Film Masterclass Part 2 - 12 Actions

Here are 12 Actions that I came away with after attending Guerrilla Film Makers Masterclass. This is the 2nd blog resulting from the class, the first blog is here.

350 filmmakers in London at the Guerrilla Film Makers Masterclass with Chris Jones

One of the reasons for attending the class was to surround myself with like-minded passionate people and use some of their energy to kick me up the arse and make that big film I've been talking about for over 3 years now. I came away feeling that anything was possible and committed to start working on that film.

Here are my 12 Actions:

1. Commit to making that movie… the one I've been talking about for 3 years.
2. Start using twitter - I've been signed up for a year or so, but I've never really got it. So from now on I'm going to stop making excuses and start tweeting.
3. Get some script formatting software to write the drama scenes.
4. Plan a kick starter campaign.
5. Recruit collaborators for my big movie
6. Speak to my friend about story-boarding my film
7. Read: Think Outside the Box Office
8. Read: Power, Money, Sex and Fame
9. Read: The Hero's Journey
10. Recruit a mentor to assist me on my own 'hero's Journey'.
11. Sort all my comm's channels out  - get virtual fax number, check answer phone messages, add all channels to email signature.
12. Work for free on some drama shoots.

Finally, I think one of the biggest messages from the weekend was 'Just do it'. Chris said and I quote, "There are no excuses, [for not making that movie]... all those excuses are bollocks!"

"...all those excuses are bollocks!" Chris Jones

One person who is not making any excuses is Justin Tagg, his new Sci-Fi film 'Mouse' is going into production in April, check out their crowd funding campaign here.

Diff

Film Masterclass Part 1 - 21 Nuggets of Know-How

Last weekend I joined over 300 filmmakers in London at the Guerrilla Film Makers Masterclass with Chris Jones.

I've attended a few filmmaking courses and classes since I first picked up a camera over 8 years ago. I've mostly attended courses aimed at adventure filmmaking eg AFA Pro (Kendal), Banff's Adventure Filmmakers' Workshop, etc. This was the first event where I mixed with filmmakers aiming to make drama feature films and it's a different world! Not least the budgets and crew sizes these folk talk about.

I'm going to split my blog on the course into two parts, Part 1 - '21 Nuggets of Know-How' and Part 2 - '12 Actions'. After all there is no point getting new knowledge if you are not going to take any action resulting from it.

So here we go with Part 1:

Part 1 -   21 Nuggets of Know-How

I did learn a lot from last weekend, this list does not represent what the course covered as such, it is simply a list of nuggets of know-how which hit home with me. I'm sure other people attending the class would come away with a completely different list.

1. When looking for ways of reducing a budget, look for big elastic cost.
2. Tips of negation. I'm not going to tell you what they were just in case I ever have to negotiate with you!
3. How to reduce the cost of a shoot by editing the script: eg "It was raining heavily" … no it wasn't!
4. Keep the number of story days to a minimum & avoid costume change.
5. Ensure title, poster and effects are consistence for genre. The title and poster should tell you what the film is about.
6. To add production value look for great actors, locations and props you can access for free or on the cheap
7. Find all locations within 5mins walk of a central base.
8. Install an editor on site during your shoot. Daily A-cuts.
9. Watch out for too many white walls
10. Spend money on the design team, a bad prop will kill your production.
11. Director should always be first on set, last on set (I already knew that, but I think it's worth mentioning again)
12. If you are going to pay the crew, pay all the crew the same rate, consider national minimal wage. Give a feeling of we're in it together.
13. Fire bad apples.
14. Meet all the crew and actors before the shoot and get drunk. During the shoot give everyone else the opportunity to have a drink, but refrain yourself until the wrap.
15. Shoot all scenes in the script, even if you think you can drop it, at least just shoot one take as a wide.
16. Post - Take your time, get it right
17. Plan post workflow and test it before the shoot. eg. camera - CF card - HD - Prores - FCP - color - compressor - QT - Tape
18. Use music sparingly, only use to take the scene to the next emotional level, not to dictate the emotion the audience… (unless you are Peter Jackson)
19. Opening Titles - White text on black only. Easy to change and no one is impressive with fancy titles.
20. Press pack should have 50 stills in. (I have normally only included 3)
21. When you attend the premier / award ceremony, take no credit for yourself and say it was all down to the rest of the team.

Read my 12 Actions in Part 2 here

Diff

‘The Long Hope’ London Screening at the Royal Geographical Society

 'The Long Hope' film poster

There is a special screening of our new film 'The Long Hope' at the Royal Geographical Society in London on the 8th of February. Dave MacLeod and Andy Turner will both be giving a talk about the project and I'll be there to introduce the film.

Royal Geographical Society

It should be a very special night, not least because of the amazing venue. So if you live in London it would be great to see you there.

Tickets cost £12 and can be bought directly from Dave MacLeod's website.

Paul

‘The Long Hope’ DVD Trailer Now Online

Our new film, ‘The Long Hope’ is now available on DVD and HD download.

 The Long Hope DVD, Cover photo by Lukasz Warzecha, design by Ifan Bates

We had a great time at the premiere last week, with a sold out theatre at the Kendal Mountain Film Festival. Folk seem to really enjoy it. It was great to be over hearing so many positive comments in the bar all weekend at Kendal… Not that we spent all weekend in the bar… just most of it!

 The Long Hope premiere, pic Lukasz Warzecha

Highlights of Kendal for me include, Cory Richard’s and Anson Fogel’s short film 'Cold' and John Beatty’s A/V presentation, ‘Wild Vision’.

On the Sunday night we were all thrilled to win the People's Choice award, thank you to everyone who voted for the film.

The winning team! Andy Turner, Guy Heaton, Lukasz Warzecha, Ed Drummond, Matt Pycroft, Claire MacLeod, Dave MacLeod, Paul Diffley, presented by Nico Favresse

If you want to know what all the fuss is about, watch our new trailer and don’t fear the ‘Full Screen’ button, its 1080p!

'The Long Hope' - Trailer

Do you want to see it all? DVDs and HD downloads now available from hotaches.com.

Diff.

P.S. Please hit one of the magic buttons below to share this blog and share the love x

10 Reasons Why Climbing Photography is Easier Than Making Climbing Films

When I was shooting 'The Long Hope' on Hoy this year I had a running joke with climbing photographer Lukasz Warzecha that he had it easy and that shooting video was much harder than shooting stills. So, with that in mind here are my 10 reasons why:- 

(Warning: please don't take this too seriously!)

1 Sound Acquisition

Stills don't need sound! Recording good quality sound in an extreme position is incredibly difficult.  You have to compete with the environment (wind, water etc). It requires specialist equipment, radio mics, broadcast quality mics, wind shields. It also requires set up and monitoring with headphones (which are a real pain when hanging from a rope!).

2 Sound Post Production

Sound is such a biggy it deserves to get two in the list of ten. About 20% of the post production of a film is concerned with sound. 

3 Tripods

To get good GVs (General views - eg landscapes, pans and tilts etc) you have to use a tripod for video; with stills you can just snap away handheld. Yeah sure, there are a few times when you might shoot a still on a tripod, but it's rare. Good video tripods are heavy and a real pain to carry. (My top tip for any budding climbing filmmakers out there is always try to make the talent (i.e. the climber) carry the tripod!)

4 Lighting

When photographers talk about lights often they just mean flash guns; they only need to light their subject for a fraction of a second. Video needs continuous lighting. I recently shot some video of a climb in a cave. As well as 3 x 800 watts spotlights with stands I also had to carry in a large petrol generator to power them. Compare that to a couple of flash guns and a handful of AAs!

5 Media Size

After the two week shoot on Hoy I now have 1500GB of video to trawl through. I bet Lukasz came away with only about 50GB.

6 Editing

When I hear a photographer talk about 'editing' that really sets me off! They have it so easy! All they have to do is skim though their images from the shoot and pick out the keepers from the choss. Then they spend a pleasant evening tweaking setting and 'playing' with filters until they have their final images. Editing a film can be a 500-hour life altering journey, resulting in lack of sleep and social contact, malnourishment and an existential crisis.

7 Photoshop Trickery 

Whether its HDR (high dynamic range) or de-cluttering, photoshopping is easy with stills. Try fixing shots like this at 25fps. For a short 5 second clip that's 125 frames which need to be fixed and even then it might not work and look a little odd.

8 Video Formats

HD, SD, MPG, Quicktime, AVIs, PAL, NTSC, progressive, interlaced, anamorphic, frame rate, data rate, pixel aspect ratio, field dominance,  etc. Video formats is a whole world of hurt!

Compare with stills: RAW or JPG!  It's not just the number of formats that is the problem, it's trying to convert from one format to another. With stills you just select 'Save As'....video doesn't work like that.

9 Portrait Composition

Climbing is mostly a vertical pursuit; one goes from the bottom to the top mostly (usually!) in a upright position. Therefore it is so much easier to compose a good climbing shot in portrait orientation. Video is a landscape / wide screen format, we just don't have that option. When I shoot stills its a joy to be able to turn the camera around 90 degrees. Warning, if you ever ask a photographer to shoot some video for you on his DSLR ("my camera shoots HD video you know!") remind them to shoot landscape! 

10 One Frame for Glory!

For a photographer to win praise and even prizes they only need to produce one stunning image, or as a filmmaker would say, one frame. My new film 'The Long Hope' is 60mins long, so that's 60mins x 60 sec x 25fps = 90,000 frames! That's 90,000 frames that all have to perfectly exposed, composed and colour corrected. Not to mention in some sort of order so that the film makes sense. 

So that's why stills are easier than video.  This is an open and public invitation to Lukasz to defend his profession, or bow down before all filmmakers and admit that stills are easy ;-)

Finally, I have to come clean and say that I will be attending Lukasz's photography workshop in North Wales at the end of this month (if he is still speaking to me after this post!). Just because stills are 'easy' it doesn't mean that I can't learn something from a pro!

Details of Lukasz's Workshops

Still a few places left.

Diff

'Wide Boyz' - A Crazy New Climbing Film (Due 2012)

We've been working on a new film which will be out next year featuring Peter Whittaker and Thomas Randall.

The last time Pete featured in a Hot Aches film (Committed Vol II) he produced some of the craziest climbing I've ever seen.

Pete Whittaker on the first ascent of 'Dynamics of Change' E9.
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Over the last couple of years Pete and Tom have been on a mission to climb the worlds hardest offwidth cracks. This mission is culminating in a two month climbing trip to the USA starting this week. Hot Aches have teamed up with American filmmaker Chris Alstrin of Alstrin Films and Chris will be recording all the action across the pond.

Offwidth crack climbing is a bit of a specialty. In fact, I'm not sure I understood exactly what the definition of an offwidth was until working with 'The Wide Boys', or 'Wide Boyz' according to their blog. Tom described it to me as a crack which is too wide to hand or fist jam, yet not wide enough to fit your whole body into, as then it gets classed as a squeeze chimney.

Personally,  I'm not sure about the 'z', What do you think? Should I call the film 'Wild Boyz' or 'Wild Boys'? Please let me know in the comments below.

I spent two weeks filming with the 'Boys/Boyz' in the Peak District and North Wales, climbing many of the UKs hardest crack climbs.

Tom Hanging out of Cobalt Dream E5

Ray's Roof, first climbed by the inventor of Friends, Ray Jardine, was considered the UK's classic hard offwdith. I've not only filmed Pete and Tom solo this but I've also got some funny footage of them attempting it wearing a 20kg training vest… Not the easiest thing to carry in to the crag.

20KG training vest

The Wide Boys haven't just been ticking off all the hardest climbs and problems, they have been training too… training like I've never seen before!

 crack training

Underneath a suburban semi on the outskirts of Sheffield is an offwidth crack training dungeon! A training cellar in Sheffield is nothing new, in fact there was a time when you could hardly visit a climber in Sheffield without him wanting to show you his woody! However, this one doesn't contain tiny crimps and a replica of Hubble.  No, instead it is made up of horizontal offwidth cracks of various sizes.

Pete wedged between two pieces of wood underneath a house in Sheffield

Here Pete and Tom spend their evenings hanging upside down and completing monster crack climbing circuits. The width of the cracks varies in places and to aid identification they have named the sections of crack… most seem to have girls names for some reason! 

 Tom in his cellar

The Wide Boys have now clocked up over 18,000 feet of offwidth climbing in Tom's cellar. The question now is how will that translate to hard offwidth climbing in the States? You can find out by following Pete and Tom on their blog here Wide Boyz Blog

And join the Hot Aches Facebook page  for all the latest updates.

Diff.

Pete and Tom's trip is supported by Wild Country, Rab and Patagonia

Thanks to Adrian Samarra for his help filming in the Peak and North Wales.

Bongo Bar, Norway.... or as I like to call it 'Um Bongo'!

I've just spent two weeks shooting stills and video for the Gore Tex Experiace Tour - Norway. The 'tour' gave two winner of a competition, Julia Snihur and Helena Robinson, the chance to climb and explore Arctic Norway with Dave MacLeod.

Dave MacLeod, Helena Robinson, Julia Snihur below Blåmann

We were based at Ersfjorden (or as I like to call it Erik's Fjord) just 15min drive from Norway's northern city of Tromso. Tromso reminds me of a little of Inverness, its population is comparable, it's in the far north and it has a big bridge!

Ersfjorden (Sport crags and boulders)

Fishing boat on Ersfjorden

It is an awesome area, beautifully wild with tons of rock and amazing light.

Amazing Light 

Dave was obviously very keen to get on to the 400m wall at Blåmann. In fact with in about an hour of picking up the hire car we had gone food shopping, dropped all our kit at our hut and we were walking in to crag. The walk in to the base is fairly short but stiff. I guess it's like the walk in to Orion's Face from the North face car park, or at least to the CIC hut.

The North Face of Blåmann

The wall felt quite alpine, you had to cross some short snow fields and a bergschrund before scrabbling up to its base. Dave then spent the next 3 days looking at freeing an existing aid route, Bongo Bar. I like to call it "Um Bongo" after the 1980's fruit drink:-

"Um Bongo, they drink it in the Congo" 

After 3 days effort and working out all the moves on the hard lower pitches (upto F8a) Dave concluded  that it wasn't a safe objective for the trip.

The team then focused on sports climbing for a few days.

Helena Robinson, climbing at "Erik's Fjord"

Dave MacLeod hanging out at "Erik's Fjord"

Dave MacLeod hanging off 'Fidel' at Gullknausen

Julia Snihur on Ramadan at "Erik's Fjord"

Helena Robinson on Granitveien at "Erik's Fjord"

Then Dave started to talk about Bongo Bar again, maybe there was a way it could be done. I remember asking Dave, "Is it niggling you"? He just laughed and said "Its more than a niggle!".

'Ghost Clouds over Blåmann'

So with only 4 days of the trip left we all hiked back into Blåmann again for Dave to attempt to lead the route free in a day with Julia seconding and sharing the lead on some of the easier top pitches.

Dave eyes up the route

With limited static rope, there was no way I could follow the ascent on the wall, so I got a position on a flank of rock overlooking the wall and shot video and stills from there. All the stills from this position have the theme of "Lost in a sea of granite"!

Dave and Julia swimming in the sea of granite 

As Dave and Julia approached the top pitches I lowered down the last 50m of the cliff to film the final climbing. After 11 hours on the wall they topped out at sunset. 

Dave and Julia top out at sunset. This picture was taken in the dark! ISO 800, 50mm f1.4, 1/30. It was lit by a head torch... I think it would have looked OK, but Julia was more interested in eating than posing for a picture after 11 hours on the wall. 

Two days later, Dave and I were back on the wall for some reshoots of the hard lower pitches and to grab some close up stills.

Dave MacLeod on Pitch 2 of Bongo Bar

Dave MacLeod on Pitch 2 of Bongo Bar

So take the live footage from long shots and the top pitches, mix in the reshoot of the lower pitches, add some handicam footage taken on the wall by the climbers, cut with interviews from Dave and Julia and I think we have a film!

For now, here's a wee taster:-

Diff.

Thanks to GoreTex for supporting this trip and to Donald King providing safety and rigging support.

More pictures and video from the trip are on:
GORE-TEX Facebook site 

Hot Aches Facebook page

Dave MacLeod's Blog