The Diary of a Smartphone Filmmaker: September 2019
Last time I wrote out experiences during the making of Silent Eye Episode 4: The Museum of Me. Certainly, I learned a lot about the limitations of smartphone filmmaking when it comes to adding VFX. And also about the limitations of my own CGI skills.
While I was researching for a post about director Gareth Edwards, it was interesting to read that he started as a VFX guy. His dream was originally to create a movie using VFX alone:
“I bought my first computer around 1996/97 and I thought that within a year I’d be able to go and make a movie. In fact, it took me closer to 12 years. My whole career in visual effects was really born out of my failed attempt at doing Hollywood-scale stuff from home.” Gareth Edwards.
But then he goes on to describe the feeling he has when he finally stepped away from the computer and picked up a camera:
“When I finally picked up a camera and shot Monsters it was, for me, the most liberating thing in the world, what I call ‘real-time rendering’. I could move the camera and suddenly the image would also move. Just amazing.”
It’s laugh out loud funny to hear it that way round. From someone who knows only computer generated images and then finds filming in “real time” to be a revelation. Like, with real life all you have to do is start filming and everything is magically rendered, no glitches or struggling to create realistic shadows and so on.
This had such an effect on him that when he came to shoot his Star Wars episode, and George Lucas suggested he create most of it in the computer, he rebelled and shot as much as possible in the “real world”.
Back to the future…
I do think this is an amusing as well as revealing lesson. A guy with mastery over new technology, relinquishes it all in favour of old school filmmaking.
“Visual effects is a great route into filmmaking but it can also be a long and painful way to learn what makes a good or bad image. As a cameraman you realise almost straight away if you’ve got a bad composition. If you make a mistake doing VFX you can lose perhaps a day at a time.”
Yes indeed. Creating visuals in a computer is still very slow. However, I’m sure things will begin to speed up in the future. But for me, computer generated images are still not quite the match for a well crafted physical effect.
Episode 5: Sleep House
And so we move on to Episode 5. Again, we will work to experiment with smartphones as our only shooting device. We have 2 Samsung S9 phones in our kit bag.
Filming this way is low budget, but we do need some funds. For that reason, we are again on Kickstarter to raise enough to cover expenses.
The episode will explore a very important theme: the destruction of our environment and the urgent need to manage our planet’s resources. The story goes…
When the planet’s resources are no longer enough, 20% of the population must be “optimized”. But will Rasha avoid the Sleep House?
So, again we will apply the guerilla filmmaking methods:
Shoot in the locations available, be inventive, shoot fast and improvise
For locations we have a house, which is part of an apartment block in a village in Switzerland. Part of this building has an underground corridor, connecting to cellars, underground car park and an elevator. There’s also a shared garden area.
So this covers a lot of our location requirements and it’s all in one place, which saves a lot of time. Once everyone is here, we can just focus on shooting. But apart from this, we will be filming some parts in London too, a couple of weeks later.
For equipment, we won’t use much more than basic gimbal (Smooth Q), Zecti and Beastgrip mounts, Samsung S9 smartphones, we’ll have the Moondog anamorphic (but haven’t decided to use it yet), FiLMiC Pro camera app. For lighting, we’ll only use what’s available.
Silent Eye on Amazon
Amazon allows anyone to upload their work to Video Prime. At first, we charged a small fee per episode. Without too much promotion, we sold perhaps 10-20 episodes a month. Certainly we didn’t pay for any ads or anything. We simply used our social media network.
But since we uploaded the last episode (The Museum of Me) we decided to open it up as free to view for Prime Members. Since then, viewing figures have taken off. In the last month Silent Eye has been viewed for over 1.7 million minutes (that’s how Amazon presents the data to you). By my calculation, that is over 113,000 episodes worth.
That doesn’t mean we will get the same amount of money per episode viewed. In fact, we get far far less (per episode). But we do get overall more money, compared to asking for people to pay per episode. And of course far more people get to see the show.
A downside to “cold” viewing
One downside to using the power of Amazon algorithms to drive traffic to your work, is that viewers arrive “cold”. Because there has been no PR work done (aside from social media) 99% of those viewers come to your show knowing nothing about you, the cast or the show. You might think this doesn’t matter if the work is good. But in my experience building a connection with your audience before they view your work has a beneficial effect on their response to it.
This is why traditionally film PR companies spend millions sending directors and actors to do media interviews before a film’s release. Not just to get exposure, but to develop a relationship between the potential audience and the filmmakers. In my opinion, this is worth a couple of extra stars in a 5 star rating.
Eager to learn more?
Join our weekly newsletter featuring inspiring stories, no-budget filmmaking tips and comprehensive equipment reviews to help you turn your film projects into reality!
