MOTIVATION

Its been a while since I posted something on this blog. In the meantime I went to Cannes with my short film Hendrik and I was waiting for the reaction of an other Film Festival, "Festival of Festivals" in St. Petersburg (Russia). They said they will announce the selected films on there website. After a week of waiting I gave up. I haven't got any mail and I didn't saw anything on their webpage. 2 weeks later my partner Olga visited the website and discovered Hendrik got selected for this festival.

Beside the selection for the 2 international filmfestival, nothing much happened. The only landmark at this moment is a year after graduation. This is a moment to look back and evaluate my current position in comparing with the goals I created last year.
My goal is to make 2 short films a year. In didn;t shot a film in 2012 yet, but 2 projects are in progress.
Being selected for festivals and the positive feedback I got, motivates me to create more films. The counter part of not being motivated is the financial situation. As a started we state in difficult times, especially an artist who starts. Sometimes I have my doubts about my business, but its my hobby and I like it.

The following 2 films I would like to share with you to motivate you in difficult times. The message is simple but this will keep me awake. Especially the Dragonball Z video, as I am a huge fan of, inspires me greatly.

                                          

Charity for KWF Kankerbestrijding

I was invited to a concert of a friend of mine in a small pub. Not realizing he was performing for charaity reasons, I got interested what this event was. It appeared his neighboor Taco Smit is going to bike the Alpe D'huzes (France) six times in name of KWF kankerbestrijding, a charity foundation that fight for cancer.

After an hour of good coffee and sharing idea's we came to a concept. This video is made with the help of volunteers. Here you can see the result of hour one day of shooting. 

One year later

From nature we humans wants the best in everything. The best food, the best car, the best partner, etc. I think this is one of human natural behavior. Also I look for quality. That's why I reedited my Prague Filmschool Diplome film, Hendrik, and let my composer Gagi Petrovic, created music and let a sound designed fixed the bad sound recordings.

Patiently after almost a year I can send Henrik to film festivals. Cannes filmfestival is one of the first filmfestivals I send Hendrik to. Today I got a conformation email from the festival that Hendrik has been validated for the Short Corner.

Cannes short Corner is the first festival accepting Hendirk, hope others will follow. Until that time I will work on other projects.

3D SOUND

If I ask the question to a regular person; "what is film?", the person would answer something like, a story told in pictures. And that would be a correct answer. And with film we think about actors, directors, camera and lights. Even during my study, the focus of filmmaking lies in these terms. But something that is underestimated is sound.

When I was shooting my first film, Het Schilderij, I made a misstake with scouting my location. I found a beautiful, historical location, but the location was on busy street. I had a good sound recorder/mixer who know how to deal with these situations and created a good sound mix for my film. But this is the moment I realized that sound for a film needs the same attention as the picture itself. 

Today I read an article on filmnieuws.nu about the new film of the dutch filmmakers Eugenie Jansen and Albert Elings Above my head, which was shot in 3D. Elings quoted "Geluid is leidend in het verbeelden van ruimte...", which means "Sound leads imagining the space..." I am not sure if they know something about the new sound technology, auro - 3D, but I would know this technique would make there film even more realistic, where sound and the image comes together. 

I am not so technical to explain how Auro 3D works, but I know that the experience of sound becomes more realistic. The attached video  explain visually how it works. 

Source: auro-3d

Unfortunately, experiencing this new sound-technique is very limited. The Theater Kinepolis in Antwerpen would be the first cinema in West Europe who would use this technique. Some cinema's in USA, China and Russia have this new sound system. 

So for me it will take some time to experience this, but for now, I would work with Stereo and finish the musicvideo I shot last Saturday. But about this project would follow later. 

Dealing with clients

Illustration by Kilu Zamana on Facebook

It has been a while since I have been on a set of a music video, but tomorrow this record will be broken. This time I will shoot a music video for the young artist Shno Kamal.

What started as a small agreement to shoot a live performance turns out to become a full music video. Still the focus of this video lies on the live performance of Shno, but we, "Tree Film Productions", wanted a narrative story in this video.

We from Tree Film Productions are young artist who're trying to become successful in the thing we like to do the most, Film. So in the beginning you do the things rationally and without thinking of any consequences. Past projects learned us and specially me, how to deal with specific situations, but still facing problems are one of the most common things. But thinking after dealing with these problems you still make misstakes of the same topic.

The problems I am talking about are clients. They don't have to be necessary problems, but as long you deal with parties who wants something from you, things can become very complicated. This is why contracts are invented. Contract to make sure both parties are agreed about how the corporation is organized. I am happy that a lots of models are on the internet to help me setting up a decent contract.

So, now the legal agreements are settled, the production can starts. And hopefully I learned enough to make sure I will have the same problems in the future.