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Competition, Credibility, Plagiarism, Indie Film Revolution - Preparing For 2012
Thursday, March 17, 2011 - 6:00 PM - Tampa Indie Film Log for Filmmaker C. A. Passinault
White Lie - A Prelude To A Revolution In Tampa Indie Film
The
new short indie film by Tampa filmmaker Chris Woods, White Lie, has been
released, and I have to say that I have never seen anything quite like
it.
Shot with a still camera, and animated with a series of jerky frame animations
of heavily stylized photographs, White Lie is one of the most unique films
which I’ve ever seen. It’s really good, too, with a twist
at the end, much like that movie “The Sixth Sense”, which
will prompt you to go back and watch it again.
I only wish that most Tampa filmmakers were as talented as Chris Woods
is. Sure, it may come off that I’m some sort of mindless fan, but
I’m not; I really do respect his work, as he has earned it. You
only have to watch his films to realize that this guy may very well be
the most talented filmmaker in the Tampa Bay area. Tampa “filmmakers”
Joe Davison, Paul Guzzo, and Terence Nuzum wish that they had a fraction
of the talent which Chris Woods has, I’m sure, especially Joe and
Terence.
First, with Spaventare, Chris Woods, with a cast of two and a crew of
three, and a cost of under $50.00 (although it must be noted that Chris
Woods already had the $3,000.00 worth of equipment to do the film, and
if you factor that in, it’s not as cost-effective as I’m indicating
here. I’ll let you know if that equipment cost will be factored
in in the future, when we all look to see which film was the best bang-for-the-buck.
The book on Tampa indie film is still being written, and this detail has
not been decided, yet), put together a short film which blew away just
about every $30,000.00 to $500,000.00 feature film ever made in the Tampa
Bay area, as well as every short film ever made. This feat, I predict,
is the first of many, most of which will be from a new generation of Tampa
indie filmmakers. My only regret is that I was not the first to demonstrate
that
good films can be made inexpensively, and that Chris Woods beat me to
it. He was the first.
It is going to be very difficult for even my first short films to be as
cost-effective as Spaventare was. Reverence, for example, although it
will cost under $900.00 in equipment, will have a cast of four and a crew
of three. Not quite as cost-effective as Spaventare (unless you count
the equipment costs with Spaventare), although the film will be three
times as long, and have a lot more to it. The short film Friendship, maybe....
Twisted Puppet Show, perhaps. We’ll see.
Maybe I’ll do a short film with a cast of one and a crew of one
just to obtain the most cost-effective short film in history, although
the rule would be that the film would have to be at least as good as Spaventare.
I do know that, with most films having large crews and lots of wasted
money, that it’s going to be interesting when the poster child for
independent filmmaking in Tampa Bay may very well turn out to be a talented
filmmaker posing with a DV camera held over their shoulder. I know that
it works well in photography. So, when you think of indie filmmaking in
Tampa Bay, the first thought might very well be that of a lone filmmaker
with a single camera, and a tiny crew, making a great film (although there
is really no getting around having money, high quality equipment, larger
crews, permits, a large cast, and props in making the best feature independent
films. Alas, the new generation of Tampa filmmakers will just have work
their way up to that; I intend to do it withing 3 years of making my first
short film.)
At
any rate, Chris Woods did it again. With White Lie, he turns out an innovative,
good short indie film which is at least as good as Spaventare, and it
does things that I’ve never seen in any film. The innovation and
unique format alone would have to push White Lie ahead of Spaventare,
although I’m not sure if it was as cost-effective as the earlier
film was. I do know that White Lie took 15 months in post production,
which is way longer than most feature films, so I’d have to say
that Spaventare wins, hands down, as the most cost-effective indie film
ever done in Tampa film history.
I asked Chris Woods about the long 15 month post production time, after
asking him repeatedly over 2010 about when the film would be done (It
was shot in December 2009, and released in March 2011) and he told me
that there was a lot of editing to do, one frame at a time. That’s
a lot of tedious editing, and it’s right there with most animated
films. Upon seeing White Lie, I talked to Chris Woods about how he edited
it. He told me that he edited it one frame at a time. Pulling from my
experience as a professional photographer, I then told him that Photoshop
had automated scripting where the same settings could be applied to batches
of pictures (all of the frames in each set would have had to be stylized
the same exact way n order to maintain visual continuity), and that individual
frames did not have to be individually edited; sure, some frames would
have to be singled out and tweaked, but by batch editing them he’d
have a lot of frames to work with instead of a few. White Lie was edited
with few pictures, and while the slide show / panning over the frame effect
did work well (especially when he split the frame, like he did with the
Joe Redner documentary, which he made with Shelby), he would have a lot
more options available to him if he had edited most of the frames instead
of a few. For example, much of White Lie is done by panning over still
frames, which is a lot like a digital comic (The Metal Gear Solid Digital
Comic for the Playstation Portable, for example), and I’ve also
seen this technique done in documentaries; it works much better than just
inserting a still picture. In some parts of White Lie, there are motion
sequences which look like stop motion animated frames, but there could
be more. There should have been more. I suggested to Chris Woods that,
if he chose to use this technique with another film, that he could edit
most of the frames with the automated scripting in Photoshop, and then
have a ton of frames to work with; instead of choosing frames, he’d
be in the position to toss out the ones that he did not want to use, and
have 1,000% more frames to work with. He could then use the frame rate
to pace the film, and use his panning still / split screen technique to
emphasize key parts of the movie. As a result, he’d have a better,
more stylized movie (I’d like to see more Tampa indie films done
this way. For example, I might shoot a film with a DV camera, and then
stylize the look and streak frames for a blur effect. It might work well
for a film where the main character is having a nightmare, or is on an
acid trip, and the entire film could be done this way. These are just
thoughts, however).
Most importantly, by using scripts to edit large batches of pictures,
he could also cut down the editing time to something more reasonable for
a short independent film. As done now, if he would have used that editing
technique, White Lie could have been done in less than a month of post
production, with no compromises. He could have also added a lot more to
the film.
That said, however, I dug White Lie, and Chris Woods was the first filmmaker
whom I’ve seen to use the cool technique that he used to make this
film; I expect other filmmakers to experiment like this, as well, and
they should. White Lie is good, and you can watch it now on my Tampa
Bay Film Online Film Festival: White Lie film.
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UPDATED 03/29/11
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