American Teen and How it Was Made [Documentary]

Posted August 27th, 2008 at 12:55 am by C47

I loved this movie. It was by far my favorite film at Full Frame. I’ve noted before how I’m on the fence about going into narratives or docs. This proved you can accomplish both.

Following four high school seniors, American Teen was like watching all the best high school classics - Sixteen Candles, Fast Times, Risky Business, Mean Girls - but it’s all true.

The film feels so much like one of the above movies that I forgot these were real people, my age, that had a history before the film and a life after.

This main shock came when I looked at their Facebook fan pages and they had the usual ‘my life in an album’ pictures. This is just a testament to how well the film was made.

Hopefully this will be one of those few docs that will break its way into the mainstream and hold its own against the Hollywood blockbusters.

I really wondered how Nanette Burstein, the director, got such candid shots and access to these teen’s lives, so the Q&A was quite enlightening.

There were lots of pre-interviews and location scouting to find high schools that would cooperate. In the end 10 high schools agreed. They did a casting call to pick who they would follow.

They started following quite a few students, but once the school year and stories unfolded, Nanette was able to focus on who she would feature.

In the beginning the students were still getting used to having a camera follow them, so none of the footage was usable.

Eventually they got used to the camera, and a second camera crew was around all the time, allowing for some nice cutting. Nanette had a small camera on her just in case.

Some of the most intimate moments caught (like filming the girlfriend of one of the main characters cheating on him during a late night swim) were a matter of coincidence and being at the right place. There were a lot of times when the students didn’t want her filming, but what they thought was private didn’t really interest Nanette.

I did stumble across this photo, which looks like they had some serious toys for B-roll (and a serious budget).

I strongly encourage you to watch this any way possible. It’s on a limited theater run, and if it’s not playing near you, since A&E produced it they’ll be screening it.

And of course there’s Netflix. The only thing there isn’t is an excuse, so check it out.

[This post is part of a series about the documentaries I saw at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival]
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Posted in Documentary, Movies | No Comments

91 Set-Ups in 3 Days

Posted June 12th, 2008 at 10:31 pm by C47

Yes, we got 91 set-ups1 in 3 days. That’s about 30 a day. The 6 day show had 106 set-ups. Bottom line is we got a shit-ton of shots.

And this was despite company moves, lots of extras, a tired crew, and broken/missing equipment. The odd thing is no one brought up any objections or said we were crazy when we submitted the shot list, unlike my 60 set-up F3 that made my Director of Photography think I had lost it (we got the shots and wrapped early).

I think the main weapon that allowed the Director and I to get the shots was preparation. We storyboarded everything together in Frame Forge and had print outs of the boards on set. This way we could easily refer to a shot and communicate visually what we wanted to the crew and with each other.

I also used minimal lighting and kept the camera on the dolly when possible for easy repositioning.

It doesn’t seem like another show will pass the 91 (the other 6 day show has 80 planned), unless I manage to think of a few more for my movie. Apparently I just have a thing for lots of set-ups

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  1. A set-up is essentially a shot. Every time you move the camera, change lenses, change lighting, or film new action, that’s a new set-up. ↩
Posted in Cinematography, Production, Thesis Films | No Comments

Check Yourself Before You Wreck Your Week

Posted May 2nd, 2008 at 8:38 pm by C47

When you major in film, you sort of become the official video guy for the family, like editing stills and video your grandfather shot in Israel.

The good thing about an A/V clueless family is the most minor tasks, like making a cut, amazes them, so they’re pretty easy customers. Until they give you weird video files from their still camera.

It all started off well. I brought my grandfather’s photos and videos into Adobe Premiere, and began editing under his supervision. He used to do old-school 8mm editing, so an entire production package in a laptop blew him away.

The footage played back fine, though when I rendered it, it would play back a little choppy. I thought this was the computer being funny (real funny), so I continued editing. Yes, this is the point to shake your head.

Lesson: If the shit doesn’t work on a small scale, making it bigger and investing more time isn’t going to fix it.

You know where this is going. I finished the 20 minute long video, went to export, and guess what? Yeah, it was choppy.

I’ve finally fixed it. Five days later.

If you want all the technical juice, the video was some sort of MPEG Premiere didn’t like. I tried converting the original footage and relinking it to the stuff I edited, but no go. Just to see if something else would take it and I could re-edit it, I tried Final Cut and iMovie, but nothing. I’m kind of happy that didn’t work.

My solution? Export the video as Filmstrip. When I bring this back into Premiere, it still plays choppy. But when I render, boom. Smooth playing video. Export the audio, re-sync them, and yes, boom.

The final product. But I warn you, you will probably want those 20 minutes back.

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Posted in Editing | No Comments