Well Rapture Day came and went… I dutifully shot the video, entertaining a mild superstitious doubt about how embarrassing it would be to be rapturised 1/2 way through making a movie taking the piss out of the rapture.
But it didn’t really work out. The Rapture was postponed until October (The main Rapture Priest (a Nonogenarian American Crank) took about 80 million $ from his “flock”)…. and the video I made fucked up in all sorts of ways.
1) the background noise was much louder than me talking – I noise-reduced it in Audacity… but it creates this dalek-like warbling
2) the background light was much louder than me. I shot it using that really flat cineform look… I’m not entirely convinced by it to be honest. It takes the “zing” out of everything. The lurid technicolor effect comes from trying to wrench the colours into something viewable.
3) the clouds and shadows changed radically throughout.
4) closeups made by zooming in post look grainy.
5) and on top of all that, the whole thing took fucking forever because Canon T2Is have this magical way of spontaneously “stopping”… I don’t know why. It’s like they over-heat, or they’ve been left idle for too long. There’s no way of telling that the camera is actually recording when you’re in front of it.
So. That said, here it is:
Looks terrible. This is the same park, different lens and without all the colour drained from it in advance. If you click on it you get a big version. Go on, you know you want to.
Anyway… I stumbled across this site the other day “The Lone Gun Manifesto“… which has a manifesto for “how to shoot”… for the likes of me. Us.
I’ve copied it here… with comments by me :)
But before I start… here’s a basic principle: Guerrilla film-making (or guerrilla anything) is about speed. Any tactic that saves time in one part of the project… but which telescopes into a massive drag somewhere else, is not a good tactic. This is the basis of most of my comments below.
1) One DSLR camera, One person, One microphone (The lone gun shoots alone)
Yea… I’d go for two actually… like rock-and-roll. After about 10 gigs, you develop a “gig-emergency-backup kit” which contains things like soldering irons, gaffer, extra leads. And an extra guitar. With film stuff you need two of everything… batteries and cards, 4.
Sometimes you can’t do this because of cash up front… but not having redundancy will cost you time at the far-end.
I’d also recommend having two cameras and two mikes recording at the same time. Which means you don’t do it alone, you do it in pairs.
2) Strip movie making down to the basics – a camera, a great story and some actors
Yup. Art too. You need art.
3) A lone gun never asks for permission to shoot at a location
Absolutely – I’ve been wondering about this… and have decided to make it a point of principle. Never ask permission for ANYTHING.
The caveat being: sometimes asking for permission (if you’re possessed (as I know you are) with million-dollar-charm) is a networking exercise… and beyond self-interest, the people you meet are the only things worth doing this for. Not just for you but for everyone.
Don’t engage with institutions though. Talk to people. Only people.
4) Put something original and honest in front of the camera
Yup. If you’re not original, then you’re competing on “style/polish”, a playing field heavily slanted in favour of those with money
5) Think like a photographer, not like a film-maker
Yea – or a graphic novelist.
Take a look at Cobra Verde sometime – a series of beautiful photgraphoid set-pieces. Days of Heaven as well I think. I think this approach plays to the strengths/weaknesses of having a small (or non-existent) crew… tightly choreographed action costs.
6) Money is for food, transport and a dedicated hard-drive for each project and nothing else
Ha. In your dreams buddy. You’ll wind up with a $1000 camera surrounded by $10,000 worth of gear. It’s just what happens
7) Natural light only
Yea… see Days Of Heaven… you can produce masterpieces this way… if you’re a genius. Otherwise, you’re going to be saving time up front only to have it telescope in post. I’d recommend getting a couple of portable LED light-boxes because you’re making things really tough for yourself otherwise.
8) Everyone who works on a movie, has the right to distribute that movie for free or for profit
Everyone on the entire planet has the right to distribute the movie for free, and a fair few might even try to profit from it.
It simply cannot be controlled, so don’t even try… because scarcity is not what gives your creation value, familiarity and attention do. Optimising towards scarcity (aka : <airquotes>IP</airqoutes>) benefits no one except lawyers and repressive governments.
Personally I’d recommend the model I talked about in the previous post… where you sell micro-shares – frames, that can be used as a type of currency a la bitcoins. Everyone involved in the making of the film gets shares… this way everyone has an incentive to increase the film’s familiarity and attention.
Not that they need a pecuniary incentive to do this of course. That’s not how culture works… in fact pecuniary incentive breaks the social-contract implicit in recommendation… but… flik-coins is too good an idea to pass up.
9) No credits before the title ever, regardless of how famous someone is.
Yea. Meta-data clumsily embedded in the artwork. Credits are weird. Their main purpose is to act as a sort of CV-Verification… which virtually no one is interested in.
The ones at the end kindof act as a type of breathing-space… time for your mind to decompress before you have to shift gears into dealing with the dismally facile conversation with whoever you’re with. Credits are a way of easing the transition from meditative states to daylight-tosser-space filled with parking meters and jumbo coke-containers and braying commoners who might want to get into a fight with you.
I’d keep the credits at the end, even if they are pointless. Fuck the “ego” ones at the start though.
10) The end product must be cinema quality (capable of projection to cinema sizes without falling apart)
Yup
11) A creative common license for the movie (how open you go is up to you, but people must be able to share and alter it for free)
Yup. I’d even go so far as to sell DVDs/hard-drives of the source material on your site, so people can do with them what they will. We’re talking gazillabytes here though – if someone wants to bittorrent it, fine. Just don’t expect me to upload it.
12) If you’re going to be a gorilla… you may as well wear the full monkey suit.
Yea. Give No Quarter.
[...] a memetic template for guerilla-film-making. A bit like the thing I was on about before – Lone-Gun-Manifesto… but with a few more practicalities in terms of [...]