MotionSketches is a new online documentary series that explores contemporary approaches to production of cinematic media. From big screen to small, from live action to animation, gaming and machinima. Focused on writing and production development of ideas for all forms of screen-based media MotionSketches engages with screenwriting, pre-production, sound design, planning and scheduling production, distribution, storyboarding and pre-vis, collaboration and the gamut of new approaches that the digital age delivers.
MotionSketches is built around the Celtx production software system and embraces its holistic and integrated approach to construction cinematic media. Episodes can be seen here on DigitalBasin as well as YouTube, BlipTV and over at www.celtx.com.
Game Probe is a new series of videos that explore the art and aesthetics of computer and video gaming. Each short video, built from in-game footage, explores a different contemporary game and looks at how it engages with dramatic action, narrative and immersive experience to communicate ideas, concepts and experience. This first in what I plan to be an on-going series looks at Bioshock and the building of narrative through space and architecture.
Copyright is arguably The issue of early 21st century media. A battlefield formed where Industrial Revolution concepts of intellectual property collide with a mass-culture drenched with computer machines whose only core function is to copy, replicate and distribute.
But amid this inherently problematic environment there persists many of the same arguments waged between artists and 'management' that have always been waged regardless of technology. Nine Inch Nails central figure Trent Reznor has let fly on stage at his concerts in Sydney with a tirade against his own record company. Accusing them of greed and deliberate exploitation of fans he openly urged the crowd to "Steal it. Steal away. Steal, steal and steal some more and give it to all your friends and keep on stealing.... Because one way or another these mother fuckers will get it through their head that they're ripping people off and that's not right"
Whilst these disputes between artists and agents and accusation of greed are nothing new and for certain can be traced back through history, the difference is now when the artist cries Foul, the fans have the ability to act on it. The cries of the artist are no longer hollow but evoke a real power, power derived by a populous turning to their technology and using it for exactly the purpose it was designed for.
Giving with one hand and taking with the other. Microsoft's latest
posturing in regard to the Gaming industry and community poses some
interesting thinking and questions.
Microsoft have released a treatise of 'guidelines'
to govern and indeed obviously intended to rein-in the pesky game
modding community. The guidelines detail what Microsoft says you, as a
game modder, can and cannot do to a Microsoft derived game.
Product Placement and David Lynch's articulate perspective
I thought about writing a long treatise on the topic of product placement in filmmaking, particularly large budget Hollywood. I thought about riffing on the incidious nature of such forms of advertisng; on the invasive persistence of the 'product' and the 'consuming of products' above all else. I thought of pointing out that advertsing of it self is not 'bad', that it provides oppotuntiites where there might not have been otherwise, that it is a sound econmic model for art - although, it should be remebered, not the only one - but that advertising masqurading as something else carries a weight of incidious issues.
But in the end I'm just going to embed David Lynch's thoughts on the topic...
The art and craft of making cinema has always been a diverse scientific fusion and the abandonment of analogue systems for the flexibility and robustness of the digital landscape has only made it more so. However, what strikes me as particularly interesting is the the enormous over-lap between sciences, processes and concepts from analogue to digital. 3D and CGI environments are a prime example.
Working in these spaces, compositing, modelling, animating, rendering, largely derives its mechanics from real-world, physical and optical processes lifted right out of the analogue environment. Virtual cameras have f-stops and focal lengths, objects have weight and friction and gravity and light has radiance and refraction.
Each one of these elements is a hard science unto itself with an enormous body of knowledge informing the cinematic construction with these tools. But very often functional engagement with these tools comes form simple, clear, conceptual understandings. This short article from ChromeSphere does exactly that as it overviews the key ideas behind the principles of Optics and Refraction. Short though it may be there is no filmmaker on earth who will fail to benefit from the knowledge.
Cinema IS light, without it there is no cinema. So understanding cinema and how to make it demands you understand how light behaves and how to control it.
Photoshop has been manipulating images so long and with such creative intensity that the 'Photoshop' noun has become a verb of common usage even among those who've never used the tool. To 'Photoshop' something or to refer to something being 'Photoshoped' are testament of a tool and a process deeply embed in our digital culture.
This tool, that began life as a system for generating title cards for television, continues to evolve and now with CS3 and extended functions for animation, rotoscoping, working with video and even 3D, the 'photo' in the title has largely become a legacy symbol and not a true reflective moniker of the tool.
None the less the creative and cultural impact of Photoshop has been massively profound in re-defining the broad expectations of the image in the digital age. Where once the photographic image was the very definition of truth and factual representation we now very much live in an age where the image is popularly regarded with innate scepticism and a pre-set of accepted manipulation. And this 180 degree shift can be largely attributed not just to the evolution from celluloid to digital but more specifically to the direct impact of Photoshop as a means of manipulation.
The website for www.iwanexstudio.com provides a fantastic way to see the power of Photoshop and the manipulation of the image. (select PORTFOLIO and click a face) Here portrait photos of celebrities and the beautiful people are shown in natural before and 'Photoshopped' after. The effects are, as you would expect, profound to say the least.
You'll never look at a fashion magazine the same way again.
Along with what Photoshop can do and the cultural/creative aesthetic it begat, the history of Photoshop as a tool is also facinating - as per this article from Computer Arts, although the image below pretty much distills the story down to a bite sized chunk. :)
Sometimes the sillyness of a floating head just makes your day. But
whilst chortling away to myself I find I'm also caught up in
considering the popularization of the technology that allows that to
happen. Whilst the idea of the illusion of cinema as effects spectacle
goes back to Melies and the forced perspective; there is none the less
something quite exrodinary in the idea that the construction of such an
effective visual effect is (for arguments sake at least) an common
occurance with simple common technologies. hat this points to more than
anything else is a tangible leap in the evolution of visual
expectations. Seeing physics and reality defying cinematic effects is
nothing new but for some time they have been woven into the popular
discourse of 'Movie Magic' that happens behind closed and arcane
doors.What happens to aour sense of what cinema is and what cinema can
be when the 'Magic' becomes the everyday vocabulary? Whilst some may
cry foul with the notion that the exeprience is diminished, I find
myself more excited than ever that we move into a period where the
audience is neither fooled nor impressed by the effects themselves but
rather look to their contexts and impact
I have written several times recently about the glorious cinematic game experience that is Bioshock. I am to soon deliver a lecture exploring the sound design of Bioshock entitled :
Aural Architecture - BioShock, Game Sound and Narrative Space For more than a century we have composed cinema in frames; made meaning by the portrait arrangement of the visual and aural in the defined composition of the Mise en Scene. But the over-arching super-structure of cinema in the 21st century is not the Frame but the Space - the composition, navigation, arrangement, exploration and design of Space itself.
Immersive 3D gaming presents moving-image media with a profoundly different aesthetic paradigm for understanding how we compose meaning, emotion and story. In gaming it is the Spatial environment that is composed, not the Frame; both aesthetically and technically.
What makes this conceptual shift profound is that since the tools for game production are the same as those used for non-interactive cinema - 3D environments, CGI composits and surround sound - and the movie-going audience is increasingly populated with 'Gamers' carrying ingrained game aesthetic expectations, the process of 'Composition' for all cinematic forms is shifted, never to be the same.
At the heart of this composition of space is sound; no other element can convey the complexities of space with more innate emotive connectivity than sound. In this new Macro-Mise en Scene the aural becomes the architecture of experience.
This presentation will examine gaming sound and space and its impact across the diversity of cinema. With specific reference to Bioshock and the specifics of technical production it will re-consider how we compose meaning, narrative and emotion in a game-soaked world.
In researching this presentation I have compiled a useful set of assets from the game which I'm posting here with confidence you'll find them as fascinating as I did.
With the new release of Celtx there is of course much discussion and excitement directed at its new features but of equal significance is the overhaul of the Celtx on-line system known as Project Central.
Project Central's features, whilst many and numerous, broadly fall in two directions. On one hand Project Central serves as an on-line repository for your project. With one click from the Celtx interface your project is uploaded to your own private site within PC and all manner of data disasters are immediately circumvented by an immediate and comprehensive on-line back-up. Moreover this space serves as perfectly structured collaborative environment where by multiple creators and production development team members can access and contribute to a central unified project. For collaborators by geographic distance this is obviously perfect but its also just as functional for any production to ensure all elements of production are feeding into the same body of work and singular production document. This is where Celtx certainly transcends the traditionally limited and blinkered scope of screenwriting systems to become a complete and holistic production development and management system. All this with a very Web2.0 concious paradigm of integrated on-line and off-line processes.
The other hand of Project Central that goes beyond on-line back-up and collaboration is about exchange and community based sharing of creative ideas. Projects mounted on Project Central can be made private or public, the later allowing for others to read, comment on and even contribute to the development of your project. Many of those using Project Central in this way do so as a way to attract other writers, directors, designers to their project or even to pitch ideas yet to be written and invite contributions.
Whilst traditionalist screenwriters may find this idea abhorrent in the perpetual paranoia of your ideas being 'ripped off', more forward thinking writers and filmmakers will see this an opportunity rather than a threat and embrace the collaborative opportunities.
As Celtx develops it will be increasingly difficult to discern where the local off-line tool ends and the on-line collaborative system begins as the two integrate into a highly productive system.
The Sci-Fi genre is a surprisingly difficult genre to define. Whilst the average Joe in the street, when asked to name a Sci-Fi film, will more than likely offer up Star Wars or Star Trek there has long been argument from more dicerning viewers, scholars, writers and filmmakers that true Science Fiction is more complex and indeed much rarer than Hollywood's broad brush-stroke label.
Just because a film is set in space does not mean it's Science Fiction; indeed Science Fiction relies not at all on space, or even the future. the true essence of Science Fiction is the What If scenario, the central new idea with real human impact. Blade Runner is Sci_Fi - "What if we had robots identical to humans? What would it mean to be human?" Frankenstein is Sci-Fi - "What if we could create life like and brign back the dead?". Children of Men (which i wrote about last week) is Sci-Fi - "What if the human race could no longer breed?". Conversely Star Wars is Not Sci-Fi, there is no "What If" scenario with implications for humankind and the here and now.
This argument is presented in a most eloquent and very personal way in this video entitled The Look.
Every now and then you stumble across something really bloody useful.... For all those that have had to deal with the time-code critical projects, particularly you poor saps living the tragedy of NTSC land with drop and non-drop timecode, then this little app might be the answer to your prayers.
Its a simply and free and highly effective timecode calculator that can automatically convert time-code formats for Drop Frame, NTSC-ND (Non-drop), PAL, NTSC frames, PAL frames, Film frames (24 fps), 30fps frames, Real-time, 16mm, 35mm, 16mm. Click of a button and away you go.
Make no mistake, Celtx is the most forward thinking and dynamic production software tool available. That's a big call to make but I have no hesitation whatsoever in doing so. Its not just what Celtx does, but rather the conceptual princples that Celtx embraces that make it such an exciting and forward-thinking tool.
I've written about Celtx as a screenwriting and production management tool before on DMN (part 1 and part2 here) and now with a new release available one that greatly expands the functionality as well as its broad conceptual approach, there's even more to love - not least of all that its open-source and free to use!
A plethora of new features makes Celtx easily now the most comprehensive tool of its kind on the market. This new version introduces an AV two-column scripting system, structure formatting for radio and podcast scripts, double sided scene card view with colour coding and a comprehensive calender production management system with drag and drop functionality (drop a scene from the script onto calender to schedule the shoot and automatically generate call and production info). This of course all in tandem with the existing feature set offering a complete database reporting and management system for cast, set, props, locations and every other possible requirement of production, character and plot development tools and a highly effective mark-up and script annotation system.
Whilst the Celtx folks have obviously been busy expanding the range of features and moving Celtx ever closer to being a total and integrated environment for all forms of cinematic media production, they have also taken a much more interesting and bold conceptual step forward in the engine room of Celtx...
The governing paradigm by which the tasks of 'Word Processing' and 'Writing' have been performed on computer since Microsoft and Apple bought into the Xerox developed WIMP (Windows, Icons, Mouse, Pointer) concept, has been WYSIWYG - What You See Is What You Get. The WYSIWYG idea is incredibly simple - that a document on screen is as it will appear on paper. Computers did not start out with a WYSIWYG approach but we have subsequently been immersed so long in this idea that its arguably difficult to perceive of an alternative.
But is WYSIWYG the only way to write? The only way to construct a document in the digital age? Are there alternatives? Are their inherent problems with the WYSIWYG paradigm? (interesting little article here about WYSIWYG)
The issue is that, particularly in the context of writing, WYSIWYG essentially relegates the Computer to the role of glorified Typewriter - a binary simulator of the typing process - of directly imprinting letter characters in-situ of their viewing. Whilst this might be viably functional there are also strong arguments to suggest that the concept of WYSIWYG falls far short of what the computer and the digital platform is capable of and that non-WYSIWYG models might actually provide far greater scope than the distinctly limiting 'typewriter' mindset.
It is into this conceptual framework that Celtx has stepped with infinitely more bold, forward and progressive thinking than most software developers will ever muster. This new version of Celtx embraces a system of non-WYSIWYG writing and formatting layout known as LaTeX. Unlike common prose writing, all forms of writing for audio-visual mediums (screenplays, AV, treatments, radioplays, stageplays etc) demand a visual structure and layout that is highly specific and geared directly towards pragmatic and logistical demands of production. Here Celtx's new LaTeX-based layout feature known as Typeset offers significant benefit over a traditional WYSIWYG model.
Typeset works by allowing you to write in a fluid manner that has an internal logic geared to the writing itself, and then use Typeset to automatically layout what you have written into the desired format more geared for viewing and production. The difference is that Celtx, using the Typeset system, recognizes that a one-size fits all approach can be inefficient and dysfunctional. Whats required for reading and production application of a script is fundamentally different, and even at odds with, the mode most efficient for the writing itself.
The advantage of this Typeset system in Celtx is most evident in the creation of AV Two-Column scripts common for documentary, TV, and news journalism production. The concept of an AV script is separate descriptions for the visual and aural elements displayed side-by-side in matched columns. The problem with creating an AV script is that while the two column format is very efficient to read its very inefficient to write, relying on tables, fields and often manual alignment of 'Aural' and 'Visual' related text.
In Celtx, using Typeset, the process is greatly simplified and moreover geared towards a fluidity of writing - more time writing and less time making things look right. In Script view the writer can write in a simple top-down process sequentially describing visual action and aural dialogue; not unlike a traditional screenplay. Then with a click of a tab button Celtx Typesets the work into a perfectly formatted AV two-column script - correctly aligned, spaced and presented.
At a broader level what this approach does is provide a writing environment that is focused on the task of 'writing', on flow of ideas and not broken by the demands of production layout - horses for courses and a recognition that what's good for the reader is not necessarily good for the writer. Moreover what the LaTeX/Typeset method drives at is a broader way of perceiving writing in a digital environment that moves us beyond the glorified typewriter.
Theres no doubt that after decades of WYSIWYG saturation the idea of writing in one mode and viewing/reading in another may take some getting used to for many screenwriters but it doesn't take too much effort to perceive the potential benefits the change in perspective opens up once you get used to it.
Celtx is, somewhat ironically, an extremely rare software tool in that is completely 'of the digital age' fully embracing the Digital environment and cognizant of what separates it from analogue processes. Celtx isn't a binary paper simulator, it doesn't simply replicate old processes on-screen; Celtx pro-actively reconsiders production processes themselves. It prompts creators to re-think the traditional divisions in production development and engage a new and integrated mode of thinking about cinematic form. Screenwriting tools for formatting and creating a screenplay are common but a tool like Celtx, one that brings together creative and logistical elements to create an holistic production development and management system, is a unique rarity.
Oh yeah, and did i mention it was free...?
By way of disclosure, I should state I am currently engaged by Celtx to produce a series of videos on screenwriting and pre-production, but this association came about only after I contacted Celtx to declare my enthusiasm for the tool and offer my assistance to help develop it - also long after I first started using and writing about Celtx. And since Celtx is open source and free i can hardly be accused of trying to 'sell' it. :) Try it foryourself. Once you've seen the light of how efficient, flexible and forward-thinking a creative software tool can be you'll never go back or look at software the same way again.... Instead, you'll also be asking yourself Why the hell you shelled out hundreds of dollars for Final Draft....?!
This weekend I'll be at the Soundhouse Association national conference
and i was asked to speak on the topic of Students as Producers. More
than just another spin at the quickly establishing notion of consumer
co-creation, the idea of what it means to teach students of the Digital
Native holds particular interest and pertinent questions. heres soem of
thoughts I'll be kicking around....
The concept of the 'pro-active public', what Axel Bruns as termed the PROD-USER;
the driver of consumer-driven content, has quickly one of those
concept-statements bandied about with casual nonchalance but which most
often escapes a real and tangible understanding.
The observation
of the effects of evolving technology on 'how' we do things is only one
part of the equation and too often this is where our critical thinking
stops. What is much more profound than the means is the impetus to
engage the means.
What prompts the engagement with producing? What is the mindset of those that produce? How do our expectations and values change as a result of the producing? And how do we teach those who make no distinction between 'produce' and 'producing'?
The
real power and strength of the Prod-User generation is Not that
everyone can be a creative producer but, rather, that there is the
broad, popular, social and cultural perception that they CAN produce...
The perception of possibility and accessibility to production is
exponentially greater in social value than the specific worth of the
content that is produced.
A community, a society, a country
who's preset default is can rather than a factory setting of cant is
exponentially an empowered and dynamic one regardless of the 'quality'
of that which is created, be it great or mediocre.
[Read More]
