Success in publicity depends on many things including your own draw, the draw of the product, your target markets, and timing. I hired All Communications to publicize my short film Prologue but also to help with my production company, Fourwind Films. Here’s what I learned, and how much you should budget for a publicist.
Read MoreHow I scout for my locations as an Independent Movie Director
When I began scouting locations for my short film Prologue, I had no idea where to start. So I began asking my friends and familiar producers. I felt no one was of help but they did all say, “Check AirBnB.” Eventually I realized that was great advice and checked it out. I had options of anywhere, any house, searching for particulars.
For example, I wanted a wood floor. I could search for that. I wanted to be in a dryer region, so I could limit my map search to the South and West of the United States seeing homes I could rent out. AirBnB was great.
In addition, I had my own contacts. I asked friends who lived in Colorado, California, Tennessee, etc. I received about half of the houses I liked for my remote search from friends and half from AirBnB. The issue with AirBnB is if the owners allow for film shooting. But that’s ok, you just have to ask. So, I did.
Read MoreThings That Go into the Creative Process That No One Tells You About
The most important and easiest step is that you need time to consume art. Ira Glass, an idol of mine who is the host of This American Life once defined people who create need to first and foremost have good taste. I completely agree.
The thing that separates regular people from creatives is they can define a good and a bad work. Each creator defines it differently. But in order to define your taste you need to make time to take in other people’s content. You need time to consume what inspires you? Is it a storytelling radio show? Is it Andrea Arnold’s decision of handheld cinematographic style? Or Charles Burnett’s casualism? Carolina Arévalo’s capability to assemble dots to look like the universe and the act of conception at the same time? Or is it just a sunset?
No matter what it is you need to consume and learn to notice details and differences in what makes something inspire you and what doesn’t. This way you can know why your creations are in your definition “good” or “bad.”
Read MoreThe Struggle of Filmmaking: Your Beliefs, Communication, and the Melting Pot of Ideas
Personally, I do not want to create art just for entertainment solely because I don’t think there is enough time. Somehow we should be constantly learning and changing to make our society better. Media influences culture. Making stories reproducible has brought to many societies together to learn about how one lives in a different world, a different life.
Since the printing press, the people have created technology to propagate stories for mass consumption. It is the most powerful way for humanity to come together as a whole. We are always becoming better and have a long history with this form of communication. Once we had the ability to take photographs and record of sound, we had film. The ability to experience a story with two of our senses. That is an incredible power.
This power we have seen in the past has been (and still is) used the medium for propaganda and to consolidate power. We’ve seen it used in commercials to make a product or company a household name, making some people rich and successful. We’ve seen it used in film and television to create common stories watched by people all over the world. It is a powerful, powerful thing to get professionals who want to tell stories to work on something together.
I say this especially because I did not come from money. Growing up I always had a home. I always had food. But we were on food assistance from time to time. My parents worked hard, we got by and I was fine to go to college. I saved up to go to college but not nearly enough. So, therefore, I started out the world educated and in debt.
Read MoreWhy I Make Art: A Personal Manifesto
“Artist” is such a vague term I usually don’t like to use it. Maybe that’s also an aversion I have from growing up in the Midwest where artists are often scorned or mocked as high-society. First of all, an artist has nothing to do with class or the amount of formal education someone has. My definition of making meaningful art is perfecting details of a piece of artwork. This means putting in the time to place every detail in the way that is “perfect” to the artist, and the artist alone. A skeptic may say that certain steps in the creative process are not important, but anything that leads me to a better way to communicate or express through the language of my art clearly is important to what we call the artist’s process.
To me, an artist is someone who can speak towards a subject in a new light using context and setting. They can express complex or emotional ideas through their individual medium because they are often difficult to express with language in general conversation. By speaking through a medium, I am able to release what I want to say in a different context that I define as an artist.
Creating an artwork is a form of communication that can be larger than daily dialogue. It brings people together to have an emotional experience that the artwork evokes within the audience. The individual audience members can take an emotional cue from the artwork based off their own life experience.
Freedom - Photo by Justin Joseph Hall
When I am creating artwork such as a film, if I am not precise in my decisions then the artwork runs the risk of saying nothing. Or worse, saying something with an unintended impact.
The creation of great art is an understanding between many human beings as another form of language. It is developing a unique language through an artist’s process for ideas and emotions that words cannot express.
I’m not advocating that every detail in every piece of art is planned. It is not. Some of the variability is actually controlling what is random. Just take Jackson Pollock. He used gravity and physics of splashing paint part of his expression because he thought it was meaningful. He controlled how the paint was flung, but the tiny details he left to physics. Jackson Pollock let us see physics in a new way expressed through paint.
Now I’m not a painter, I am a director. How does this variability apply to directors? Often, as a director, the medium we help deliver our story and our message is through actors and crew. These people are usually very intelligent and skilled. I like to give the people I’m working with room to express what they believe the story is and be open to their interpretations. This way I’m guiding a cinematographer or an actress in a direction with boundaries. In this way, like Pollock gave freedom to the paint falling by releasing it at a certain point in the air, a director has many opportunities for a creative team to be released into their work in an organized manner.
The details of the world an artist creates is important, and so is being specific about which details to focus on. One of my biggest lessons was a mistake I made editing a short comedy. I left a lot of jokes in a scene because I thought the actor was hilarious. However, I left in too much of his individual performance and didn’t pay attention to the flow of the story. There are so many jokes in a row that the audience only laughs at half of them. On top of that, they laugh over some of the jokes. This is distracting and makes the film feel too long. Because I left in too much material it made the movie worse even though I consider the material I left in as great.
This can happen in any genre. For example a horror movie can make the mistake of not leaving silent time for sound design and music that is integral to scare people. In a documentary, a mistake would be packing in too many facts without giving the audience time to process.
These details are hard to spot and take time and practice to notice. One has to change their mindset from minute details such as the individual edit, to a larger detail of the big picture of the story. This idea is applied to film here, but can be applied to other mediums. Imagine making the fingertips perfect on the Venus de Milo and in the end realizing the statue is better without any of the arms or hands. Or recording a 2 minute amazing guitar solo but having to cut it out because it doesn’t add to the melancholy feeling you are trying to express in the rest of the song.
It’s important not to compromise on the core expression of artwork over small details; but that doesn’t mean an artist can’t collaborate. Just as McCartney and Lennon collaborated with each other, they had disputes, but they found how to focus on what’s important to each individual artist. It is important to work with other artists who don’t compromise the main expression in one’s art. Sometimes it takes time to find what you are trying to express, but the best collaborations help enhance the communication at the core of the artwork.
Brooklyn in Manhattan - Photo by Justin Joseph Hall
It’s important to work with people who do not impede your message. Don’t compromise with those who pay you to create to sacrifice what you believe in. If you do, you are compromised as an artist as long as you participate in suppressing your beliefs in exchange for money. I think this is important to keep in mind. If you care more about money, no worries, then you are a commercial technician for someone else, which is totally fine and respectable in itself, but it is not creating art.
Money is always an important consideration and you need to pay the bills, but I’d suggest if a collaboration isn’t helping you become better at expressing what you want to express, you will be replaceable because you’re not refining what is of value for you. So if you have to take a job that doesn’t go along with your ideals due to money conflicts, make sure you’re being more adequately compensated for your time so you can have enough money to work towards not needing to make that kind of compromise in the future.
I could not find a job for about 2 years and only found part-time work for 5 years in a row in the field I wanted to be in: editing film. But I held to my ideals of quality and preservation for the future when finishing films. Everyone told me over and over the quality didn’t matter and no one cares, but I did. I took the time to make everything right and you know who cared in the end? Companies who were making incredible films, HBO, PBS, and so many other networks. Taking the time to perfect my personal workflow was worthwhile.
For example, I believe in diversity of perspectives in problem solving as well as preserving our environment. I had to be honest in an interview when applying for a documentary that had to do with bringing a power plant to a nearby neighborhood. The project ended up being a propaganda piece and it would not have been helpful to me or anyone if I took that job for the money. Instead, I honed in on my craft and I began working with Downtown Community Television, a documentary company that believes in diversity and social change. We’re a great match, but it took time to find a collaborator that didn’t conflict with my core beliefs in my work.
The final touches in a project make it meaningful. Those final touches are sometimes the hardest part of a project to finish. For example, whenever I edit a scene I work on individual cuts 10-50 times in an edit if I’m trying to make a difficult cut smooth. This is so I watch each frame and scene enough to process how everything emotionally relates to one another. This is important because emotions are fluid and in storytelling, we often take the audience for an emotional ride, but that means gradual changes. Small distractions can take you out of that emotional ride and bring you back into reality. An example could be a hand that’s out of place in one shot to the next, or blinking eyes not matching within a scene. Adjusting these tiny details on each and every cut makes sure the audience is not distracted by something being “off” that takes them away from the story.
This may not pay off in the short term, but in my experience, concentrating on my own voice, uniqueness and expression paid off in the long run. Because now I have concrete examples of expression that is unique to me and my style. This enabled me to offer that skill to anyone that I work for and has found me more collaborators to work with and create final products that make me proud to be an artist.
Security - Models Isabel Restrepo & Lauren Thompson, photo by Justin Joseph Hall
Six Steps To Finish a Video in Post-Production
I have been working as a professional editor for ten years on commercial, documentary, and narrative films, and this is for producers deciding what to include in video post-production. Many companies skip about three of the steps listed below, so I will explain what each step is, and why completing each one will make your video more professional.
Editing
Editing is sequencing clips that are provided to increase the effectiveness of the video. Commercial videos pull a viewer towards an action or a specific emotional response to a product. A great editor knows this and uses timing and visuals to capture the viewer’s emotional and mental attention.
Author’s editing station. Photo by Author.
Modern editing tends to go towards getting the highest emotional response with the shortest amount of time. Often ads and commercials are limited to exact seconds. An editor will use their given assets to pace the film to climax emotionally towards the end of the ad, where there’s usually a reveal of a brand, product, or call to action. This leaves the viewer with the greatest emotional impact towards the end of the piece. If the climax happens before this, the edit still needs work.
An editor uses every edit to either seamlessly hide edits so viewers can concentrate on the story or visuals, or they may call attention to a cut to make the viewer pay attention to a certain moment. Editors think about when not to cut just as much as when to cut to the next shot. Too many cuts can distract from the story, or they can help tell the story more effectively to the target audience. MTV style editing from the 2000’s is an example of a style with a lot of cuts that worked well for their generally younger audience.
Editing is about controlling the emotional response with the tools given and knowing how each clip relates to one another. Think of an edited video as an emotional roller coaster for the audience.
2. Placing Music
Placing music is one of the most difficult things to do in post-production because everyone has an opinion about it, and people can have a wide range of emotional reactions to the same song. One of the goals in creating a video in post-production is making sure it will affect the majority of the target audience. Think about who you’re creating the video for, and choose music that will give the emotional reaction you want from them.
For example if you’re creating an ad that is for a Spanish speaking audience, playing Bachata music (or music that sounds like that genre) may remind listeners of times and places they listened to that music. It’s your job to understand what type of feelings or memories this type of music will evoke for the majority of your audience. For myself, when I hear music that has an AC/DC like guitar sound, it reminds me of listening to AC/DC on the radio in my friend’s garage as a teenager, which evokes a certain feeling of nostalgia for me, and might do the same for many people my age who also grew up in the Midwest. Sometimes there are certain associations with instrument choices. For example, if an ad uses ukulele music like in that Apple ad, you may be reminded of this Apple iPad Christmas ad, which could add or detract from your storytelling.
If you do choose a song with lyrics, make sure they don’t conflict with dialogue, voiceovers, or any audio in the video. Also, only choose music in a foreign language if you know what is being said.
Music is not always needed, but when you match the right music to the right scene, it will enhance whatever emotional impact you want to leave with your audience. It can help with the difficult job of keeping the audience’s attention and making them feel something at the same time.
3. Sound Design
Sit and stop reading. Listen to all the sounds you hear in the room. Most likely a heater or air conditioner, noise from people around you, maybe a computer fan. We are rarely listening to silence even if the room is quiet. So in order to make a video a full experience, we need to re-create the world we are watching. We do this by placing Sound Effects to replicate our experience in the real world. This is sound design.
Sound equipment. Photo by Author.
When humans see something move, there is almost always a sound involved in this. Move around and your clothes rustle. Scratching your skin makes sound. Lightning is always followed by thunder. When a plane flies, we hear the propulsion. When we see something move with motion graphics or animation, we expect to hear something.
If you don’t hear something when it moves, it can feel creepy or otherworldly. Horror films use this for ghosts. Things are eerily silent and then they scare you by breaking that silence or isolating sounds. If that’s not an effect you are going for, then not hearing sound can seem cheap and inorganic. Putting in sound effects like footsteps, clothing moving, and doors closing is a way to make your video come alive.
Sound Design can be a fairly cheap process as long as you have access to a Sound Effects library. Editors or Sound Mixers can usually do it. Keep in mind that you want to have isolated sound effects to make it easier for the Sound Mix. What is a Sound Mix? Well, let’s move on.
4. Sound Mixing
Much of the audio recorded and placed in video has been recorded in a lot of different places. It is being brought into a video that may have motion graphics, multiple days of shooting, or any number of things. In order to unify the sound, we hire a sound mixer.
In addition to unifying the sound, Sound Mixers also prepare the sound to perform best for the platform on which you are showing it. A theater often has great speakers and a high dynamic range. That is a very different environment from viewing a seven second Facebook ad on a phone.
Sound Mixers may also be called Sound Re-Recordists. These days we “Bounce” the file in a computer, or “Export” the final delivery, but the old wording sticks around. Some effects Sound Mixers can add include EQ (Equalization), Compression, Limiting, and Reverb or Echo.
An editor can mix sound, but being a great editor and a great sound mixer are two very different skills. Clients often don’t want to work with multiple people, but if your editor doesn’t have the technical expertise needed to mix sound, hiring a separate sound mixer may help you get the best final product. As an editor I prefer to have professional Sound Mixers finish the audio. They are more efficient with the tools needed to mix audio properly, as it’s often done with separate software from editing software. Sound Mixers often charge the same rate I do, but can improve the audio more in less time.
Sound Mixing can make a huge impact on your end product. The beloved resonance of a voice-over actor or podcast host’s voice are often aided by the sound mixer bringing out their best qualities.
5. Color Correction
You may think, my video looks fine, why would I need to color correct it? Isn’t correction only for when you have problems?
Yes, originally color correction was done when there were problems with film and editors had to match shots that looked a bit different. That still exists, but in addition there is often amazing details that make your image pop or enhance the feeling and goal of the video. It’s the final touch on the visual medium of a movie. Besides not mixing sound, not applying color correction is the first indication that a video is not done professionally. Here are some examples of video before and after it is colored.
Often you’ll hear an editor respond to the request of color correction with “I’ll throw a LUT on it.” What is a LUT? LUT stands for “Look Up Table,” which is is a preset like an Instagram filter but applied to video images. This is a cheap way to complete this process, but it can be problematic if the video contains clips from various parts of the day. Color Correction evenly matches the images to the time of day as well as to the style and mood of the video. This step fully immerses the viewer in the world of the video while also enhancing the visual aspects.
Color correction in process for Silent Forests, a documentary by Mariah Wilson. Photo by Author.
You can do many fun things in color correction like enhance sunsets, make people’s eyes crisper, and blur out backgrounds. Colorists know tricks to make sure the viewer is focused on what the colorist wants them to be focused on in every frame.
Color correction in process for Silent Forests, a documentary by Mariah Wilson. Photo by Author.
Color Correction can be expensive because it is a highly technical art form. However, it doesn’t take long for a Colorist to color a short video. A professional colorist can do up to fifteen minutes of video in one day. Color Correction is a great thing to be able to order in bulk, so finishing more videos at once can help with these costs. A half day (four hours) can be charged for something quick like a three-minute video, and usually that’s the minimum rate a professional will settle on to take a project.
6. Deliverables
Finally, your video is completed. Your colored video is matched with your mixed sound. How should you receive your video?
Many clients only want a video ready for YouTube or Facebook. However, these are very low quality files, and it’s important to obtain the highest quality possible. If you’re not sure what that is consult your editor, but a safe bet is getting a ProRes HQ file at the highest resolution. The main reason you want a high quality file is if you ever have to deliver it to something else or make changes, it saves you or the editor the headache of finding all the old files. For example, in the future you might want to request that longer ads be made shorter for a different platform, like YouTube. An editor can shorten the video easily with a high quality file.
One other option is to request the project files used to create the video. Project files are very small and most editors will deliver these, but it’s great to request them ahead of time as some editors feel their editing work is proprietary and may be wary about another editor re-editing the video in the future.
In addition to the high quality video file and project files, you should request high quality audio with “splits.” “Splits” or “stems” are different audio files the length of your video that contain:
Dialogue
Sound Effects (Most of Sound Design)
Ambient Sounds (part of sound design sometimes)
Music
This way if your video is used for a T.V. spot in the future but needs new music, you can replace it without losing your wonderful sound mix. It allows your video to have a long shelf life in the future. You invested time and money, it’s important to keep good records.
If you do these six steps properly, video professionals and clients will experience the difference, and you’ll see the effectiveness of your video increase.
If you have any more questions about specifics or other options when creating a video, please contact Fourwind Films at info@fourwindfilms.com