By the by:
I got my screen captures for this series from the ChuckTV.net Gallery. Very nice of them to provide screen captures from every moment of every show. Makes my job easier since the DVD isn't out yet.
~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor
Audio Bits
Chuck Opening
I'm not a sound guy. In fact, I'm really bad at sound. Simple cutting? Sure. A few added effects when needed? Okay. A little cheesy looped music? I'll try.
But mixing and fixing just ain't my scene.
I took a one-day audio workshop in college. We were given a CD full of sounds, a 30 second clip and two weeks to edit it together.
Two weeks.
About eight days in, a friend of mine approached me. "How's the project going?"
I shrugged. "I threw something together."
"Oh man," he said. "This thing has me so stressed out. I've already put in about 80 hours. I'm going to try to get in a few more before it's due. I just can't get it quite right."
80 hours? It's a 30 second clip. I didn't care if the majority of my grade depended on this thing, it didn't warrant that kind of time. But while my friend was over-ambitious and so paranoid he'd never be hire-able if he kept up that kind of over-thinking, he made an impression on me that day. If you're really into audio, it can become your life.
So watch the above clip again and try to list the sounds they added in addition to the catchy tune.
Approximately one "extra" sound bit every second.
That's crazy. While I doubt it took 80 hours, it had to take time to figure out what kind of sound they wanted, find the right sound in their library (or record it), place it in the timeline and then mix it down.
That's 30 seconds of audio for a quick animation piece.
The world of sound blows my mind. But the more attention to detail--and the more layers to add in--the higher your production value.
Just don't take 80 hours to do it or your project will never get done.
~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor
The Fool Who Sees Clearly
Allan Sepinwall commented that if Jeff could see clearly enough that Chuck and Sarah need to get together, he expects them to do so soon.
Which would be a good thing.
Jeff, playing the fool
Jeff is a fantastic character. He is Chuck's Shakespearian fool: The only one who can safely speak the truth for the audience without giving away anything to his fellow characters.
This is definitely an element to keep in mind for your productions. Not only does "the Fool" have a long literary history as a character, but he is a great tool for communicating something to your audience when your other characters can't/won't admit it.
~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor
Out of Character
I feel like I know Chuck. He's a buddy of mine by now. He's a good guy who, despite his passionate longing for his "it's complicated" for three years, still hasn't slept with her... for numerous complicated reasons.
Chuck is not a player. He doesn't sleep around. He's a good and decent--albeit "modern"--guy who I'm waiting to see in bed with his true love. This is television, after all.
Over the last couple years, I know Chuck really likes girls but he doesn't go out and try to score any points. Instead, he's rather awkward and none too rushed with the whole intercourse thing. So when I see a girl come out of his bathroom in the morning, I immediately think, 'So what's the story? Did her car breakdown and he was nice enough to invite her in?'
Hannah, recently showered
Chuck and Hannah like each other. We've peeked in on them making out. She's a cute girl. But the idea that Chuck and Hannah are sleeping together is a little far-fetched. My mind just won't jump there. But as the show moves along with no mention of why Hannah was in Chuck's shower, the sinking feeling builds. I like Hannah, but I don't want Chuck sleeping with her. That's just lame. And it's completely out of character for Chuck.
It's so out of character the writer of this episode felt the need to include a line of dialog:
"We slept together last night..."
This is disappointing on several levels:
It doesn't happen often, but it's sad when I feel like I know a character better than the writer. So as you write, think about who your audience knows your character to be.
~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor
Framing
You know that I really enjoy Chuck. But as I watched him take on a fake name, I noticed several things that I felt I needed to point out. Half of the elements in the show were awesome. But some of them were rather terrible.
The first thing I noticed was the poor framing in an early scene. Granted, they were shooting in a hall so space was limited. I understand that. But still...
Ellie is far too close to center. The shot feels a little low. She's also a little close to the audience.
Chuck is also a little too close to center.
Perhaps it's also the relationship between these two angles. One is almost straight on and down a little, the other is off to the side. So rather than talking to each other, it's almost as if they're in two different conversations. I don't know. I'm still trying to figure out what it is that makes these shots less than the typically stellar frames.
Honestly, these two shots don't look bad. But they were startling in the context of the show. When you've got really good framing and then a few shots that are just a little awkward, it's really jarring. Like the suddenly poor sound quality toward the end of the show when we were outside along a busy street. I understand the complexity of shooting next to a road and how audio in such conditions is a nightmare. But while I expect it from student films, it's super noticeable in a major--typically awesome--production.
These elements--as well as others I hope to address soon--combined to make the entire show feel rushed and hacked together. From an audience standpoint, where we had a few weeks off for the Olympics, that felt even more odd.
~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor
Yesterday I talked about the Two Rules of Special Effects. Today I'm going to give you a real-world example from a production I'm planning on doing in the next couple months.
I need a shot of the roof of an office building collapsing in on the camera. I've never done something like that before, so I decided to do a quick test shot.
Collapsing Roof Test Shot
A little camera shake at the start to simulate the camera being dropped. Some debris falling on top of the camera (crumpled paper and a pizza box).
Pretty cool.
Perhaps not the most impressive implosion of a building you've ever seen, but for an effect that took me a minute to shoot with materials I had on hand... not bad. It communicates the idea.
Rule #1: Check. The shot communicates.
But did anything bother you?
How about the fingers in a few of the frames?
Fingers
I did a quick garbage matte to cover up the really obvious hand-in-shot moments, but the few frames with fingers weren't worth the time.
Did you notice the cross-fade?
I used two different shots. The first where the pizza box falls in front of the camera for a nice look. The second where the box actually covers the lens for a great "fade to black" opportunity. To make it work, I also had to black out half the frame...
Cross-Fade
I'm going to guess that, like my wife, you didn't notice the fingers or the cross-fade.
So Rule #2: Check. The effect does not distract.
~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor
We love really well crafted special effects. In fact, movies with less than stellar stories can rise to the top of the charts if they look really good.
Unfortunately, you and I are not likely to create mind-blowing, ground-breaking, eye-popping, hyphen-inducing SFX with our limited (or non-existant) budgets. More than that, since I didn't major in computer graphics, I have very limited experience with effects at all. The things I've done have been mostly self-taught and "background" effects that fix something behind the character. I've never created a character out of thin air and pixels.
If you're trying to make a movie based on special effects and computer generated elements, you need to have incredible skill and artistic mastery. Right now the two movies that fall into this category are Avatar and District 9. My movies do not. My effects fall into a totally different category and I've learned that there are two rules for special effects in things I produce:
Great-looking is nice. But with my budget, skill and timeline, I have to settle for good enough. First, the audience needs to recognize the final product. If I am adding a spaceship, it needs to clearly be a spaceship. If I'm covering up a logo on a sign, the new sign needs to match the lighting and style. Second, the effect must not pull your audience out of the experience. The spaceship needs to fly without obvious strings or pass through a wall (unless it's a spaceship that can do that kind of thing). The sign needs to match the movement of your shot and not "slip" on the screen.
But that's it: Communicate, don't distract.
A little flicker on the edge? Does it distract your audience? I don't care if you notice it. Of course you notice it since you're making it. Will your audience? If not, it's time to move on to the next shot.
How do you figure out if your audience will understand and not notice your effect? Get someone who is not a filmmaker to watch the clip. But do not:
I go to a friend and ask, "Can you lend me your eyes for a minute?" Then, when ready, I ask, "Does anything bother you?" and push play...
What's interesting is the response is typically, "Well, I didn't like the lighting." Or, "The line was a little weak."
That's when I'll ask, "So the jitter in the sign motion didn't bother you?"
I almost always have to play the clip again so they can see it.
But I have what I need: Authorization to move on to the next effect.
~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor
A film professor once said to his class, "It's a little odd that people still use scripts. Here is a purely text medium trying to convey what will ultimately become a visual media."
I discovered this firsthand when I sat down to edit my senior project. I had shown my script to several people and they all loved it. My professor said it was an excellent script. I was super excited about the project.
I quickly finished my first cut of the film and watched it.
The playhead got the end of the timeline. I blinked. Then I said, "I wrote this thing and I don't understand it!" With good reason.
Two good reasons, actually:
1. In the context of prose you can get the feeling from a scene. In the context of a movie a scene doesn't really give you a feeling. It's just something you see. And if seeing that does not give you that feeling, the feeling is lost.
Let me give you some examples from Retexit. The following are images from my senior project and the description from the script:
The alarm is going off: 8:42.
...So what? My audience member has no way of knowing that 8:42 is significant... and making them stare at that frame isn't going to help them figure it out.
The shower runs.
Again... so? This scene actually has no bearing on my movie whatsoever. I put it in because, as a student filmmaker, I felt it was the best way to start the day in my movie. First an alarm clock and then a shower? Two tell-tale shots of student films. I hit both within the first few seconds of my movie. Great.
But those faux pas are nothing compared to what is coming up. Again, remember: These are the exact words from my script and an accompanying frame:
The bathroom door opens to reveal a cluttered room. Magazines and posters, damaged from neglect, only reinforce the discrepancy between stardom and dirty dishes with half-eaten food going bad.
Great prose. But as a script this makes me want to gag. There are so many problems with this:
But let's move on...
The hood on her car is open. The camera moves out of the internal workings to look down the road. No aid cometh.
...right. Because looking at the image above totally screams: You are alone and abandoned!
Show, don't tell.
A soggy, half-eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich sits on the table. A fork is driven into like a dagger.
Not only does the image not convey the message but the message is so vague it's impossible--even reading it--to figure out what I was trying to say.
Papers with notes, doodles, and scribbles form a blanket on the ground. The sheer amount is overwhelming. A broken pencil lies in the middle of the mess.
I don't get that vibe from the image. Do you? No.
The drip of a faucet. A drop of blood refused to be carried down the drain by the water.
Did she cut herself shaving? Did she have a bloody nose? Did her nail polish drip? And why didn't she wipe it up?
No clue.
After that experience I created a new rule for myself: Describe only what you see. If that does not communicate then you need to come up with something else. So, the first two examples fit with the first half of this rule. But they utterly fail the second half of the rule: They are accurate descriptions but say nothing to the audience.
The last five examples fail both aspects of my script rule completely.
This isn't fool-proof, but it's a good rule to follow if you don't want your script to be lost in translation from text to visual expression: Describe only what you see. If that does not communicate then you need to come up with something else.
~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor
Great films are fully fleshed out creatures. They contain intricacies and subtlety as well as body and depth. You can cut out too much. I ran into this as a young filmmaker because I was completely fed up with the lame extra bits in the films of my peers. So I slashed my movies into clips. I refused to linger on a shot because it slowed things down. I didn't need it, I reasoned. My audience could keep up. I was rocking through scenes. No one was going to be bored by my films.
Unfortunately, in my zeal for speed, my movies tended not to make sense. Rather than a complete body they were a skeleton. You could tell that a story would fit around my elements, but the whole picture was not there.
My senior project--which I shot with my own camera, without lights or a microphone--is a good example of this. I had recently written a 45 page script with 14 speaking parts and realized it was too big. So I wrote a five page script with three words and two characters.
Everyone loved my script.
But just because my prose made perfect sense, my film was little more than bare bones. Thus, the meaning--the story/the heart--was missing. Here are the last 30 seconds of my 3:20 short:
Retexit - the final 30 seconds
There were many other fundamental problems with "Retexit" but I'll cover those at a later time. The point is that you must find a balance when constructing your tales. Too much and your story is buried behind a mountain of useless bits. Too little and your story loses its form and falls apart.
Skeleton or Mountain
~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor
