Fast Forward

Of the 53 posts this year, here is a selection of favorite subjects covered on this blog.

10. "You don't want to be making mediocre stuff"
    Lessons in quality control from NPR's great Ira Glass
9. How Filmmakers Use Basecamp
   Because project management is key to low-budget filmmaking, this collaborative tool is still a favorite for me to refer producers to
8. My First Red Camera Experience
   The Red is the hottest camera of the year and, after a half dozen more Red shoots, something that I now know well
7. Will you watch Strike.TV?
   Launched and lauded
6. Can "Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog" Change the Way We Watch?
   Guest post from long-time FWD:labs member, screenwriter Eric Szyszka, on the three episodes which were just now released online via CreateSpace, Amazon's new DVD distribution
5. Salon Gathering: First of many to come
   Thirteen meet-ups later, it's still going strong
4. Writing through the block
   Guest post from a new FWD:labs member, screenwriter James Granger, who is fresh on the success of finishing and hustling a feature screenplay
3. Tenacity: "Slumdog Millionaire"
   Considered by many now as the best film of the year, "Slumdog" is inspiring to filmmakers and film lovers
2. Jason Polan's Criterion
   Research on a dedicated (and friendly) artist, who commented privately appreciating the post's thoroughness
1. User-Generated Spots for Super Tuesday, not Super Bowl
   Examples of the power of grassroots presidential politics and the success of related video content on YouTube

Other favorites not make the list? Browse the archive and comment below.

Still from the music video for Linkin Park "Faint," directed by Mark Romanek, who posted his original treatment online.

With treatments, you've got a page or so to pitch forth your story. Whether it's on spec or in development, there's no formula for selling your idea of a music video, feature, or commercial. Creative descriptions, clear actions, quick communication, and multiple options lend themselves well to trying creative approaches.

Director Mark Romanek posted his one-page 2003 treatment for Linkin Park "Faint" on his web site:

we only see their backs — backs of heads, hands, torso, asses, feet. all the emotion is conveyed through the body language. we may catch slight glimpses of oblique profiles. but, they are just that — only glimpses. in the background of all these shots we see silhouettes of fans, creating waves of excited movement. we are teased for over two minutes with beautifully composed and dramatically back-lit images of the band — filmed from behind.

Braddon Mendelson talks from experience of writing hundreds of music video treatments in his post at Noisivision Studios:

As with any form of writing, the more you do it, the better you will get. Keep writing music videos, whether you are getting paid for it or not. Watch MTV. Study your favorite videos and then write what you imagine the treatment must have looked like. Study other treatments that have been written, and then come up with your own style. While there are no hard and fast rules about format, it is important that a treatment communicate its ideas in a clear, concise and creative manner.

Mark Albracht, screenwriter and writer ("Rules of Deception"), added some footnotes to Associated Content's post, How to Write a Movie Treatment:

"Producers do not prefer treatments to spec scripts and neither do agents. The only reason a screenwriter should write a treatment is to help develop a script idea or because a production company or a studio asked them to. Otherwise it's a waste of time."

John August, notable screenwriter and web-savvy blogger (who provides the original one-page outline for "Big Fish" in his library), clears up the difference of spec, treatment and pitch:

An outline might be one page or might be ten; a treatment could be three pages or could be thirty. James Cameron is known for writing "scriptments" that are 70 pages or more. Ultimately, the length is less important than the function: hopefully, an outline or treatment will help a writer spot problems early on, so that the finished script will be better.

Tony Johns, a commercial and music video director, talks at length about the commercial process in Action Cut Print:

If the agencies are impressed with your treatment they may seriously consider you for their next campaign. Remember there are no set rules in the commercial world. No two agencies or creative teams are the same nor are production companies and directors.

Videomaker.com has an article on how to create and use video treatments, which brings up the value of having 3-4 options on hand:

[Y]ou can't always anticipate the client's or viewer's taste. Frequently, clients pass up what appears to be the perfect treatment and go for the red herring. You'll be glad you presented options.

Related, check out the podcast for "The Treatment", hosted by film critic Elvis Mitchell on KCRW 89.9 FM:

A "treatment," in Hollywood parlance, is a concise overview of a screenplay. On The Treatment, … Mitchell turns the tables and gives the "treatment" to some of the most influential and innovative forces creating movies and popular art and entertainment.

The latest Eye magazine, an seasonal review of international graphic design, conjoins a vibrant still of motion graphics with a pregnant pause of typography. Read about making the cover on their blog:

A high resolution still from [Robert] Hodgin's music video ["Solar, with lyrics" featuring Goldfrapp], made using Processing (for an explanation of Robert’s methods, see his Flight 404 website) is framed by the outline of a (silent) character from the new typeface Replica, designed by Norm.

(via Netdiver)

Short film "Metal Heart" by Sydney-based photographer Keith Loutit.

"These photographs and short films were made in ordinary places, probably not too unlike where you live. Combining a variety of techniques including tilt-shift and time-lapse photography, I aim to present Sydney as the Model City, and help people take a second look at places that are very familiar to them."

Some of Keith's films are screening at the Gasteig Cultural Center in München, Germany from now until January 15, 2009.

You can see four other short films, including Beached, which uses the same tilt-shift lens and frame-rate on his Vimeo. Also check out his Mac.com site with photographs from Singapore.

(Music: "Robot High School" by My Robot Friend.)

Part of a series of posts about awesome film, web or design artists and their work currently abuzz online and in-person.

Cover models

• Artist Thomas Allen made models out of book covers
• Penguin Books blogs about covering James Bond

Pushing forward

• TED Talks on Richard St. John's 8 secrets of success are passion over money, hard work, focus on one thing, practice to be good, push yourself, serve others something of value, have ideas, and persist through failure and c.r.a.p.
• NPR's Talk of the Nation podcast on procrastination expert Timothy Pychyl and self-professed "structured procrastinator" John Perry on how to prioritize what's really important, such as leveraging social support (like our bi-weekly FWD:labs salon) to keep you accountable

Gaming YouTube

• Chris Yi, director in FWD:labs, on viral (but fake) ad for Guitar Hero by Droga5
• Derek Powazek, designer/author, on viral (but moreso authentic) ad for Electronic Arts with Tiger Woods by Wieden+Kennedy

Jason Polan does Criterion Collection

David Hudson's midnight post on GreenCine Daily, a DVD review blog from the online DVD rent-by-mail service, tipped me off to a new web site for the Criterion Collection.

There on the home page, you'll find a video introduction utilizing the handiwork of New York City artist Jason Polan. Noted most for his illustrations, he has two short films — How to Draw a Giraffe (watch below) and How to Draw an Apatosaurus — and a lot of other artwork like the self-published The Every Piece Of Art in The Museum Of Modern Art Book. (The book was originally a pitch to work at the museum — sporting an ITOYA 0.6 pen instead — as you can hear in the 30-minute podcast interview on Art a Go Go.)

Wholphin, a quarterly DVD magazine of unseen films, picked up a portion of Polan's 2007 short, How to Draw a Giraffe, which you can watch online. He collaborated with Meredith Zielke. In the liner notes, he simply says "I like drawing giraffes and I wanted to share this experience with other people."

With the thickness of the pen, you're working with the constraint to create simple, recognizable iconography. 37signals, who prefers Sharpies for storyboarding web sites, also posted today with "Jason Polan explains with a sharpie." They picked up on one of three videos for the State Bar of Texas. The Fire Ant Gazette of Midland, Texas has a longer interview about the videos.

Polan also has a daily illustration blog, Every Person in New York. In May, he told the New York Post about this challenge to himself. "I might never finish, but that's OK. … I'm coming from the Midwest. It's different living here. I'm trying to make [New York] more palatable, more welcoming." For New Yorkers, Jason Kottke posted a note that "if you'd like to be drawn, drop him a line on where you'll be, and he'll show up and sketch you." He's got a sweet calling card.

It gets even more interactive. Amid his countless drawings and murals, he's got One Hour of Art for sale. "I will make what I can in one hour and then I will send it to you." If you haven't seen his work in the New Yorker, you can catch his other blog — now archived — called The Drawing Project.

This on-the-fly animation has worked well for CommonCraft "Plain English" videos, from Social Media in Plain English to Zombies in Plain English. In 2007, there were a dozen UPS Whiteboard ads.

In the article "How to Build a Director", Creativity Magazine rounds up 14 executive producers and directors from the likes of Anonymous Content, HSI, Hungry Man, O Positive, Prettybird, @radical.media, RSA Films, and Station Film.

Asked about the thought patterns of directors that make it with a ticket to the big time, Frank Scherma, president of @radical.media, cuts to the chase. Don't be an asshole:

"I look for people who are passionate about what they do, for directors who are conceptual and are forward thinkers—they know a good idea and they know how to make any idea better. [They have] strong opinions about how they want to do it and enough common sense to understand how to collaborate. The day of the asshole is gone."

Is it an ad or the future of music videos? Leave it to the Antville.org music video community to argue semantics, but Crystal Castles' track "Air War" has a ticket to the big time in a new Toshiba ad.

The spot was directed by Grey, London and Hungry Man's Mitch Stratten, edited by Christophe Williams at The Whitehouse and posted at The Mill.

Shot with 200 Toshiba Gigashot HD cameras (each just about $1,600), this "Timesculpture" takes the "Bullet-Time" effect ala "The Matrix" quite a bit further. According to the press release, and called out by tech blog Gizmodo or Engadget, this technique of "viewing looping action in 360 degrees has never been done before."

The $4.6 million dollar spot posted online today and comes with a behind-the-scenes video to see how it all came together. This nouveau music video for "Air War" is currently airing in Europe.

You can see Stratten's reel and another video for Nodern, at ohdiamonddiamondthoulittleknowestthemischiefthouhastdone.net.

Part of a series of posts about active artists with the tenacity to take their project to completion.

John Horn's article in today's Los Angeles Times on various challenges that faced director Danny Boyle, whose new film comes out in limited release on November 12th:

Some directors would have moved on and made do with what they had in the can. Others might have scouted another location. A few might have called up a special effects house to re-create the palace in a computer. Yet Boyle rarely has followed custom, and the outside-the-box thinking that has yielded his eclectic filmography also helped Boyle and his "Slumdog Millionaire" team conjure up a novel solution — they sent in a fake documentary crew to get the footage.

Anne Thompson's interview for Variety:

Big-budget studio pics are great … for other filmmakers. Danny Boyle thrives when things are lean and focused.

Boyle's challenge — one happily embraced — was to make $15 million look like a whole lot more. "I like that tension," he says. "I don't want to make a dirty indie film struggling with paltry resources. I want to make a film that looks like it cost $50 million or $60 million."

To do that, Boyle jumped into a 12-week shoot on crazy Mumbai locations that changed overnight, deploying a nimble cameraman with a hard drive in a backpack and a gyro with an attached camera lens in his hand.

"It's a different way of grabbing reality and it has an intensity to it," he says. "It lets the mind float off places."

"Slumdog Millionaire," which will surely be an Oscar contender, is currently 100% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, which links up 14 early reviews. Online, skip past the official site for a Twitter-like microblog for mini reviews, created by Real Pie Media. The official poster was designed by Bemis Balkind.

"Reverie," a short film by Explorer of Light/PrintMaster Vincent Laforet, shot on the Canon 5D Mark II's HD video mode. See a making-of video from Laforet; on his blog, it's noted he did the short in 72 hours with just the camera, a small budget, and no experience or how-to guide.

"With the Canon 5D's video acquisition proving extremely impressive and with RED apparently unleashing something that will trump it in every way in little over a week I'm very excited about the potential for cost-effective but extremely high-quality digital cinema in the coming decade. Of course shooting on 35mm or IMAX is still the holy grail for most filmmakers but you have to admit the quality of the above video is pretty stunning!" — Jaraad Virani, director