The latest issue of WIRED has a story about Robert Rodriguez and SIN CITY.
They talk about how he’s combined his no-budget guerrilla filmmaking techniques, first displayed in El Mariachi (filmed during summer vacation in Mexico for 7 grand), with the latest in digital technology. He does everything himself, out of a studio he built at his house in Texas. He now shoots digital, edits on a computer, puts in special effects digitally, scores the music digitally, and combines it all himself. I remember watching the making-of documentary on the DVD of Once Upon A Time In Mexico, where he talked about the fact that the shoot-out in the church was actually filmed with rubber guns, because their actual working props were held up at the border…so they mimed the entire fight, and then he went in later and digitally added sound, muzzle-flash, spent bullet casings and bullet squib hits in post-production. If I hadn’t been told that, I wouldn’t have been able to tell.
I got the film bug again.
I read it from cover to cover last night.
I’ve definitely got the film bug again.
I’ve also decided that when I start working on it, I’m going to document the project via LiveJournal. The question is whether I’m going to use this one, or start up a new one specifically for that purpose.
Rodriguez reminds me a second-gen John Carpenter (who, I’m sure, is a second-gen someone else). Both have a “fuck it, I’ll do it myself somehow-someway-hell, I’ll even do the music” attitude that is really a shot in the arm for future filmmakers who are always fed “the system” of how a movie is made.
The best advice I ever heard about making films is “Don’t go to film school. Take your tuition, go out, and make your movie.”
In his book, Rodriguez says that as well. He elaborates as well, saying that film school doesn’t really teach you the important stuff, like being able to tell a good story. He says that they also don’t tell you how to make a movie with almost no budget, on your own terms. They teach you “how to make a big budget Hollywood movie, so that when you graduate, you can go and get a job pulling cables on somebody else’s movie.”
Francis Ford Coppolla once predicted that the future of movies would be technology that allows “some kid somewhere to have an entire studio sitting on his shoulder.” It’s starting to look like we’re there.
A kinda tagential postscript: Years ago, I watched some “on the set” stuff from the making of Pulp Fiction. They were filming a segment of the scene where Bruce Willis is driving from the apartment complex back and about to run into Marsellus. They’re rigging a small camera to the car window and Bruce is shooting the shit with Quentin Tarantino and says, as taped by the rigged camera, something to the effect of, “Y’know, some day some kid with a camera like this is going to make a film that’ll blow everyone away.” Maybe not as grandiose, but of similar sentiment.
I have a mini-DV and a computer. I also have script bits and access to local theatre actors and some film contacts. I get the bug often. One day, I’ll just fuckin’ do it.
I have a mini-DV and a computer. I also have script bits and access to local theatre actors and some film contacts. I get the bug often. One day, I’ll just fuckin’ do it.
That’s where I’m at. I’ve got access to a bunch of local actors (through the KCRF), many of whom also have stage combat experience, and a willingness to do weird shit. Can’t beat that, right?
I’ve got access to a bunch of local actors (through the KCRF), many of whom also have stage combat experience, and a willingness to do weird shit. Can’t beat that, right?
Willing to do weird shit…. Gareth, what kind of film are we talking about here anyway?
The real question on everyone’s mind…Is someone gonna get stabbed through the frigg’in heart?!!!
Yes. You. By me. ::grin::
let me know next time you need something from borders. ’cause i get a discount. =0)
Start a new one. It makes it easier to see where you have been and where you are going witout digging. I think I am going to start a new one just for music stuff myself.