I wouldn't call this the kind of blog that is often updated, because it is the furthest thing from that. My ability to sit down at my computer and have something insightful to say is cut to a minimal due to the busy activity I call living my life. Turn off the Xbox360 and get out there, shut-ins! It's not that scary out.
But actually getting out there and meeting new people, and in my specific case, through working for a production company on their web series, definitely demystifies things we always used to wonder about.
I always wondered what it takes to make films/media, in any form. And as broad a scope as that description of product is (film/media), it generally boils down to TCB....just Takin Care of Business. After working on-set for a few long 14 hour days, I can tell you that, as much as you definitely and without question absolutely need the technical proficiency background in whatever you claim your role on the team is (whether it be Director of Photography, Producer, Production Manager, Art Director, Performance or Director), the rest is just making it all up as you go, and having a dedicated team that are all thinking on the same wavelength.
I've watched countless documentaries, how-to's, cinema secret shows, and read my fair share of material on the same subject matter. In each project, when someone on the crew is asked of their profession and how they made things work in their particular contribution to the project, it was described with a machismo notion that only their personal technical know-how could have accomplished certain feats; glorifying that they were the only one qualified to have made possible what you as the audience saw on screen (or on your smartphone while on the bus). And for good reason! They are being interviewed because we are fans of the end product, and are mystified about how it was all pulled off. And that professional is, well, just that: a professional. And so they should very well put their craft high up on a pedestal because they are just as proud of it and work their entire lives on this craft.
But it is not rocket science (unless it was a scene involving the help of NASA when filming Apollo 13, in which case it is definitely rocket science). I see now that film-makers (as broad of a term that is, as well; in my case I use it to refer to the crew as a whole on any film/media project) just kind of improvise and make it all up as they go along. It isn't a mystery of how to create the vision of the project. You need a prop tail end of a bus? You probably just get some wood, steel, screws and paint, head to your friend's workshop basement and make a miniature, or if budgeting allows it, Google prop makers in the city and hire them to do it for you.
You need smoke to come out of that bus? Get a CO2 can with a hose and spray the hell out of it when camera is rolling.
It's up to you to make your creativity come to fruition. Just make it all up (but with incredible level of safety). There's no formula out there in the film world saying how to do it. Listen to the advice of those professionals, but not the parts where they say that only they could have done that and they are on a professional level you can't reach. BS. They just used the same products at Dollarama and No Frills to simulate the special effects that you have in your house right now.
The best film-makers out there will be the ones who treat you as part of the team, and show you that they are just as improvisational as everyone else. They just wanna git'r done.
Alright, nuff said for today.
Kman
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