Category: Production
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GoPro Hero3 Impressions from an Action Filmmaker’s Perspective
I bought my GoPro Hero3 Black Edition from Best Buy along with chest and head straps for the sole purpose of doing first-person action scenes. The FPS movie (“found footage”) genre is one of my favorites, and I think it’s criminally underused, especially in the action cross-genre, so my hopes have been to create solid action…
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Amazing Filmmaking Gadgets Being Made on Kickstarter
These are just awesome. If you’re a filmmaker on a budget but want to achieve some slick camera angles, check out these kickstarter projects, which are looking for funds to complete their projects, and will reward donors with the equipment after the projects are complete. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/461078637/the-aviator-travel-jib?ref=category – A steal. I had no idea how valuable…
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Navigating the Action Film Industry of the Future
In my last post I used Cannes and AFM to take a snapshot of the action industry and predict what the climate will be like in a couple years. Impossible? Maybe, but using some basic principles I think we can be pretty accurate, within fifty percent. So how does it relate to us as indie…
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An Action Filmmaker in Cannes – Day 4
Day 4 – Saturday May 19 Today was much more relaxed. I slept in until 7:10am for a change and spent the first two hours writing. Rebecca and I ate some of the fine, bagged 2€ madelines from the supermarket and set off to catch all the booths we may have missed. What we found…
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An Introduction to The Action Kickback Movement
If you’re reading this blog, “action fan” doesn’t adequately describe you. You’re an “action junkie.” You like your action scene unprocessed and unrefined, no sugar added, preferably in a powdery form whose purity is demonstrated by its rapid solubility in a drink. When taken by the average film-goer, its potency separates his frontal lobe from…
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Helicopter Camera Groupon – $60
This probably won’t be up for much longer, but you can grab a remote controlled helicopter with a built-in camera for $60 from Groupon right now. http://www.groupon.com/deals/gg-spy-camera-helicopter?dl=d47388
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Improvisation Counts
At my first job as a computer programmer, my boss told me something that I didn’t understand at the time but fully comprehend now: At some point, it’s no longer about making the right decision, but making the decision right.
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I talk economizing a shoot at Petaluma Museum – Death Grip Behind the Scenes
Here’s a video shot and edited by Alex Ng where yours truly talks about shot economy and other stuff at the Petaluma Museum while making Death Grip.
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Pickup shots have a hidden benefit
We’re shooting some pickups this weekend for Rise And Fail, including an entirely new fight scene in the beginning, and it occurred to me that this would be a good opportunity to set up any jokes or action that didn’t “sell” later in the film. Now I can turn a random prop or martial arts…
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Behind the scenes of Paper Marriage w/ Sammo Hung
Paper Marriage, that cutesy Sammo Hung actioner from 1988, was shot in Canada where the news did an in-depth feature about the production. Check out Chin Kar Lok doing the big fall at the end… twice.