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Academy & Emmy nominated Frederick Marx is either clever or lucky or both because he is able to follow his life’s passion and is able to live it every day. His mission as a filmmaker is “Bearing Witness, Creating Change.” Human change, human transformation – one story at a time.

There is ‘Hoop Dreams’ One of the most acclaimed and successful documentaries ever, HOOP DREAMS tells the story of Arthur Agee, William Gates, and their families over a four and a half year period, covering the boys’ entire high school careers as they pursue the elusive dream of professional basketball success. It is a three hour documentary following two teenage inner city Afro-American lads to play basketball professionally.

Frederick gives back to the film making community to with workshops and talks Speaking topics include:

• Buddhism and Film
• What young filmmakers need to know
• Living a life of mission
• The role of documentary in social justice
• The changing landscape of independent film production and distribution – a 40 year perspective
• Journey From Zanskar and educating your own children
• Take the Zanskar vow – become a social change agent
• The necessity of rites of passage and mentorship for youth

The ‘Journey from Zanskar’ was a topic in the interview that Frederick spoke about in more detail. talking about the ordeals of travelling and shooting film out on the trail. He tells us about what cameras he was using and how he had to make do with other cameras when the main camera no longer was available to him. He got inside the lives of the people that were the subjects of the movie as should happen in a good documentary. The monks were able to tell their story to the world with the help of Frederick, who is clearly a talented and intelligent independent film maker.

I have to admit I learned a lot listening to Frederick and you will not be disappointed in hearing the podcast

Comments or questions are welcome.

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Working at the campsite again for the summer so I will be on the summer schedule for the next six weeks. I hope to get 2 or 3 podcasts out each month still.

Also the lack of new podcasts has been due to working hard to learn more programming I found a good tutorial on Lynda.com for learning PHP and MySQL. For learning things like the basic concepts of loops and thinking like a programmer it has been good. I expect that the ability to hook into MySQL databases will be very useful too.

My wife has her MacBookPro and at this moment is using her crappy WIndows computer to do so form filling on a web site. Having to type quite a lot of words she has bot got used to the keyboard on the MacBookPro. The old HP keyboard is plain horrible but she is used to it. Have to give her more time on that one. I have been hoping to spend more time with her showing her some trick with the Mac but I have not been able to do that much either.

We have set up TextExpander for her. I got it for her yesterday and also Skitch – both applications are very useful and I know she will particularly love Textexpander when we have it set up more.

continue reading…

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In this podcast I am talking to Darren Hull who has landed himself a cool job after finishing his Fine Art studies in which he is photographing and videoing wood work products – And he has enough time also to do his own photography. Getting a job these days is hard enough . Handy if you can get one that you love.
On top of that he is going to be doing some portrait too. Quite a business man.
Darren is a Mac User so although we talk mostly about photography and video in this podcast I think it is still relevant as many Mac owners are into Photography.

I mention a photographer in the interview called Dave Hill. He does some amazing pictures and I recommend you have a look at davehillphoto.com . I also mention Photomatix the HDR photography application and for some excellent examples you could do a search in Flickr for the guy that goes by the name of ‘Stuck in Customs’ I have a few good HDR photos in Flickr too. I used the tutorial put up by SIC to guide me when I worked on the picture that I took in Dublin by the canal of the ambulance rushing past. And also with the photos of the shack in the French Vineyard. It was late evening when I took those photos and the light was great although I had to hurry to get the shots.

Part of getting a good HDR image is to choose a subject and lighting that suits HDR. YOu want something that there is a large dynamic range there with some dark area and also places that will be washed out if you expose for the darker areas in a normal photo.

As I say in the podcast I like the more extreme images – I am not concerned too much with lifelike as I am keen to get an exciting looking finished image.
I had lifelike while I was there taking the picture, the artist in me wants something extra and I like bold and colourful. I really love the HDR.

Seems that I am spending lots more time lately with shooting video more so than with than taking photos and with my guest in this interview it is the same with that.

The latest cameras with the video capabilities are pushing many photographers in the direction of video too. Canon 5D and the 7D are excellent for video to the point that there is a huge buzz amongst indie film makers due to the quality of the images that you can get from these new DSLR’s. Canon also now have the T2i a lower priced version and even more photographers will be getting on the video bandwagon.

Using the Canon 5D to shoot House

There was a big thing made out of the fact that the last episode of House was shot with the Canon 5D.
One of the things that is so good about video on the DSLR is the depth of field you can get especially with the prime lenses. There are all sorts of extras you can buy to make the DSLR camera more suited to shooting video as well as the variety of quality lenses available.

http://media.techpodcasts.com/mac20q/media.blubrry.com/mac20q/traffic.libsyn.com/spondicious/098_DarrenHull.mp3 continue reading…

Academy Award Winning Movie Trailer – This was brought to my attention by my son, he had it on a Facebook comment. The dialogue in the movie is totally wacky and would certainly be a strange film to watch.

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Kurt has been podcasting since 2008 and his topic of interest and expertise is Web Comics
He has interviewed people like David Reddick who created the Legend of Bill and Star Trek comics
Phil Foglio and many other comic artists.

This version of the podcast is the short version concentrating on the video end of things. There is another podcast that is quite a bit longer in which Kurt talks more about the worlrd of comics.

The reason that Kurt is being featured on the Video20Q podcast is because he told me some of hos plans to extend his podcast with video and is going to do the lone gun video interviews at a comic convention taking place in Chicago. Well not quite lone gun as he will have a friend helping him out with the video. He has an inexpensive JVC camera and will be interviewing artists at the show.

Kurt likes the manga and anime influence on comics is a manga fan, comics such as Dragon Ball but grew up with the Marvel style also

We also talk a bit about comic influenced movies such as, Sin City – Frank Miller
Watchmen – which I have not seen yet but Kurt reckons is too long, dry and painful to watch.
Kick ass Movie – story based on comics

Moving from tape to a hard drive camera bought a JVC for 600 dollar with a 80 gb HD
He is working with a friend called mike to record the interviews at the comic conventions
Carrie Fisher of Star Wars fame will be at the event also.
Kurt is an Audacity user for the editing of audio, he tells me that he loves the Mac and may think of getting one for when he needs to do the video editing. Kurt has been known to make really long podcasts – up to 3 or 4 hours, he was using Talkshoe for the podcsasting but the quality was bad – still uses it for the hosting of the audio podcasts.

He was or is a World of Warcraft player and that got him into podcasting since 2008 has done 97 episodes, starting with WebComicPlanet.com

Here are a few links for those amongst you interested in the world of comics.

The Drunken Fools – created by Antoine Gagnon, this is the comic that I’m helping co-write based on my character submission Stubby the guardian angel skunk.

Web Comic Planet run by Byron Wilkins it’s a combination collective site run by fellow webcomic creators and links through a database over 2200 webcomic sites. This site also has a batch of tutorials and processes for up and coming webcomic authors and artists from veterans in their fields.

1977 The Comic – is Byron Wilkins actual webcomic site. About 1977 in Chicago loosely based on his life.

Danielle Corsetto, wonderful person and very active in the community

Penny Arcade These two are pretty much the godfathers of Webcomics. They didn’t start the community but they have been the most consistent and successful at it.

Eldon Cowgur created this and I’ll let you decide what you think about Astray 3.

Devils Panties – Jeannie Breeden consistently updates every single day without fail for many many years.

Johnny Saturn created by Scott Story This comic could easily rival DC and Marvel

The Weather Station

Here is the trailer for a gritty, dark psychological thriller based in a weather station in the back end of no where up in the mountains. Guns, shooting, sex, and death, this movie is not a chick flick.

Psychological thriller from Russia. A mysterious 18-year-old and two meteorologists are visited by a seductive beauty and her rich husband. When two detectives are sent up to investigate their disappearance, the secrets of their past merge with those of the weather station and they get sucked into a vortex of mistrust, betrayal and murder.

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In this podcast I am talking with a friend, Paul Shadwell because we have both been lookIng at possible video camera buying solutions. I would love to have the sort of camera that my son has – a Sony EX1 but I wouldn’t have the work for it considering the price of it. It is more suited to the professional camera man

I already have a Canon Vixia HF100 which does HD video & does a good job of it. My friend Paul has a similar Panasonic camera.
What we are both looking for is something in the Prosumer line of video recording devices.
I want a camera that has the 3 CCDs so that I get better quality video & also has better controls that you can find on the better cameras, like focus & zoom rings on the lens for example so that manual features can be better used to enhance the final video clips.

Paul talks to me about his reasons for wanting a Prosumer camera & what he plans to use it for. For Myself I want something that I can capture video for microstock video sites as well as the possibility of doing some corporate work & even some narrative shooting.

Because of my needs I did wonder about the DSLR cameras that also shoot HD video such as the Canon 7D & the Canon 5D Mk2 & even the new Canon T2i. Nikon also have DSLRs that will shoot video. Many good things have been said about these DSLR cameras & their abilities to shoot video.
If you have good glass on them the video is extremely good quality especially in the area of Depth of field. Some people will use depth of field converters on cameras like the EX1 to get the same sort of results

Of course though there are some disadvantages too.
I think the main one is the lack of good audio input – usually you will only find the 3.5mm jack input. Then you would need to use a juiced link or beachtech pre amp to be able to get good results from connecting a XLR type mic. I have connected an XLR mic to my Vixia though just by using a converter connector cable & for what I do it is OK

The other thing with the DSLR is the length of shot you can take. I think the max is going to be about 12 minutes. If you wanted to shoot a conference or maybe other events which are long then you would come up short. I am leaning more towards a proper video camera like the NX5 or the AX2000 from Sony

But Like i said I have seen many posts & reviews of the latest DSLRs in which the film makers are raving about how good they are.

I was looking at the list of podcasts I produced during March and there was less than half of my normal output, you would think that there was a certain amount of PodFade. However that was not really the case, as it was mostly down to external factors beyond my control. I lost over a week to having no power and no internet, I can’t record an interview when there is no electric in the house. I did go to my sister in law to get internet on a few ocasions but that is no help for recording as there are kids and noisy dogs in the house.

Following the week with no electric there was, certainly as far as I was concerned, too much time in the garden trying to sort out the devastation the storm left behind. Our garden is full of mostly cork trees and a few pines. Five of the pine trees fell down and all  of the cork trees lost branches, such was the weight of the snow. I still hate gardening, even if I get to use a chainsaw.

I did have interviews arranged during the month and the people were unable to keep the appointment. One of them seems to be very busy and the other had a bad cold. These have been re scheduled but has left us without the interview content. That is the problem with the fact that the shows rely on content coming in from external sources.

I did do something different last month also with the production of the Mac20Q ramble as a video. I enjoyed that experience because I did it with green screen in Final Cut Express. Of course it does take longer to arrange such a production, but I thought it came out well enough that I will do more of those. Good to have the video posted out in varoius places too all pointing back to the show notes for the audio podcast. I have bought a set of LED lights to illuminate the green screen and I will post a picture of the set in the studio shortly.

The lack of podcasts was overall for the Answer20Q network and I think I will have to do some catching up. Also though I will have to get a schedule. I plan to chose a day of the week for publishing a Mac20Q podcast and do that once a week. The Video 20Q can be a every other week and the others I will aim for one a month and I’ll see if I can ramp it up when the summer is over.

During the summer I work in a camp site, a bit of cash is nice,  I improve my Spanish and get to practice my German speaking too. It does mean though that the podcasting lessens during the summer also.  I have started work for this year already but until the end of May it will probably only be weekends. That works out quite nicely and I am not looking forward to the working 10 hours each day in a reception that has no air conditioning. The owners are too tight to look after the staff at this place. At least maybe I can write a script or two in the quiet moments. It is a shame though that it will have to be as today written using a Windows computer and a Spanish keyboard which has a few extra characters and a few in different places.

Funny thing about camp sites is that you get used to seeing people walking to the showers in the dressing gown and a toilet roll in the hand. Maybe I should think about a story involving a camp site as a location. I have seen one or two other funny things here.

I have started work on a story /  comedy sketch that I want to make as a short movie. Writing it first in Scrivener as a narrative as the first draft and for the second draft I will make it into a screenplay- script. I will perhaps keep doing that in Scrivener but I might try using Celtx which is dedicated script writing software. Planning to send the script to my son who is a professional cameraman because I can envisage him helping me both with the camera part of the filming and with the acting side of it. I need 3 actors for the job and I could see two of my sons and a friend filling the roles nicely.

I have not  written a screenplay before so I am also in the process of learning how to do that, luckily I found a web site that shows the correct way of doing it as per the industry standard and gives good practice type of tips too. After I have the short film made I will publish the script also on Video20Q.

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Story of being offline for eight days and without power for 6 days in Spain at the Costa Brava which doesn’t normally get weather like that. Trees fallen down, wires down, telegraph poles and pylons down. Me feeling down because I couldn’t do the podcasting work I normally do.

I also comment on using Kinemac, After Effects, and about learning what Motion can do to make a video animation fly through that could be an intro to the videos I make.

This video is made using my new green screen set up in my studio, with the new LED lights I have bought. These lights are work lights that I bought for 25 euro each at Lidl. I got five of them and I might buy another two or three. I used 4 of what I have to light the green screen and the other one to light the subject. I do have one more small video light that is the type you can fit on top of the camera but works well on a light stand as a fill light.
I did put some white gauze material over the light to soften the light and I might at some time see about getting some filters to put on them to warm the light up. Not too necessary because it is easy enough to colour correct in Final Cut. Still have to do some more working out to get the set up right but pleased with the results so far.

I also mention another Mac in the family. My 70 year old mom sent me a text message to tell me she was buying things in the Apple Store in the Bull Ring Shopping Centre in Birmingham. She got a white MacBook and iWork & one on one training to go with it. Tomorrow she will go into the store for them to move her data off her old Windows laptop.

Tell me how you would cope without email and power

Contact me by email !!

Interesting film trailer by Gavin B. James

Ever since Douglas’ Mother mysteriously vanished when he was 8 years old, his life has been controlled by panic, fear and desire. Now, two decades later, Douglas returns home to his small industrial town to take care of his dying father. In a bar one night he finds a mysterious wallet and in attempts to return it, enters a world of lust, deceit and murder; a world that holds the secret to his family’s tortured past.

The sepia look of the trailer is interesting and I was impressed with the sound design in the trailer. High drama and a Film Noir look about it. Violent and bloody – captivating….

Thanks to @Kinkisafink for the suggestion for this weeks’ Film of the week.

This month I will not be able to make as many podcasts seeing as I am going to be about a week without power in the house. No power means no electric for running the computers of course but as I get the internet that needs power supplied to the antennae on top of the hill, it could be some more time to get the internet back.

At least if I get the power back and I can use my computers again I will be able to make some more screencasts showing how to do some things with various software. I have to finish one I started already about using MarsEdit. This will be a bit of a comparison with using Blogo for which I made 2 screencasts last week. I am using Blogo to make this post by the way. Also coming, when I am able to is the interview with Ben from DrinkBrainJuice, the developers of Blogo. He has told me that he will give Mac20Q a copy of Blogo to be won by the listeners.

I have a mind to make some more screencasts about Scrivener the writers software. I only scratched the surface with what it can do in the previous screencasts. I was using Scrivener the other day with a project I am writing at the moment. It is a comedy story which I will first make as a story and when I have finished I will turn it into a screen play. Right from the off I see it as a short movie and I have actors in mind to play the parts. Can’t say more about it right now except that ladies underwear is involved.

When I do the screenwriting part of the job I may give Celtx a bit of a run. Celtx is specialist screenwriting software which gives FinalDraft a run for its money. It read the FinalDraft format and the only downside that there is is that sometimes the output does do such a good job of representing the time in a script. Maybe I should see if I can get a test copy of the software to do a proper comparison. There is another screencast possible out of that.

Thanks to Paul Shadwell for telling me about the Sony AX2000 video camera which looks very good. It is 500 dollars cheaper than the similar Pro version NX5 and has the same lens and many other of the same specs. I think I could live without the GPS and the time code and the ability to add a memory pack to be able to record for up to 11 hours. Mind you with only 500 dollars being the difference it may be worth saving the pennies for a while longer.

I was also interested in looking at the Canon 7D or 5D for video. There are some advantages and some drawbacks to using a DSLR rather than a video camera, but quite a few videographers are very impressed with the video shooting DSLR cameras. With a video camera you will get better, smoother zooming features and much better audio. Getting around the audio is possible though with recording it separately

I started off the month with a podcast thanking all the listeners to the podcasts for supporting the Mac20Q show for one year, also looking at what is to come in 2010. I also talked about the move to consolidate the podcasting into one site. I have done this partly to save time with the looking after all of the separate WordPress installations and I am finding that it makes a better web site when it is all together. Mac20Q, Photo20Q, Video20Q, Writers20Q, Car20Q, Artist20Q and other sites like the Spondicious which has been about the selling of my photos and illustrations online through the microstock sites like Fotolia.

I talked to Paul Boag who is a popular guy, there have been over 400 downloads of the Mac20Q Podcast 84. Paul is a web developer that goes out extensively to talk about making web sites and I found him to be very interesting.

Then there was Video20Q podcast 17 featuring the filmmaker Jon Reiss, who made the movie ‘Bomb It.’ I watched it and was impressed. Great that it tied in with what I have been doing already with the Graffiti Podcast, you can watch the first two episodes of the Graffiti Podcast on YouTube also.

Peter Boodts from Belgium was the next to be featured on Mac20Q. I find it amazing that I get to talk to so many interesting people doing some super stuff with the Mac, and Peter was no exception.

Andrew Jones, who is a British guy living in New Jersey in the U.S. doing photography, art, web design, video and all sorts of artistic endeavour was featured on the Mac20Q Podcast 86. He has set up a web site that he would like to see as a community of Mac users helping each other, which follows on from the work he does helping Mac users near where he lives. For a change I came upon Andrew via YouTube instead of Twitter, where I seem to meet with most people.

Screencasts
During February I also posted two screencasts showing how to use Blogo. This came about due a bug in WordPress that was annoying me and Blogo filled the bill in terms of avoiding the bug and since then I have gone on to love using it. I am using Blogo to make this post. I expect to be talking to the developer of Blogo soon and he will be donating a copy of Blogo for listeners to win. So keep an eye out for that.

YouTube
I have also been putting out video from the local Carnaval, in Platja d’Aro. One video of Josep Marin a magician that has been seen over 800 times and another of Xirois Drummers from Girona. The drummers were astounding, I loved getting into the thick of them to film the shots for that.

Twitter
I am still working on growing the numbers of my Twitter followers and I am as of this moment up to 13,619 followers for @Wizardgold and there are over 3000 followers on @Video20Q plus another 2000 approx on @Mac20Q. Trying to keep Mac20Q for Mac related things and Video20Q for film making items. Wizardgold will be for general tweets and Rt’s of the other things to ensure max coverage. Well pleased with the growth of the Wizardgold account seeing as I only had 2000 followers in December.

All in all it was a busy month and great to be creating content for the listeners and viewers. Let me know if you would like to be featured on any of the podcasts, would love to hear from you. I will ask you 20Q about whatever subject you would like to talk about.

[contact-form 1 “Contact form 1”]

IndywoodFILMS presents: ‘Invasion Of The NOT QUITE Dead’ teaser promo…

In August 2009, a special teaser promo was created to raise awareness for a horror feature film called ‘INVASION OF THE NOT QUITE DEAD’ which has the support of such names as: Tom Savini, Kevin Pollak, Ken Russell, David Hess, Lloyd Kaufman, HG Lewis, Lee Boardman, Justin Kerrigan & talk show host Jonathan Ross…

The teaser was shot on S16mm film on location at a small farm in Kent and stars horror veteran Leslie Simpson (Dog Soldiers, The Descent, Doomsday), Efisia Fele and Frank Jakeman.

The film suggestion came from Eumagine.

In the story an apathetic clinical psychiatrist who prefers treating the criminally insane is forced to confront his inner demons when his criminally insane patients are replaced with the clinically heartbroken.
Written/Directed by Angelo Bell

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Jon talks to me about his trip to Asia. He is going to Bankok, Sinagapore and Kuala Lumpar to film Graffiti artists about what the do for the follow up to ‘Bomb it’ the documentary movie about Graffiti. he has also written a book called ‘Think Outside the Box Office’ which is aimed at film makers working in this new era of getting movies out in front of audiences without the old machinery of the dying on its feet distrubution system that Hollywood has in place.
Using social media to build an audience and have a plan to use all the means possible now to get a buzz going around a movie release.

Jon made a movie called Cleopatra’s Second Husband’

A diabolically clever psychological suspense movie. An assured and daring dramatic feature debut for writer-director Reiss. Kevin Thomas LA Times
Jon Reiss debut feature is a harrowing yet delicious and often wickedly funny study . . . one of the most unusual power struggles in cinema history. Filmmaker Magazine
Fascinating, strange, twisted and f**ed up . . . I’ve never seen anything like it. Juan Morales Detour Magazine
An insidiously clever movie, a variation on those creepy 1960s British classics, ‘The Servant’ and ‘The Collector’. John Hartl The SeattleTimes
First-time director Jon Reiss evinces indisputable control over his material, which most directly recalls the Pinter-Losey classic “The Servant” in its look at an insidious power shift between unsavory men in a household. Todd McCarthy Daily Variety

You can buy the book ‘Think Outside the Box Office’ from Jon’s Blog and it will take you to a page with more information as well as descriptions of all the bonus gifts we provide when you buy the book from our website. Free movie tickets, discounts on distribution services and until December 15th 2 raffles – one for an OpenIndie membership, the other for 3 hours of consultation from Jon Reiss. Plus the book is discounted at $21.95!

Other News
Veoh the video sharing site goes bankrupt and out of business.
The first episode of the Graffiti Podcast is available at Graffitipodcast.com

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This group of drummers were so good. I really enjoyed watching them so their stuff. I am off to the music shop to get a drumkit.

This short from Jessica  made me laugh, because as we all know the old jokes are the best.

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Zak Forsman originally from Pittsburgh but now in Los Angeles, the director of the movie ‘I Fucking Hate You’ talks about making movies. That movie despite the title is in fact a love story and I enjoyed watching it the actors were really good and natural for the part they were playing.

Zak Forsman is an American independent filmmaker whose emotionally-charged work is known for highly authentic performances and beautiful compositions. His work has been praised by Ain’t It Cool News as “Brilliant” and “Absolutely Gorgeous.”

His stories depict compelling human threads in a poetic and minimalist style. Zak has directed two shorts films, “I Fucking Hate You” and “Model/Photographer” which have won several international audience, jury and festival awards. He is currently developing two new features for production in 2010 and 2011 and serves as editor of the New Breed blog at The Workbook Project.

His wish is simply to provide a safe environment for the actors to explore the hopes, longing and loneliness of their characters in an effort to capture their humanity truthfully, and without judgement. Considering himself less a director and more of an interpreter, Zak nurtures a family-like atmosphere on set through guided improvisation and radical collaboration to elevate each artist’s creative contribution to the project.

The hope is to realize an understanding of the film that could not have been discovered alone. Further, for the stories to resonate in very real and unexpected ways with an audience starved for meaning in their motion pictures.

FILMOGRAPHY
I Fucking Hate You (2009)
Heart of Now (2010)
Eloquent Graffiti (2011)

Sabi Pictures is his production company which he founded with his friend Kevin. He likes a high level of collaboration in his movies. Zak explains that he like to let the actors improvise  as the make the movie.

We also discuss what got him into movies and how he got to discover film makers such as Tarkovsky after being into war type movies inspired by movies like Platoon.

Zak is always itching to get the camera working on set filming something. Planing to write two screen plays in 2010. He will be working with people involved with Sabi Pictures.

He uses the SAG ultra low budget (Screen Actors Guild) agreement to determine the money spent on his movies.

Zak told me about the way he likes to use the casting process, letting the actor play off each other and see how the work together and how they can take direction .

Video20Q News

In my ramble at the start I talk about going to Girona and shooting video in a squat inhabited by some hippy types. They invited me in to see the graffiti they had in there place.

This morning I got my Shure SM58 microphone which I connected to the Canon Vixia HF100 via a converter cable going from XLR to 3.5mm jack. Works a treat and I am pleased that I will be able to get better audio with my shooting video. It will do until I can get a wireless lavalier mic. Although I do have a clip mic I can use with my Zoom H2 audio recorder.

I comment on a couple of cameras that I would like to try out. A JVC HM100 and the Sony NX5 which is only just becoming available now.

As you know I love using ScreenFlow to do my Screencasts and I thought I would have a look at what else Telestream do and this seems like it will be a great piece of software for some video professionals.

There is a trial version so I can only suggest that you check it out for yourself. Tell me what you think about it. I am in the process of testing it too, so lets compare notes.

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