Creative development: Things to consider before collaborating

copywriting for Ambient Skies

Filmmaking is inherently collaborative and don’t let any auteur tell you otherwise. Even Steven Soderbergh needs a team around him to shape the idea, shoot, light, dress, and perform the scene. The Hollywood aphorism that a film is made three times: the script, photographing the script, and then rewriting in the edit based on what is actually shot, underscores the iterative many-hands on nature of this creative process.

https://blog.ambientskies.com/creative-development-101-things-to-consider-before-collaborating

But this doesn’t mean all collaborators are created equal. That’s a good thing since you are ideally putting together an A Team of talent based on the skills they each best. But human frailty inevitably means personalities and plans don’t always play well together. Heard the one about the prima donna director going off script and over budget? Or the script writer demanding their name be taken off the credit? Or the DP who continually turns up late – and drunk? 

Actually, the last one is rare indeed, but the point remains that finding an Ocean’s Eleven that you can trust can make or break your film. The last thing you want to do is work with the wrong people. It’s why if you examine the careers of major league directors or cinematographers, editors and producers you find that they work with the same set of key creatives over and over again. 

Working on a film is often likened to being part of a family but before embarking on a film you have some say over who your relations are. It’s wise nonetheless to plan for a divorce and put a pre-nup in place. 

Here are some steps to avoid falling into traps with prospective collaborators.

Nobody knows anything

In his fantastically titled ‘How To Build Your Filmmaking Team Without Crooks’ https://www.filmmakingstuff.com/how-to-build-your-filmmaking-team/, LA-based marketer Jason Brubaker spells out in no uncertain terms what we’ve all at some time experienced. “In Hollywood, people at the bottom are notorious for talking bull-crap. Go to any ‘networking’ party and you’ll meet a dozen people bragging about their relationship with Paramount. Newsflash, they don’t actually have a relationship with Paramount!”

Do your research 

Is the person who they say they are and has done what they say they’ve done? Most professionals will be honest, but you need to catch the ones who aren’t playing ball. Obvious sources to cross reference for past work and experience are IMDB (but don’t rely on this) and social media profiles at Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. For key crew members, be sure to request showreels, if available.

Don’t stop, delve deeper

The media business has always thrived on personal recommendations but if you’re really serious about sharing your project with someone you’ve only just met, it’s on you to find out if they’re for real. You don’t have to go all Jake Geddes and hire a private eye but what harm can it do to your peace of mind to make background checks by talking with previous collaborators as well as vendors, and other contacts. If they person is straight up, they will gladly share witness references.  

Nix nepotism

Don’t feel obliged to include friends and family in your project, advises the New York Film Academy  https://www.nyfa.edu/student-resources/the-beginners-guide-to-the-filmmaking-process/. This is your film, which means choosing the best people for the job. Hopefully your acquaintances are professional enough to accept when you don’t think they’re a fit for your project.

Do they like Oklahoma!?

Talk to any seasoned editor or DP about how they struck up a relationship with the director they have worked with over multiple projects and they’ll say something like ‘we bonded over our taste in movies’. Budding filmmaker Barry Alexander Brown met film student Spike Lee in New York in the early ‘80s and found that they got along because they enjoyed talking about West Side Story, Oklahoma! and other musicals as well as appreciating (at that time unfashionable) actor John Wayne. https://www.ibc.org/create-and-produce/craft-leaders-barry-alexander-brown-editor/3335.article

Those aren’t the genres or politics you’d associate with the team that went on to make Do The Right Thing and Malcolm X, but there’s a lot to be said for finding the truth to someone’s morals, ethics and passions in the things we love about cinema over a drink or several.

Take the team for a test drive 

While not always possible, getting into the trenches with your team on smaller projects will reveal how everybody will work on the bigger stuff. Why not get your prospective team together on a weekend and produce a music video, or a two-minute short for YouTube. 

“Doing these small projects is your trial-and-error period,” suggests Brubaker. “You’ll get a sense of the chemistry and skillsets from your collaborators. You’ll find out what everybody brings to the table. It is your chance to make sure your filmmaking team works well together.”

It’s also your chance to define people's strengths and weaknesses, assess their work ethic for when the going gets tough and, in this way, you’ll be able to weed out any non-team players.

 Pre-Production / Development Contracts

Okay, so you’ve pretty much got your core team sorted but you still can’t trust them. Sure, nine times out of ten things will run just fine, but you can’t afford to let the one percent endanger your baby. It’s going to make everyone feel secure if their contracts are legally airtight.

Film contracts and agreements protect the rights of your film and are necessary to avoid miscommunication and risk at every stage from pre-production to distribution. Agreements need to be set in place with your production team, cast and crew even from before principal photography begins.

The development stage can last for many years, as rights are acquired and cast and crew are slowly assembled. Agreements that are commonly needed during this period are those for the purchase of rights, the development of the script, and the hiring of writers, if necessary. Rights purchase agreements, option agreements, writer “work for hire” or collaboration agreements and co-production agreements are among the many types of contracts necessary to engage talented individuals to develop a script for production. You can find out more about each of them here https://www.filmdaily.tv/template/film-contracts-and-agreements-protect-your-films

The Production Company

It is strongly advised to establish your own production company, usually a limited liability company (LLC). This production company holds the copyright to the intellectual property, allowing the creator – you – some control over how the property gets made. 

The basic agreement necessary for an LLC is called an operating agreement which addresses issues such as the scope of the business of the LLC, the personal role of the filmmakers and their fees, as well as the role and obligations of investors and the priority and allocation of return of their investment. 

From the filmmakers’ perspective, the operating agreement should be drafted to ensure that they retain complete control of the company’s management. As films are highly personal to the filmmaker, the operating agreement should include a contingency plan, laying out the back-up plan and consequences in the event that the filmmaker, for whatever reason, cannot complete the project. It’s also recommended that filmmakers become employees of the LLC and that the IP created is owned by the LLC under traditional “work for hire” principles.

Intellectual property: what it is, what to do about it

IP rights shape each stage of the journey from script to screen. That’s according to the experts at WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) who have written a handy document on the matter (From Script to Screen: The Importance of Rights Documentation in the Distribution of Film) https://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/copyright/950/wipo_pub_950.pdf

IP includes the right to use the screenplay, the music in the soundtrack, the right to use any brand names that appear in the film, ownership of the actors’ performances, even the right to use the film’s title. IP helps producers attract funds needed to get project off the ground and enables everyone, from directors and actors to technicians, to earn a living. Even to secure distribution the producer must be able to prove that they own, or have a license to use, every piece of intellectual property in the film. 

Of all the IP rights, copyright is the linchpin of the filmmaking enterprise. Among other things, it protects creators or owners of rights by preventing others from using their works without their permission.

“It is critical that a producer be very conscious and organized with regard to intellectual property,” stresses media lawyers Saper Law which details https://saperlaw.com/2007/06/18/film-production-copyright/ all you need to know.

Above the line contracts

While ‘below the line’ crew are generally paid a flat fee, as per their employment agreements, the director, producer and cinematographer and other ‘above the line’ execs and artisans will have far more complex terms due to the nature and extent of their work on a film.

A director’s employment agreement, for example, would include compensation for development and production. Perhaps a share in the profits too. The agreement generally also includes provisions for how above the line crew are credited in a film, which can sometimes become highly contested. A director might want control over the final cut and the extent of such control should also be memorialized in the director’s agreement. Like writers, many experienced directors are members of the DGA. Their agreements would be subject to DGA rules.

An agreement with a producer will similarly cover basic terms of employment and how they will be credited. However, many projects die because one of the producers has a different vision for the project and refuses to cooperate with the other producer. Producers are advised to negotiate and sign a Joint Venture, Collaboration or Joint Owner Agreement https://law-arts.org/pdf/Legal_Issues_in_Film_Production.pdf which set out who is entitled to make decisions with respect to the film project, who is responsible for certain activity, and what happens if one producer decides to leave it. 

Working in a team is like a puzzle; every member has a unique shape that becomes part of the big picture. If a piece doesn’t fit you will have a hard time finishing. It pays to do due diligence, take time for informal discussions with creative leads, and head the warning signs. Finally, don’t be shy of preparing written agreements that sets out the expectations, responsibilities and rights of each team member. 

Trust is all well and good, but it’s not binding in law.

John Conroy, ISC shoots Penny Dreadful: City of Angels

Panavision

Having photographed episodes of the Showtime horror drama Penny Dreadful’s second and third seasons, John Conroy, ISC was eager to reteam with showrunner John Logan to help create its new spin-off, Penny Dreadful: City of Angels. Described by Logan as a ‘spiritual descendant’ of Penny Dreadful’s original incarnation, City of Angels sought to preserve the series’ visual panache while exchanging Victorian-era London for 1938 Los Angeles, a time and place deeply infused with social and political tension.

https://www.panavision.com/Fact-Finding-in-the-sunshine

Production itself switched locales from Dublin to the Melody Ranch Studio in Santa Clarita Valley, Calif., as well as locations in and around L.A. As preproduction got underway, Conroy turned to Panavision and Light Iron to service the show from acquisition through final color.

“I’d just come off shooting [Season 2 of the AMC horror series] The Terror in Vancouver, where I’d used the [Millennium] DXL2 and Primo Artistes, and I was keen to work with Panavision again,” he says. “My experience with Panavision goes way back to the time I actually worked for the team in London when I was a teenager. I love working with them, so as soon as I got the chance, I rang [Panavision U.K. director] Hugh Whittaker, and he put me in touch with [sales and marketing executive] Mike Carter in L.A.”

Set against the backdrop of Los Angeles’ rich history, the series stars Natalie Dormer and Daniel Zovatto, and revolves around a Latino family and their increasingly destructive interactions with the forces of Nazi espionage, white supremacy and supernatural power. “Given the setting and period, the obvious thought was to treat it like a classic film noir, but we quickly discarded the notion,” Conroy says. “This had to be more nuanced than using dark, hard shadows and backlit smoke. The story had to be more grounded in reality.”

And so, the 1974 neo-noir Chinatown, shot by John A. Alonzo, ASC, became a key reference, inspiring a look that would emphasize the baking Californian sun. “In early conversations with John [Logan],” Conroy remembers, “we agreed we wanted it to feel as if every day was 100-degree heat — interiors as well as exteriors.”

As he had done for his earlier work on Penny Dreadful, Conroy employed a two-camera setup for City of Angels — in this case a pair of Arri Alexa Minis, which the cinematographer chose to partner with Cooke Panchro primes. “I went back to my roots,” Conroy explains. “My father [Jack Conroy] shot My Left Foot on the Panchros, and I shot my first TV film on them. I went to Panavision, and they laid out all their Panchro glass, from which I picked two sets. I loved that some of the glass was nearly as old as the period we were going to emulate.

“I love the chromatic aberration in the Panchros, which make the image a little soft at the edges,” Conroy continues. “But for some shots, where we show intimate detail and huge scale, I wanted to know we could use the extreme edges of the frame.” For such wide shots, which have become a hallmark of the series, the production also carried a set of Cooke S4 primes. The complete camera and lens package came out of Panavision’s Woodland Hills headquarters.

Camera movement, the cinematographer explains, was designed for continuity with the previous series: “There’s no handheld. Even in the most visceral and frantic moments, the camera has to be as smooth and elegant as possible. We wanted to let the energy from the action and the actors burst onto the screen without the camera trying to force it.”

Conroy shared cinematography duties on City of Angels with Pedro Luque. “I had a ‘look book,’ which I ran by John, and then I talked the ideas through with Pedro,” Conroy explains. Both cinematographers, he adds, “worked very closely with [Light Iron supervising colorist] Jeremy Sawyer, first in tests, then in post.”

During preproduction, Sawyer explains, “We played around with still photographs that John Conroy took of the sets before they started shooting. It was clear from the beginning that production wanted the wardrobe, sets and photography to drive the period nature of the show’s look. They wanted to make sure we didn’t go in a desaturated or sepia direction.”

Out of those initial tests, Sawyer was able to provide a series of show LUTs for use in different locations. In essence, Conroy wanted a period look with a twist. “The base is Kodachrome-ish,” the cinematographer elaborates. “It had to look of the period without being overly desaturated. The colors, particularly the reds and blues, had to have a voice. So we played around with costume, hair and makeup in our testing, and we built a look around that so nothing was too washed out.”

The Kodachrome influence, Sawyer adds, “is accurate for the period and it allows for rich colors; we went in that direction in terms of blue skies and general richness. Honestly, though, I’m just trying to do justice to the photography and the lighting — that’s really the driving force behind the actual ‘look.’”

Author Raymond Chandler famously described Los Angeles as “a city with all the personality of a paper cup,” but it was precisely the city’s swathes of concrete that Conroy felt gave City of Angels its visual character. “Conventionally you’d tone down the ground in the grade to draw people’s attention to the actors,” he says, “but we found that by popping the concrete it really helped to highlight the feeling of heat.

“The first day of shooting down on L.A.’s dry riverbed was iconic for me,” Conroy reflects. “This is the location for movies I’ve watched over and over again. I had a chance to reflect on how I — a kid from County Kildare, Ireland — got here.

“The first day set the tone for the whole show in terms of framing and look,” he adds. “You could feel the heat coming off the concrete. We had to hit the ground running. And we did.”

Behind the Scenes: Avatar 2 and 3

IBC

A decade ago, Avatar defied Hollywood skeptics, smashed box office records, catalysed digital 3D cinema and soaked up a quarter of a billion dollars in pioneering virtual production techniques. Momentum is building for more of the same high concept fusion of technology and storytelling from director James Cameron with the upcoming sequels.

https://www.ibc.org/create-and-produce/behind-the-scenes-avatar-2-and-3/6007.article

The first of four planned sequels budgeted together at $1 billion is not due until December 2021 but the film’s publicity machine has teased more details of the space opera’s suitably extravagant work in progress.

Cameron’s production company Lightstorm Entertainment released concept art in January and, when the lockdown caused a hiatus in the live action production, producer Jon Landau posted an Instagram of the set in Wellington, New Zealand.

“The technology has advanced leaps and bounds at every conceivable level since the first Avatar,” says Burdick who worked on the original. “We are shooting higher resolution than the first and at higher frame rates and still in 3D. Three years ago, when we were looking for production technology, we knew these were our parameters but not exactly what the solution was.” Now, IBC365 has secured an exclusive interview with Geoff Burdick, senior vice president of Production Services & Technology for Lightstorm Entertainment.

Much of the original team returns, including Weta Digital as the film’s VFX vendor, Joe Letteri as lead VFX supervisor and editors John Refoua and Stephen Rivkin. Russell Carpenter, who shot Cameron’s Titanic, is cinematographer on both Avatar 2 and 3. 

Performance capture of the lead actors - including Kate Winslet, Zoe Saldana, Sam Worthington and child actor Jack Champion - was completed as early as November 2018. This took place on a volume capture stage ringed by cameras recording data in 360-degrees. The last phase of live action photography is being completed now. 

Cameron can use the performance capture data to select any camera angle of the performance he wants and place that into a scene. In parallel, Weta Digital retargets the performance data onto CG characters.  

Stereo high frame rate 4K imaging  The 2009 film’s specification was extraordinary enough since it shot digitally in stereo 3D at full HD (on to tape) at a time when most of the industry was still shooting and projecting 35mm. Cameron’s insistence on exhibiting the film in 3D necessitated that cinema owners ditch their old film projectors and encouraged them to buy 3D-capable digital systems which were just being introduced at the outset of digital cinema transition.  

Exhibitors began to do so in numbers once audiences defied sniffy press reviews and made Avatar a must-see phenomenon raking in $2.79 billion worldwide. 

Cameron subsequently embarked on a campaign to persuade the TV industry to make 3D a standard production tool. He partnered with Vince Pace, the cameraman and technician who helped devise the Fusion 3D camera rig for Cameron’s submarine document of the Titanic Ghosts of the Abyss and on Avatar. 

The director also evangelized the use of high frame rates (HFR) to erase the motion blur wrinkles of century old celluloid filmmaking. At trade shows he demonstrated footage shot at rates as high as 120 frames a second and several times stated his intent to shoot the sequels at higher rates. 

His belief in HFR has cooled since then, in part one suspects, because of the negative reaction and poor box office performance of experiments from director’s Peter Jackson and Ang Lee. 

“I have a personal philosophy around high frame rate, which is that it is a specific solution to specific problems having to do with 3D,” Cameron recently told Collider. “When you get the strobing and the jitter of certain shots that pan or certain lateral movement across frame, it’s distracting in 3D. To me, [HFR is] just a solution for those shots. I don’t think it’s a format. I think it’s a tool to be used to solve problems in 3D projection.” 

Super massive data and Blackmagic In 2009, Cameron was able to playback material in 3D HD at 24fps on set. Avatar 2 and 3 are being acquired at 3D 4K, and fed through an on set pipeline at various resolutions and frame rates. These include 3D 48fps in 2K and 4K, 3D 24fps in 2K and 4K, and 3D 24fps in HD. 

In turn, this necessitated viewing feeds of the live action on stages in Wellington, NZ from multiple 3D camera systems, simultaneously. 

“We are shooting stereoscopically from one 3D rig, often two rigs and sometimes three stereo pairs simultaneously and everything is processed instantly,” Burdick explains. “We have Avids on set, Jim has monitors on set to look at 2D and 3D, SDR and 4K HDR, and we have a couple other viewing environments.” 

These are a screening room adjacent to the stages and a mobile projection pod built into a small trailer housing a Christie Digital 3D projector capable of projecting DCI compliant dailies. It’s moved close to camera so that at any point Cameron can look at it.  

“Massive amounts of data is being pushed around live every minute,” Burdick says. “We needed HFR and high res and everything had to be in 3D. This may not be not the science experiment it was when shooting the first Avatar but the sync for 3D at those higher frames and resolutions is still an issue. Alerting camera to issues is a big part of our job.” 

The playback and monitoring workflow built by Burdick comprises several Blackmagic Design products. “It was very challenging for our engineering team to come up with a signal path to enable this workflow,” he says Burdick. “Not many companies had incorporated this kind of support in their products. Luckily, Blackmagic Design stepped up to the plate.” 

A Teranex AV format convertor supports multiple stereo feeds in 4K at frame beyond 24/fps “all day every day” while a Smart VideoHub 40x40 12G operates at 4K 48fps to route all signals. 

Burdick says, “The Teranex converts 4K 48fps to 2K depending on Jim’s creative decision. We have other equipment in the chain and the Teranex has been super critical to enable everything to handshake properly. It is also used to take the signal from the 3D rigs to ensure it is aligned properly.” 

He describes an ATEM 4 M/E Broadcast Studio 4K as invaluable for tracking sync. “We’re not just rates syncing down to one frame but querying and tracking details in the sub-frame. We can use the ATEM to overlay multiple 4K 48 signals to prove the on set video is working correctly.”  

Issues, specifically for the stereo 3D, include ensuring parity between left and right eye lenses, whether an iris is mismatched or the zoom is offset or there are rotational axis issues.  

“We’ve got all this amazing latitude in terms of contrast ratio and dynamic range and, combined with camera’s optical system, we are just seeing a lot more than we did way back in 2009,” he says. 

“We are not looking at some low-res preview of what we’d see in post down the road on a big screen. We are not looking at this three months’ prior to release to cinemas. We need to look at it now. 

“In effect, we are seeing it in a theatrical environment instantly. We look at every set up, every rehearsal, every take and every feed live as it is shot on-the-fly in 2D and 3D. We are looking at back focus, actual camera focus and lighting. We can see the good with the bad at the point of acquisition and we address issues live.” 

Burdick adds: “You can - and we do - monitor with studio-grade 2D and 3D HDR monitors but it is only when you screen at scale that you can truly see [the picture detail]. There are critical camera adjacent monitors for our DP and focus pullers who are working in converge and dialing in interocular and can be perfect but my small team are see the same feed live and I can radio to Jim that we have ‘X’ issue with the left eye image. Nobody would have seen that without this set up.” 

Blackmagic Design kit was also used as the backbone infrastructure for the production of Disney’s CG remake The Lion King and viewing dailies at DCI compliant levels is not unknown. 

“Our set up is arguably groundbreaking in terms of being able to do what we are doing at this high spec and in stereo,” he says. “It is all to service the director’s vision.”

Water logged The film promises a return to Pandora and an exploration of new parts of the world. This includes extensive sequences filmed underwater. Not just CG water, but actually underwater, with the actors apparently trained to hold their breath for up to four minutes, while wearing performance capture suits and no scuba breathing gear. Naturally, this had never been done before. It took a year and a half to develop a new motion capture system that would work. 

“The problem with water is not the underwater part, but the interface between the air and the water, which forms a moving mirror,” Cameron explained. “That moving mirror reflects all the dots and markers, and it creates a bunch of false markers. It’s a little bit like a fighter plane dumping a bunch of chaff to confuse the radar system of a missile. So, we’ve had to figure out how to get around that problem.  

“Basically, whenever you add water to any problem, it just gets ten times harder. So, we’ve thrown a lot of horsepower, innovation, imagination and new technology at the problem, and it’s taken us about a year and a half now to work out how we’re going to do it.” 

Part of the solution involved covering the surface of the tank in small white balls that prevent overhead studio lights from contaminating the performance capture system below… while still allowing anyone below to surface safely through them should the need arise. 

Cameron said: “We’ve got six teenagers and one seven-year-old, and they’re all playing a scene underwater. They’re all perfectly capable of acting underwater, very calmly while holding their breath. And we’re getting really good data, beautiful character motion and great facial performance capture. We’ve basically cracked the code.” 

Principal photography Burdick describes Sony as “the first piece of the puzzle”.  Where Avatar was shot on eight Sony HDC-F950 cameras, the sequels are using Sony’s latest CineAlta camera Venice. 

The Sony-Lightstorm collaboration began in 1999, resulting in the development of a unique extension system for the HDC-F950 allowing the camera body to detach from the actual image sensor block. A similar approach has been adopted for Venice, with each sensor and camera body connected by a cable at distances of up to 20 feet. For the Avatar sequels, the only part of the Venice carried on 3D rigs are the image sensor optical blocks, reducing on-board camera weight to about three pounds per sensor block.  

By lowering the weight and improving ergonomics, Cameron and Carpenter can wield the cameras with greater flexibility and freedom. 

The production is also using a variety of additional Sony cameras including multiple Alpha mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras, PXW-Z450 and PXW-X320 camcorders, and the waterproof RX0 camera.  

“[We’re] using Sony cameras for all reference of performance cameras on stage and for timelapse photography,” explains Landau.  

Outside of the live action, Burdick’s work also encompasses all technical aspects of editorial, post and vfx “to make sure everything is working the way it is should.”  

He will supervise every piece of editorial, the DI, and mastering for theatrical exhibition, all the home entertainment grades and creation of all files for every distribution format.  

“We’ve got our toes into all the parts from pre to post that involve how the movie is going to look and be presented.” 

How That Eight-Minute, Single-Take Shot in “Homecoming” Happened

Creative Planet 

The secretive Geist Group is still peddling memory erasing drugs in Homecoming but little else about season two of Amazon Prime’s series is normal.

https://www.creativeplanetnetwork.com/news/news-features/howto/how-that-eight-minute-single-take-shot-in-homecoming-happened

The new series is an intriguing continuation of the last with Geist’s flower-powered drug at the center of the plot but with a new lead amnesiac character, Jackie (played by Janelle Monáe) and a story that overlaps with and extends the first series timeline.

The director and cinematographer for every episode in the new season are Kyle Alvarez and Jas Shelton who previously teamed for the indie features C.O.G. and The Standford Prison Experiment.

The filmmakers have maintained continuity with the first season in a number of ways, including using the signature floating camera moves and long takes that characterized the original.

One ambitious sequence at the start of episode 2 has the camera traveling with Jackie from the moment she gets out of her car, quietly breaks into a suburban house, hides from the house’s occupant owner (Hong Chau’s Audrey Temple) and tracks her quarry back out of the house and into the car again.

The eight-minute sequence was constructed to appear a single take: “The style of the shot was influenced by the sequence in [Hitchcock’s] Vertigo where James Stewart’s character secretively follows the heroine by car, all from his point of view,” Shelton explains. “We are tracking with Jackie’s point of view but the mystery is really what is going on in her head.”

The complexity of the shot required detailed storyboards, a special set house built with removable walls, and a precisely timed choreography. It is composed of several elements including practical exteriors shot on location in West Hollywood, an exterior backyard shot on stage at Universal and house interiors on another stage.

Shelton devised three stitch points to disguise the edit. The first occurs as Jackie reaches the house’s back gate and pushes it open. Until this point the camera has been on Steadicam, beginning in a high crane position followed by a step off to follow the character. Having passed through the gate, the sequence continues on a dolly track with the camera mounted on an Oculus gimbal.

“As she climbs in through the window we make a subtle zoom in so that we lose the window frame and feel that we are inside the house with her. Just before we see her inside, as the camera comes round the corner of the house, at this point we’ve made our second stitch.”

In actuality there was no window. The whole back corner of the home is constructed so that its walls were removable for camera.

The camera follows Jackie into the kitchen, traveling on a dolly allowing repeat moves to be made.

“We had to get the timing right for when her Temple enters the kitchen and Jackie has to quickly duck out of sight behind the kitchen counter.”

Jackie hears Temple slam the door of the house shut on leaving. She moves to the front window where Shelton pulls back to reveal the window’s reflection and the illusion of the outside of the house.

Window reflections were added in post. Shelton even shot a plate of Temple getting into her car and driving away to assist construction of one of the reflections.

Outside the house we are back to practical exterior on Steadicam which is then picked up by crane again and elevated in a mirror of the opening camera move.

“Jackie drives away underneath our camera out of shot as if to execute a three-point turn,” Shelton continues. “We have a second car of same make and model with stunt driver who then drives into shot to give the action a little more drama.”

To retain continuity with season one, the camera package is the same Panavision Millennium DXL 2 with G Series anamorphic. Shelton shot full resolution 8K from the Monstro sensor, compressed 7:1, sometimes dropping to 3:1 for scenes with heavy VFX, going through the DI at 4K.

“It was important to obtain the maximum information from the sensor and to cover the anamorphic glass which lends a 3D quality to the visuals,” Shelton says.

Both series episodes are tightly contained in around 30 minutes but whereas the original shifted aspect ratios from 16:9 to 2.35:1 to depict different storylines and ‘head spaces’, in part to work with viewing on mobile phones, here the filmmakers are more reliant on color design.

Explains Shelton, “We designed LUTs with Walter Volpatto at EFilm (he had graded season one while at FotoKem). We decided to keep anything that take place in Geist’s headquarters as sun-kissed and warm and made a different LUT for scenes with Jackie. This is apparent from the moment she wakes up in the boat and goes on her journey of self-discovery. It emphasizes dark blues, cool greens, a gothic palette especially in the first part of the show, with lots of fluorescent lighting built into the sets.”

With DIT Bret Suding, Shelton made frame grabs of every scene as reference to compare with the CDLs, both of which were taken into post to assist minute adjustments in the grade.

Several scenes take place at the rural retreat of Geist CEO (Chris Cooper), populated by fields of the red juiced plants. Production designer Nora Takacs Ekberg produced thousands of fake plants and spent weeks planting them:

“Nature has a very strong presence throughout season two,” she says. “Greens and plants, trees and wilderness show up again and again in different forms. The season starts in a forest, that motif reappears in a wallpaper in Alex’s motel room later.

“We see dangerous plants closed behind glasses, behind bars, feeling like they want to get out. We also find them as good old friends of Leonard Geist at his ‘office’ and his farmhouse. That motif, nature, was a very important base for the design of this season.”

The Eddy: All that Jazz

Definition 


Netflix musical drama The Eddy, set among Paris’s vibrant jazz scene, fuses the convention-breaking camerawork of the French new wave with a modern sensibility.

https://definitionmagazine.com/features/the-eddy-all-that-jazz/

When you’ve already directed critically acclaimed films like La La Land, First Man and Whiplash, where do you go from there? Well, Damien Chazelle’s next project is not a film, but rather an eight-part Netflix Original drama called The Eddy. Chazelle directed two episodes of the new series, which takes place in the vibrant, multicultural neighbourhoods of contemporary Paris, with the story revolving around the eponymous jazz club. And it’s filmed with all the freestyling improvisation of an accomplished musical ensemble.

“What was most important to creating this show was an understanding of jazz,” explains Julien Poupard, AFC, who was DOP on episodes 3, 4, 7 and 8 of The Eddy, and is also known for his work on the 2019 film, Les Misérables. “I felt I had to feel like a jazz musician in order to be confident that my camera movement was in syncopation with the performances.”

Chazelle himself is no stranger to portraying music on screen. He studied filmmaking at Harvard and made live jazz performances a feature of his first film, Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench (which was shot in black & white on 16mm), before making the breakthrough hit Whiplash, inspired by his own earlier experiences as a jazz drummer at high school in New Jersey. His next film, the musical romance La La Land, is about a jazz pianist and recalls Technicolor musicals like An American in Paris.

However, for the grungy nightclub scene in The Eddy, the director chose a vérité style, using the 16mm format, which, albeit not an officially recommended capture format for Netflix, was approved on the merit of the creative vision.

“Damien wanted to shoot film, because he loves film and I’ve shot on film for the major part of my career,” explains cinematographer Éric Gautier, AFC, who set the tone for the series in the first two episodes, which were directed by Chazelle.

“It just seemed the right medium to capture the spirit of the nouvelle vague, but trained on a modern story set in the Paris of today.”

French New Wave

The Eddy was scripted by Jack Thorne, also known for his work on His Dark Materials. It charts the struggles of Elliot Udo, who is played by André Holland. Elliot is an American co-owner of a Parisian jazz club and manager of the house band. Not only is his business partner, Farid, involved in some questionable practices, but when Elliot’s teenage daughter, Julie, arrives in Paris to live with him, his personal and professional worlds start to unravel.Film just seemed the right medium to capture the spirit of the nouvelle vague, but trained on a modern story

Chazelle and Gautier, along with Poupard and Marie Spencer (DOP on episodes 5 and 6), as well as directors Alan Poul, Houda Benyamina and Laïla Marrakchi, were all part of creative discussions. One obvious touchstone was the French new wave, which broke the rules of filmmaking in the sixties and gave the camera a new sense of liberty. But the most important inspiration for the team was the jazz itself – not least because the music in the series is filmed live.

Poupard explains: “Damien and Éric encouraged our actors and musicians to improvise and they also encouraged me to capture that energy by improvising the camera movement and the composition – and by taking risks.” If that meant that certain shots were under- or overexposed, or the framing on the (largely handheld) camerawork wasn’t quite perfect, this only added to the raw quality of the aesthetic.

“Any odd piece of framing, flaring or exposure was interesting to us, because we didn’t want to build an image that was too perfect,” Poupard adds. “Only by permitting ourselves the freedom to move the camera with the rhythm of the moment could we arrive at the true emotion of the characters.”

In preparation, Poupard threw himself into Paris’ vibrant jazz scene. “There are a lot of small clubs in the 20th arrondissement that attract a young crowd,” he points out. “I went to a lot of concerts, which was fantastic preparation.”

The series features a number of new jazz songs by Jagged Little Pill producer Glen Ballard, which are performed in rehearsals, auditions, open-mic nights, concerts, jam sessions and spontaneous scenes where characters start playing a piano or trumpet.

The 16mm footage was scanned to 4K at the end of post, while the rest of the series was shot digitally in native 4K.

This presented the filmmakers with an interesting challenge, Poupard says.

“Damien, Eric and I discussed how we could best translate the aesthetic to digital and concluded that we shouldn’t try to match it exactly. The aim was to find a close match of the colour, contrast and lighting, while at the same time leaving room to interpret our episodes differently.”

Narratively, this made sense, since each of the episodes focuses on a different character’s story. Aesthetically, too, it is in keeping with the goal of retaining idiosyncrasies in the raw footage, rather than seeking total control over the image.

“For me, it was important not to do the same thing all the time,” Poupard says. “Not to exactly match Éric’s work and not to establish too rigorous a formula.”

Gautier explains they felt the Red Helium 8K sensor was the best option for carrying over the film look, and the best digital system for transitioning the workflow. “Red offered a texture that was not too far from film and better than other digital cinema cameras for what we wanted to achieve.”

Poupard adds that the Red Helium was chosen primarily because he could crop the Super 35 8K sensor to match that of Super 16, but still record at 4K resolution. “Shooting with a sensor the same size as Super 16, rather than cropping in post, gave us exactly the same angle of view and the same depth-of-field.”

To maintain visual consistency, they retained the same set of Zeiss Classic T2.1 glass used in the first episodes. Gautier’s gaffer, Eric Baraillon, also worked with Poupard and Spencer throughout their shoot. The show went through an ACES colour pipeline, aided by Gautier’s long-time colourist, Isabelle Julien. Colour scientist Florine Bel also provided Julien support for episodes 3 and 4.

“ACES is a huge colour space, so we had to create a special LUT,” explains Poupard. “We shot Redcode Raw and made tests to find the right shade of each blue and red. If we had too much colour in the frame we had to shut down, say, the blue and the green. It was very complex.” The deliverable to Netflix had an aspect ratio of 1.85 and was in both HDR and SDR.

“We shot for HDR delivery but didn’t have HDR monitoring on-set,” says Poupard. “In the final grade, we graded in HDR before Isabelle made the conversion for SDR.”

Having set the template for the series, Gautier is keen that a second series – should one be greenlit – take on the baton and experiment further. “I’d like to see an evolution in stylistic differences in mood and lighting that we began with this series, but taken further,” he insists. “Nothing should stand still.”

Constant evolution – just like the best free jazz.

Smashing the theatrical window

IBC

The theatrical window is under threat with streamers capitalising on cinema closure. Will it ever be replaced?

Hollywood studios and indie film distributors are crunching the numbers. Does it pay to release a movie straight to digital and break with decades of convention which gave first run exclusivity to cinemas?

https://www.ibc.org/consume/breaking-the-window/5998.article

NBCUniversal has been most aggressive in this regard. Not only did it drop Trolls World Tour onto digital shelves rather than reschedule release for cinema (as it did with Minions: The Rise of Gru), CEO Jeff Shell inflamed tension among exhibitors by saying he expected premium VOD to complement, not replace, theatrical distribution when cinemas reopen.

“[Cinema] is how people make their movies and how they expect the movies to be seen,” Shell told analysts on 30 April. “But the flip side is the majority of movies, whether we like it or not, are being consumed at home and it’s not realistic to assume that we’re not going to change, that this part of the business isn’t going to change.”

Disney chief executive Bob Chapek was more supportive of cinemas but said the company plans to evaluate launch strategies for its blockbusters on a “case by case” basis, at least while theatres remain closed or under restricted attendance.

Disney will premiere Kenneth Branagh directed Artemis Fowl exclusively on Disney+, while using Mulan to test audience appetite for returning to the cinema with release in July.

The exhibition industry has been up in arms with European theatre association UNIC, warning that allowing movies to break release windows could do long-term damage to the industry. But there is some hard business truth behind Shell’s blunt message. The stay at home habit may have stuck.

According to a study of U.S consumers conducted in mid-May by analytics firms Performance Research and Full Circle Research, 70% of people would rather see a first-run feature as a digital rental at home than in a cinema. Fear of going back into public spaces prompted 37% of people to say they plan to attend cinema less often than pre-quarantine while 10 percent say they may never go again.

Nor is it just studios weighing release strategies for blockbusters. Independent film distributors have been doing the unthinkable and shrinking or outright cancelling cinema runs for films on their slate.

In urgent search of revenue, distributors of lower budget fayre across Europe have been taking films directly to consumers, creating new models for independent distribution that could outlast the current crisis.

According to a study of U.S consumers conducted in mid-May by analytics firms Performance Research and Full Circle Research, 70% of people would rather see a first-run feature as a digital rental at home than in a cinema.

Even in France, where cinema viewing is so sacrosanct that the government mandates a 36-month window, distributors have recently been allowed to shorten the time to VOD for films on release before the coronavirus shutdown.

According to Variety, the most lucrative alternative to theatrical right now is a sale to a SVOD platform like Amazon or Netflix, which will buy rights to a movie that was financed to play in theatres and handsomely compensate the partners involved.

While theatrical will be hit proportionally harder than most other entertainment sectors, there’s a big upside for streamers. Ampere’s latest forecasts suggest streaming will gain 12% of additional growth in revenue between now and 2025.

While the analyst expects to see some short-term gains reversed when lockdown is lifted, the shift toward on-demand viewing was already underway.

“Key to the longer-term prospects is the acceleration of consumer behavioural change which will benefit streamers,” says Guy Bisson, Ampere’s research director.

Winning mindshare
It’s hardly surprising that lockdown has led to a huge surge in streaming consumption and new subscriptions, benefiting not just SVOD but broadcaster video on-demand (BVoD) and other catch-up services.

Viewing of internet video on TV in the US was up 109% in March, according to Nielsen data. Stay-at-home measures have also reversed the decade-long trend of declining broadcast television viewing in the UK. Compared to a year ago, the average time spent watching TV was up 6% per person in March and 22% in April, according to Ampere figures. The average viewer watched television for 25 hours per week in April – a level not seen in April since 2016.

The new SVODs on the block, including Disney+ and HBO Max, were always going to be in a battle for a share of household wallets but COVID-19 has given them a captive audience desperate for entertainment.

Netflix’ strategy is most acute in this regard. It had a strong slate of original feature-length commissions already in the works and planned to give a selection of those the window-dressing of a theatrical play.

Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods, for example, was always planned for release in early summer with a short period in cinemas. The film, which has picked up early Oscar buzz, will now be a Netflix exclusive.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts has tweaked its own rules to permit nominations for titles released this year for Oscar contention even if they’ve never been near a cinema.

Other subscription services, including Disney+ and Quibi, have seized the chance to build mindshare with enticing free to view time-limited offers.

Niche arthouse film streamer Mubi has struck deals with individual cinemas, including Rio Cinema in London and Berlin’s Yorck Kinos, to give their members access to its service.

Launching in France and the UK in June is Nowave, a French-based SVOD with a selection of rarely seen or theatrically unreleased arthouse pics.

Cinema never dies
However, the story is far from a simple case of streamer take all. Theatrical remains hugely important to how features productions generate money.

According to Variety, most European distributors are hesitant to go straight to VOD, even if they’ve been allowed to do so during the pandemic by film organisation. A distributor’s biggest fear is to see its movies lost in a sea of content online, destroying the value of these titles in secondary markets after a single round on pay VOD.

Berlin-based distributor X Verleih broke the theatrical window for the comedy Die Känguru-Chroniken (The Kangaroo Chronicles) taking it out of cinemas when the pandemic hit and straight to VOD.

“It’s the most successful VOD release we’ve ever had,” Leila Hamid of X Verleih told The Hollywood Reporter, “but the figures don’t make up for what we expect we would have earned in theatres.”

NBCU has said that the premium VoD sale of Trolls World Tour had exceeded expectations with The Wall Street Journal reporting that the studio has earned more than $77m in revenue from the film. Other analysts calculate that the price of its $19.99 two-day rental transacted up 12 million times globally (not an unreasonable bet), means Trolls has made around $200 million.

However, Deadline argues in some detail about why those numbers don’t stack up. Even withstanding the greater cut of revenue that flows back to the studio (80% from VOD, 50% from theatrical) the concentration on a premium VOD negates significant chunks of future revenue from other windows such as VOD and TV rights.

“Exceeding expectations” is relative if your starting point is trying to claw back as much coin as possible from a film that cost $90 million to produce, let alone publicise.

Indeed, studios might find it hard to price future titles for PVOD at such a premium. The Performance Research study found that nearly half of consumers would be willing to pay $10 to watch a first-run movie from their sofa, only 20% said they would pay $20; and 19% said they’d only watch if the film was free (or as part of standard subscription streaming service).

Ampere says that there are only a handful of markets where streaming is a big enough business to make straight to online film distribution worthwhile.

Digital transactional revenues for PVOD and electronic sell-through (EST) were $4.25 billion in the US in 2019, or 40% of the $10.5bn theatrical market, it estimates. Similarly, in the UK, Germany, Japan and South Korea digital transactional revenues last year were between 30% and 40% of their respective box office returns. Not bad, but not enough for a Disney Marvel movie expecting to recoup a billion dollars by extracting value in tickets and publicity from wide cinema release.

COVID-19’s impact on AVoD

Analysis of internet search activity by Ampere Analysis confirms that lockdown has further encouraged consumers to seek out free video content. Google trend data over the last 12 months, ending April 2020, shows that the search terms “free movies” and “free shows” reached a peak in the last month. AVoD (advertising-supported Video-on Demand) services especially, as well as free trial access to paid-for services, have become a ready source for such content.

“As overall disposable income is reduced, some consumers may disengage from pay VOD and TV services, instead switching their viewing to free-at-the-point-of-consumption AVoD.” - Isaq Chowdhury

“The AVoD business model works well in consumers’ hunt for greater volumes of content. Indeed, crucial to the strategy is the provision of a large and diverse catalogue to drive consumption and increase the volume of commercials being watched,” says analyst Isaq Chowdhury.

The term “Tubi” also reached a peak in April 2020. The AVoD service, acquired by Fox in March 2020, recorded its largest usage growth to date in March 2020, and reported more than a 50 percent increase in new signups. Its deep catalogue would appear to be an asset here: Ampere’s Analytics tracking data shows that as of February 2020, Tubi had nearly five times as many movies available to watch in the US as SVoD rival Netflix.

The longer-term prospects for AVoD services are mixed. “A recession-driven decline in advertising spend will likely slow the growth of the sector overall, yet the anticipated economic pressure on consumers may also represent a watershed moment for free-to-access content,” assesses Chowdhury.

“As overall disposable income is reduced, some consumers may disengage from pay VOD and TV services, instead switching their viewing to free-at-the-point-of-consumption AVoD.”

Services such as Tubi, Pluto and Peacock, along with services with ad-supported tiers like Hulu, could yet benefit from this shift with increased sign-ups and viewership.