An interesting film project was the subject of a session on Creating a Low-Budget Film with High Production Value at the New Frontier center today. To create a horror/psychological thriller for under $250,000, Michael Phillips of Avid teamed up with Norm Hollyn, associate professor at the USC Film School and head of the editing track there.

The 89-minute feature, titled Jack in the Box, involved an 11-day shoot with a small crew. A single location, a creepy basement room where all the action happens, kept the budget manageable. As did a heavy dose of pre-planning. During the session, Phillips projected a chart that listed off all the video and audio formats that might ensue, such as a 1080p/23.976fps HDCAM-SR program master, and RGB 2K files on LTO tape in case a film version is needed. The chart listed postproduction processes that would affect the shooting, such as pan-and-scan for a 3:2 version. (The producers aren’t ready to say what cameras they used.) All this pre-planning on deliverables, Phillips said, would make it easier for a distributor to decide to pick up the project.

For editing, Phillips worked in Media Composer (big surprise there), in SD for the offline and in HD for the online, both on the HP 8400 workstation. more

Been trying to catch up with Laser Pacific’s Glenn Kimmel all week. Finally our cells aligned. Here’s the short version:

Laser did post on four of the films here and in the process had a chance to put their various DI pipelines through their paces.

For the premiere of The Nines–writer John August’s unique directorial debut–DP Nancy Schreiber shot three different stocks to support August’s three intersecting stories: 3 perf 35, 16mm, and HDV. Laser put their “indie DI” pipeline to work on this (an affordable HD DI) finishing to HDCAM.

Tamara Jenkins’ Fox Searchlight premiere got a full res DI; DP Mott Hupfel shot 35 and Laser finished to HDCAM. For director Nelson George, DP Uta Briesewitz, and HBO, Laser also did a full DI on the Super 16-shot Life Support. Life Support screened as HDCAM.

In Documentary competition, Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman presented Laser with a pastiche of sources, including many archival. Nanking also finished through Laser’s full DI pipeline and finished to HDCAM.

Sterlin Harjo‘s Four Sheets to the Wind is David Michael Maurer‘s first feature. Now it‘s in dramatic competition at Sundance. As he sits down in the Park City Marriott to talk about the film and his transition from years of reality TV (The Apprentice, American Idol, Big Brother…) he looks to be in his twenties, but talks with the understated conviction of a veteran editor.

Maurer cut the show on Avid Xpress Pro, finished on Symphony Nitris and went to 35. This was a best of both worlds workflow, Maurer explains, because the team needed portability on four-month location in Oklahoma as well as the ability to see detail, hence the Nitris. “This was just before the software-only Media Composer came out,” Maurer says of his decision to load his laptop with Xpress Pro. (This was also just before SDI Mojo, so Maurer was quick to point out that the workflow was a product of the April 2006 timeframe.) more

Last year at Sundance, Adobe VP Jim Guerard was making the further case for Flash. At that time the installed base was enormous, but Guerard had something even bigger in mind. He described how the nonlinear potential for Flash was virtually untapped, that people still understood it as player rather than a whole new way to think about content and interactivity.

Since then, the Flash train has rushed forward, powered in part by its use on YouTube and other hugely popular sites. Overall there‘s no doubt that internet video has made significant gains since this time last year. But still, Flash still has more to offer if Guerard‘s ultimate concept is to be realized. Towards that end, Adobe is actively teaching Flash 8 to filmmakers here at New Frontier on Main (the can‘t-miss session is tomorrow–Wednesday–at 2pm when Flash developer Justin Everett-Church covers how to “Expand Filmmaking Options with interactive Flash Video,”). more

“We knew we would have to do a DI from the get go,” says Padre Nuestro DP Igor Martinovic, “Time and finances were not on our side and we were using a lot of available light.” Joe Beirne describes how in addition to doing a DI process to a 4:4:4 scan of Martinovic’s film footage (see previous post), Postworks also developed an end to end dailies to offiline Avid DNX post process at 10 bit 115mbps (which Beirne says he will try at the more efficient DNX 36mbps that Avid is soon to release).

(If you want to hear Beirne, Matt Feury from Avid and representatives from Arri–the film was shot on Super 35–talk about the workflow drop by NY Lounge.) more

NY post facility Postworks touched a lot films at Sundance–in some cases in an instrumental way. Just ask Alex Vlack and Andrew Zuckerman who appear in the NY Lounge as if on cue to rave about their screening and how pristine their short High Falls looked. “We wouldn’t be here without Joe,” they say, and it’s not a plug. They talk about the other films and how soft their prints looked, how people were complaining about 3:2 pulldown (”which we didn’t have to worry about) and how if the other filmmakers had been fortunate enough to have a professional finish and filmout their films would have looked just as good. They’re trying to be generous but you can tell they’re so pleased to be rising above the competition with their Varicam-shot film. more

Black Snake Moan Director Craig Brewer

To watch our YouTube slideshow for the Craig Brewer interview, click here.

Black Snake Moan Editor Billy Fox

To listen to the Billy Fox podcast interview click here.

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Fotokem’s Walter Vopatto on Black Snake Moan Postproduction

To listen to the Walter Vopatto podcast interview click here.

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Check out our entire Sundance Podcast Archive.

from Darroch Greer

Lest we forget, some of the best drama occurs in sports. But who has the time to watch movies and follow baseball? How many devoted film fans watch NFL Films? How about this: What‘s the last film you saw where the lead character never leaves the screen? Never.

Visual media artists Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno, a Scotsman and French Algerian, had some time to kill in Jerusalem while installing an exhibit back in 1996. They got a football - that‘s soccer ball to us stateside - and kicked it around for three days, while also kicking around ideas. What if they could make a documentary about their favorite footballer (soccer player), and how might it be different than just a fawning documentary portrait?

“What if we were to make a film where the central character was, literally, always central,” Gordon asks, rhetorically. “If action was happening off that character, then that action would be missed. Originally, we thought of Zidane: a 21st Century Portrait as a more traditional narrative film. And then we thought, why not take it out of the traditional narrative and put it into something that is the same time structure as a feature film - and that would be a football match.” [Soccer games last 90 minutes.] “So, that was how we thrashed out an early strategy….We really wanted him to be the central character in a film that would construct its own narrative.” more

Two very different projects for DP Tim Orr at this year’s Sundance. See previous posting for his account of shooting still, composed frames for Mike White, using older Fuji stocks that provided the retro grain structure and contrast that the director was looking for in his gentle comedy.

Snow Angels was a very different story. Orr frequently collaborates with director David Green (Snow Angels is their best work he thinks). In that project–shot in a dark and frigid Nova Scotia February–Orr executed what he described as a kind of dance with the actors, trusted by his director to essentially edit with his camera. more

Listen in on an exclusive interview with Year of the Fish Director David Kaplan as he talks about the creation of his Sundance film. Millimeter Senior Editor Michael Goldman asks the questions.

To listen to the podcast interview click here.

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Check out our entire Sundance Podcast Archive.