit. While it was initially designed to match the movements of actors against a green screen background, its use has expanded greatly and can be used to create all sorts of amazing effects in post-production.

Matchmove is a software tool that matches the movements of an actor with a background image. It’s most commonly used for green screen effects, but it can be used in many other ways.

Matchmove works by using the information from a green screen tracking camera and combining it with the image from the source footage (usually a video or photo). The software will try to figure out where the actor is in relation to the background and create a composite image with their movements.

As for Camera Tracking, it’s a process of creating a virtual camera that follows a real camera around while capturing video or photographs. It’s often used to create the effect where the camera is actually moving inside a scene.

Layout and Production Design

One of the key aspects of film production is the art of layout and production design. With such a large amount of information being presented to the audience, the director, editor, producers and other staff must ensure that all elements are aligned and fit together in a way that is pleasing to the eye.

The process begins with the production design of the overall look and feel of the movie, which should be inspired by the director’s vision. After the design is completed, it’s time to lay out the script and the scene in terms of visual elements: camera angles, lighting, set dressing, etc.

The layout stage continues with the development of each shot, including editing, color correction, compositing, and any special effects required for the film.

What is Asset Creation and Modeling?

“Modeling” refers to the creation of a digital version of your real-world object that will be used to replace that object in the final product. The digital version of the object needs to be very realistic and detailed.

For example, if you’re creating a car in a movie and you need to model the body of the car in order to replace the real-world body in the final product, the body of the car needs to be 100% accurate. The same applies to modeling any other physical object in the movie.

If you’re making a video game or animated movie, the more accurate your models are, the better the final product will look. In addition to modeling, you also need to create digital versions of all the elements that go into your real-world objects.

For example, you need to create digital versions of the wheels, tires, lights, engine, etc. These items are called “assets” and they need to be created with the same level of detail as your models. You can have assets of any type: 2D images, 3D models, textures, sounds, animations, etc.

In the film industry, R&D refers to the process of development and production of visual effects and motion picture animation. Most often used in the context of feature films, the term “visual effects” includes the processes of creating the final composite of a set piece such as the background or foreground of a shot, the 3D models and animation for a set, matte paintings, special effects, optical effects, and more.

Motion picture animation involves creating the visual effects and motion for a motion picture.

R&D is not restricted to film; it can also include computer animation. The process of motion picture animation begins with a storyboard. Storyboards are the preliminary drawings that visualize a scene from start to finish, showing all of the actions and camera angles for a sequence of scenes.

The storyboard is then used as a guide for the design and creation of a three-dimensional model or animated figure. A director, producer, and other members of the creative team use these tools to come up with the visual style and theme of a motion picture.

A common problem in visual effects is called “rigging”. A “rig” is a complicated device that controls, moves, rotates, or otherwise manipulates a character or object in the virtual world of a movie, video game, etc.

This is usually done using a computer program. To the untrained eye, the end result might look as though it was created by magic. However, many animators and artists spend weeks, months, or even years learning how to rig a character or object.

So why does a rigger do what they do? If you have ever watched a movie where there are visual effects and you noticed how unrealistic something looked, that’s because it was rigged.

When a character walks, you notice how their legs are moving in a way that doesn’t make sense, but a rigging expert can do that for you.

What is Animation?

When we animate things in movies, it’s usually a sign of something special going on in the movie. For example, when someone flies off the roof of a building and falls to his death, that’s a pretty dramatic moment.

If you think about it, when a character flies off the roof of a building and falls to his or her death, it’s actually quite realistic because we don’t see it very often. And yet when it happens, it’s an incredibly dramatic moment and makes people stop and watch.

It’s similar to how many of us are affected by a sudden burst of laughter or a funny story. It’s an instant response that draws us in.

That’s what animation is all about: drawing us into your story. We’re interested in how a character responds to something, and it’s fun to see how things develop. Animation is the art of drawing pictures to make a story happen. It’s not limited to movies or TV shows, but it’s probably the most well-known form of animation.

It’s also one of the oldest forms of animation. It’s been around for more than 100 years. In the 1920s, animation was very different than it is today. There were no computers, no special effects, and no special characters. In fact, when animation began, it was pretty crude.

It looked like this: Nowadays, we can do so much more with animation. We can have special effects, 3D environments, and animated characters.

FX and Simulation

What’s the difference between simulation and FX? While both are used to create the look of the movie world, they are slightly different in how they are used. FX is used to create a realistic look to the scenes.

You see, the things that you see on film, such as explosions, fires, etc., were all simulated, which means they were created digitally in the computer. Simulation, on the other hand, can be used to create almost anything.

It can be used to create an environment, a landscape, or even an object. If you have ever seen the movie Avatar, you know exactly what I’m talking about. The movie’s environment was simulated because it was so realistic that it was actually real.

There are so many uses for FX and simulation, but one of the main ones is to create the look of a scene. You’ll see movies like Avatar where the environment is completely simulated and you never question the reality of world of Pandora.

Lighting and Rendering a Scene

You’ve heard of lighting, right? The “flickering light bulbs” on the ceiling in your living room? Well, lighting is the light source in a shot. And when you add a light source to a shot, you need to render the scene.

Rendering is the process of taking images and objects from a computer screen into the 3D space of a virtual reality world. Lighting and rendering in visual effects are used to make objects look more realistic.

Lighting and rendering in visual effects are also used to add depth to images and create special effects such as glowing faces and eyes.

The first step is lighting. If you don’t have an accurate model of the environment, it’s impossible to render a realistic image.

The second is rendering, which involves applying shadows, colors, and textures. In the third step, the rendered image is sent back to the camera and then put into the scene for the final product.

So how do they get that? They use software called RenderMan. RenderMan is a collection of programs that allow artists to create a digital model of a scene, then tweak the model with lighting and other effects, and render that into a movie file.

Digital Compositing: The Unsung Heroes of VFX

Digital compositing is a process used in visual effects for special effects in movies. It is often seen in scenes where there is some action or special effects happening.

This is done by combining various images together in a seamless way. A lot of work has gone into making these seamless transitions. The key is to make sure the images are aligned properly and also making sure that they don’t move, which can be tricky at times.

Compositing involves using software and hardware to combine images together.

It can be done manually or with automation. The software is used to blend two images together to make them look as if they were one. The hardware is the part that actually makes the image transition possible.

This hardware can include a green screen or a studio backdrop. This allows the image to be blended seamlessly. This is usually done with an array of lights that are used to project light onto the backdrop.

This makes it easier for the software to blend the image together and make it seamless. There are many different ways to composite images together.

Green Screen vs Blue Screen?

Green screen refers to the part of a movie set where a background is used, usually for visual effects. In live-action movies, the green screen background is often painted on a special stage, while in animation, computer graphics or 3D movies, the image can be projected onto a blue screen.

Blue screen refers to the black backdrop that is used to hide anything that would be distracting, such as people, lights, or other objects. It’s used in both live-action and animated movies, but its function is much more important in live action.

The blue screen can be built into a set or used as a portable screen that fits over existing sets or actors’ faces.

Down the Rabbit Hole

I hope you have enjoyed your journey down the rabbit hole of visual effects. In conclusion, for VFX movies, the entire look of the movie is created using computers. Special effects are used to create a virtual image of what is happening in a scene in a movie.

The goal is to create a new image that was not possible before the development of VFX techniques/ When a filmmaker makes a movie, they have to tell a story in a limited amount of time.

It’s not always possible for a director or cinematographer to tell a story without using some sort of visual effects. VFX can include things like creating a new setting, changing an object, or removing something.

Up next: What is Rotoscoping Animation?

The Ultimate Guide to Stanley Kubrick’s Lenses Collection

When you hear Stanley Kubrick, you think of images. One of the many reasons Kubrick was such a remarkable filmmaker was that he came to the film industry after years working as a professional photographer for publications like Look magazine. There he learned about composition, light and of course lenses.

Not many film directors worry about the latest camera tech–cinematographers usually take that job up–but Kubrick was no ordinary director. Even though he wasn’t the first filmmaker to use the Steadicam, on The Shining, he was the first to have the rig modified so it could hover close to the ground in those legendary shots of Danny on the big wheel.

In the video below, Joe Dunton, owner of one of the biggest camera rental facilities in the United Kingdom and worked extremely closely with Stanley, takes us on a guided tour of Kubrick’s lens collection. For those who went to the traveling Stanley Kubrick exhibit (see the videos below) two to three years ago, you might have seen this video playing in the exhibit.

Kubrick rarely rented film gear or lenses and preferred to own his own. Stanley lit mostly with natural light when he could–because of his photojournalism career. Sometimes the flicker of a candle is all the light he would have, which led to the use of the legendary Zeiss lens designed for NASA as a way shooting the deep darkness of space–Kubrick used it for the evening dining room scenes in Barry Lyndon in order to capture candlelight on the slower film stocks of the day.

One of the unsung heroes in all this, it’s a man named George Hill, who was Stanley Kubrick’s go-to-guy when he wanted to create a custom lens for a project. George was also the only guy he trusted to clean his lenses collection. Enjoy!

Stanley Kubrick’s Favorite Cameras & Lenses

I’ve always been fascinated with how some of the filmmaking masters got their start. How did they break into the business? What gear did they use on their first films? What events shaped them in the early days? As many of you know I have a love for Stanley Kubrick and his films. I always knew he got his start as a photographer for LOOK Magazine but I never could find out what cameras he shot on.

I did go into a pretty lengthy post on Kubrick Lenses but now, thanks to CinemaTyler’s ongoing “Kubrick Files” series on Youtube, we can now see what cameras and photo lenses help shape this master. If you are interested in Stanley Kubrick’s early days as a photographer I recommend two amazing books on the subject:

  • Stanley Kubrick: Drama and Shadows
  • Stanley Kubrick at Look Magazine: Authorship and Genre in Photojournalism and Film

The video discusses 20 cameras and lenses including the famous Zeiss Planar 50mm F0.7, the lens Kubrick used to shoot the candlelight scenes in Barry Lyndon. We also discover Kubrick’s most beloved camera was the Arriflex 35 II, which he shot A Clockwork Orange, Barry LyndonFull Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut.

Here are a list of the cameras and lenses discussed (via IndieWire)

1. Garflex Pacemaker Speed Graphic Camera
2. Kodak Monitor 620
3. Rolleiflex Automat 6×6 Model RF 111A
4. Rolleiflex K2
5. Rolleiflex Automat 6×6 Model K4
6. Rollei 35
7. Polaroid Pathfinder 110A
8. Leica IIIc
9. Pentax K
10. Hasselblad
11. Nikon F
12. Subminiature Minox
13. 35mm Widelux
14. Polaroid OneStep SX-70
15. Arriflex 35 IIC
16. Kinoptik Tegea 9.8mm
17. Novoflex 400mm f5.6 lens
18. Cooke Varotal 20-100mm T3
19. Cinepro 24-480mm in Arri Standard Mount
20. Zeiss Planar 50mm F0.7

SHORTCODE - SHORTS

Want to watch more short films by legendary filmmakers?

Our collection has short films by Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, the Coen Brothers, Chris Nolan, Tim Burton, Steven Spielberg & more.

IFH 551: Sundance 2022 – La Guerra Civil with Eva Longoria

Eva Longoria, La Guerra Civil, Sundance

Today we have the award-winning actress, director, producer, entrepreneur and activist by the name of Eva Longoria.

Eva Longoria has long established herself as one of the most sought after television directors in Hollywood. Named by Variety as one of their most anticipated directors of 2021, Longoria continues to hone her craft, seek new projects, and expand opportunities for others by paving the way for future women and minority producers, directors and industry leaders in Hollywood and beyond.

Her strong work ethic coupled with her passion for storytelling has led to a pivotal moment as she prepares for the release of her feature film directorial debut with Flamin’ Hot. She recently wrapped production for the highly anticipated Searchlight biopic about the story of Richard Montañez and the spicy Flamin’ Hot Cheetos snack for which she beat out multiple high profile film directors vying for the job.

Eva became well known worldwide thanks to Desperate Housewives, where she played a main character, Gabrielle Solis.

In my journeys as a colorist, VFX and post production supervisor  I had the pleasure of working on a film Eva starred and produced Without Men years ago. I had a ball working on it.

The women of a remote Latin American town are forced to pick up the pieces and remake their world when all the town’s men are forcibly recruited by communist guerrillas. The only men left in town for years are the priest and Julio who was disguised as a woman.

As an trailblazing actress, director, producer, entrepreneur and activist, Eva Longoria has become one the most significant trailblazers behind the camera. For over a decade, she has been directing and choosing projects that have purpose and are focused on elevating the stories of the Latinx and other underrepresented communities.

Eva past television directing credits include the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary Versus, as well as episodes of Ashley Garcia: Genius In Love, Grand Hotel, Black-ish, The Mick, LA to Vegas, Jane the Virgin, Telenovela, Devious Maids, Latinos Living the Dream, and the short films Out of the Blue and A Proper Send-Off.

She was also nominated for a 2021 Daytime Emmy for her directing work on Ashley Garcia: Genius In Love.

As a Global Brand Ambassador for L’Oreal Paris for over 15 years, Longoria has become a frequent director of the brand’s commercials, she recently upped the ante by self-directing the first ever hair color TV commercial created at home on a smartphone at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Eva has also contributed writing to publications on the subject of education. She also has a contract with L’Oreal and has been named one of the most beautiful people. Her latest documentary La Guerra Civil is in this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

This feature-length documentary follows the epic rivalry between iconic boxers Oscar De La Hoya and Julio César Chávez in the 1990s sparked a cultural divide between Mexican nationals and Mexican-Americans. A chronicle of a battle that was more than a boxing rivalry, and examining a fascinating slice of the Latino experience in the process.

Here some of why Eva took on this film:

“In the Mexican and Mexican-American communities, boxing is so much more than a sport. It is a cultural expression of who we are. The 1996 “Ultimate Glory” fight between Julio César Chávez and Oscar De La Hoya will forever be an iconic memory in our lifetimes. At the time, Chávez was a Mexican national hero entering the 100th professional fight of his career and De La Hoya was a Mexican-American boxer about to enter his prime.

Given the distinct differences between these two men and their respective fandoms, nowhere has a rivalry been more intense while also transcending borders to bring everybody together to root for the art of boxing. Many of these same issues of cultural identity dramatically parallel what we are dealing with in our world 25 years later.

This is why I wanted to tell this story: to remind people that we can find commonalities amid our differences to bring us back together.”

Eva and I discuss her struggles coming up as an actress, transitioning into directing and producing and her new film La Guerra Civil.

Enjoy my conversation with Eva Longoria Bastón. 

Right-click here to download the MP3

Alex Ferrari 0:00
I'd like to welcome to the show Eva Longoria. How're you doing Eva?

Eva Longoria 0:16
Im good, how are you?

Alex Ferrari 0:17
I'm doing fantastic. Thank you so much for coming on the show as a fellow Latino, or Latin X, as they say, nowadays. Latina, Latina, I appreciate everything you've done for for us as a community in general. And, and you know, growing up has been, it was very difficult to really see a Latino filmmaker in general. I mean, it was Robert for me. When I was coming up, it was Robert Rodriguez. And I was just like, oh my god, there's a director, who's Latino. So that's amazing. It was the first time I saw so I just wanted to start off by saying thank you so much for all the stuff that you've done for our community and the film industry. So thank you.

Eva Longoria 0:53
Thank you, thanks for talking about this amazing documentary.

Alex Ferrari 0:59
I loved it. By the way, I absolutely loved it. I knew about it. I knew about the story, just being Latino in general. And I would tell like I told my dad only Do you remember this Franco's who, if you're Latino, you remember that fight. But I didn't really understand the whole back and forth between the subcultures if you will of Mexico, Mexican American. But before we get started, we're going to talk all about the documentary, is it how did you go from almost becoming a physical therapist to becoming an actor?

Eva Longoria 1:33
My dream was to work for the Dallas Cowboys. Like I was like, I'm a physical trainer for the Dallas Cowboys. And I've arrived ever. I was in a beauty pageant. It was a Scholarship Pageant in Texas. And my final year in college, I ran out of money, I ran out a Pell Grant, like, I had no way to finish my senior year and my friends like, hey, why don't you enter the Scholarship Pageant? I was like, what's that? And she's like, you know, you. If you win, you get money for school. So I did. And I was like, I've never been even. And I'm from Texas, like, we're born and bred football and pageants. And I never seen one. I never been in one and, and so my goal was to win fourth place, because I was like, if I could just give fourth place. It was like books. Right? Okay, I've covered my books. And then like, third place was like, books, tuition. And then, you know, second place was books, tuition boarding. And then the first place was books, tuition boarding and a stipend. Like I was like, Look, I am in high. I just want, I just want my books, right. And then they called the winners, and they were like, fourth place is so and so. And I was like, Ah, man, I didn't get it. And I ended up winning the whole thing. And I was like, oh, okay, that oh, cool, cool. I got I can pay my senior. And then that pageant made me I had it was like a feeder to go into the next level. And I was like, Oh, I don't I'm not make this a thing on my tuition. And so I had to go into the next one, which was Miss Corpus Christi, where I'm from, and I won that one. And, and literally, my mom was like, This is not your food, like you cannot enter one more page. And I'm like, I don't want to I don't know what's happening. I don't know what especially growing up as libreria FEHA, which is the ugly dark one. And I in that prize package, Miss Corpus Christi was a trip to Los Angeles. And that was the first time I was like, Oh, that'd be fun. I've never been outside of Texas. And, and it was like a talent competition in LA that we had to go to. And so I came and then i i won the talent competition. And I was like, What is going on? I don't know what I'm doing and and literally, agents and managers wanted to sign me and because it was like, it was like the Latin craze. I remember. It was like Ricky Martin,

Alex Ferrari 3:53
Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez, Enrique Iglesias. Yes. Yeah.

Eva Longoria 3:57
Livin La vida loca was, you know, the hit song at the time. And they were like, Oh, my God, if you're Latina, you're gonna like clean up here in Hollywood. They're looking for Latinas. And I was like, Oh, okay. And I just live on one day to the next set. Okay, I think I'm gonna be an actor, just like that. But it was because I had my bachelor's degree that I was like, I can get a job anywhere. It's not like I'm going to be a starving actor, I can go get a job. So I had a lot of confidence that I would be okay. But still not knowing, you know, the industry or anything. I had $23 in my bank account.

Alex Ferrari 4:27
Now the in you decided that, you know, you just like I heard somewhere that you just called up your parents is like, I'm staying. I'm not I'm not going. I'm not flying back.

Eva Longoria 4:35
I didn't even fly back. That's when I moved. I didn't even fly back to go, Okay, let me prepare for this move. No, I just, I came here for three days. And on the third day, I said, I think I'm going to stay. And my mom and my mom was like, Okay, you're going to do what I said, I think I'm gonna be an actor. I mean, I don't know what that means. But I think I'm going to, I'm going to just stay a little longer. See what happens. And my mom said that, well, you know, at least you can get a job. You have your degree, and I said, Yeah, I'm going to Go get a job. And, you know, went got a job and then became a background actor. And, you know, atmosphere actor for a couple years. I was like, let me let me be on a set. I don't even I've never been on a set. Maybe I should figure that out.

Alex Ferrari 5:16
Right. Now did you? Did you feel because I mean, everything seems very serendipitous that you've just a story you've told me did you feel like there was some for something guiding you during this process?

Eva Longoria 5:29
It's so funny you say that. I always say that. I was like, I don't know what it was. But there was something just that felt right. Every step of the way. Like, they were like, I said, I'm going to stay. I wasn't scared. I didn't know anybody. I didn't have a place to live. I didn't have money. And I was like, I'll be okay. I maybe it's naive, you know, naive. It's youth. is bliss. Like if I knew the dangers

Alex Ferrari 5:58
Right, exactly. No, it's like so any any actress is living listening right now. Please don't do what Eva did. Don't just

Eva Longoria 6:05
Don't do it. No, I had like five roommates in a one bedroom of people who like hey, come live with us. I go okay, like not knowing them. I was like, I could have been murdered. I mean, you know what I mean? Like

Alex Ferrari 6:16
Something was sometimes guiding and protecting you during this process, because the story that you just told me it's ends and Dateline.

Eva Longoria 6:27
Well, that in like, there's no recipe for success in Hollywood. So let's say you do exactly what I did. Yeah, he wouldn't get the same result. It doesn't work that way.

Alex Ferrari 6:36
No, it's different timing different plays different everything. I mean, you hit that the right point, right time, but like you were saying, it took you a little while before you started getting some jobs. How did you keep going? Like just I mean, I'm assuming like, I always treat that when I'm ever I'm casting for a movie. I'm always treat. I treat actors with such respect, because it's so hard, and going out on auditions and getting beat up and, and people just walking in and like, Oh, you're to this or you're to that, and it's just so it's so rough. How did you keep going when there was no real signs that this was the right path for you?

Eva Longoria 7:09
Right. 100%! Well, you know, I, when I came to Hollywood, I went to a temp agency to get a job because I was like, well, they'll have a job for me tomorrow. And that company said, Why don't you work here? And I said, What is What do you guys do? And they were like that were headhunters. You find people jobs. And you know, it's like matchmaking job, people. You know? And I go, Okay, I mean, not knowing anything, but I was so good at it. I made a lot of money. So again, I wasn't ever the struggling actor, I was so good. I was like, This is so easy this head on. But I just like I knew how to find match people up with jobs and all my actor friends were jobless. So I'm like, I got tons of supply, you know. And, and because of that, I got an apartment, I had a car, I paid off my student debt. I paid off my credit card debt. I had headshots, I took acting classes, I you know, I really invested all anything that I made back into myself. Right. And, and it was through one of those workshops or seminars or something that a casting director saw me and said, Hey, you should audition for young and the rest of this and I was like, okay, and, and did and then that was like my big break was young and the restless. And, and it paid so badly. It was like two cents for the week that I kept my head hunting job. So I was a headhunter in my dressing room at young in the restless, because it just it was like I was not making enough young, the restless to quit my job for for two years. I did this did both jobs.

Alex Ferrari 8:46
Talk about hustle.

Eva Longoria 8:47
Yeah, I know. That's another thing is like it is about hustle. And it's about, you know, being resourceful. And that's life, by the way that if I if you dropped me in the middle of Paris, I'm going to figure it out. Right? I speak the language, I don't know. But I'm going to eat how many well, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna figure it out. And that's I think what's missing a lot from a lot of the younger generation today is they're just not that resourceful. And they have all the tools in the world at their fingertips. I didn't have an iPhone. I had a Thomas guide, and a printout from Google that I had to follow, you know. And so, yeah, it was like, Oh, if I had the tools that you have today, you know, God, I would have gone far.

Alex Ferrari 9:28
Oh, my God. I mean, same here. I mean, my first directors will cost 50 grand because I've to shoot an on 35 You know, and it was like, now we just grab a phone because you'd be shooting commercials and music videos and short films all day. There's so much technology. I think it's because you know, you and I are of similar vintage. So you know, we when we were when we grew up there was there wasn't anything like I remember there's no internet I remember very easily there was no internet. I remember printing out the Google Maps in LA and having the You know, the directions like printed out line by line driving around LA trying to drop off a demo reel for, you know, an editing gig or something like that.

Eva Longoria 10:08
Stage West. I submitted myself in for auditions and I would send my headshot, and I would use the postage from the company I worked at, so I didn't have to buy stamps. And so I like, at the end of the day, I'd sneak off and I go on, I put postage on, like 20 submissions, and I saw I was like, oh, yeah, I was a hustler. I did background work just to eat. And I would steal the bananas and apples and take it home. Because I was like, well, I might not eat tomorrow. So let me let me take some of these bananas. Yeah.

Alex Ferrari 10:38
And so I mean, you struggled but you you were you something, again, was guiding you and giving you these opportunities that normal, normal, the normal acting story in LA is not yours by any stretch of the imagination. Even at the very beginning. Like you're you're living you're eating, you're you're leaving Well, you have a job, you have a car, you've paid off student debt, like this is unheard of for a struggling actor. But yeah, even then, when you got your first big break, you're like, I still want to keep my day job.

Eva Longoria 11:06
Yeah, I still like my car. So I think I'm, I'm gonna I like my apartment. Let me let me just keep doing this. Also, you know, I what you said like what kept you going because there was no signpost to say successes a year from now hang on. I felt it. And I remember my boss at that company. He goes, you know how much money you can make here. You're so good at this. Give up that dream. Like, you know how many people make it in Hollywood one in 1,000,001 in a million, like, Come on, just focus over here and forget that stuff. And I said, I know. And I'm that one. Like I'm taking up that space. So I've got to hurry up and be prepared. Like, I really thought that I really I never gave myself up. Until if I don't make it well, by 30. I'm moving back home. Like I never had a plan B I was just like, No, this will happen. And I also approached it like a business I knew exactly how to invest in you know what I need to classes. I don't know how to do that. I'm not good at that. I'm going to do this. So, you know, in that time, we know when you're going out for Latin roles are like, Can you do it with an accent and I'm like, I don't I don't have an accent and like there's other levels of target. And there's other levels of Latinos zero and it was like Rosie Perez, yesterday, okay, but there's other levels of dimensions of Latino that don't sound like Rosie Perez, you know, and, and so I was like, I gotta I need an accent coach. I don't I don't have an accent. I need to get one. And when people come to Hollywood, they try to lose their accent. I was like I was trying to get an accent. Like,

Alex Ferrari 12:48
Now, so it sounds like the you really put an intention involved. You really had an intention, and almost manifested what you were trying to get like you'd like no, I'm I'm there already. In your mind. You were already successful, even though there was no signs at all. And there's a difference between delusion because we all we all understand. We all

Eva Longoria 13:08
I might have been a little delusional. I might have been a little

Alex Ferrari 13:11
Listen, listen, Eva to be in our business. You got to be insane. You got to be insane in general, it's an insane business. It's like running off with the circus, basically, you know, so it is it is an insanity to be with. But yeah, there is a little you need a little delusion to even think you can make a movie is a delusion. It's insanity.

Eva Longoria 13:30
Yeah, I mean, it is a little delusional. But the other thing that I had on my side was an I'm an insane optimist and a hard worker. So I knew those two went together. But I also felt I felt like I have very tough skin. So the nose didn't affect me. And I got 1000s 1000s The day I got desperate out the day I auditioned for Desperate Housewives. I had nine auditions that day. And I was changing in my car driving from Disney back to Warner Brothers back to Disney back to Sony back to Culver City. And it was like, Oh, my I ran out of gas that day. That's how many auditions I had. And Desperate Housewives was at eight at night. It was the last audition. I'm changing in the car. And I get there and I'm exhausted. And I just was like, you know it you know, the other seven auditions today said No, I already knew I didn't get them. And and it was like, you know, in the car, doctor, okay, lawyer, okay. Yeah. And then Gabby was like, sexy, and I'm like trying to put on this tight dress in the car. I get down and Mark cheery is an audition and he goes. So what do you think of the script? And I was like, I didn't read the script. Like in my head. I'm like, I read my part. Like, who has time I had eight auditions a day. I'm not gonna read eight scripts. And I said, you don't want and I was just done. I was done for the day. And I said, You know what, I didn't read it. I didn't read the script. But I read my part and my parts really good. And and he he told me Later, he knew I was Gabrielle in that moment because it was the most selfish thing to say. I don't know what everybody else but I'm amazing. And I was like, so can I just do the audition? So you can say no. So I can go like, I it was just, you know, and then you did it again the next day. Yeah. And you started all over. So I had this and I have very thick skin even to this day, I really never take things personal. If I'm if I you know, if I get reviewed badly or this I'm like, Well, you know, it's not your cup of tea.

Alex Ferrari 15:32
Now, do you feel that you getting desperate housewives later and a little bit later in life? Because you weren't? You weren't? You know? 20? You know, I think you were 30 you were like 30? Yeah, exactly. 29 When you got it. So you already kind of had an established, you've established who your identity was at that point. Do you think that helped you deal with the tsunami, tsunami, excuse me of fame, and criticism and love and hate and everything that comes along with that package? Did that help you with that? Because that crushes many?

Eva Longoria 16:07
Yeah. 1,000% I knew who I was, you know, I probably knew who I was when I landed in Hollywood. You know, I didn't drink I wasn't into drugs. I didn't smoke. Like I was pretty, you know, and I was like, oh my god, Los Angeles, you're gonna, you know, get into drugs and travel. And I was like, There's drugs and trouble in Texas like the same thing. But I had a really strong sense of who I was. And so when fame hits you, I think God I was 29 I mean, because I was like, you know, you especially back then the tabloids were like the leading thing not like social media today, but like, the tabloids defined you and so it was like America's sweetheart America Sex Kitten. And then you kind of became that, right? Like, if you look at Britney Spears, and Christina Aguilera coming up at the same time, and one was America's sweetheart. And one was the bad girl. And they were babies and they kind of go okay, I got to play the part. Now I've got to be the bad girl. And, and so they tried to do that with me. And I was like, you know, that? I'm not that. And, and I'm very grounded. You know, I have a really great family and I have, you know, great friends, my friends back then. Or, you know, the couches I slept on? And the I didn't have a dress for an audition. And my best friend, you know, let me address. They're still my friends today. They're the girlfriends that, you know, traveled with me and lived with me and you know, but I, I you know, they were there for me when I had nothing.

Alex Ferrari 17:36
So you know, so you know that they're their true friends at that point. Yeah, it's yeah, you know, cuz you never know, famous, such a double edged sword. So many people want to be rich and famous and you like, but look at how many people who are rich and famous who who are destroyed by it. It's just Hollywood is riddled with stories like that. You're an exception. You're like, you're an anomaly.

Eva Longoria 17:56
Yeah, thank you. But you remember EQ Hollywood stories that get worse, of course, that was on E and it was like, you know, she was you know, she was such a pretty girl from Missouri. And then and you're like, and so and then they tell you like the downfall of everybody. And I remember we premiered. And literally three days later, there was an E True Hollywood Story on me. And I go What did I do? Did I fall from grace? Did I do drugs? What happened? Like I was like, the beginning of the end now. Like it's supposed to happen later. It was so funny.

Alex Ferrari 18:27
Oh, God. And then of course, any movies that you might have done before Desperate Housewives they started going into, they go into the archives of the stuff that you did, and like look at what she did back then.

Eva Longoria 18:37
And I did so many student films for real, you know, he did and did so many bad things. And then all of a sudden, I was at Blockbuster. I don't know if people remember there was a blockbuster. You had to physically go and get a DVD before Netflix mailed them to you. And, and my I remember going into Blockbuster and my face is on the cover of this film. And I was like, what is that it was a different title. It was and it was just a student film I had done and this director packaged it sold it on my name. And I never knew until I saw it a blockbuster. But yeah, yeah. And family comes out of the woodworks, right? Like all these people who are related to you. Yeah.

Alex Ferrari 19:18
So funny story. When I first started out as an editor as trailer editor, I cut a trailer for one of those films of yours early on. I if I say the name, I won't say the name, but I did. I did. I did edit it. And you were ready. You were ready, you know, Desperate Housewives. And I was sitting there and I'm like, This is so wrong. Like they haven't like you were like, I'm like you're in the movie for like 15 minutes, or 20. Right? And they're just like, bam, I'm like, Oh my God. I'm like, but hey, you know, I had to do a gig. So

Eva Longoria 19:51
A friend of mine who was on another hit show and every time he gets recognized around the world, he gets so pissed off because it's like that's all people know me for And I and every time people come up to me and they go, Gabby so Lise, I am like, Yes, that's me. You know, I'm just so grateful. And so like, so grateful that that director thought I had some sort of value. Because that's what you hope for you don't I mean, you have to have a value that you can make something happen.

Alex Ferrari 20:18
No question I read somewhere that you're an avid meditator. How do you cuz I'm, I've been meditating for years, I meditate hours a day sometimes. And it's changed my life. How do you use meditation, in your balancing your insane world that you live in with all the things that you do? And all the plates you spin, you know, mother, and philanthropist, and actor and director and all these kind of things? How does meditation help you kind of balance yourself? And what does it do for you in general,

Eva Longoria 20:48
You know what, it really centers you before the day I have to do it first thing in the morning, and it makes me more patient, it makes me have compassion, it makes me happy. You know, it really just shifts your energy to a place of positivity and a place of gratitude. That's a big one. You know, I really learned also, do be aware of how you speak, right? So I used to be like, I gotta I have to go to this meeting across town. I have to go to this audition, I have to go. Do you know James Corden, or I have to be on Jimmy Kimmel tonight. Instead, just switching it to I get to write, I get to have a meeting about a project, I want to get off the ground. Like, isn't that what you want? So why are you going on after Oh, you know, I get to be on Jimmy Kimmel, to promote this TV show I was on I get to, you know, I have to get home and bathe my kid. No, I get to make it home in time to bathe my child and put them to bed. Like I get to do that. I get to cook dinner for my family. And just that little word was through meditation, right? Like, be careful of how you speak in life, you know, and people go, how was your day to day you are so busy, I'm so busy. It's like I can't I can't it's just too much. I'm so busy. And switching that word to be productive? How was your day productive? Right, I was so productive today. I had eight meetings. I had, you know, this deal go through I had this conversation with so and so it was a pretty productive day. It wasn't a busy day, you're not doing busy work. Everything you do during the day is towards a goal towards something so so have that gratitude in your words, as you approach your day. And that's what meditation does. It really makes you think about things that are on autopilot that you shouldn't be on autopilot about.

Alex Ferrari 22:39
And I agree with you 110%. You also are an you know, an insane philanthropist that you give back so much. Can you just talk a little bit about what giving back means to you and how it affects your life. Because I started, when I started my show six and a half years ago, I was trying to get in, I was trying to you know, I was trying to knock on the doors and try to get these meetings and try to make connections. And I said I said I'm tired of all that I'm going to start giving back to my to my community, which is filmmakers. And all of a sudden doors swung open. And now I get to talk to people like you and all this kind of things. It was because I gave back and it's addictive to giving back and changing people's lives and whatever which way I can, you know, with the show or with whatever the work I do. So how does that affect you?

Eva Longoria 23:26
Yeah, I mean, you hit it right in the nail. I mean, it's it's studies have proven, you know, giving, giving and being charitable, increases your life's fulfillment, right? Like you're like, Oh, I didn't even know I needed this to be filled. And and then it becomes addictive. Like now I you know, I travel all over the world. I go to India, I go to you know, because I just like love, philanthropy and community efforts. But honestly, I grew up with it in my DNA. I mean, I have a special needs sister. She's She was born with a mental disability. So I grew up in her world, I grew up with other people helping us, you know, charities that you know, sponsored a trip for her to go to Disneyland charities who you know, created after school programs for kids with special needs to have a place to go. And so I always I always like who's charity. She's so sweet. She's so nice. That lady, you know, and, and so I knew before I was even famous that I was going to, you know, do something charitable and give back and and then once I got my platform and my microphone, then I was like, oh, okay, I have something to say.

Alex Ferrari 24:33
And I could and I could do some good in the world. Yeah. Now, when did you decide that you wanted to make the art to add directing as part of your resume? Because so many actresses and actors, they just go on through whole life and they're just actors, and they don't want to do any directing. But I've seen and I've spoken to many actors who've turned director, what it does for them and it also elongates their career. They can direct until they're or whatever and, and just really enjoy that process. What when did you decide at what point in your career did you go? I think I want to direct which is the cliche of everything. What I really want to do is direct.

Eva Longoria 25:10
Yeah, I know, I think I'm better at this than easy. You know, I people think I'm an actor, turn producer, director. And I think I was always a producer, especially producer, I loved the business side of our business. You know, that's why I my approach with myself was like, Alright, I gotta do this. I gotta do it. I like how do I set myself up for success? And, and I remember when I moved to Hollywood, I checked out a bay. I went and bought a book it Oh, my God. Samuel French, right?

Alex Ferrari 25:44
Yeah, yeah, it's through city.

Eva Longoria 25:46
No. And Holly now

Alex Ferrari 25:47
Ohh there's another one. That was a second. That's before they moved, I think. Yeah.

Eva Longoria 25:50
And, and, and how to produce one on one. I mean, I bought that book first over acting, because I was like, Well, I got to create, I got to create my own project. So how do I do that? And there was like, a sample budget in the book and I put it on my Excel spreadsheet, and I was like, pay plugging in numbers. And, and, and then I quickly had a gig with this show called Hot Tamales live with Kiki Melendez at the improv. And he was like, hey, help me book some comedians. And then I said, Well, how are we going to pay them? She's like, I don't know. And then so we asked the improv like, well, how much is it to get the night out of dead night? We want to make it Latin Night. Okay, great. You can have the stage we get the door, you get the drift, you know, and and it was just like, you figure it out, right? And I was like, Okay, we watch tapes, VHS tapes of comedians and to book out the night and, and then we got a sponsor was like, Well, you know, a sponsor, right? We need somebody to pay for this. So we should get a tequila, you get a tequila company to give us money. And then we'll mention the tequila. And like, it was all shooting from the hip, Beto. And how did you went? And I did that first. And then through that, you know, directed some of the sketches we had on stage. I'm like, no, no, you've got to come out through there. And we're gonna hear some props. And you know, and I fell in love with it. And then, you know, became an actor, and then use Desperate Housewives. As my film school. I really used I didn't go to film school, but I was on a set for 10 years. So I was like, paying attention. Pay attention to where the camera went, what lenses What are lenses? What does that mean? 2530 511 10 100. Like, what? Why is that light there? What are you doing? What's a balance? You know? And checking the gate? You know, you said back in the day, taking the gate, what does that mean? Now, you know, I used to load the camera. When we we were one of the last shows to go digital, we shot on film for much longer than other TV shows. And, and so I paid attention. And I really took advantage of all the directors that came through and ask them questions, and I was just a sponge. And so that's when it was on during this process where I said, I think I think I want to direct TV. And and then somebody asked me, Hey, you want to direct this short film? And I go, yes. And the minute I said, Yes, I wanted to put it back into my mouth cuz I was like, why did it? Why don't you? You just said yes. You're not ready. You don't know enough? What are you doing? Who do you think you are? And I think women it encounter that imposter syndrome a lot, you know, like, oh, no, ready? I couldn't possibly do that. No, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not No, no, no, not me. Not me. Not me. But I already said yes. So I was like, stuck. And I had to do it. And and I was good. And I knew I was good at it. And I one of my mentors who directed a lot of Desperate Housewives David Grossman, he came on set and I was like, Well, you just be on set because what if I fuck up the lens choice where he goes, You're not that's not your job, by the way. You know, your job is to get performances. And after we wrapped the DP, and that director goes, I think this is your calling. And they really like gave me that confidence of like, you belong this is you know what you're doing, man, man, do you know what you're doing? You know, a lot more than you think. You know? And I was like, really? Okay. And then I did it again. And then I did it again. And then you know, cut did now or you know, 10 years later, I've been directing and this is my first feature length documentary and my feature like film,

Alex Ferrari 29:21
Which we which comes to. How did this project come together? Like I mean, how did it you know, no one had ever done a boxing documentary about you know, Mexican American that I know of at least anything major. I mean, there's I mean, there's a Muhammad Ali one for every five every five minutes there's a new Muhammad Ali and they're all fantastic. And then there's my face. Then Mike Tyson and Sugar Ray and everything but never really about the Latino you know, which has a fame in boxing.

Eva Longoria 29:53
So everybody did you grew up with boxing I go I'm Mexican. Of course I grew up in boxing like it's in our blood. We have to you have to But no, you know, I've known Oscar for 25 years Oscar and I've been friends. That was one of the first people I met when I moved to Hollywood, me, Mario Lopez and Oscar De La Hoya were like The Little Rascals, we ran around in Hollywood and just caused trouble 25 years ago, and, and so he called me and he was like, hey, there's the anime. This is the 25th anniversary of that fight. Can you direct the documentary about it? We want to do a documentary about that, how iconic the fight was. And I said, Oh, God, what do you mean? No, like a boxing doc, like jabs and punches and stuff? Like, no, no, I don't want to do that. I said, you know, it's so funny. I remember that fight dividing my household. Like, I remember that fight, causing so much ruckus within our community and the fighting. And, you know, we couldn't get the fight because it was closed circuits Do you had to go to a bar, and then kids couldn't go and it was like, it was a whole thing. And people the betting in Vegas in the odds, and I was just like, what is that? Whoa, what is happening? And it was just, I think the biggest fight we've ever had in in the golden age of boxing. I mean, that that time, which was my son era, the mike tyson era, you know, the De La Jolla era, the Julio era, you know, it was huge. It was huge. And I said, that's interesting to me to explore is through the lens of what does it mean to be Mexican enough? And how do you navigate your identity as a Mexican American? That is something I know, you know, I straddle the hyphen every single day of my life. And people go, Oh, you're you're half Mexican, half American. And I go, No, I'm 100%, Mexican, and 100%. American at the same time. And these two things can always be true. And so I knew Oscar navigated that, because when he won the gold medal for the Olympics, he had an he won, he won the gold medal for the USA. And he goes into the ring and holds a Mexican flag up. So he has the American flag and the Mexican flag. And I remember that moment, too. And I remember swelling with pride and going oh, my God, that's me. So Oh, so you can celebrate being Mexican, you don't have to hide it, you know, and, and all the Mexican people in the United States embraced Oscar in that moment. They were like he's ours. You know what pride the Mexican president called him and I added him to Los Pinos, which is the Mexican White House. There was a parade in Mexico for him. And so every fight he had after that, that was his audience that was his supporters. Those were his people, until he challenged Julio. And when he challenged Julio, the Mexican community goes, oh, oh, wait, oh, yeah, you're not that Mexican. Yeah. You're not that Mexican. And then he was like, well, he's

Alex Ferrari 32:51
He's Mexican. He's Mexican Jesus, he was Mexican Jesus.

Eva Longoria 32:55
He's like, he's, he can't touch him. You can't touch Julio. He's our campeón de mexico, you know, company on the Mundo. And so that's the lens in which I wanted to explore this particular fight. Because I think that we still encounter this today, we're not we're not a monolithic group, I get that we're very, we have a lot of differences. But we have bigger fights to fight outside of the ring as a Latino community. So whether you're Puerto Rican, or Cuban, or gentle American, or Argentinian or Venezuelan, Mexican, there is a collective aggregation that has to happen, if we're going to have a political power, buying power, you know, if we're going to flex any sort of muscle, we have to do it together. And so we can't concentrate on how we're different. In order to make change, we have to focus on what what we have in common and the common goal, which is like we should have access to voting, we should have access to health care, we should have access to equal education, there's stuff we need to come together on. And so, you know, the beginning of the documentary, starts with those differences. It's, you know, the, the old, you know, the old lion against the young buck and the Mexican national against the Mexican American and the guy from the Pueblo against the golden boy. And the fight really promoted those differences. Because boxing is a sport that has never shied away from using race, right, like leaned into it, if anything or nationality, you know, the, the Italian, against the, the Irish guy, you know, and the black guy against the Puerto Rican and that it, you know, and so, it did the same thing in this fight without understanding the Civil War, it would cause because of the nuances, they thought it was just two Mexican fighters, you know, heading head to head but it was more much more than that.

Alex Ferrari 34:44
Oh, and I mean, I've, in my culture in the Cuban community, it's very simple. I'm a first generation Cuban from Miami. And you know, my parents came over and you know, you it's exactly the same thing. There's Cubans and this Cubans, Americans and How you how they deal with it? Are you Cuban enough in America, Nakamura flying and flying, you know, like, I still remember watching in the height and I saw a flyer on on screen and I lost my mind. I was like, I never seen a flan in a movie before. And I'm like, I can't believe the flood impacted. But you never see that kind of stuff out there. It was just really interesting. But I understand when I was watching it, I just understood it. So, so clear. And there's a lot of those issues that separate the Cuban Americans from Cubans and all this kind of stuff as well, which is, which is crazy.

Eva Longoria 35:35
We all have it. Every community has it, the Puerto Ricans in New York, you know, in Miami, you know, the Islander the island, Puerto Ricans are different than the New York, New York weakens. And then you know, you have it in the Cuban community and the Cuban American community and then we have it in the Mexican community. You know, we really do a lot to we don't need to do so much to separate the world does it for us, right.

Alex Ferrari 36:02
It's like throwing a few more obstacles on our on our path. It's like, let's it's not, it's not hard enough. Let's throw a few more things on our path, which is always fun. You know, what I found really interesting about watching Julio and Oscar. Both of them seem so and I don't mean this in a derogatory they seem sweet. There's, they seem sweet. They seem like you know, because I've seen boxing documentaries, and a lot of these boxers, they're just brute barbarians sometimes in the way they speak, and they're not articulate. But Julio, and Oscar both are, they said, they seem so sweet that they almost kind of both fell into it. Like it just kind of like, Oops, I guess I'm gonna box kind of like you like, I guess I'm gonna act. And it just seemed that way. And I saw that kind of energy from especially Julio, which I wasn't expecting. He seems so sweet. And I'm like, he was he was a killer in the in the ring. But it's like, I think he disconnected that he was like, I'm a sweet guy, but I go to work. Yeah. Did you find that as well?

Eva Longoria 37:02
100%! And you know, like I said, I've known Oscar for 25 years. So I know he's sweet. And I know him. Well, I didn't know Julio was, I didn't know who they were. I'd never I'd never met him. And I fell in love with him. He is such a truth teller, which is interesting in a documentary about your life about something to happen in your life. You could pretty much of revisionist history, like, Oh, I wish I wasn't bothered by that now. Well, you know, of course, I won that fight. I wasn't whining about it. And he was like, Yeah, I was. There was no way at that moment. I was gonna say I lost even though I knew I did. I knew I had lost, but I wasn't going to say, you know, and you're like, wow. So it felt like he had 2020 looking at 2020 vision, looking back at that fight. He was so open and vulnerable, about his obstacles to fame, His addiction, his lack of preparation, and it for other fights. You know, he's like, look, I December's my party month. I wasn't about to fight in January, but it was $9 million. So I was gonna fight you know, he is very candid and vulnerable and, and kind and it wasn't until 10 years after those fights that he finally gave Oscar the the credit that was due. And then an Oscar side people everybody wants us tacos. Oh my God, my I cried for Oscar. I didn't know he had that much pain going into that fight. He he was he was hurt and then revisiting that. He's like, God, it still makes me mad. Still, as we were interviewing him, I was like, oh, yeah, he's like, God. Oh, I'm so mad. Just thinking about that. You know, getting booed in East LA. Like, what the fuck? Are you kidding me? Come on, you know. So he's over about to read this.

Alex Ferrari 38:43
Well, it's a it's a beautiful film. I absolutely loved watching it. And congrats on getting into Sundance. That must be so exciting. And you get to

Eva Longoria 38:53
That opening night is a film directed by a Chicana. About two Mexican boxers like this progress. This is progress. Let's let's let's savor it.

Alex Ferrari 39:05
Absolutely. Now, I have a couple questions. I ask all my guests. What advice would you give a filmmaker? Or a screenwriter or an actor trying to make it in today's business?

Eva Longoria 39:17
Yeah, I think you have to define for yourself what does make it mean? You know, famous say I want to be famous. Okay, well then Go cure cancer. Because if you're gonna be real, do I mean like, by the way, that might be easier than Yeah, but is it is like, you know, figure out what what do you mean by that? Like, I really, I really love directing. I love the creative process. I don't I for this film, I just loved exploring this dramatically and going through the archival footage and did it and I and now that it's at Sundance, I'm like, Oh my God, that's Oh, yeah, that's a big deal. And then the reviews like oh my god, we get reviewed. I told I didn't even think about that. Like, I, I didn't do it for that. So if I had started this documentary, I'm going to get good reviews, I'm going to get into Sundance, like, you have to have goals, but like that, that has to be like a product, a byproduct of really good work. And good work only happens when you're passionate about it. And so if you want to be an actor, if you want to be famous, then I don't I don't care if you want to be a writer, because you want to be rich, that ain't gonna happen. You know what I mean? Like, so define what is make it mean for you. And the other thing is, just do it, do it. I know so many people go, I'm a writer, I go show me your scripts, I haven't written anything. Well, then you're not a writer. Write something. Write a grocery list. I don't care. But like write something, you know, a director shoot something on your iPhone, Shoot it, shoot, work with actors figure it out, put some lights up. I'm, I'm, you know, I'm a producer. What have you done? Nothing? Well, producers of anything can do anything. So do it. You got to do it. You only learn by doing

Alex Ferrari 41:00
And now what is the lesson that took you the longest to learn whether in the film industry or in life?

Eva Longoria 41:06
Um, it didn't take me. Well, I think lesson to learn that, that I know that I'm qualified and I know what I'm doing. I mean, every time I get a directing gig, I have butterflies in my stomach. I go, Oh, God, I hope I know what I'm doing. Like, I still think that imposter syndrome like imposter syndrome. Yeah, like imposter syndrome of like, Am I good enough? Oh, my gosh, you know, in directing flaming hot. I mean, this is the big budget movie I just directed and going home, I'm so excited to see it. By the way. I was like, I'm in charge of how much money Oh my god. And I remember doing a presentation when I had to get the job. And I'm, you know, I think the movie needs to be this and it needs to be this and we're, you know, we should do this and that. And then I finished a pitch and my agent calls me later she goes, what how are you feeling? And I said, I'm really nervous. I'm gonna get it and have to do everything I said. He's a pipe dreams, I don't know, like, then there's a drone. And we're gonna have a techno green, and we're gonna do this shot, it's gonna look like The Matrix, you know, whatever it is. Great. Go do that. And I'm like, Oh, I have to do it now. Oh, okay. So yeah, it's like that lesson of like, No, you're ready, you're ready, you're gonna be fine. And you're gonna fall down, you're gonna make mistakes. And then you're gonna do it again. And you're gonna do it again. And you're gonna do it again and again and again. And so just, that's probably the biggest lesson. And the other mantra that I live by is, is Maya Angelou quote of like, people will forget what you said, they'll forget what you did, that they'll never forget how you made them feel. And I'm living my life, whether it's with my gardener, or president in the United States, or, you know, do make sure every interaction you have with people or my crew, you know, your, your crew, your prop guy, your boom guy, your DP, like, making everybody feel and not that it's my job. But I just want them to feel appreciated and valued and that they have talent and, and I appreciate you being here and helping elevate my vision. Because, you know, directing is not singular, it's, it's just this whole crew of people. And I meet so many people who go, oh, I don't want to work with them. Because I didn't like that person. I don't like that person. I'm like, yeah, there's a lot of people you're not gonna, like, in this industry, you're gonna have to work with so you know, a get your skin get put your big boy pants on, get some tough skin. And, and flip it, you know, and that's what meditation helps to is like, everybody I encounter today, I want them to feel good. And leave an encounter with me in in a positive way. Even if it's a tough conversation, even if it's, I have to fire somebody or I have to, you know, correct somebody on an edit or give notes on a script like, you know, in a way that they leave that experience going. Okay, okay, I'm good. This is a good talk. That wasn't anything negative, you know?

Alex Ferrari 44:04
Well, I want to first of all, I think you are a absolute force of nature. And thank you so much for everything you do. And for my my twin daughters, they say they said tell you thank you for Dora. They loved it and watch it all the time. So thank you so much for that.

Eva Longoria 44:21
I love that movie.

Alex Ferrari 44:22
I love I saw it in the theaters with them. I went to the theaters with them, and it was back when used to do things like that. But I do appreciate you and thank you so much for for coming on the show and continued success and I hope this movie gets out and is seen by everybody. It's such a wonderful film. So thank you again so much.

Eva Longoria 44:39
Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

LINKS

SPONSORS

  1. Bulletproof Script Coverage– Get Your Screenplay Read by Hollywood Professionals
  2. AudibleGet a Free Filmmaking or Screenwriting Audiobook
  3. Rev.com– $1.25 Closed Captions for Indie Filmmakers – Rev ($10 Off Your First Order)

IFH 550: Building a Hollywood Directing Career with Brad Silberling

Brad Silberling

Today on the show we have writer, producer and director Brad Silberling. I had the pleasure of meeting Brad back in 2005 at my first Sundance Film Festival. He was very kind with his time and gave me some great advice.

His feature films include City of Angels starring Meg Ryan and Nicholas Cage, Moonlight Mile, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon; Lemony Snickett’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, starring Jim Carrey and Meryl Streep; 10 Items of Less starring Morgan Freeman, Land of The Lost starring Will Ferrell, as well as his debut film, the family classic Casper, produced by Steven Spielberg.

In television, his growing stable of hit series include the critically acclaimed comedy Jane The Virgin as well as the period drama Reign, contemporary reboots Dynasty and Charmed, and the new Disney Plus series Diary of A Future President. He is a graduate of the UCLA School of Theater Film and Television where he earned his masters degree in production, following his bachelor’s degree in English from UC Santa Barbara.

Brad and I had an amazing talk about the business, warts and all, what it was like having Steven Spielberg as a mentor and how he built his directing career.

Enjoy my conversation with Brad Silberling.

Right-click here to download the MP3

Alex Ferrari 0:00
I like to welcome to the show Brad Silberling. Hey, doing that, Brad.

Brad Silberling 0:16
Excellent, man, how are you?

Alex Ferrari 0:17
I'm doing great, man. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Man. I am. I am humbled and honored as I was telling you before you and I met in 2005, at my first Sundance, and you were speaking had a fantastic panel and I got a picture with you. I'll see if I could put it in the show notes. I have it. I have it in my archive somewhere. And you were always You're very kind to a young filmmaker just asking price stupid questions. Like, how do I get an agent? Like, you know, like, dumb pie stuff at the time, but you were very kind. I never forgot you. And I followed your career as as you moved forward. And I just the other day, I was like, you know, I got to get Brad on the show, see if he'd be interested in coming on the show. And here you are, sir.

Brad Silberling 0:59
Here I am direct from the San Fernando Valley to you.

Alex Ferrari 1:04
So how did you so how did you get started in this ridiculous business that we we love so much?

Brad Silberling 1:13
I you know, I'm not alone. I was a kid with a camera. I was a kid with a Super Eight camera here in the Valley. And it's interesting because I so my dad, who passed away eight years ago, he was a documentary producer. He was born in DC because he was working for the US IA, which is actually our government's propaganda arm. We do have one. No, no, no, he was producing documentaries during the Kennedy administration. And only in the 60s would logic have dictated that he would move from that job into network television. Don't ask how they made that leap. It was a smaller business then. So we moved out to LA and 67. And he started working at at that point at ABC as a programming executive. So oddly enough, they thought his skills would translate. So he worked as a network executive the whole time I was growing up. But he always loved production. And so I took advantage of that by I would go beg to be dropped off at a set at any point I could, from probably about age nine. When I was old enough to ride a bike, I would steal over to universal, I'd met a really nice secretary who would like slip me call sheets and a drive on which was a bicycle. And I would spend every Friday afternoon there, but I just was fascinated by the process. And again, my dad was always coming at everything from from a story perspective. But I'm that guy who, you know, I still hadn't really picked up a camera I was just absorbing. And then I was there that first day. In 1975 First day for showing of jobs I made my dad dropped me off, there was a theater called the Plitt. That was in Century City where ABC was where he was working and I begged him to just drop me off. It was like an 11am showing. And I'm sitting there alone The theater was not full even though obviously days to come. It was going to be incredibly full, huge airplane kind of recliner seats. I'm alone in my row. And I get to the the the attack on the little Alex Kittner the kid on the raft. And I'm just having a heart attack. And I don't know if I can make it through the movie, looking around to see if there's anybody there. But I hung in thank God. And by the time it was done, I had that feeling which was who got to do that. Who did that? Who took me through that ride. That is something I will never get out of my system. And I went home that day and snuck into my dad's photography closet. It's still his he had a Mac it was a it was in a Minolta Super Eight camera and I started shooting that so that day I it was just like the switch was thrown and Stephens really funny about this because I'm not alone. I mean, I can tell you the number of other filmmakers who were switched on in that moment by that movie. And so I started shooting Yeah, so I was shooting all I did two things. In junior high school in high school, I shot movies and I played soccer and that was what I did. And this was to parade again where it was. I mean, I look at everybody now with their phones in what's possible. And back then you're shooting three and a half minute cartridges. Every second counted. You had to really so you're cutting in the camera. Are you really thinking through your material, your splicing your little, you know, super aid splices. But I, so that's what I did. And I was very obsessed. And I did that right up through, I got a lot of good advice to not do film as an undergrad. But to try to actually learn anything else have sort of more of an open humanist mind. Start writing. And so then I went to grad school and went to UCLA. And made you know, SC is more famous for its, you know, thesis, final films, whatever they're called. But I made, I made my thesis film, and I was fortunate we fought to have our first industry screening because UCLA was super egalitarian, and they didn't normally like things like that. But we did. And so coming out of that screening, I ended up going under contract, I went under contract universal. There had been a woman there who's still a great friend, Nancy Nayar, she ran casting at Universal, she was there just to troll for actors. She saw my film, and she said, Would you mind if I took your film Back to the studio and I was like, yeah?

Alex Ferrari 6:14
No, please, please don't.

Brad Silberling 6:17
Please, no. Can I walk you to your car. And so I got a really funny set of phone calls. One was from the TV group, and one was from the feature group. And again, at that point in time, they did not communicate, they still don't often. And they basically both wanted to try to put together some sort of deal. They hadn't really done term deals for directors since like the early 70s, like Spielberg, so when Steven Spielberg, Richard Donner, a number of these guys who basically were on term deals. And so they dusted off an old term deal. And they, they just like, he's young, he's cheap, hopefully, you know, some talent, let's do this. And they covered everything from writing, directing, producing, you know, making omelets, they, they, they had me, but it was incredible. So I was prepared to start, you know, parking cars at a grad school. But I went under contract. So that meant immediately trying to figure out who's producing on the lot is their television, who's making movies. And that became home for the first two and a half, three years that I got started. And then ironically, Steven bochco and his then sort of in house director, a really great guy named Greg Havlat. Saw my graduate film, and they said, Come over here. And universal was very wise, because they're like, good, let him go. Fuck up on their, on their dime. So but I so my first three years of work or directing television, primarily over budget goes company,Yeah.

Alex Ferrari 8:02
Oh, so I have to ask you though, because looking through your filmography, you have the distinct honor of being one of the directors, who directed an episode of the infamous cop rock.

Brad Silberling 8:14
I'm one of only 11. And the original order was for 12. And they killed it. I remember Stephen coming down that set one day. And he was like, well,

Alex Ferrari 8:27
This didn't work.

Brad Silberling 8:29
That was my second hour of television. It was crazy.

Alex Ferrari 8:33
I beat so for people. So people listening if you don't know what comp rock is, Google it on YouTube and watch a scene of cop rock. It was this musical cop show, which is it is such an oddity in television history, you know, from such a big I mean, Steven bochco was like he was the he was the dude, he was it. So it you know, it'd be the equivalent of I don't know, whoever nowadays, you know, big show runner, Shonda Rhimes doing a cop, cop musical. And it was I saw so I mean, I never seen a full episode because I wasn't I didn't see it when it got released. And I don't whatever's on YouTube. But I just remembered this cops just like singing about drugs. And it was just the weirdest thing. And when I saw it, I had to ask you, what was it like being inside of that?

Brad Silberling 9:23
Here's the truth of it that Steven had seen there was a great British series called The Singing Detective. And I think he was feeling his muscle and feeling his strength and thinking I can do anything. Let's do that. The problem is, Steven didn't really and God bless him. He passed away a few years ago, he was an amazing guy. He didn't really care about music. Didn't really like very much. So this was the problem. And you know, the whole idea of musicals is you only you only burst out into song when you have to when when when basically the spirit moves and the story needs it but He didn't approach it that way this, the cop rock outlines were like, normal Hill Street, it was like procedural procedural, maybe a song in here. And also a problem they weren't raised in, which meant that in production, they came very late. So it wasn't like you had this great champion, Steven Spielberg talks about this beautiful process. On my side story about working for six months, even as you're doing the choreography and just copra you would be shown the number on the day of shooting, because the music had only just gotten to the choreographer who's kind of winging it. And so all the actors like the fuck and and but it was recorded live in terms of the singing, which also is usually you do, you know, like a pre record? It was crazy. And and yet there there would be. There were numbers that kind of worked. And then there were a lot of them called groaners that were just like, Oh, no. And you just fell for these actors who had to commit. And you know, so it was a, it was an exercise in insanity. And like I said, it was not it. If somebody who just loved the musical form, had tried it, maybe before. But anyway, yeah, it was good. But that was my second hour television.

Alex Ferrari 11:25
So so this is his this is this, what I'm doing? Is this is this?

Brad Silberling 11:31
Great. Okay, you go over there. You danced a blocker, you get your gun, let's do this.

Alex Ferrari 11:36
And you've never directed a musical at this point in your life.

Brad Silberling 11:38
Oh, of course, of course.

Alex Ferrari 11:41
Because how many people have really directed musicals? So that list is fairly checked. All right. So you're there as a young How old are you at this point 22 23?

Brad Silberling 11:52
I was probably 25 20. Yeah, I was probably 25

Alex Ferrari 11:56
25 years old. Second time. My God. Alright, so let me let me ask you the first day because I always love asking this question the first day on the first job that you got after you signed that deal with Universal. When you walk on set, I gotta believe you're losing your mind. Your your imposter syndrome is running rampid you're like, any moment now? Security's gonna escort me off the lot. How did you like walk on and like, do your job with all of that? I mean, I'm assuming so am I correct?

Brad Silberling 12:30
You, right, you're assuming and your assumption would be correct. But for three, they all tell you two different stories, but for three things. One is I, you know, I even remember, when I got my contract, everyone was like, Oh, my God, are you losing your mind? And I wasn't, it wasn't hubris. But I felt like I'd been doing what I was doing for a long, long time. And I trusted myself. I felt like okay, I've got more than just the kid next door to be my crew. Now, this is good. So my crew got bigger. But the single biggest reason my Canadian friends are gonna kill me. But the single biggest reason I didn't fully have that was my first episode for universal ended up being in Toronto. They were doing a second batch of Alfred Hitchcock present, right. And so I i finagled my way into one of those. And I swear, I don't know what it was, but I was not intimidated by the Canadian crew. And I was working with awesome. I was working with Mike Connors, Matt Mannix, he was the lead. And he was couldn't have been more dear and awesome. And so I just thought, of course, why not me. So it that part didn't really overwhelm me, I felt fine. I'll tell you the moment that you're thinking of it was less imposture than just like, how did this happen? So that's my first directing job in television. My first feature directing job is Casper, and we're shooting in 1994. As I've told you, I picked up a camera because, um, Steven Steven ended up becoming my mentor and giving me my first feature job. And the first morning of our shoot, we were shooting in the big kitchen, there was a big long kitchen sequence that was gonna end up having more CG, then all of Jurassic Park was insane. He's awesome. He shows up at call to be there for my first shot. And we'd go into the hearse, and it's awesome. And when the time came to call action. I just sat there and he's next to me. And I'm looking at him. I'm looking at this whole situation. And it's like, everything just dropped on my head. I was dumbfounded by the universe. that this was actually the case that he just looked at me and smiled Newman say it as like, action. And it was, it was still one of the most incredible moments and it was just that that thing of confluence, like, how did this happen? I'm grateful it happened. But yeah, so in a weird way, that was my bigger moment. But I did, yeah, I had, maybe unfounded. But I did always have a belief that if you have the story, and you know what every setup is, and you're there, the crews gonna follow you doesn't mean that there's not going to be testing and that they're not going to sit there with their arms folded at times. You get all of that I had the DP on that very first. Alfred Hitchcock episode, by I don't know, it was like night number three, like wanting to quit. Because I'm very hands on. I don't just say, Yeah, let's go do a nice to shot and I'm going to go get some coffee. I, I'm still a kid with a camera. I set every shot, I, you know, I rehearse with the lens in my hand. I'm just who I am. And this guy wasn't used to that. And it was really funny. I've had that a few times, even in some of my movies where to pay. So I now my litmus test for whom I'm going to collaborate with as a DP in particular, it has to feel like a friend from film school. That's not a GISTIC. They can be 90. But it has to be that spirit. We're in this thing together. Oh, look, what I'm seeing. What are you seeing? Ooh, look at that. But those who work in such a way that it's like, I'm the director of photography, you go sit in your chair a little man. I'm just not there. So that was that was an interesting early moment for me with my confidence, but how to keep a collaborator close without losing them.

Alex Ferrari 16:54
Now, I heard I remember years ago, when Casper came across when Casper came out, it was a fairly big. It was a fairly big deal, because CG was just starting.

Brad Silberling 17:06
We were the first character with dialogue. CG animation. So Steven had done Jurassic and 93. And as he Yeah, that first morning, when he came to my set, and kitchen, he's like, Dude, you're about to blow through more spots than we did in the whole movie. And he's but he came, he came like week three. And he's like, oh, man, if you'd known what you're getting into, you'd never would have said yes to this. And I laughed. He said, You're now directing these characters. There's dialogue. There's monologues, there's soliloquy, he's, I just had to have the dude's turn and roar. And it was a deal. It was a deal. And it was we there was an early glimpse of motion capture that was experimented with, but it was not ready for primetime. So unfortunately, I didn't have that to go to. It was all here. And then I basically had to go with a with a old school 2d line animator, I had to go and basically, after making the movie, direct every performance in pencil sketch, right, then hey, then take those to ilm, and go through the whole so it was very handmade.

Alex Ferrari 18:23
Now what watching some behind the scenes or an interview that you did, was it true at one point that you turned down and said, I can't do this, and that Steven had to literally call you off the ledge?

Brad Silberling 18:37
Yeah, so he we met again, it's it's only he could have done this we met because he happened to see some television that I directed not a bochco show, but Gary David Goldberg who's passed away and he was amazing. We did family ties, but then he, Gary did a show called Brooklyn Bridge. That was really memens remembrances from his growing up in Brooklyn in the 50s. And I happen to direct an episode. I can say this because I'm a tribe member. But Gary said, yeah, you directed the least Jewy episode that we did. Because it was it was an episode about this kid and his family going to Ebbets Field to try out for this thing. And it was so non Jewy that it was more of an Americana episode. And they ran it and it's crazy. I was just thinking about this this morning. It was in thanksgiving of 91 So 30 years ago last few you know a month ago. It they ran this episode because they needed to fill the extra half hour after the first running CBS did have et so Stevens movie ran. They needed to fill a half hour they thought oh, this is very heartwarming, very Americana apps. So Gary called me the next week and said you're not gonna believe the phone call. I got that. And I said, Yeah. And he said, my friend, Steven Spielberg was obviously watching his own movie, and stayed through the commercial break. And he saw your show. And he called me and wanted to know who did it. So that's how I met Steven. So I went and sat down with Steven. And he happens like a Schwab story. He happened to see that episode. And he walked in his office and Amblin. And, you know, my hearts through my mouth at that point. He's the most disarming kind, warm human ever. So that goes away in 30 seconds. But he didn't even let me say anything. He said, Okay. Let me tell you about your last three years. And I look at him, and he proceeds to tell me exactly what I had been going through as a young director, under contract in television. And I'm like, my jaws hanging open. And he's loving it. And he said, Yeah, I know, I cuz I experienced that. And I saw what you did, I could see you were making a movie, but you only had a half hour to make it. And I'd like to help you make a longer movie. And so that, yeah, so that's what started us. Originally, he had in mind, much more reasonable first movie, it was like a little Louis mall film, there was a thing called the divorce club that we were going to do. That was about kids and divorce, kind of comedy drama, is Warner Brothers. And so when he went to go make Schindler's List, I was starting to prep that movie. But I noticed some real foot dragging from the studio about hiring like crew. And so I called Lucy Fisher's great producer now was the executive and I called her I said, Lucy, is there a problem? She said, I think you should call your friend Steven. I don't think they want to make this movie. And so I called him in Poland. And he was like, Hey, how's it going on your first movie? Isn't it amazing? Isn't it great? And I was like, Dude, I It's wonderful. But I don't think they want to make the movie. What? That's crazy. I'll call them and he called Terry Semel and Bob Dale. And he called me back two days later, he said, I'm so sorry. You're right. They don't they're scared of it. They think it's it's the subject is too sensitive. And he said, I don't know what to say. I'm so sorry. I'm like, don't worry about it. Go back to my day job. Thank you for trying. And that was the timing where I went back to bochco to direct one of the first 10 episodes of NYPD Blue so that Steven takes credit for my marriage because I ended up marrying Amy Brennaman who was in the cast of NYPD Blue the first season. But then he called me and he said, This is months later, I was doing a pilot in Hawaii for bochco, and he said, Okay, starts the call saying, Okay, this one's really going to happen. Promise it's gonna happen. With start date, I have a release date. And the moon is gonna, I said, the movies what? He's like, can you say, it's Casper? And I said Casper? Like is in the front? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But it's gonna be live action. It's gonna be CG. I just did these dinosaurs. You're gonna be doing this and that. And I'm dumbfounded, you know. And I said to him, you know, which Brad you called? Because I was like, Dude, I, you know, I had no animation background, I'd done some small visual effects work in television, but I dated an animator at UCLA. It's like i i But I really didn't have any clothes. And he was amazing. He was like, know what you do. You're technically savvy, what you do and emotionally what you do and what this movie needs, is you? And so but I didn't just say yes. On the call. I had to take a weekend. Because I was overwhelmed by the prospect of mass failure.

Alex Ferrari 24:04
Yeah, because that's a that's a huge that was a that was a big movie when it came out.

Brad Silberling 24:08
Huge movie ended up where we knew would be it was like $65 million. At that point, this is in 95. And all of a sudden, they're in Hawaii, and I'm just thinking, Okay, if this movie works, Steven Spielberg presents great, great, great. If it doesn't work, I'm like one of those direct first time directors littering the beaches of Malibu who can't get a second job. And so I was really anxious about it. He did a very shrewd thing. What he did was he sent the young producer Cullen Wilson who was going to do the movie. He sent him to Hawaii with a trunk of basically, almost like illustrations from ilm, about how this could work. What the modeling would be like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm just driving around to scout my pilot with calling the whole weekend saying, I know this can't work I, you know. And then it was awesome because I had a conversation with with now my wife then girlfriend, Amy. And she's like, okay, it's like pros and cons. Why, you know, what are the pros and like, well, it's an incredible opportunity. And I love the fact that the movie is actually embracing this idea of loss and that there's an emotional storm. And she's like, okay, so what are the cons and like, I could tank? And so that's when I just realized, okay, the only thing keeping me from this is fear. I gotta fucking dive in. And so yeah, I called him back. And I said, Okay, let's go. And it was just like, lightning from there.

Alex Ferrari 25:50
That's amazing. Because I mean, I still remember when that movie came out I love the movie, when it came was such a heartwarming and touching film. But it was technically they everyone was just talking about the character and was just a first real use of animation as a as a talking characters. And yeah, they were go so you, you know it's not avatar. But but but without Casper, it's hard to get the avatar like you need a minute. It's part of the evolution. But it was so beautifully, even. It still holds to this day. It's still holds.

Brad Silberling 26:21
He, I was waiting. I was waiting for the big Yoda moment. And I was when I was in prep, to talk about the effects and about the effects work. And we're getting closer and closer to shooting. I'm like two weeks out. And Steven slows and talk to me about he had at one point said to me, oh, yeah, I'll have the office send you a couple of tapes of work sessions with ILM. You can see how I gave them notes on the dinosaurs. And so you'll know how to like yeah, okay, great. We shouldn't done it. So finally I said, Hey, can we grab five minutes? He's like, Yeah, great. Great. I said, Okay, well, first of all, I think this affects budget doesn't really reflect what it's going to be. And he looked at me with that great grant, he said, I wouldn't worry about it, just go shoot your movie. And I was like, Okay, this is the guy. This is his, like, Close Encounters thinking. I know, it's gonna be pretend it's the other number, but it's really going to be this. But more importantly, he said, again, what you know how to do you know how to stage beautifully, you know, how to, to really you know, where the camera goes, You know what to do to do an elegant job. in live action. Don't treat this any differently. You have to basically, just don't try to like compensate. Do it just as you would, but only you're going to know where those characters are. And you're going to have to communicate that. And that was exactly the right advice. So I stopped thinking, Well, I have to kind of put on a different filter. And I treated those four ghosts, just like any other character in the movie, and I'm going to stage with them, I'm going to counter the camera, the focus shift is going to happen because there's the moment it made me look like a madman on set. Because it's like orchestrating, you know, it getting the crew to understand where these ghosts were, how quick, they were moving, getting the camera operator to tilt at the right moment to an empty part of the set. And then, so I was doing this all the time. It was, it was crazy. But it felt completely natural. And that movie made me fearless. Because once you've done that, you can't throw anything at you that you know, and also it it I have friends who are live action directors who still have this envy of going to do a big effect strip movie, right? And it's funny, I for me, it's just another tool in the tool kit. I don't thirst for that. But I know how to, I know how to basically use those tools, and how to communicate with with lighting to you know, lighting, TVs and animators. And so it was like this incredible two year learning curve. That was invaluable.

Alex Ferrari 29:11
I've had I've had a lot of I've had the pleasure of having some amazing guests on my show. And I doesn't cease to amaze me, I can probably count 20 instances that Steven Spielberg launched their careers, or help them along their career. He is one of those, those guiding forces in Hollywood, he doesn't get credit for that he has helped so many filmmakers off the ground, either to start or later in their career or one point. He's always kind of the man behind the curtain in a lot of ways, just giving that nudge helping a little bit out here. And I've heard nothing but the nicest wonderful things about I mean, the craziest stories. It's amazing stories, but and I know He, that's why I knew that he worked with you on Casper. But your story about him doesn't surprise me the least.

Brad Silberling 30:07
Yeah, he it comes out of sheer love of film and filmmaking and storytelling, and it's what keeps the ego out of it. He just wants to push, good work along, you know, a couple of movies mine that that weren't ones that he was involved with. He's just the best like on City of Angels, which I did over at Warner Brothers. He, he said, when's your first preview? Can I come? And I was like, oh, yeah, let's do that. That's gonna freak them out. And so I literally took Stephen to my first you know, audience recruit, they didn't see him. But he wanted to come because he felt so you know, proprietary, and we felt like family. And indeed, like, the studio was freaking out. They're like, Oh, shit. And yet, it was the best because he just had this reaction. And then he's like, Hey, I carved out a day, next week, you know, you want me to? I'll run the picture with you. You want, you know, you want to hear some thoughts. I was like, Yeah, man. He's done that a couple times, three times on movies where he'll come and spend the day just run the picture in the cutting room, again, offer up thoughts. And no, no, you know, no ties to any of those, like, here's what I see. Do with that? What you will, I'm so proud of what you're doing blah, blah, blah. Um, and that's actually what it is.

Alex Ferrari 31:38
And I just heard a story, a friend of mine who released a film. And he's like, dude, do you know I just got a letter from the producer. I just got a call from my producer, who got a letter, a handwritten letter from Stephen saying, Hey, I saw his my film. And I just want to let you know, I really liked it. That was it. Like, there's nothing? No, I don't want to do anything with you. Like I don't want to like, and there's no agenda just like, I saw the movie. I thought you'd like to know that. I liked it.

Brad Silberling 32:09
He's like ahead of the curve. Because what I have found, I think was after City of Angels came out one day, I remember I got a phone call. And I thought it was a friend playing a prank. It was Dustin Hoffman, good cop with only me. And I thought, wow, somebody is doing a really weird Dustin Hoffman imitation is this bread. And he he called me because he'd seen the film. And he really, really enjoyed the movie. And he said, You must like actors. He like actors. I feel like he like actors a lot. And so we talked and I finally said to him, this is so kind of you to do, do do do this. And he said, You know, I didn't for many years. I didn't I was too competitive. He said, But I'm getting a holder. And I like to acknowledge great work. And that was the most incredible thing. And then of course, I took that because then I built him into my next movie. But I Stephen has been ahead of that curve. And I think it is because he, he knows the the pain. You know, people forget his first directing job for him was a nightmare. You know, the the knight gallery, sent him back to Arizona for a year and a half. He was like, I'm not ready to do this. So he knows what it's like to get real support. He knows what it's like to. He always he always says that to me. When I made a film, a film mine moonlight mile, again, was something that I'd written and he's like, it is your DNA. It's you through and true. I feel you in every frame. That is what we're here to do. And so he's it's, it's an incredible thing. And I knows he I know he knows it. But I remind him of yearly I'm like, you know, in Yiddish like what a mitzvah it is you do for your kind every every day you he loves movies, he loves television, he watches everything.

Alex Ferrari 34:18
It's It's remarkable. And the thing I always find fascinating about him is that he's like, he doesn't have to anymore like he had he could have stopped decades ago, you know, after et you could have a lot. He didn't have to do this, but he does it without agenda without quid pro quo. He's just been truly wants to help and wants to and he knows, he knows, in a very humble way that he's the 800 pound gorilla in the room. He he knows that very, very, very well. And he uses that power for good.

Brad Silberling 34:53
Well, and he'll also tell you, which is really funny, I remember between movies at one point he was a was Amblin television or maybe it was DreamWorks Television and they were producing one of their first TV shows. He was like, there all the time. He was like, Hey, come meet me. I'm on the set of so and so out in Chatsworth, come, come hang. And I was like, and I went there. I was like, What are you doing? He's like, Oh, this is like my methadone. He said, If I'm not actually shooting, I need to be really close to it and get a fix. And that is. So he calls he calls, the movies he produces or the TV shows his methadone. And I've always thought of that, because I share that it's my favorite thing. I'm the best director ever. When I go visit a friend set, I got no pressure. I'm really happy with the snacks. The actors look really nice. I'm really just loose. You know,

Alex Ferrari 35:46
Ohh anytime you visit a set, you just like it's not my, it's, I'm just I'm a passenger on this ship. I don't have to I don't have to drive. It's great.

Brad Silberling 35:54
A friend, a friend of mine is starting a movie next week in Boston. I'm going to go visit him. And he said, what day you coming? And I said, I think I'm coming on the blog goes, Oh, that's really funny. That's Guest Director day. That's amazing. So he's like, I'm like, nothing. Doesn't work that way, my friend.

Alex Ferrari 36:13
So one of your, as you mentioned City of Angels, which I absolutely adore. I watch that film every few years because I absolutely adore that film. And it was obviously made a remake of a masterpiece of a film, which is Wings of Desire. How do you approach remaking is really a masterpiece. I'm not exaggerating, winds of desire is a masterpiece.

Brad Silberling 36:37
Oh wins the desire. So you want to go, you want to go on a bad blind date, go see Wings of Desire, which is how I saw that film. I, I went on a blind date. And I went to see wings desire. And I was I couldn't move out of my seat at the end of the movie. And I looked to my left, and the woman that I was there with clearly was looking for her popcorn remnants or whatever it was, and there was like, no response. And I couldn't, there was a really short date after that, you know, it was poetry. And it was just life humor, and observing nuance, and it was an incredible movie. The only way you make that, that film when we did is you you you can't approach it as an actual remake? Because if it were you What are you doing? You know, you can't do it. And so when I got a call about the film, I was really interested, my agent then said, Oh, Dawn, steel. producer Don steel is doing a remake of Wings of Desire. And I was like, what? I couldn't put those elements together, Dawn, who's been gone now. 20 years, was arguably one of the most commercial movie brains as a studio head and then as a producer. So I went into meet her. And what I realized, and I say this lovingly, I don't know if she ever saw the original film. And that's what that's what set me free. I was like, oh, okay, she's thinking of this as a high concept premise. And had engaged Dana Stevens who's a wonderful writer, Dana as well was late to the Dana was not a vendor's efficient auto was not. So they were freed up at the initial stage of development by not chasing that, but by trying to come up with a story. And I knew that for me, if I could bring the emotional response I had to VIMS film and some of the the tonal play, but but also be able to just own it and just think, again, we're not doing because obviously Windsor desires like gossamer threads. It's there's that much story and and the incredible thing is so Nick Cage and I had a real instinct, because I remember asking Dawn steel, I said, So tell me about your conversations with them. What does that been like? And she's like, Oh, I haven't talked to him as a really you've never engaged which goes, Oh, no. Wow. And so when Nick had signed on, he and I both were like, truly loved to get the script to famine, just sort of who knows get any thoughts but more so just reach out and say we want there to be a continuity because we we really are so indebted to the initial impulse he had. And he was amazing. And he read it quickly and responded. And then he ended up becoming like a beautiful kind of godparent to the movie from that point on, or, or an angel, if you will, or an angel, guardian angel, a German guardian angel. He was great. But what he said to me and Nick at that point, which was amazing. He said, This is crazy. Do you know that in my original concept for the movie, it was going to take place in a hospital. And the female lead, of course, who's a trapeze artist was going to be a doctor. He said, My dad was a surgeon. That's where I wanted it to take place. We couldn't afford it. We couldn't afford a location. And we couldn't afford it. That's why I think about it. That's why she's a trapeze artist. We've put a tent up. And we were like, Oh my God, that's the beauty of film. It's like you can't imagine that film any other way. That can, you know, the visual, concede a flight and all that goes and none of that was budget. We couldn't afford it. So again, so vim came to my first test screening with his wife. And they were fantastic because I you know, the way test screenings, good lights come up at the end, you you as the filmmakers Studio, you leave the room. Everybody gets handed their little note cards, and they fill out shit. And Vim and Donati, his wife were really funny because they, nobody knew who he was. So they're like spying on people's cards, and then they would come running out to me, ooh, it's looking really good. And they like this. And they like that. And then he run back in. And so he was awesome through the whole process. But again, didn't expect it to be, you know, a xerox copy, appreciated that we weren't just doing that, but still felt really happy to be connected to the film. And that was the only way i i was able to do it. Otherwise, it would have just been.

Alex Ferrari 42:09
Yeah, cuz you can't, you know, I had John, Panama. I had John Batum on and I talked to him about point in return. I'm like, how do you take the Femme Nikita, and like, redo it like, but he didn't have a guardian angel from France. He was on his own.

Brad Silberling 42:26
John, I know what you're talking about.

Alex Ferrari 42:29
You know, John's, John's that I'd love, John. Absolutely.

Brad Silberling 42:33
And he's and you've seen his book, which he's written, He cares so much about the craft of directing and what directors go through. And he's the best,

Alex Ferrari 42:44
Absolutely no question. Now, how did you How do you approach taking a popular children's series and turning it into a series of unfortunate events? Like how? Because that was at that point in your career, the biggest budget you've ever worked with at that point? Correct?

Brad Silberling 43:02
Yeah, yeah. No, for sure. Cabin Casper and CD of angels were probably within $5 million of each other somewhere in the 60s. And well, yeah, Lemony Snicket by, you know, over two fold, partly because Scott Rudin and Barry Sonnenfeld had been in early development on trying to make the movie at Paramount. And they spent some money. They spent some money, and the studio got very scared because the script it's interesting handler is a friend of mine, and Daniel Handler, who's the real Lemony Snicket. And Daniel had done an adaptation, but the adaptation was like, bonkers. It wasn't, it really wasn't honoring his own work, which amazed me. And I think because he's so prolific and he's so imaginative, I think. He thought, why am I just gonna go recreate what I've done, I want to go do some other stuff. So what I remember asking if I could read where they had been headed, and it was crazy town, but it was also very expensive. So that's how DreamWorks got involved was, they basically decided they were going down the wrong path at Paramount, reached out to DreamWorks to partner on the movie. And it was mutually decided that they would bring on a whole new filmmaking team, new script director. And so I was in Europe. I was with Dustin Hoffman. I was in Europe, promoting moonlight mile when I got a call from Walter parks who was then running DreamWorks under Steven. And he said, Are you familiar with these books? And I said, No. And he said, Go get your hands on them and call me back. And I went to the biggest toy store hat have I think it's called in London and bought the first three books. And was so again, for me it's like, tone, and character. And I was so blown away by, you know, the essential premise of those books, which is that the kids are the adults, the adults are idiots. And that there's a real straight look at darkness that there's a real straight look at loss and perseverance, and what that means. And so I was reading these and just the, again, the sense of wisdom, huge intelligence tone, I just thought was fantastic. So I called him back and I said, this is great, what's the situation? And he said, Well, when you come back, come sit with me and Steven, but if you want to do this, we should do this. And so that began the process, you know that there's 13 books at that point, there weren't 13. But it was decided that we would tackle the first three. But by nature, they are like serials, they're episodic. And my, for me, the biggest challenge was going to be making it still feel like a three act film, and not just like, and then we're here, and then we're here, which some of it is naturally still that way, but that there had to be some sort of a bigger arc. So we spent a good bit of time. And thankfully, handler, was willing to come back into the process because I didn't want to lose his voice. I didn't want to lose his, you know, just I'm sort of sweet and sour thing that he does. And then we had to put Yeah, I mean, it was a very expensive movie, I asked Sherry Lansing, not to make my life harder. But I said to her when I met her, don't you want to, frankly, given the money you're spending? Don't you want to do? It's, you know, expect the future two and three? Don't you want to do two back to back and amortize the cost? These sets are going to be insane amounts. And shares awesome shares like, oh, no, honey, I'm very superstitious. I'm too superstitious. I let the first one come out. And then we'll decide I was like, okay, and I had over the course of early, the you look, you pick up one of those books, there is a sense of there's like a sense of that everything being handmade the illustration. Yeah. And I wanted the film to feel like an illustration. And so when I started scouting, and trying to kind of design the film with Rick Heinrichs, who's awesome, we were actually going out into the real world looking for locate and we both were like, huh, can't do it. This is neither the hunter we have to find a way to make everything feel handmade. It times more two dimensional and three dimensional. That means we have to control it all. That means we're gonna have to be on set the whole time, including for exteriors. And so that's how we approached it. And again, the studio back did but yeah, it was, it was it was an expensive movie,

Alex Ferrari 48:07
It was now how do you direct a force of nature like Jim Carrey? I mean, he's he, I mean, obviously, he's very similar. And energy to Robin Williams, you like this kind of kinetic energy that you just like, you can't control it. All you could do is corral it.

Brad Silberling 48:26
What you do? It would be like if you did a two hour interview, and you hopefully made great prompts, and let that interview go and then sit down together and say, That's salient. That's great. This not so much. What I realized early with Jim Well, two things when people know about Jim Carrey, everything seems like like Robin Williams, like Oh my God. So he is a preparer. And he feels most grounded and safe when he's prepared. So what I realized was like, Okay, how do I do that and still, capture all that's Jim. And what I realized was, I want to basically get the most out of his freedom, and then create. So normally when you do makeup, hair wardrobe tests on a film, there is no sound recorded. You just put an actor up. I had this crazy idea that I got from actually John Slazenger doing this on Midnight Cowboy, which is I brought the sound mixer and I decided to interview each of these potential characters that Jim was going to do meaning. Jim's off and then Jim's Stefano and then Jim is I'd asked him about public policy. I'd asked him about his thoughts on on, you know, secondary education, you know, on Las Vegas, and he just had a great And we're recording it. And we looked at each other after the first day and thought, it's all in there. That's amazing. It's all in there. And so what we did was I went and took from these really, hopefully well prompted, but great improv, I took the best of what we thought could play within the story. Because I did bring it around often to the kids into the situation and what see what he's going to do with the money and Titanic sucked, I could do better. And so what you do is you, you, it's, it's less hemming him in and more like, here's your pasture, let's go play. And I'm going to take your best moves. And we're going to bring that into the story. And so that's what we did, we brought all that material back into the script. So the script, what you have on screen is all material that that derived from improv that we did well ahead of the time. And again, it's like a kid, you know, teenagers with a camera. He and I responded on a really fundamental level, like pals, and I realized that I had to make him feel safe. And, but also, not just pulling surprises, but let's go through let's prepare, he would know, if he had to work the staircase in that mansion. He knew how many steps there were, how many he was going to take before a gesture. And if God forbid, the night before the construction crew change the number of steps. That's where he gets thrown. Because it was like no, I'm so I'm so I'm a dancer, I'm so prepared. And so if you know, that's the animal you're dealing with, you lean into it, and you make him feel safe. The studio got very scared, they got scared off into the process about you know, what the reason kids love those books and why they love the series, because it's super honest, it goes really dark. They get very scared of that at times. And like, the 11th hour, they got a little worried about camera loss makeup. And I said to them, oh, we're past that point. And this is exactly what it's supposed to be. You know, and they, they, but they, I forget what they did. And they they asked Walter parks to see if there was anything he could do. And I was like, Oh, this is not going to end well, because we've committed, it's going to get in his head. And it's gonna blow up. And our first day of shooting, Jim never got on camera. Because I think one of the producers had gotten in his ear like, well, maybe we can have a little less darkness under the eyes. And I remember saying to the producers like that is gonna come at a cost you wait. And sure enough, I went into Jim's trailer and he was like, Wow, are we are we just making a mistake? What's going on? And I said, Absolutely not. You are the character. This is the makeup. Go home today was a great rehearsal for printing from putting on your makeup for three and a half hours. Go home, get some sleep, we're gonna start tomorrow morning. Fuck them. And that's what we did.

Alex Ferrari 53:16
Yeah. And that's, that's awesome. That's an awesome story. Now is there you know, as directors, there's always that day. And it could be at the beginning of your career. It could be at the end of the career. It could be the middle of your career, on a day on the set, when the entire world is coming crashing down around you. And you're like, Oh, my God, like the actor won't come out. Like you were saying before we started like the actors drunk. He's getting she's getting a divorce. We're losing the sunlight. The camera fell on the lake. And every minute that goes by, it's literally 1000s if not hundreds of 1000s of dollars going by. What was that day for you? And how did you overcome that obstacle that day?

Brad Silberling 53:58
Wow. It's so funny because I'm smiling when you're saying that day. It's more like days.

Alex Ferrari 54:05
Every day I asked that question often is like you mean every?

Brad Silberling 54:09
Well, I'll tell you here's a here's a really, I I think I think I'm happy that I don't have a litany of them in my head. Partly because, listen, you the days that you think are going to be a cakewalk slam you like a ton of bricks, right? And then you're like, Holy fuck, how did this get so hard? And then the days that you're anticipating hell become like joyous so it happens throughout the process. I think as you do it more what you know I always say it's a shot at a time. You go one shot at a time I when I would in my golf cart drive myself to set on Lemony Snicket, we shot I think we shot 146 As on that movie, it was 146 days. And I remember, like a third of the way into it thinking this could really become overwhelming. And I remember just driving my cart with my happiest moment was like driving my golf cart to the stage with my little one cup of coffee. And I thought, I think I'm just like a minor, I go into the mine. And I come out with film each day, I can't even begin to think about the end of this journey, because it will take me out, I just have to go in and really concentrate one shot at a time, one performance at a time. And that's how you can persevere and not get overwhelmed. I over the years have gone to sit, just again, my method and I'll go sit with Steven on a set. And it's what's always given me the joy of one shot at a time. Because as much as people like to prepare, he prepares, but he still comes up with it. It's like jazz, he comes up with it a shot at a time on set. And if you do that, you could be shooting 10 days or 100 days and as long as you're getting some sleep and you're eating Okay. And you believe in what you're doing, you can get through it. The one i i I remember one day that was pretty amazing on Lemony Snicket that is about as close to what you're describing, as I've probably ever come. Where we had, we were doing a sequence with Billy Connolly. And there's a character in the books, the incredibly deadly Viper says huge Viper, of course, is harmless, but looks really neat. So we had a giant prosthetic version of the Viper created just to basically be able to rehearse and to for the camera operator scale. And the babies with these were babies who were playing Sunday, they were 14 months old. There were twins when we made the movie, and one of them on the rehearsal in rehearsal, do I always shoot my rehearsal? So everything's always on film, or digital? Because why not? It's like, I'm not going to lose a great performance. So I don't like just a camera rehearsal, I always roll and it gets everybody focused. So we rolled on the rehearsal in the grip who was sort of manipulating this huge, fake snake got a little too overzealous and his performance. And like, what views and the gait of this pen that the snake was in was, you know, fly's open. It goes right at the baby, who's being held by the kids. And she said, it's all it's in the movie. She looks and screams bloody murder. And she's toast. She's like, I'm off. They got to take her off the set, she was scarred. I still feel that she was scarred from that for the rest of the movie. Most of the rest of the movie was her twin sister who was just like a joy baby. She though freaked out. And at that point, when you're dealing with with infants, you only have so many minutes on set. Her sister had already worked that day. I had nowhere else to go. There wasn't another scene we could jump into. There was it was one of those where it was like, and I remember, I just, it was that moment, like, holy shit. I turned to my ad who's done every movie with me. And she's amazing, Michelle than he does. I turned to her with this look. And I said, I need to take a walk. I've never in my career left my set. I never leave the camera. I was so overwhelmed. By this wall. We had walked into that I literally walked out the stage is a paramount. And you know, on a big movie, you've got it feels like 1000 radios all around. There's PDAs. Right? And what I hear on as I'm walking out of the stage and I'm walking down, you know, I hear don't let them get to Melrose don't let them get to Melrose. They literally thought I was gonna walk and never come back. And I don't know if I think about it, but it was amazing. So I got like, halfway down and take a deep breath. You know, like, Okay, again shot at a time. It's their mood I sometimes too, in my head. I think it's their movie too. Meaning I take it all on my head. I take responsibility for everything. But everybody has come together they want to tell this very challenging story with real babies and real this and that. It's their movie too. We'll figure it out. You know, and the more you do it, this friend of mine starting this movie in Boston next week, I was mentioning, a lot of it takes place at a boarding school. He just lost two weeks out his primary location, like incredible Primary School location, all the architecture, because it COVID the Board of Directors, I guess got together and we're like, No, can't do it. And I was on the phone with him when he got the other column, the other line, and he's like, and I checked in with them next morning. He's like, You know what, this is what happens. We do this long enough, we kind of get unflappable. And you do you it's not that you don't care. You just know, there's gonna be a solution. And as always happens in film, you look back and think it couldn't have been any other way. So there's a faith in the process. Yeah. Cast. recasting.

Alex Ferrari 1:00:53
No, you're absolutely right. There's there is that thing that you're like, Oh, why did I lose that? Well, like the trapeze thing. In Wings of Desire. Perfect example. Like, I mean, that he wanted a hospital, but he couldn't afford it. So we got the trapeze. It's, it's, it is such an insanity that we do. I call it the beautiful sickness, because it is. Because it is it is. And you know, which is once you get bitten by that bug, you can't get rid of it ever. It really it's always inside you. And it's beautiful. But it's I've spoken to so many filmmakers over the course of my career, that there's an insanity to what we do. We have we have gone to the circus, we've ran away with the circus.

Brad Silberling 1:01:38
Yeah. And it's a compulsion. Yeah. And there's a and I've had it again since I was younger. So when I was making my little super eight films, lived in a neighborhood that had turned over and really there were not a lot of younger families. There was one kid next door to me, who was younger, was the only actor I had. He was in every movie that I made. And he got really smart. At one point, he started saying, I'm all tired today, like you hold this handout, I have to give them five bucks. And you know, it's my first time dealing with unions. But it was funny because he the compulsion he would look at me some days ago, oh, no, you got another one. Because you just get bitten and you want to tell another story, and you want to go do that thing. And I always say different with different filmmakers, I can look at their movies. Paul Anderson, another fantastic director from the Valley, we are Valley people. Here in LA. I adore licorice pizza. And I looked at it and I said he wanted to make a movie. Meaning he was very excited to create a feeling. It wasn't that he was sitting there chiseling out a story that was just like this. And just like that, he got really excited to go make a movie. And sometimes our movies are that it's like, I want to go make a movie, and I'm gonna find enough that I can care about to hang on this movie. And just enjoy the process. Peter Weir, who among you know, the pantheon of living directors is one of my faves. And I sought him out after Caspar, actually because I was gonna go to Australia. He happened to be in LA and he's become this incredible. Again, friend and mentor. He said a really brilliant thing about he made a movie called greencard with Dr. Jia and, and maybe I missed out. Yeah, that's right. And the movie flopped, and just got kind of panned. And he just had the greatest attitude. And he said of it later, I realized that the audience was in the wrong place. They should have been with us while we were making the movie. Because the process was so pleasurable, we had such a great time. And I guess I wanted them there, maybe less. So sitting in a theater watching the movie, and I, I knew exactly what he meant, which is, you know, sometimes it's just, I want to go and have this great experience. And so, but But it's all from that root compulsion, and part of your job, if people do it with more or less success is how do I manage that compulsion and have a life? You know, for reason that most these marriages go down with filmmakers and other artists. And it's like, you have to find a balance, and we're always working at that. But the bug is still always there. And you know, it's this I call it the great Harrumph. It's this creative Harum for you're unsettled, because you're searching for that next thing to just lock into.

Alex Ferrari 1:04:46
And I'd imagine, you know, being someone like yourself, who's had success as a director in your career, when you start getting those first big jobs, you know, when you're on the set of Casper and on the set of City of Angels and that I guess helps to amplify because the high is so much higher for someone directing, with all the toys in the world like unlimited tickets. That high must be pretty immense for someone like yourself, as opposed to an independent filmmaker who is used to making 100,000 $150,000 movies. Don't get me wrong, it still could be a high for them as well. But I could only imagine the level of flike height you get you get your movies get released, you get huge audiences, you're working with the the best collaborators in the world, you have Steven Spielberg sitting there visiting the set, I could imagine as a director, you that that that compulsion must be even more. So I think that's probably why you do so much television, because television you're constantly working, as opposed to features that take forever.

Brad Silberling 1:05:44
Well, this is this is right. Pilots, and I love making pilots because pilots are little movies that have to be done by May 2. And they have to, they're not going to wait for the actor because they can't they have to have it on their schedule. No, it's true, though. I'll tell you, and I remember this. While I was shooting Casper, Kevin Reynolds who made another thing Waterworld Kevin's an old friend because he married one of my oldest friends. Kevin was on the universal lot. And he got I don't know if he was in post on Waterworld or

Alex Ferrari 1:06:20
95. I think it was in post around that time.

Brad Silberling 1:06:24
And I remember he came by, and I was like, you know, famous at Waterworld, the first movie to ever break the 100 million dollar figure on a budget. And I said, God, that just must be amazing and crazy and great. And champion. And he's looked at me said you know what? It's still all the same problems. He said, I'm still fighting to make my days, I still don't have enough for certain things I want to do. He said so yes, it's great. He said, But don't don't have an illusion that it just suddenly changes. And so when you're talking about the size of the Minister to, I'll tell you where we're all in the same spot in a beautiful way, the first time we walk in with that first audience. We're sitting there if the movie costs $2 million, $200 million, or 20,000, your heart is here, because how are they going to receive this? How are they going to laugh? Are they going to cry? That's the great equalizer. And for me is still what I'm most excited about. It's one thing to sit and just go make a film for myself, but it is an audience experience that I crave. Nothing is better or can be worse, but usually nothing is better. And that's kind of an interesting equalizer. The rest of the sizes, again can be great at times it can be like I say like oh shit, I just got to put on my mining cap because this thing is you know,

Alex Ferrari 1:07:54
Cut cut wood carry water, cut wood carry water, solder to time, carry water. Now I'm going to ask you a few questions asked all of my guests. What advice would you give a filmmaker trying to break into the business today?

Brad Silberling 1:08:08
Okay, so you remember that great line from Glengarry Glen Ross? Always? Closing? Yeah, mine is always be writing. And if you can't write, always be dating a writer. Seriously, because in the end, it is all about content. And for somebody trying to break in somebody's trying to sustain it. So it's the rocky story. It's like Stallone saying yeah, you can make my movie but I'm going to star in it. And the only way for filmmakers to get to guarantee their place unless they're coming off of you know John Watts last movie. The only way you're going to guarantee your place is primacy of and this was Steven has said to me many times too. It's like that's the thing when it's your baby. They mean they don't want to make it but if they make it it's only going to be with you. Always be writing always be dreaming and like I say truly if you're not a writer then find somebody to collaborate with. It's going to be the I mean, I will say without a doubt my most enjoyable experiences be the larger small have been on the films that I've written I've done both and I've loved my other movies too but the experience of it I'm the most free in a weird way. I'm not like I remember Dustin Hoffman on moonlight mile was waiting to see if I was going to be like Mr. Letter perfect. And I was like Oh god no i cuz I I've already written it. Now we can play if we need to play. So but but that it's that it's always in the other thing too. It's like when I was growing up soccer player, you know, we used to watch these Pepsi training films that they would scream and they were always starving. Pele. Pele was always basically dribbling a grapefruit on a beach in Brazil. And his whole thing was, anybody can do this with just a grapefruit. And I think of that all the time, which is if I have that creative, if I to have to wait to pull together $100 million $10 million 200,000 If I have to wait to be creative, because of other people's money, I'm going to be doomed and bitter. And so writing gives me the control there's nothing but keystrokes or a piece of paper or journal. That's gonna stop me from continue. No. And Stephen has a great phrase bill burr he he talks about your your, your your writing I in your directing, I and he has said to me, you know that the reason he knows I love to write is it's, it's my directing I getting to play, but play on the page. So that's, that's the key is I can't stress it enough. Every time I go back to film schools to talk to young people, like you have to be a creator.

Alex Ferrari 1:11:17
Now, what is the lesson that took you the longest to learn whether in the film industry or in life?

Brad Silberling 1:11:24
Wow, that's a great question. Um, I would say probably, it's an ongoing lesson. You can begin to wait stubbornness with I guess, integrity and stubbornness for many go hand in hand. And I can be super stubborn when I want to do something, I'm going to get it done. It may take two years, 10 years, it may I'm gonna get it done. And it's funny, I have three movies that I've made, each of which had that about it moonlight mile, I wrote a first draft of in 1993. I made it in 2001 10 items or less similar picture I did with Ben Kingsley, ordinary man, I, by the time things got together, fell apart. So I'm stubborn. But what I realized is that I can't be singular and stubborn meaning be open to I was always at the belief that I have to just stay on one project, I can't be distracted by others. And the challenge there is, that's fine. If you literally are prepared to not go and do something for a long period of time, because there are elements that are out of your control. And so I'm both creatively staunch. But I do, it's like you can juggle more plates in it in a successful and enjoyable way. The more you do it, you get confidence. So I might be developing a limited series that might go. But I'm also out to cast on another movie that it would have been once upon a time, I would have only just sat and waited for that cast come together on that movie, Moonlight mile, and suddenly or the money to come with it. And so suddenly, it was from 2008 to two. But when we released the movie 2000 Or sorry, 98 2002 it was like almost four years. And on the one hand, like Peter Weir always said to me, make sure you live your life. Some people just go movie to movie to movie, you need to take time and read and hike and listen to music and fill yourself. So I'm I'm I have both in me I can wait. But I've learned to not to not cut off other opportunities. And so that initially would have been probably more of a challenge for me and I have a bigger view of it now.

Alex Ferrari 1:14:06
And what is your what are three of your favorite films of all time?

Brad Silberling 1:14:12
I mean, well, every filmmaker will tell you, it's like, don't ask me that question. But I'm gonna tell you obviously, JAWS is what lit my little fuse. i You can ask that question and get a different answer every day. I'm going to tell you I love again talking about Peter. We're in a more commercial film of his. Okay, I'm cheating. I'm giving you two. I love Gallipoli and I love witness witnesses this remarkable movie. It's like this. And then I'm going to give you a only because I recently saw it again and I was like God i wish i have made that movie. I'm going to mention ZhongYi movie that most people have not seen and they must see it. And so it's it's the smallest movie he ever made. It's called not one less. He made it with with non actors and a little Chinese village is the most breathtaking, beautiful. It's like, not even Veritate because it's still beautifully controlled the way he can. But it's what movies can be. I come back to it from time to time to you know, reinvigorate me. I'm a big Ozu fan. Love I love floating weeds. Floating weeds is a movie that I come back to, for tone for just what exactly where that camera is on that 50 millimeter lens. So those are movies that always stay with me. But I do have those movies that I call like, oh, that's just a perfect movie that you can go back to from time to time and they can be indifferent. That can be All the President's Men it can be can be the verdict. It can be you know, you name it. So I have a I have a, you know, one of those revolving CD changers. It's not to fix

Alex Ferrari 1:16:13
Exactly, it's absolutely rotation you got rotation.

Brad Silberling 1:16:16
But it's just it's it's honestly to tweak myself. It's God. That's beauty. Every time I see something that I enjoy, it makes me want to go that day and make a movie. And that's what it is

Alex Ferrari 1:16:29
My friend. I appreciate you coming on the show, Brad. I really do. Thank you so much. It's been a wonderful conversation. I hope it's inspired a few people to go out there and make a movie and and scare the hell out of others to not make movies. But I truly appreciate your time my friend. Please continue making the work that you do and good works. I appreciate you my friend.

Brad Silberling 1:16:48
I appreciate it too. This is fun. Thanks so much.

LINKS

  • Brad Silberling – IMDB

SPONSORS

  1. Bulletproof Script Coverage– Get Your Screenplay Read by Hollywood Professionals
  2. AudibleGet a Free Filmmaking or Screenwriting Audiobook
  3. Rev.com– $1.25 Closed Captions for Indie Filmmakers – Rev ($10 Off Your First Order)