More gearing up

There seems to be no end to the stuff you need when you're making a no-budget movie! This week's need list included the following:

• DVD burner, for backing up the data
• DVD-Rs, 50 of them to start with
• portable charger for the VIXIA, because the last thing I need at the Gathering, where every second of footage counts, is to sit out camera #1 so it can charge its own battery
• A couple more packs of mini DV tapes - brings me up to about 48 hours of blank tape, which may or may not be enough

Now I'm working on packing logistics. By this time next week, I'll be on a plane. Good lord.

The saga continues

Here we are, enjoying another Saturday live in Studio B! This episode is sponsored by Yappy's Dog Treats.

Last week I paid a visit to Bryan Johnson, a board game designer who's about to see the release of his first published title, Huang Di, published by JKLMgames.com.

This time my camera man couldn't make it, so I was running the equipment setup and the interview solo. That's a challenge, but it was easier than I expected. Just a note that if you are having to do this stuff solo, you kin do eet.

Up next, preparing for the Gathering of Friends in April.

The Unity Montage

We had an awesome time filming at Unity Games XV, and ever since then I've had this burning desire to put together a tribute video of the event, a little souvenir for attendees, something for potential attendees to look at and say, "Wow, I've got to go to this next time!"

We shot a decent amount of B-roll/outtake footage there, but half the day we were cloistered away in a lobby side room doing the individual interviews. If I'd had this montage in mind to begin with, I would have taken more footage of specific games being played, more genre-representative games like Catan and Agricola, and replaced those choppy pan shots with that. Still, I am quite happy with what I was able to throw together:



Stereo MCs said they were cool with letting me include their song, and that's just another reason I can't recommend them highly enough.

To all who organized this convention and provided the essential services to make it run smoothly, thanks and KUDOS! Every last minute was a great experience and it was obvious everyone was having a wonderful time.

Can't wait for the next one!

Billions and billions of bytes...

Welcome to T Cat Pictures, Studio B!



(Studio A is on the bar in the livingroom). It's Saturday morning, and now that I have the necessary firewire, I'm ready start downloading Camera 1's tape footage from Unity Games XV.

Uhhh...wow, that file size is going up REALLY fast...not even 10 minutes into this and it's at a GIG?...

I was well-aware that we were going to be talking large amounts of space here, but knowing that in theory and doing the quick calculation in my head that yielded approximately 10GB/hour of footage are two different things.

Fortunately, there are great minds on the case here at T Cat Pictures. My brother had the foresight to give me a Cavalry CAXE/CAXM external USB hard drive for Christmas. "If you're making a movie," he said, "you'll be needing a boatload of disk space."



Time to fire up this bad boy, or, to indulge the makers of this device, "Send in the Cavalry!" The packaging doesn't actually say ANYWHERE how big this drive is, so you can imagine I was pretty happy to find out it was a terabyte (1,024GB).

That outta keep me busy for a while.

Video Editing Software

My copy of SONY Vegas Movie Studio 9 Platinum just arrived last night from Newegg! Now I can throw together that Unity Games montage. Keep an eye out, I'll do it as quickly as possible, I promise.

I'm also getting back to lining up more individual interviews, and planning out a formal shoot schedule. I've been advised to do whatever it takes to attend both major gatherings I need to attend (one in Ohio and of course Spiel, in Germany) this year so as to wrap up production by the end of October, and move into post-production. Is it possible, budget-wise? I'm not sure, but I'd really love to achieve that.

So I've started looking into grants, but that's quite tricky, and requires a formal application process, often with sample clips of your work. Well, I haven't got any of those, so it's a challenge. Further, I don't want to relinquish any artistic control, and this whole charitable foundation aspect, where you need to have a charitable sponsorship accept the money on your behalf for tax purposes...ugh. A few grand would really make things easier on my family, but I may have to do without.

I'm listening to last night's Double Down show over lunchtime, because I missed it last night. I spent an hour trying to put the kids to bed, and they turned it into a game of ping-pong where I was bounced back and forth between their rooms as they took turns getting out of bed. You meddling kids!

The Double Down Film Show

Last week I started listening to The Double Down Film Show, which I mention now because the next episode is tonight at 9 PM EST:

The Double Down Film Show is an hour long experience of "real talk" about what it takes to get your project from script to screen and establish a career in film and tv. Hosts Anthony Q. Artis of Down and Dirty DV and Pete Chatmon of Double 7 Film will deliver all of the production, technology, business, and motivational support that filmmakers need to achieve their filmmaking dreams.

Anthony and Pete have both actually offered words of encouragement to me on my project. And I'm discovering, words of encouragement are actually worth their weight in GOLD when you're trying to find time for a project like this, something you're passionate about, and something that utterly flies in the face of your reality and practicality. "Don't stop until you have a final cut." Anthony said. How's that for motivational support? :)

I'm constantly impressed by how open to helping and giving advice the indie film community is turning out to be (Jason Scott, you are my patron saint of documentary). It makes me want to do likewise, so I'm making a point to share every little step, resource and tidbit I learn along the way. Without Jason's "will-do" attitude from the first conversation I had with him, I'd still be thinking about this movie, not filming it. I now wish I'd studied film in college, instead of marine biology. A double major in film and marketing, yes, that would have been the thing to do.

I've been taking the advice in Anthony's Shut up and Shoot book to heart. I really enjoyed the no-nonsense tone of it, and the picture it paints about being a "guerilla film maker." At one point during our Unity Games shoot, I exclaimed to my brother, the camera man, "We've gotta hustle! GET THE SHOT!" We started walking faster, and then I said, "We're actually doing fine, I just wanted to say that..." There's a certain level of the theatrical when you're walking around with cameras and tripods (and business cards that declare you are making a documentary), and I was having fun with the role. Having fun, but getting great footage, mind you.

The next step

This weekend, in between throwing the kids in the tub and doing laundry, I'm re-watching Uber Goober (paying special attention to how it and other geekumentaries open), listening to this week's Double Down Film Show, "20 Filmmaking Lessons We Learned the Hard Way" and reviewing the Unity Games footage from Camera 1.

I went through the footage from Camera 2 last weekend. It is good stuff, but Camera 1 is the camera that was capturing the wireless mic sound for all our interviews, and was also the primary angle view.

The shotgun mic I have for Camera 2 didn't seem to produce thrilling sound quality, but I have to go back and check out the footage in an actual editing program vs. just on the camera.

I'm quite pleased with the interviews so far. What I really need to do next is put together a quick montage of clips from Unity, set to some kind of hip and open source music, and get that posted to the Facebook group. So that's probably the next step.