7/14/2012 1st meeting of filmmaking 101 (part 1)

Our guest lecturer Michelle Milleute works as an Assistant Director in Austin, Texas and the surrounding area including New Orleans, West Texas, Dallas area,

She stressed the importance of knowing what postion you're going for rather than trying to make a whole movie all by yourself, movie making is a collaborative art!!!

She explained the many roles on a set, what they do, and how to behave.

She says she's "aggro" and that's why she enjoys Assistant Directing!

She co-directed this music video, shot in one take, directing the performance of lives from every performer in one shot at the Swan dive Bar in Austin, Texas :
She showed us this scene from The Shining, the infamous hallway tricycle tracking shot scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvwSi7ta0P4
This is shot is an example of a stedi-cam that really set-ups & establishesa tone for the veiwer. 

Steadicam operator Garrett Brown accomplished many of the ultra-low tracking corridor sequences from a wheelchair on which his invention was mounted. Grips would either pull backward or push forward the wheelchair, depending on the requirement of the shot.

additional stedishots from "The Shining" by Garrett Brown :
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVytnoVOSmk

Soy Cuba, Mikhail Kalatozov – 1964 –  The movie consists of four distinct short stories about the suffering of the Cuban people and their reactions, varying from passive amazement in the first, to a guerrilla march in the last. Between the stories, a female narrator (credited "The Voice Of Cuba") says such things as, "I am Cuba, the Cuba of the casinos< , but also of the people." The film was not received well by either the Russian or Cuban public and was almost completely forgotten until it was re-discovered by filmmakers in the United States thirty years later.

We watched the opening of "Soy Cuba” because it is a series of incredible, at times acrobatic tracking shots shot on infra-red film . There are half a dozen shots in this film which would make the list for longest take. 

Go Pro Cameras & their capabilities:

In this class, one of the cameras we have available to use is a Go Pro Hero HD 2.   In order to make the best footage with your equipment, you must understand your equipment. You can always find on-line resources and videos that  show the ability of equipment you're using! The Go Pors are amazingly small HD cameras, advertised as the World's most versitile camera

Highlight from the Summer 2012 X games shot by go pros, notice all the helmet mounted shots.

a go pro falls from 3,000 feet

here's an ad made by go pro with go pros, noticed how there are go pros mounted in various areas to get all the awesome shots that compose this piece:

 the video below is me wearing a go pro 2 in a BOSS Breathing Observation Submersible Scooter, skip to 4:20 and throughout to get the idea of how my footage looks, observe the audio change at 14:53 when I take the go pro from inside my helmet out into the water