Ari Daniel Shapiro, a scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, chronicles his experience studying Norwegian killer whales in the field. Courtesy of Ari Daniel Shapiro, WHOI.
For years, longline fishermen in Alaska have complained that whales have been stealing their sablefish catch. A team of researchers, including Aaron Thode, Delphine Mathias and Jan Straley, mounted a video camera to a fishing line and caught a sperm whale stealing. Thode, a research scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, explains what the video reveals about whale behavior. Footage courtesy of Delphine Mathias, Aaron Thode, Jan Straley, Kendall Folkert. Photos from Tory O’Connell, Heather Riley. Music by Aaron Kerr and Swallows, SYNTHAR
This small unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) takes off like a helicopter but flies like an airplane. The vehicle, named V-Bat, can fly at over 100 mph for more than five hours. Stephen Morris, the president of the company that designed the prototype, explains how it works.
I hate it when someone says that. I means that they are taking no thought to the process that they are doing and are throwing down crap in the attempt to be done and have all the glory. I usually means that the post people are being over worked and having to fix the ill-conceived plans of unfortunate direction. Not everything can be fixed in post. But with some though, some story boarding, and some actual time with what post people have to go through, you can create a look that is genuine and not a repair job. This usually means you create your own rules to what your look and feel is going to be. Sit back and let Eric Escobar tell you how it’s done.
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By Debra Kaufman
June 19, 2009 – 9:53 pm
The Hollywood Post Alliance’s Sales Career Resource Group held a timely panel this week, at the Sheraton Universal Hotel in Universal City. “How to Get, Keep and Not Lose My Business” was the topic that packed the room. Moderated by industry veteran Herb Dow, the panel was made up of four clients: Aaron Staudinger, associate producer at Rocart/Nick; Bruce Sandzimier, VP of post production at ABC Studios; Joe Fineman, independent post production consultant; and Charlie Davis, HPAeventEVP of post production at CBS Films.
The following are some of Dow’s questions and answers from the panel.
What do you notice when you visits a facility?
Sandzimier: I go to a lot of facilities where I don’t know anyone but it’s nice to go in and know some one because of the comfort level. The other thing I look for is if people on are the ball. Are they asking the right questions or waiting for you to give them information?
Also, does the company have a reputation for doing the kind of things you need to do? I look for a company that’s known for doing the things we need done.
Talent versus technology – which is most important?
Fineman: Management is a third factor. If you don’t have the management, the talent and technology don’t mean that much. Facility to facility, the technology is pretty much the same thing. Just because they have great talent doesn’t mean it’s the person I want to work with. If your DP or director has some relation to the person operating the control, that’s better. Having all the technology working is absolute. And yet we know crashing happens, technology goes down. But if I don’t have a manager, a producer who will watch after my interests, the technology could be perfect and the talent could be great, but I won’t go back there.
What are your hot buttons?
Davis: If I have to re-ask for a bid. If I have to re-ask, you’re off my list. It’s amazing that I have to ask for a bid again. If I do, the level of service has dropped to a point where I don’t want to go there. It’s about service to me. It’s all about management.
Also, when a colorist says he’s worked on five movies I worked on and I know he didn’t…just be real with that credit list. I vet every credit list, I really do. If the talent can’t do it, don’t put someone forward who can’t do the job. Do not take on a job if you can’t do it. Understand the limitation of your facility and be willing to let something go, to say no.
What do you read in the bid?
Staudinger: I want to read that the facility has a deep understanding for what my goal is in post producing the film/TV project. That they understand my workflow and can get me there as cost effectively and quickly as possible. I don’t want a bd for 4K DI if I can go color correct it in a way more relvant to the end result.
How much does the personality of the rep play into your decisions?
Sandzimier: It is important. You want to know that person, to be able to communicate with that person. There’s a shorthand; they know what to expect from you and vice versa. But just because I haven’t dealt with someone doesn’t preclude a business relationship. You have to allow people into your inner circle, so I try to have an open mind.
Fineman: To have someone call me to talk helps pave the way for me to want to have an interchange and get to know the person. Then I’m willing to talk more about dollars and cents, equipment. It can be price or personality that gets me to return phone calls.
What kind of sales approach works for you?
Davis: I’m a straight-to-business guy. I truly believe that fluffing–meaning a lot of friendly phone calls and lunches–are well and good but don’t get to the heart of it for me.
What are your communication preferences?
Staudinger: Email, phone, sit-down: it’s all important. Face to face is often the best way to put an end to something that might be a tough situation.
Sandzimier: I would agree. I communicate in whatever way works: I respond to email, I’ll take a phone call and I like face-to-face because you can deal with it quickly and there are no misunderstanding that can happen with email or on the phone. Whatever is necessary to get the job done is the way I’m willing to do it.
Fineman: I agree with Aaron and Bruce. If a friend calls and says will you meet with this picture editor even if I didn’t have work. I’ll do it. But if I did it with every picture editor who called, I’d never get any work done.
Davis: I do belive there’s a fine line between what you put in an email and what you can say on the phone. I went away for a week into the mountains and I came back to 150 emails on my phone and three-quarters of them were ridiculous and didn’t need to be sent. Email is an amazing communication tool and it’s the way we run our business. But when you have a situation you need to deal with, there’s nothing better than talking to someone in person. Email can be misconstrued.
What about Facebook?
Fineman: It does seem like an additional way of communicating–especially if you’re having a revolution–that and Twitter. I think that every means of communication can be well used. My experience so far with Facebook is 99 percent of it is people talking about their day-to-day life. On the other hand, a colleague asked me if I knew of an assistant, I put the request on Facebook and got four replies.
Davis: I think Facebook is great. It was a great way to reconnect. There is a great line between what is business and what is social. To say, I want to have lunch with you because I want to give you a bid–I’m kind of turned off by that. But understanding new technology/communication tools is very important for all of us.
How do you respond to a low-ball bid?
Staudinger: I ask, is everything there? Is the talent there? If the talent isn’t there, I won’t entertain the bid at all. Of course, it piques my interest. The cost effectiveness at which I’m supposed to work makes it tough but I have to make sure all the pieces are there.
Sandzimier: One of the concerns I have with a low-ball bid is, Is this company really desperate? A sign of desperation isn’t such a good thing when we’re trying to interact with new business. I feel bad for them, but it makes me concerned.
Fineman: We’re always looking for the lowest bid in the indie film world. Who’s dealing with that bid? If it’s a trusted vendor and they give me a very low figure, I have to vet the numbers. If I know the person, I’m much more trusting. They don’t come out of thin air. A director will come to me and say, I have a friend from college who’ll do the main titles for $1K. That’s a very low bid. My problem is that I don’t have the ability to tell the director, No I won’t go to your friend. It becomes wrangling. Sometimes a low bid is a good thing, sometimes not.
Davis: I’m a very straight forward guy. I tell people the numbers I have and I expect the services that number will give me. The problem is that you get reduced services to get the number. So a low-ball bid is, usually, one that doesn’t have the services you need.
Here’s a question from the audience: How do we get you out of the comfort zone to try someone outside of the facilities you’re loyal to?
Davis: If I’m looking at three bids that are the same, it comes down to relationship. All of you providing services to us are making us look good when the services are on schedule and on budget. We’ll go to facilities that do that for us. Whoever will go the extra mile to make me feel comfortable–that’s what gets me, bottom line.
Do you outsource projects overseas?
Sandzimier: For us in TV, it’s not really practical. There’s an immediacy with what we do – having something that’s not in close proximity to either where we’re shooting or posting isn’t really feasible. Even doing VFX – getting the financial benefits of doing them in Vancouver – the turnaround time for even that distance isn’t always that practical. So we don’t find ourselves farming them out across the country. It has to be within 30 miles of where we’re at.
Fineman: The only work I’ve done outside the US has been VFX. I’ve dealt with 6, 7, 8 countries. It comes down to creativity. If you’re working with the right vendor, where you do the effects doesn’t matter. What matters is the creativity and having the communication so that what you tell them is understood. I’m still an LA person and want everything to be done here.
Davis: I agree wholeheartedly and am lucky that I have a senior management that knows we have to stay close in LA. We’re always searching for ways to try to figure out how L.A. will work.
Staudinger: Out of circumstance, we’re doing a lot of work with Vancouver. The only thing I feel comfortable dealing with outside of LA is visual effects. What happens when there’s a problem?
Davis: This is the test of the facility: to come to bat and fix it. Some are really good at it, some aren’t. More importantly, we are faced now with a different editorial team than we had 5 years ago. Assistant editors have to be engineers. The workflows are creating a level of expertise that didn’t exist before. The assistant editor and editorial group has to step up, and facilities as well. On that note, I’m a strong proponent of competition. I’ll give my work to a bunch of companies because that’s what keeps us all in business. That’s not one company, that’s all of us.
Hey there everyone! This movie is extremly important for me to pass along. It is playing in LA, NY, and San Fran, and will hopefully nation wide soon. It is call Food, Inc. and it is quite possibly the most important movie you can every watch in your life.
The fact is, the food we eat everyday is based on lies, deceit, greed, and an increasing amount of disdain for the people who buy food. We are poisoned every single time we eat a Whopper or a Big Mac. The giant strawberries you buy are death traps. Everything you put on your plate has either been modified to be low nutritionally or is based on corn, an item that is, for the most part, undigestable by most animals forced to eat it today. Do you know where your food comes from? More importantly, do you know the lies that made it get to your plate? Probably not. Trust me when I tell you chicken breasts aren’t as big naturally as the ones you buy in a store. Cow’s don’t give milk unless they are pregnant, so they are forced pregnant on a constant basis to produce enough milk for you to drink a glass of antibiotics and hormones.
Food, Inc. exposes America’s industrialized food system and its effect on our environment, health, economy and workers’ rights. Learn about these issues and take action through the Hungry For Change cafeteria and check out the 10 Simple Tips for making positive changes in your eating habits. Learn more about these issues and how you can take action on Takepart.com.
Genetic Engineering
Some of our most important staple foods have been fundamentally altered, and genetically engineered meat and produce have already invaded our grocery stores and our kitchen pantries.
Environmental Impact
Did you know that the average food product travels about 1,500 miles to get to your grocery store? And that transporting food accounts for 30,800 tons of greenhouse gas emissions every year?
Foodborne Illness
In Food, Inc. we meet Barbara Kowalcyk, whose 4 year old son died from E.coli poisoning after eating a hamburger. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 76 million Americans are sickened, 325,000 are hospitalized and 5,000 die each year from foodborne illnesses.
Healthy Eating
30 million Americans are obese. High calorie, sugar laden processed foods coupled with our sedentary lifestyles is growing our wastelines and contributing to serious health issues like diabetes, heart ailments and cancers.
Pesticides
Cancers, autism and neurological disorders are associated with the use of pesticides especially amongst farm workers and their communities. Learn about the effects of using pesticides to grow our food.
Factory Farming
Approximately 10 billion animals (chickens, cattle, hogs, ducks, turkeys, lambs and sheep) are raised and killed in the US annually. Nearly all of them are raised on factory farms under inhumane conditions. These industrial farms are also dangerous for their workers, pollute surrounding communities, are unsafe to our food system and contribute significantly to global warming.
Cloning
In January 2008, the FDA approved the sale of meat and milk from cloned livestock, despite the fact that Congress voted twice in 2007 to delay FDA’s decision on cloned animals until additional safety and economic studies could be completed.
Cloning Sam Rockwell, Riffing on 2001, and Bringing the Lunar Surface to Shepperton Studios for $5m or Less
By Steve Erickson
June 11, 2009 Source: Film & Video
Duncan Jones’ Moon, opening June 12 in New York and Los Angeles, is an unusual breed of science-fiction film. Shot in Super 35, it tells the story of Sam Bean (Sam Rockwell), a lunar miner whose only companion is talking robot Gerty (voiced by Kevin Spacey). Sam discovers that his lonely moon base is occupied by a clone of himself. The visually dazzling film, whose production design may be its most impressive aspect, pays homage to a host of science-fiction precursors, including 2001: A Space Odyssey, but carries an emotional charge all its own. F&V talked to Jones about the challenges of creating images of the lunar surface in a British soundstage and directing an actor to fight himself.
F&V: Did directing Sam Rockwell playing several incarnations of himself present any difficulties?
DJ: Well, there were technical difficulties. It was hard to get the effect to work in a way that went beyond what David Cronenberg did in Dead Ringers and Spike Jonze did in Adaptation. Then, there were the difficulties of performance: making Sam feel the differences between his two characters. I was very lucky. I had a producer who gave me a week of rehearsals in New York with Sam and an actor friend of his. We went over the script and broke down what Sam wanted to do and gave him the opportunity to differentiate between the two Sams.
I was impressed by the scene where the two Sams fight. How were you able to shoot this?
I’d given myself a little bit of rehearsal in that I did a commercial for French Connection UK. It was a fight scene between two women. It was only about a year before I did the film. I thought, “One day I’m going to have to do a fight scene, and I’d like to get one under my belt before I make a film.” So I directed this scene for the commercial, which gave me a good understanding of how to shoot fight scenes.
When it came down to doing one for the film, I really worked closely with the fight coordinator. We came up with a scenario where we would be able to keep the camera quite close and disguise the action where we could. Sam was basically fighting against his stunt double most of the time. With a wig and costume, we were able to get away with quite a few shots. There’s a couple shots in that sequence where we added Sam’s face onto the stunt double in post-production. In order to save money, we only did that once or twice in the whole sequence. Most of it’s just clever camera angles.
Your lunar exteriors are quite convincing. How much of that is a real set, and how much is CGI?
It’s model miniatures. All the lunar exteriors were shot using that technique, which they used to do in the ‘70s and ‘80s. We had a soundstage in Shepperton Studio where we built a piece of lunar landscape, about 30 by 40 feet. We really made it look like the moon. We had these beautiful little miniature vehicles pulled across the landscape by fishing line and titanium wire. That’s basically the foundation of the visuals. We were able to expand upon it in post-production. We digitally created distance, star fields, lens flares and dirt being kicked up by the vehicles. The lens flares were a way of adding visual style to it , but it was also a way of camouflaging certain things.
How much was your budget?
About five million dollars. For a science fiction film, it’s not a lot.
How extensive was your use of CGI?
I can’t really give you a fraction, but we tried to capture as much in camera as possible. The interior of the base is entirely live action. We used CGI for a couple key moments where Gerty is moving around the base, because it was just too difficult to use physical props. For the lunar landscape, like I said, we used miniatures but did certain things with CGI.
How big was your set of the base?
It was amazing. It was a completely encompassing, 360-degree set of the entire base. We went in the airlock in the morning. Most of the lighting was built into the base itself, so when we were shooting, it was like being on location. No matter where the camera pointed, it was like being on the base.
Did your background in advertising affect your approach to filmmaking?
It was designed as my film school in some ways. I only became involved in advertising because my mentor, Tony Scott, suggested I go off and work in it. He told me that the more you work in advertising, the more experience you’ll have with working with crews and coming up with a budget, and that will put you in good stead when you’re ready to make a film. I took his advice. For me, it was an opportunity to get the skills I needed to make feature films. I needed it. I would never have been able to do this film without that experience.
Did you also make shorts or music videos?
I did a couple of low-budget music videos: nothing you would ever have seen. I did a few short films. One in particular, called “Whistle,” was about 26 minutes long. It’s also a near-future, science fiction film. It’s pretty good and played in the UK on TV. I’m hoping that maybe we can put it on the Moon DVD. I just have to get a few clearances. I’d like people to be able to see it.
Dominique McElligott
Actress Dominique McElligott
Moon has an emotional quality missing from recent sci-fi films. What attracts you to the genre?
A lot of science-fiction films these days are a string of special-effects set pieces. I miss those science fiction films which focused on people and storytelling, explaining how a human being survives and maintains their humanity in an alien environment or how their humanity is eroding away. Films like Outland, Silent Running and Alien did that. They were all about human beings and how they survived such scenarios. I wanted Moon to do that. The TV show Battlestar Galactica concentrated on people, but I don’t think that many recent feature films have done it.
Were you more influenced by literary or cinematic sci-fi?
A bit of both. There were several films from the ‘70s and ‘80s that were very influential and I wanted to pay homage. I was also a big reader of Philip K. Dick and J. G, Ballard, as well as George Orwell and John Wyndham when I was younger. I loved the way Ballard would tell a story that could be contemporary and find one element to tweak that would make it slightly otherworldly. It’s always about the person and how he’s affected by that change.
Sam Rockwell
Were you afraid of coming too close to your influences? Although Gerty’s personality is quite different from HAL 9000, it’s hard to have a talking computer that doesn’t evoke HAL.
Absolutely. We pay homage to a lot of films and 2001 specifically. I could either have pretended HAL never happened and create my character of Gerty or I could do what we ended up doing: making that association and letting the audience bring their own assumptions. They’re going to see the iris eye and immediately think of HAL. I want them to do it. I want them to assume that Gerty will behave the same as HAL, because over the course of the film, you discover that Gerty’s very different personality-wise. That surprise is accentuated if you assume that he’s going to be like him.
Was it your idea to put the smiley face icon on the side of Gerty?
I use a lot of social networking sites. I’m on Twitter all the time. I use all these various forms of networking, including the text version of Skype. I tend to use smiley faces to make sure people know that I’m joking. That’s my own reason for using it on Gerty. I also like the idea that Gerty’s designed by this company which doesn’t have much respect for Sam and treats him in a patronizing way. So they use smiley faces to communicate with him.
Did you find it difficult to direct Kevin Spacey in a voice-only performance?
It was a unique challenge, because he’s a big-name actor with a huge amount of experience. He’s a director in his own right. He’s incredibly well-known, and I’m just a guy who’s making my first little film. So that’s intimidating. Fortunately, he’s a very nice man and a real professional. He’d read the script a few times and seen an offline cut of the film. We had a conversation on the day of the recording about who Gerty was and what his intentions are. I think Kevin nailed it. He understood the parallels with HAL. He really knew what he was doing, and I didn’t have to give him too much guidance. He knew he was there as a foil for Sam.
So you shot the film without knowing who was going to do Gerty’s voice?
Yes. I wanted Kevin Spacey, and he was a huge admirer of Sam’s. He was interested, but knowing our budget, he was concerned about how we were going to pull it off. He told us to go ahead and do it without him, and, after we finished the film, to show it. If he could confirm that the sets weren’t made out of shoe-boxes, he’d reassess it. When we showed him the rough cut, he was blown away by Sam Rockwell’s performance.
Sam Rockwell
Did you write the story with Sam Rockwell in mind?
I met him about three years ago to talk about a different film. He’d been really keen on playing a different role than the one I wanted him to play. I met him in New York to try to convince him to play the role. We both had strong ideas, so that didn’t work out, but we got along incredibly well. I realized what a lovely man he was. I already knew he was an amazing actor, but at that point, I realized how great he’d be to work with. I decided then that if I couldn’t get this project off the ground, I would write something specifically for him. I knew he was the guy I wanted to do my first film with.
Where did the production money for Moon come from?
Mostly from the O.K. We got a good chunk of our budget there. Then with the concept artwork and Sam Rockwell attached, we talked to a number of companies. Sony Worldwide Acquisitions chipped in a percentage of the budget in exchange for rights for the English-language territories. That gave us the budget we needed to complete it.
Are you planning your next film now?
I have another script, which is the one I was initially talking to Sam Rockwell about. It’s also science fiction, but it’s Earth-based. It’s a thriller taking place in Berlin. That script has started going out to actors. I’m very excited. I co-wrote it with a guy named Mike Johnson, whom I went to film school with.
What aspect of filmmaking on Moon did you find most challenging?
Having to constantly make compromises and find solutions to problems because you don’t have enough money to do things exactly the way you wanted to. The difference between feature films and commercials is that with commercials, you can shoot something for as long as it takes to get it right. With feature films, you have to compromise all the time. You might only get three or four takes of a scene, because you have to move on.
Twice a year, the sunset lines up with New York City’s street grid — making for spectacular views. Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York, identified the cosmic event over a decade ago and coined it Manhattanhenge. Last weekend was the first Manhattanhenge of 2009 — we watched the sun from 42nd street, along with about 50 other astronomical enthusiasts.
Anthropologist Bill Jungers of Stony Brook University Medical Center shows off a new cast of the most complete skeleton of Homo floresiensis — also known as the “hobbit.” The hominid, which lived 17,000 years ago, was about sixty pounds and just over three feet tall. Jungers explains how the bones–particularly the feet–help explain where the hobbit might fit into the evolutionary tree.
Aralani Photography
Corinne West ~ News from Nowhere
Fences for Fido
Gautch
Geek Girls Network
In Defence of Animals
Shannyn Moore
The Angry Filmmaker
The Discerning Brute
The Green Planet
The Last Stand Fan Page