Erkki

Yeah it’s a cool look. I would leave more margin space. On the weekend we did photos based on the storyboard with the two principal actors. I realized that I might have a problem since one of them makes a lot of jokes and then is able to quickly convey different emotions right after, but the other needs the exact opposite kind of atmosphere to get into the role. But I hope we’ll figure it out during a practice shoot.

I don't know the term, but I think nowadays I would look down on this. Definitely did not care for it in Reservoir Dogs when I saw it recently. Pulp Fiction was my favourite movie for a while, I wonder if now I would find it rather dumb in some regards. I don't even know why it appealed to my teenage self and so many others - what's so cool about different names for Big Macs or what the main character thinks about how much mayo people in a different country use? It does absolutely nothing for the story, and I'm not sure if it helps build the character at all.

God damn, how small stupid tech things can ruin one's mood. I got a bunch of pieces of gear delivered this week from many different sources and was feeling good as on the weekend I plan to do some screen tests and photos based on the storyboard. Mood totally ruined by a stupid ND filter step-up ring getting stuck to a lens hood adapter ring - the most dumb pieces of gear ever where you'd least expect failure. Yet this now means I can't use my lens hood with the lens. Not that it's totally ruining everything, but I never work without lens hoods normally - they protect the glass from potential bumps into things more than anything, and also I will have differences of light coming into the lens for the photos I'm using to plan the shoots, compared to when I'm going to actually shoot (by which time I hope to have replacement lens hood because I tried ply these rings apart again, but now they are totally ruined by pressure from the pliers). Fuck technology, I'm going to stick to writing and write a hundred screenplays into my drawer. [edit] I can now see, though, why one might prefer big matte boxes with non-screwed rectangular filters, to scewed-on round filters and lens hoods.

Thanks for sharing that! I went to a one-day film course a few days ago where the teacher said that a scene is sometimes filmed so that first they film the whole scene as long shots, and then they do the close-ups separately - this also gives actors time to get into character for close ups. I am thinking that this might work for me for the office scenes. I'll only have one camera, and maybe this way I also avoid switching lenses a lot (I'll mostly use 3 fixed lenses from 35 to 85 mm). But I'll probably need to use a dolly a lot if I want to get several montage shots for from one physical shot. And the lighting for long shots could also be done once per scene then.

Congrats!

I just did the first draft storyboard based on my screenplay and it's about a 100 shots. I was expecting 60 or so. Damn. I'm kind of scared now - how do I light all that etc. If anyone wants to check it out I shot a video with my phone where I show the frames and talk about what's shown or said, at roughly the same speed the movie should be at.

I would mention two Estonian women who have directed some pretty good films lately - Moonika Siimets and Sandra Jõgeva. But it's probably very hard to find their movies outside of Estonia. Paz Fábrega is a Costa Rican director who has made some pretty good low-key movies about relationships: Viaje (2015) and The Cold Water of the Sea (2010).

I totally get that the characters in Love are not as likeable as usual and it makes it less watchable to many. But I also think it doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. Usually anti-heroes or just horrible main characters in TV are so horrible that they’re actual drug dealers, serial killers. People are not used to rooting for just slightly flawed people. Traditionally it either has to be someone actually evil or someone good you could look up to. And I guess characters who fall somewhere in between can seem boring in comparison - they are not super likeable and also their stories are not as interesting as those of the cop serial killer or teacher become drug dealer, or a mob boss. Or at least someone who is in prison. I kind of like that some shows are also exploring how to tell stories of normal flawed people who don’t necessarily fall under “<flaw> with a heart of gold”. I think You’re the Worst is the best of these, but Love is not bad either.

I also didn't get a Woody Allen vibe. I don't think they were that horrible people. They had flaws. Maybe even really off-putting flaws. Maybe the early first season focused too much on their flaws, in fact. I know I found Mickey to be really annoying the first two episodes. I think it was acknowledged that Gus was also very flawed. I mean, I don't even know how you would write him to be that flawed without acknowledging it. How would you even go about being more explicit about it? Whatever it is, it's not what I'm looking for in movies and TV. (side note: I may have brought out some similar criticism to not acknowledging the rottenness of characters towards Three Billboards, but I think there's a difference of nuance. My argument there was that first they let bigotry be seen as the normal and then they made the bigots get away with things and the victims pay. And then they washed clean the biggest bigot, making him turn into a semi-hero. It's not about not acknowledging) I think a better show with flawed people trying to have a relationship is You're the Worst, though. [edit] That Carlito's Way title song though - awful shite.

I disagree with Love being awful. It’s not super great, but I like it.

A quiet place is a fraud, there were sounds! It’s good though

Thirded

Kikujiro is good, but I didn't personally enjoy it as much as I expected to. I want to see more of his movies, though. I only remember seeing Hana-Bi around the time it was released, and have very vague memories of it.

I just checked, it seems they've fixed it. I'm now getting 1080p in MS Edge.

Apparently Catherine Breillat is quite horrible though, siding with the likes of Harvey Weinstein: http://www.indiewire.com/2018/03/catherine-breillat-asia-argento-harvey-weinstein-jessica-chastain-me-too-1201945040/

Saw Patrick's WIP and I think it's quite promising. My guru story has dropped the guru, but I've finished the first draft of the screenplay after working on multiple outline versions. If anyone wants to read it, PM me. I think it again became a bit more complex than I wanted, but it's definitely shootable. Looks like a 10 minute movie as the screenplay is 10 pages. There are two main locations where I already have tentative permission to shoot and a few extra locations that are not completely essential. However, there are a few complications like a drag performance as the finale. I worry how to find an actor who meets certain requirements and can also do that. And how to shoot it. I don't have any contacts with people who do drag, it was mainly my co-writer's idea (and I don't actually know if she does either). I think I have to stop with my progress of writing more and more shootable screenplays and decide that this is the one I want to shoot soon. But I will probably try to do some micro-films before. I've been watching D4Darious on YouTube and I find him really inspiring, he really pushes the idea of doing many micro-films.

I saw a Turkish Firewatch movie called Watchtower on Mubi. The story is not that similar to the game Firewatch, and is quite depressing, but it’s interesting how the beginning has some similarities like a man arriving in a watchtower and communicating over radio with his colleagues.

Is anyone watching the new season of Jessica Jones? I watched one episode, but I didn't get into it as much as before. It feels like I've somehow grown out of that mood where I liked this a lot. I think I liked that there was no immediate bad guy reveleal yet.

I think I haven’t even noticed anyone applying the term hard sci-fi to movies. I’m not sure I personally care for any distinction between hard and non-hard sci-fi. As I’ve understood the term is more useful to people who don’t like fantasy.

Ok, bear with me... it turned out this idea is now also too complicated since I wanted to turn it into something like a real (short) movie. I am now planning to do that as my second movie. For my first, there's a story where a character living in our modern world is feeling down, sees an advert for a guru, gets advice from guru, the the advice appears to not work and finally works in an unexpected way. The idea originally came from the lead's story about meeting an Indian guru (the oriental India). As I'm developing it, I am getting concerns that the portrayal of the meeting with the guru could become slightly racist. It's a very brief part of the movie, and the guru will have maybe one or two lines. I initially thought I would decorate it like I imagine it would be, slightly exotic and oriental. However, if I put a white actor in that role, it's like cultural appropriation, if I put an actual Indian person, then the only Indian is put into an exotic role... Maybe I should make the guru into a modern person, not someone who is exotic or oriental? Any advice?

Yes, but that also doesn't work over steam link :/

Well, I feel a bit dumb for not realizing that Netflix never showed me 1080p (I think on the PS3 it's also 720p). But then again I am sitting far enough from the screen that I sometimes can't tell the difference between 1080p and 720p. And now that I found that I can get a much better image from Netflix in Edge or Internet Explorer... I realize that with those browsers, streaming video doesn't work over Steam Link. Probably the same DRM reason? With all the talk of 4K, HDR, 8K and whatnot, god damn can we get to 1080p already in 2018?

Apparently Netflix is only playing 720p max in Firefox and Chrome!

It seems more like someone uploaded a wrong file to Netflix. But also maybe the way this movie was shot just doesn't play well with (Netflix's) streaming. Usually films and TV series have more close-ups than this one, I think. And when there were close-ups the faces were in shadows. So most of the time there's no detail in the actors... It was also very wide screen 2.39:1, which means the picture will be quite small in most homes where you have 16:9. [edit] The thread I linked to had some more replies now, and one suggested to Ctrl+Shift+Alt+D to show debug info in Netflix. here's mine for Annihilation: Playing bitrate (a/v): 96 / 910 (853x480) Playing/Buffering vmaf: 94/94 Buffering bitrate (a/v): 96 / 910 Buffer size in Bytes (a/v): 2926949 / 26030657 Buffer size in Bytes: 28957606 Buffer size in Seconds (a/v): 232.759 / 225.713 Not sure how to read all of it, but if >200 seconds have been buffered it's definitely no internet issue. Seems the resolution is 480p (SD)!!!, which would explain most of the problem, but not the crappy dynamic range.

I don't know if it's a Netflix blooper, combined with Internet problem, but Annihilation was one of the most uncomfortable movie watching experience I had. Movie is shot with willfully ignoring many photography good practices: Big light sources in frame, causing lens flares and contrast to disappear Actors often in darkness Actors on the edge of the frame, staring out Due to some of the above, loss of detail in actors' faces Bad compression exacerbating the above. Even when I'm watching some DivX or whatever, I don't notice it this much, here they wanted to create some cool visuals, then ruined with bad quality I think the first issues are done on purpose, maybe to create tension. IMHO, it kind of succeeded, but I noticed it so much that it almost removed my suspension of disbelief. I think this the compression and detail issues totally may have been partially made much worse by Netflix servers for Estonia or something, because I looked at the YouTube trailer and it seemed much better. Today I watched the Alex Ross Perry movie The Color Wheel on Mubi and it was quite bad compression quality but guess what it didn't bother me half as much as in Annihilation, which looks like it wants to have big budget visuals but then shows lame compression artifacts. Also seems like I'm not the only one thinking this: https://www.microstockgroup.com/off-topic/annihilation-on-netflix/