DSLR Slate 1.1 Features

Pretty cool. And cheap.

However, what happens globally? I’ve been in India for a few months. I can’t watch any Netflix stream here. I can’t watch Hulu. If I wanted to, I would have to go through a US proxy server that slows things down tremendously and even that does not work for Netflix. If the customer is a US customer but is traveling globally, these restrictions are simply ludicrous. I live in New York City. My Netflix account is tied to my address in Manhattan. I am still paying the monthly fee. And just because I am out of the country I am no longer a valid customer? Ridiculous.

I understand there are convoluted rules governing global rights. But the content creators should also realize that in today’s connected world, the audience for any piece of content is global. Excluding the situation of a traveling user (which is a no-brainer), here’s a very simplistic solution to the problem

• Let’s assume the rights for a certain TV show or movie, that is created in the US, are sold in India. A viewer from India arrives a US site showing the movie. The site should let the viewer watch but share a certain % of the revenue with the rights owner in India. Clearly the rights owners in India have failed to provide the customers in the country access in a timely and/or user-friendly way. Why should the end-user be punished? Why should the content creator be punished by having fewer viewers. Distributors get your act together! Get stuff out to users in your country on-time. Get the content out to them in a way they want to watch it. Otherwise be okay with a provider in another country doing this.
• If the rights in a certain country are not sold, then the users can view the content without the streaming site having to worry about reverting payment. If US site makes money via advertisements, and the advertisers don’t care about a global audience, then either make the user pay a fee or let them watch for free and build brand loyalty.

Same thing applies to an Australian movie and a viewer in the US. The locations of content creator and viewer are irrelevant.

Content wants to be global. Why should the viewer be concerned about rights in each country? Even brands are becoming more global every day – why should Hulu be a US brand? YouTube isn’t. It is really time for a new model. In future, my hope is that content creators and rights owners forget the country-by-country rights sale model. Just put the movie online, let the whole world watch it, collect your money. Much more efficient, elimination of months of negotiations, everyone is happier. Some content creators are starting to do this. It is time more jumped on the bandwagon.

May 31st, Sunday, 2009. Day 3.

The morning of Day 3 belonged to Atul Tiwari and dialog. Atul was a great mix of prepared notes and extempore. He started off with a history of cinema in Chennai¹ and then waded into the key elements of writing good dialog. He talked about how characters give birth to dialog and dialog gives birth to characters; that to write good dialog, you really need to know a lot about the character, who she is, the physiology, sociology and psychology. He stressed the importance of subtext and of the unspoken word.

He also talked about common pitfalls to avoid – like falling in love with dialog and ensuring some character in the script (or in your next script) says those lines. I can honestly say I’ve had those moments where there’s a great line and I spend time wondering how to get a character to say that.

We then watched several scenes of dialog from movies and he deconstructed what worked in each of those scenes. He ended with stressing that dialog should not be used for exposition in your script. After all, cinema is a visual medium – show don’t tell, as the oft-repeated phrase goes. Atul is an engaging speaker – expressive, witty, and very aware of the pulse of the audience. All in all, a very good session.

While Atul owned the morning of Day 3, the afternoon session was run by Mr. Hariharan. The topic was Deconstructing a Screenplay. The session started well – he screened a movie called The Lunch Date written and directed by Adam Davidson. This is a famous short and used in film schools all over the world as an example of a great short. Davidson made it as a student at Columbia and it won the Student Academy Awards as well as at Cannes and at the Oscars. So far, so good.

Mr. Hariharan then dived into a very detailed deconstruction of the short from the perspective of film making. Not the screenplay, film making. So we were treated to details about how to figure out the location size and block your characters accordingly, how to stage the scene, how many seconds it took the character to do something, how many shots it took to communicate a certain event etc. All very good stuff but really, it was not deconstructing the screenplay at all. It was deconstructing the film. Mr. Hariharan is clearly a very visual filmmaker (a good thing) and he communicated the intense focus on detail one needs to make a good shot, scene and short film, but I think it left a lot of the audience confused as to what it had to do with the script. And, it also left several newbies wondering what to put in a script (location details, shot details, etc.)

A more effective method for this session might have been to read a script (as the writer wrote it), examine how it worked with regard to building momentum and tension, character detailing, dialog construction etc. and then watch the director’s vision of the same piece as a film. The session as it was held, definitely had some positives, but I’d mark it as the one with opportunity for improvement.

The day’s screening was Cyrano de Bergerac with the exquisite Gérard Depardieu, directed by Jean-Paul Rappeneau and written by Jean-Claude Carrière. Monsieur Carrière was on the schedule for Day 5 of the Workshop, in the Seminar portion.

June 1st, Monday, 2009. Day 4.

Day 4 was a sizzler – packed and useful. When I was considering whether to apply to the workshop, I chatted with a friend, Somen M. When he saw that Anjum was leading many of the sessions, he insisted I apply because Anjum “was an exceptional teacher”. Let’s just say that Somen’s respect for Anjum lived up to the hype.

The morning and early afternoon were dedicated to sessions on The Hero’s Journey, led by Anjum Rajabali. This is a hard session to write about since so much of the detail was in Anjum’s delivery. So instead of transcribing my notes, I’m going to provide an overview. Using Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces as the basis, Anjum spoke at length about the various parts of the hero’s journey. This is fascinating stuff and is an exceptional way to understand why mythology all over the world has stood the test of time. In terms of screenwriting, it is a very useful way to think of both plot construction and character construction and growth. Campbell’s book is now on my must-read list and it should be on yours if you love screenwriting. Before Anjum started speaking, Atul introduced the session and said many of Anjum’s former students seek out his talks on the hero’s journey. After the session, I certainly understand why. If I’m ever in a position to attend another of these sessions, I certainly will.

This long and utterly fascinating session was followed by two quick and practical ones on the writing process and terminology (Anjum) and a review of a free screenwriting software called Celtx (Mr. Hariharan). Screenwriting software greatly enhances the speed of writing because you don’t have to worry about indenting things the right way and Celtx certainly seems pretty bulletproof in most regards. And who can beat free?

The final session was about the Industry Aspects of writing. Anjum and Atul, both of whom have been instrumental in crafting a standard contract for writers in the Bombay film industry led this session. They talked through the writer’s rights – fees, credit, termination and rolayties and the writer’s duties – schedule of submission and presence at meetings. I was stunned to learn that they had a really hard time of getting people to agree to a minimum fee of Rs. 6 lakhs (USD 12,000) per script. I mean, months, perhaps years of work and the payoff is 6 lakhs? How on earth is a writer to survive? Someone at the seminar pointed out that promo cutters (the folks that cut the trailers for films) get paid 6 lakhs for a month or two of work. Sure you need to know how to edit, but are we kidding here? There’s really no comparison in the amount of work involved.

This session was an eye opener. And to think that the writers union worked really hard to even get to this point! A lot of credit to them. I really hope this is just a starting point and over time, the amount paid even to first time writers – for a good script – goes up dramatically. On that note, it was interesting to see Mr. Kamal Haasan’s reaction to this session; he wears several hats – one as a writer himself, two as the host of the workshop and three as a producer who hopes that this body of students will produce some great work for him, at a reasonable price. He was clearly torn on which hat to don

The session was an excellent jolt of reality. Everyone should go into this profession with their eyes open. Knowing the reality will better prepare folks for the crazy world that awaits them. The session also wrapped up the day and yes, as of Day 4, Mr. Kamal Haasan had still attended every single session. Impressive.

The next post will cover the final part of the workshop, the seminar. Coverage will be light since I was sick as a dog for a majority of it. My being sick also made me miss the screening on Day 4 РIndig̬nes, directed by Rachid Bouchareb and written by Olivier Lorelle (who was scheduled to speak on Day 5).

Also read: Part 1 – Days 1 and 2

1. To placate the crowd, to some extent, which frequently asked for examples from Tamil movies which many of the presenters had not watched. [back]

And here we are…

May 29th, Friday, 2009. Day 1.

The day kicked off with an introduction by Mr. Kamal Haasan. He put the entire workshop together to make screenwriting more accessible to aspiring writers. This is the first time I’ve seen the man in person and I have to say that he’s articulate and intelligent. He also seems very self-effacing. Most importantly, he seems really committed to the workshop. I’m writing this at the end of day 2 and he’s been in every session – hasn’t skipped a single one. He also introduced the rest of the presenters for the workshop – Hariharan, Director of the L.V. Prasad Film and TV Academy, Anjum Rajabali, Head of departments of screenwriting at FTII and Whistling Woods, and Atul Tiwari, a professional screenwriter and an excellent dialog writer.

Anjum Rajabali took charge of the next couple of sessions. He’s a very impressive man – funny, engaging, articulate, compelling. An excellent presenter who captures and holds your attention. He clearly loves what he does and he communicates that joy when he talks about his craft. In his first session, he walked through each of the elements of a screenplay – idea, premise, theme, plot, character, structure, scene, dialogue. It was a solid primer and a good grounding on the basics of what’s involved with writing a screenplay. He then spent an entire session on Premise. The key take away for me:  figure out the Premise early in the writing process in order to ensure you have enough to power an entire feature film.

Mr. Hariharan (feel compelled to say Mister here… Anjum seems like a guy who’d be cool with it if you called him by his name though, so I’m going with it) then led a very detailed session on Characters, Characterizations and Characteristics. And when I say detailed, I mean extraordinarily detailed – pages and pages of detailed PowerPoint, each one filled with great stuff. The best parts of the session were when he took the time to illustrate with examples – he came up with hilarious examples that will stay with me for a long time. An example of one of his examples – “What if you named one of your characters Abithakuchalambal? It immediately embodies the character with certain attributes. Then what if you name the other character Tania? You have an image of an Abithakuchalambal and you have an image of a Tania. Now what if Abithakuchalambal was 20 and Tania was 60?” It’s enough to convince you that you have to have a weed-smoking, goth-styled Abithakuchalambal in your next script, yes?

The day wrapped up with a screening of On The Waterfront. I’ve watched it before and I can honestly say the second viewing of Kazan’s masterpiece was better than the first.

May 30th, Saturday, 2009. Day 2.

Anjum led the session on Structure. This is one of those parts of a workshop that has to be taught (I mean, can you actually say you don’t teach anything about structure in a screenwriting workshop?) but, one that really shouldn’t be applied by screenwriters *as* they write their screenplays. And fortunately, Anjum himself stressed that point – do not think about structure, do not work to a formula. Having learned the basics of screenwriting from the inimitable Mick Casale (head of the writing program at NYU’s Tisch), I was jumping up and down in agreement with that statement.

The next session was on Scene design and Anjum screened and dissected a handful of beautifully constructed scenes including the opening scene from The Godfather, the scene in the car from The Sixth Sense where Cole reveals his secret to his mom, the scene from Satya where Bhiku Matre comes home and exchanges slaps with his wife, and finally the opening scene of Charulata which Mr. Hariharan talked us through.

Despite the fact that we spent a session and a half on Scene Design, I really feel this needs even more time. Creating a great scene is hard and I would love to learn more about the variables in the writer’s toolkit to build a great scene. I’m hoping they can spend a bit more time on this on Day 3.

The last session of the day was led by Mr. Kamal Haasan. He chose to focus on Hey Ram, in which he was the writer, director and actor, and spent most of the session answering questions. A very open and honest exchange despite the occasional, cringe-inducing “question” that was really a verbal love-letter from an ardent fan.

The day’s screening was Ghatak’s extraordinarily depressing Mehge Dhaka Tara, widely regarded as his best film. Even though I like Ajantrik better, one can’t really complain at having to watch any Ghatak film again, especially on a large screen.

Finally, I have to say this is a really well-organized conference. It’s located in IIT, unarguably the best campus in the city, the presenters stick to their times, the food is decent and handed out in a very organized manner and the volunteers are genuinely helpful. When was the last time that happened? Kudos to everyone involved!

Also read: Part 2 – Days 3 and 4

The first huge issue is confusing form and function or the story and how it is delivered. Consider this -

The center is envisioned as a “labette,” a little laboratory, that will examine whether the old way of telling stories — particularly those delivered to the millions on screen, with a beginning, a middle and an end — is in serious trouble.

How a story is delivered – via the studio distribution system, YouTube, or Twitter has nothing to do with whether the story has a beginning, middle and end.

The art of storytelling has existed since man learned to communicate. The form has changed. Dramatically.

A good chunk of the rest of the article is about Hollywood griping about Hollywood.

But Mr. Kirkpatrick and company are not alone in their belief that Hollywood’s ability to tell a meaningful story has been nibbled at by text messages, interrupted by cellphone calls and supplanted by everything from Twitter to Guitar Hero.

“I even saw a plasma screen above a urinal,” said Peter Guber, the longtime film producer and former chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment who contends that traditional narrative — the kind with unexpected twists and satisfying conclusions — has been drowned out by noise and visual clutter.

A common gripe is that gamelike, open-ended series like “Pirates of the Caribbean” or “Spider-Man” have eroded filmmakers’ ability to wrap up their movies in the third act. Another is that a preference for proven, outside stories like the Harry Potter books is killing Hollywood’s appetite for original storytelling.

Whatever, people! Hollywood’s ability has not been “nibbled away” by text messages!! It has been nibbled away by the fact that every decision is made by focus groups and marketers – not the the writers and the directors!

Let’s look at Slumdog Millionaire – how has that story been affected by the noise of tweets or smses? If the story has merit, it stands above the trash… er… or above the urinal screen, as the case may be.

Open-ended series’ – who created them? Who produced them and distributed them? Right – you, Hollywood.

The article goes on to talk about Hollywood insiders complaining that small stories can’t compete with Transformers. So? Hasn’t that always been the case? And if the problem is getting worse who’s making it worse? You, Hollywood!

And again, what, pray tell does this have to do with the “story”? Nothing. So far, all I’ve heard is whining about marketing budgets.

And then there’s the classic “blame the audience” strategy.

Ultimately, he blames the audience for the perceived breakdown in narrative quality: in the end, he argued, consumers get what they want. Bobby Farrelly, a prolific writer, and director with his brother Peter of comedies like “There’s Something About Mary” and “Shallow Hal,” concurred.

“If you go off the beaten path, say, give them something bittersweet, they’re going to tell you they’re disappointed,” Mr. Farrelly said. He spoke from his home in Massachusetts, where he is working on the script for a Three Stooges picture, and said he missed complex stories like that of “The Graduate.”

Really? Really?? Let me point you again to Slumdog Millionaire. People are thirsting for great content, but your marketing focus groups will never tell you that. If you miss complex stories, then write them! Is a complex, intriguing and multi-layered story burning inside you Mr. Farrelly? Please, please write it and get it made. You know enough people to do that. I promise you I will spend my twelve bucks to watch it. Why are you writing stuff like Shallow Hal and then complaining that you are being forced to do so?

The only person I agree with in the whole article is Ken Brecher, the Sundance institute’s executive director.

“Storytelling is flourishing in the world at a level I can’t even begin to understand,” said Ken Brecher…

:

If anything, Mr. Brecher added, technology has simply brought mass storytelling, on film or otherwise, to people who once thought Hollywood had cornered the business.

Exactly!

So what exactly will the Media Lab be doing?

The people at M.I.T., in any case, may figure out whether classic storytellers like Homer, Shakespeare and Spielberg have had their day.

Starting in 2010, a handful of faculty members — “principal investigators,” the university calls them — will join graduate students, undergraduate interns and visitors from the film and book worlds in examining, among other things, how virtual actors and “morphable” projectors (which instantly change the appearance of physical scenes) might affect a storytelling process that has already been considerably democratized by digital delivery.

Rubbish. They are not going to figure out whether classic storytellers are done. They are going to investigate how new technologies will affect the creation and the consumption of content.

And that is… fine. In fact, it is great and wonderful. And it makes for a good, news-worthy article. So why on earth did the Times make it about “the story”? The article opens with

The movie world has been fretting for years about the collapse of stardom. Now there are growing fears that another chunk of film architecture is looking wobbly: the story.

Let’s get it clear – as long as there are writers, no, as long as there are people, “the story” will survive. It is part of us. My grandmother is a fantastic storyteller and there are thousands of people out there who are telling stories every day.

What’s at risk is Hollywood’s business model and the standard methods of distribution. And perhaps the Times’ ability to figure out what the underlying story is all about!

I am sure this is true for many people. Wouldn’t it be incredible if the film festivals showed their programming online?

I know that there are lots of issues around rights for the films and filmmakers may not want to hand over the online rights to any one festival. While it would be very cool to have the films available online for weeks or months, it may not be possible. So let’s make it easier – the festivals would have the rights to show the films online only during the festival itself – they could tie up with iTunes to make the downloads accessible only for a limited time. That means while Sundance is going on in Utah, I can be sitting in NYC and watching the same films at home.

Cannibalization could be a worry, but it is solvable. Festivals could charge the same fee (ticket price) to watch online. That would solve the monetary aspect of cannibalization. They may worry about loss of audience – valid concern. However, the people who make the time attend festivals in their city or those travel to festivals want to see these movies on a large screen. They want to hear the filmmakers talk about their films. They want to meet other movie buffs. Those people would still go because you can’t get that experience online.

So why is no one doing this?

If the goal of festival programmers is to highlight little indie gems to as broad an audience as they can, making the films viewable online is the way to go. I, for one, would love to watch the programming at Berlin, Toronto, Sundance, Tribeca and a whole host of others.

But Fandango probably realized recently that it has all this wonderful data that it could use. For example, it shows me all the films I’ve ever watched. Great — that plus Netflix would be a good encapsulation of most everything I watch.

More recently though, Fandango has discovered “community”. Why shouldn’t Fandango have ratings and reviews? It’s all the rage and everyone is doing it. No reason at all. Except they have no clue how to do it.

Recently I watched Anurag Kashyap’s Black Friday. I bought the tickets on Fandango and watched the movie on February 12th. I got this email on the 13th from Fandango asking me to review the film.

Great, I thought. How prompt. Let me go review it. I click on the link and log in. This is what I get:

Hmm. Fine then, I won’t review it, but why waste my time guys? Oh, but it gets worse.

I get another email on February 15th telling me it is my “Last Chance”. I ignore it. Last chance? I wish. I get yet another email on February 17th with a different title (asking me to tell the community about myself), but with the same request to review Black Friday. Okay, I will give it one last try. Alas, I get the same message again.

Don’t you think if you send me THREE emails asking me to do something that I should be able to actually perform the action? Getting the basics right is important if you want to build community. Either fix the issue or stop emailing me. I’d have been equally fine with either option.

Fandango, please get the basics right.

I’ve been meaning to find Lessig’s blog and today, someone emailed me a link to his blog that talks about an exciting new development in the documentary film world. The Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices outlines all the ways documentary filmmakers can follow the rules on Fair use and protect themselves. Those filmmakers who are certified to have followed those guidelines be able to get insured and therefore, their films will be able to get released. Earlier, the risk of getting sued was so high that some of these films never saw the light of day.

What a great step. Setting out the rules of Fair Use, easing the process of getting clearances, reducing the risk of being sued and therefore, increasing the capability to innovate. Excellent. (Thanks for the email, Evan!)

On a similar vein, watch this informative video on Net Neutrality which will have a big impact on how we innovate, communicate and create (although the video gets a little preachy/angry towards the end).

_{Video via: Lessig’s blog}

In the 1890s, the Lumiere brothers were hard at work to make a motion picture camera. Their father was a photographer and working for him, the men were introduced to the medium and the materials. These are the guys who invented the sprocket hole – the holes on the side of the filmstrip that is used by the camera to advance the film across the lens.

The motion picture camera (cinematographe) was patented on 13 February 1895. On the 19th of March, 1895, the Lumiere brothers shot the first film – people coming out of the Lumiere factory. I know it doesn’t sound like a big deal, but all they were trying to do is capture motion on film and it was this first step that helped establish the medium.

They went on to shoot lots of little clips – the first home movie called “Baby’s Tea Time” was a short segment which featured August Lumiere and his wife, Marguerite, feeding their baby son. Again, a very simple idea, but used to demonstrate the medium. When it was shown, the audience was most impressed the camera actually captured the detail of the wind blowing through the leaves several feet away.

They also made the first comedy of a person watering plants while someone comes up behind him and stands on the pipe, cutting off the water. When the gardener looks at the hose, the comic removes his foot, spraying the gardener on the face.

And they made the famous L’Arrive d’un train la Ciotat. This is a very well framed shot of a train pulling into a station. The train emerges onto the screen at the top right corner and exists the frame at the bottom left corner, providing a great angle. Urban legend has it that the audience was freaked out at the train coming at them and ran out of the theater screaming, although no documentation backs up this claim.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/1dgLEDdFddk" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

These little movies were the first innovations in the field. Just imagine watching all of these on Dec 28, 1895, (almost a 111 years ago to the day) when the brothers screened 10 little movies publicly for the first time!

UbuWeb is a place where you can watch and learn the techniques of filmmakers who were very innovative in their time. YouTube is a place where you can be entertained, you watch the latest viral gimmick, and discover what innovative, aspiring filmmakers of today are doing.

UbuWeb bills itself as an educational resource and the content is well organized and presented. On the other hand, YouTube can be overwhelming and it can be hard to find stuff you like. But there is always a level of craziness about community generated content (look at eBay for example) and that craziness is what allows the 13 year old with a dream to have his works up there for the world to see.

But with all the craziness (and probably because of it), YouTube also serves as a *great* educational resource. A quick search of YouTube tells me that you can also find wonderfully educational material there — Bunuel, Cassavetes etc. AND you can find this next to films that pay homage to the greats with their own shorts. How cool is that?

So, if anything, little known UbuWeb should use YouTube to get the word out on it’s content. Throw in a few cool videos and draw users to UbuWeb. And, as YouTube grows, it will need to find a way to let the people who are “less inclined to wade through stuff to find what they are looking for” find things more easily. eBay faced similar challenges in its growth – I think all community-content sites do. If YouTube wants to keep all the niche content segments on the site, it could so easily create a “great filmmakers” channel. They could even outsource that to an UbuWeb or another non-profit that exists for that reason.

I am convinced that there will be more filmmakers from the YouTube generation that ever before. Because for the first time in history, you can get relatively inexpensive high-quality equipment and there is a method of distribution that doesn’t involve a small set of gatekeepers (i.e. studios). And that is a very good thing because we will see levels of experimentation we’ve never seen before. And if by some chance, YouTube starts to play gatekeeper, there will be lots of other sites that will eagerly accept the content and the traffic.