Movies for Young Urban Filmmakers

The first step to becoming a filmmaker is to watch great works then analyze and critique them. I have found these films to be especially effective when teaching storytelling, composition, and editing. Some of these films are Oscar winners, some are not. Many of them are urban cult classics. You can even ask your students to let you know which music videos have been influenced by these works.

Blood In, Blood Out - Three brothers, their choices, the consequences. (also called Bound by Blood)
City of God - Gangs in Brazil. The documentary about Favelas that's on the US dvd is also very educational. A nice contrast is to show this film with Black Orpheus.
The Conversation - A sound tech regrets the job he's done. Coppola directs.
Cooley High/Boyz in the Hood - An African-American High School story. Cooley High is set in Chicago in the 1970's and written by the same guy who co-created Good Times. Boyz in the Hood is essentially a remake/modernized version set in LA in the 80's.
Made in America: Crips & Bloods - This documentary by Stacey Peralta presents valuable perspective and also shows some great CG (After Effects, Motion, etc.) technique.
Do the Right Thing - Great example of issue filmmaking and also had a huge influence on music videos. Shows a wide range of camera angles and moves.
Klute - 1972 Oscar winner about prostitution. Deep. Shows how the camera can be used effectively when NOT moving.
Mi Familia - LA's Chicano history told in a classic Hollywood structure.
Requiem for a Dream/Trainspotting/Gridlock'd - Movies about drug addicts. Three very different takes. A good question to ask is which one is the most realiztic and why?
Scarface - If you have to ask, you'll never know.
To Be and To Have - A beautiful documentary about a group of schoolchildren and their teacher in rural France. In filmmaking, many times simple is better.
Visions of Light - Documentary about the job of the Cinematographer/Director of Photography. Dials in detail that students didn't realize was there.
The Warriors - Cult classic. Everything old is new again.

Be sure to screen all of these films in advance, many of them contain adult language or themes that may not be appropriate to your school/program. However, you can also show a less offensive scene or portion of the film for discussion.

The DV Show: Digital Distribution Made Easy

"Now there are dozens of services and specialized software that allows you to save time by uploading your videos to multiple video sharing websites at one time with just one account. Use a multiple video distribution website to drive traffic to your location the quickest way possible: by getting your video to multiple video sharing communities with a click of a button."
The DV Show: Digital Distribution Made Easy

Barnes�&�Noble.com - Book Search: The Daily Spark Series

According to the publisher (Barnes & Noble) "The Daily Spark Series gives classroom teachers a dynamic way of delivering stimulating and effective exercises to get students motivated at the start of class."

I think they're also a great resource for media classes. I especially enjoyed the one focused on Poetry - many of the ideas would be perfect for short films. They could also work in a music/songwriting/beats & rhymes curriculum.

You can flip through them online with a membership or head into a B&N to look at the hard copies. But these books are only available from other vendors (like Amazon) as second-hand copies.

Why Keep a Journal?

A cool list to spark ideas from online journal Penzu. These could be some great starting points for a video diary or 1st person documentary project as well...

Why Keep a Journal?: "Don’t know where to start? If you would like to achieve the therapeutic effects of journaling, writing in an expressive journal is a good place to start. Here are some quick tips from Dr. James W. Pennebaker to guide you along."

When the Teacher is a Great Student...

This just in from The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW): "In one of those improbable stories that sounds like a Hollywood script, a Burbank, CA elementary school teacher won an Emmy Award for his first attempt at filmmaking."

Meant to put this up long ago...

If you teach photography or your video class includes lighting, Strobist is one of the best resources available online. Here's their basic 101 video.



I've seen plenty of sites try to do the same for filmmaking 101 - and fail. They all seem to be too advanced or too juvenile. What do you think? If you have a resource to recommend, add it in the comments.

Strobist: Lighting 101

A couple of cool links for generating ideas

Writer's block? Cure writer's block with creative writing games - brainstorming widgets - poetry generator - character name generator

And here's one that allows you to create word trees of any text. Nice way to make art from something as dry as a political speech.

Yet Another Helpful Tutorial from MacLife

Build Your Own GarageBand Loops From Any Music File
"Loops are wonderful little things. With judicious use of these musical snippets, you can construct entire albums of material from tiny building blocks -- or just scatter a couple over your compositions for flavor. GarageBand comes with a pretty healthy assortment, but spend enough time in the Garage and you may find your songs starting to sound an awful lot like everyone else's.

You're in luck. In a few easy steps, you can create your own loops from nearly any music file you've got lying around."
Click Here to Read the Full Article

When You Have Some Time...

I know it's hard to make time as a teacher to do more than just plan and teach. But if you have a chance, sneak on over to this very helpful site. Here's what Techlearning has to say about it:
Storytelling 2.0 "It turns out a very busy person named Alan Levine created an online resource for a series of workshops that lists (at the time of this writing) 57 different Web 2.0 tools that can be used for digital storytelling. That in itself isn't unusual, of course, but what he did that was different was he took the time to retell the same story with each tool!

The site is at http://cogdogroo.wikispaces.com/StoryTools, and is wonderfully comprehensive. In addition to his own oft-retold story, almost all of the titles also include examples of stories told by others. He also has a shorter list at the end of tools that he's tried that weren't successful for one reason or another, so you can see what sites to avoid (at least for now). Be sure to budget a lot of time for exploring!"

Download YouTube Videos

In the ongoing saga that is trying to get Youtube vids onto your desktop/into iMovie/into FCP...here's the newest update courtesy of Lifehacker. And I quote, from Tip #1 "If you want to stash a YouTube clip away for editing or watching without the net, you've definitely got options. Internet Explorer users might appreciate YouTube File Hack, which grabs FLV files for you. The Better YouTube Firefox extension, crafted by our own site editor, adds a simple 'Download this video' link to any YouTube page, and the All-In-One Video Bookmarklet is a nice cross-browser conversion tool. If you're away from your own setup, Vixy.net and Viddownloader are your go-to sites for downloading clips. As for watching FLV files, we like and use the cross-platform VLC player."
Click here for Lifehackers: Top 10 YouTube Hacks

Final Cut Studio: Best practices when naming projects and assets

You ever know you KNOW something, but have no idea HOW you know it? This causes problems for me when I'm talking to other filmmakers or educators because I can't cite a source. Well, thankfully, I found a source for this one!

I've been telling people for years that they shouldn't name files with a period or slash in them. (For example, I've seen people insert dates like this: Project.718.fcp or Draft/718.doc) Here's more info from apple.com/support about characters you can and cannot use.

Final Cut Studio: Best practices when naming projects and assets: "This document discusses general guidelines for naming Final Cut Studio projects and related media assets. It's important to be aware that certain characters can be interpreted as functions, wildcards or path designators, and their use should be avoided when naming drives, folders, assets or projects."

Also, it's mentioned here in reference to iMovie and Quicktime files on Mobileme.

People Ask Me All the Time - How Do I Save My YouTube Favs?

The Best Web Video Download Tools � NewTeeVee: "Streaming web video is great and all, but every once in a while you find something that you just want to save and cherish for always. If your home Internet connection is as unreliable as mine you’ll understand what I mean. There are a bunch of web sites and little apps to help you save hard copies of web videos, but perhaps due to their teetering on the edge of violating video hosts’ TOS, they are less than user-friendly. So yesterday I decided to go through them all and figure out which ones are the best."

How to Reduce Camera Shake - 6 Techniques

How to Reduce Camera Shake - 6 Techniques: "In this post photographer Natalie Norton explores 6 ways you can hand hold lenses at low apertures and low shutter speeds and still avoid blurry images caused by camera shake."
- Thanks Lifehacker

DIY Resource

Looking for some ideas for a student project with disposable cameras, I found this site: Camera Hacker: Hacks.
Some of the info is old, but there are some useful tutorials on building soft lights, and both bicycle and car camera mounts.

Konee Rok: Restlessness Is My Nemesis

Konee Rok: Restlessness Is My Nemesis:

Great profile of a Chicago Music Video Director. I especially liked this quote:

“A Poor Craftsman Always Blames His Tools
That’s my whole thing transcending tools. How cool is it to be utilizing none to terrible tools? You can get anything done anyway you want to do it, if you really want to do it. Rhymefest was complaining about the money, ‘if I had this much money, I’d be able to do this.’ Kanye told him you sound like a wife.’ You don’t get that money until you prove you can do it without that money. Resources will come, you just got to prove you can make it happen before that."

The Kirsner List

Sites that Pay for Film and Video: From Scott Kirsner
(Editor, CinemaTech)
"New revenue opportunities are emerging with the recent boom in video viewing on the Web. On this chart, I've tried to list the Web sites that are most likely to help filmmakers and independent video producers make money from their work. (This isn't a comprehensive list.) I've ranked the sites subjectively, based on how much traffic and buzz they've been attracting, and also how likely it seems that a video producer would actually manage to earn a significant return by posting a video there. (Media companies with large libraries have a wider range of options for monetizing their content, including Apple's iTunes Music Store, Movielink, and Vongo.)"

Lifehacker How To: DIY Gorillapod

How To: DIY Gorillapod, the Anywhere Tripod: "A savvy photographer at DIY web site Instructables details how he built his own anywhere tripod mimicking previously mentioned Gorillapod on-the-cheap. Using a few bucks worth of materials ranging from segmented hose to a couple nuts and bolts, the DIY Gorillapod is well within the reach of the beginning DIYer. It's still unclear whether or not the DIY version can handle the true gorilla functionality of the original, like wrapping around objects, but it's a promising start. For a slightly different take, check out this DIY wire Gorillapod, or use practically the same materials to build a third hand for your tinkering needs."

Shooting Underwater

Lifehacker How To: DIY Waterproof Camera Enclosure

We also used to just use a fish tank. Put the camera inside (under a towel just-in-case) and shoot at water level. Nice Jaws type effect.

Screenwriting Software and Sooooo Much More

A colleague recently turned me on to celtx, which describes itself as "Integrated Pre-Production".

Wow this software is cool. Not only does it allow you to write scripts/screenplays in a variety of traditional formats, but you can also complete many project chores in the software. Everything from character breakdowns to production schedules, and more.

(As with any open source software - or just creative work in general - I would print out a hard copy every once in a while, just in case. I've had no problems with the software, but my friend has found a couple of bugs here and there.)

Social Networking and Education - The Debate Rages On

Currently my advanced students are working on a controversial documentary. As part of their work on story, I had them cut a trailer just before the winter break. We decided to post the video on youtube, because that's what everyone does nowadays. I also thought it would be fun for the filmmakers to be able to show their work to their friends and family over the break.

This small act has had a huge impact. In two weeks, over 500 people watched the video. Youth in the neighborhood embedded it in their myspace pages. And young people who were nervous about the project before Christmas, are now begging us to be in the movie.

This is just one example of some benefits of social networking in an educational setting. But there are downsides too. As we all know, once you publish something on the web, you really don't know and can't control what could happen with it.

The Economist magazine has been hosting a series of debates on various topics. Their latest debate is about Social Networking specifically. "Social Networking: does it bring positive change to education?"

Ewan McIntosh is the 'Pro' speaker. Here's what he has to say about the debates on his blog, edublogs: "The Economist debates have stirred a great amount of intelligent debate, both on the Economist site and on others' blogs. While the groundswell continues to show over two thirds of the general public (or Economist readers, at least) believe that social networking can have a positive effect on educational methods, it's the comments from within the blogosphere that pour both healthy and unhealthy water on the embers."

What do you think?