In the final part of our interview with brothers Michael and Shawn Rasmussen, they talk about the importance of music and audio, costume design, and how they found a distributor. After writing the script for The Ward, which was directed by John Carpenter, the brothers decided they really wanted to direct their next script themselves. They spent almost a year trying to raise money, but ultimately decided to shoot Dark Feed with a Canon 7D and the resources they had available. Dark Feed was successfully completed and sold to a distributor, and they are now working on their second low-budget feature, […]
by Michael Murie on Jul 5, 2013This week Canon announced a new mid-level DSLR, the EOS 70D. The latest in their series of black, semi-pro DSLRs, the 70D has a 20.2 megapixel sensor, a DIGIC 5+ image processor and built-in wi-fi support. Expected to ship in September with an estimated retail price of $1,199, you’d be forgiven if you assumed this latest DSLR will have little impact on the video production field. You might be wrong. Canon remade the video industry with the 5D Mark II, but for the last two or three years their DSLR updates have offered virtually no improvement in video capability or […]
by Michael Murie on Jul 3, 2013In part two of our interview with brothers Michael and Shawn Rasmussen, the writers and directors of Dark Feed, they talk about the lessons learned during the production and post-production of a low-budget movie. Filmmaker: How large was the crew for the Dark Feed shoot, and how many days of shooting were there? Michael: There was Shawn and I, and we had two sound people – one to hold the boom and one to work the recorder – and a d.p. to also run camera. We had people come in and do other jobs like set building, but on a […]
by Michael Murie on Jul 2, 2013Many filmmakers make a low-budget movie in the hopes of getting to L.A. and working on a big-budget movie. The Rasmussen brothers went in a different direction. Going out to L.A. they wrote and sold a script that was made into The Ward, directed by John Carpenter. But they wanted to do more than just write the script, so after completing their next screenplay they came back to Boston and made the movie Dark Feed on a shoestring. The Rasmussen brothers, Michael and Shawn, spoke to us recently about this experience, and what they have learned about making a movie […]
by Michael Murie on Jul 1, 2013As an undergrad at NYU, Timur Civan studied sculpture before moving into video. “I became really interested in video because I was able to bring time into my sculptural work,” he says. Civan has produced a wide variety of work, from short films, music videos, and corporate videos, to commercials and documentaries. He recently DP’d Vincent Laforet’s intro for the M?VI digital 3-axis gyro-stabilized camera gimbal. He has an affinity for experimenting with unusual gear, and finding new in-camera effects. Civan spoke to us briefly at a recent presentation he gave at Rule Boston Camera: Filmmaker: How did you first get […]
by Michael Murie on Jun 26, 2013Adobe Creative Cloud, the latest update to the Adobe application suite of programs, was released last week. This release marks a major change for Adobe away from a “purchase” model to a subscription model; if you want the latest versions of their applications you must now pay a monthly fee to use the software. You can license an individual application for $20 a month, or the whole suite for $50 a month. Clearly, even if you think you only need After Effects and Premiere Pro, you might as well spring for the whole set, and if you have a previous […]
by Michael Murie on Jun 24, 2013What do you do when you get a new camera? Some people run out and shoot test footage, while others just gamble and use the camera on the next shoot they have lined up. When Stefan Müller, an Austrian freelance film director, d.p. and editor acquired a Canon C100, he went out and shot The Scent, a 12-minute short. One of the stars of this short is a black Labrador called Sky. Despite W.C. Fields’ admonition, “Never work with children or animals,” Müller captured a great performance from the dog, yet when asked if anything interesting or unusual happened during […]
by Michael Murie on Jun 14, 2013Last week, Amazon added a new tool to Amazon Studios called Amazon Storyteller. Storyteller is a free, easy to use storyboarding tool, but before you rush out to try it, you might want to know a little more about Amazon Studios. A little history Not content with creating a distribution mechanism for films and videos, Amazon began dabbling in the world of production with the launch of Amazon Studios in latter 2010. Amazon Studios invited screenwriters to submit movie and television scripts with the prospect of prizes and production deals. During the first few months the incentive was primarily cash […]
by Michael Murie on Jun 10, 2013Ben Pender-Cudlip is a Boston-based documentary filmmaker who recently switched from shooting with a DSLR to the Canon C100. His first project shot on the C100 was a short that included a segment on ice climbing. In this second part of our interview with him about switching to the C100, Pender-Cudlip talks about the project and what it was like to use the camera in these conditions. Filmmaker: How did this project come about? Pender-Cudlip: It’s a film for a woman named Lauren Schaad. She approached me about shooting a TV pilot. She was looking to get into reality TV […]
by Michael Murie on Jun 4, 2013Ben Pender-Cudlip is a Boston based filmmaker who specializes in nonfiction work. His short film Sanjiban, which chronicles the passing of filmmaker Sanjiban Sellew, premiered at Hot Docs last year. Ben recently switched from shooting on a DSLR to the Canon C100. In part one of this interview he talks about his experience switching to the C100, and in part two he talks about the first major project shot with the camera: documenting an ice-climbing expedition. Filmmaker: What were you using prior to getting the C100? Pender-Cudlip: Before the C100 I was using a Canon 60D, which is sort of […]
by Michael Murie on Jun 3, 2013