The Art of Filmography
Spring 2023
The insides on what it takes to make a film and some key people that are part of making one.
Table of Contents Directing in Film.............................................6 Essentials in Directing..................................10 Best Movies of Each Year (to 2020)...............12 The Untold Truth of Film Editors..................14 Tech Over Time..............................................18 Advance in Film Technology.........................20 3
In this maga ography directors of film article , he will cover all the things that goes into the directors. Then you will read Rylan Berry’s article on the importance of film editors, called The Untold Truth About Film Editors. After that you will read Wylie Main’s The Advance in Film Technology about name in point the advances in film technology over the years. We have designed this article to teach, and educate readers on what happens behind the curtain of your favorite films. We hope you enjoy!
Sincerly, The Editors
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Meet The Editors
Wylie Main is a student at LASA interested in computer science and in the school marching band. When he goes to college he plans to major in computer science. For this magazine, Wylie plans to write an article on the advancements in film technology.
Michael Scaramuzzi wants to write his feature article on Directing for Filmography. He enjoys socializing with his friends while playing video games. He hopes to one day work in the field of engineering. A fun fact of his is that he plays the viola and violin.
Rylan Berry is planning on making a feature article on the importance and key roles of editing in Ezine this year. He enjoys playing video games and coding because he finds them exciting and he likes to solve problems. After high school, he plans on doing something related to computer science. A fun fact about Rylan is that he lived in Japan for 3 years.
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Directing In Film
The journey to get there and what it takes to be a DIRECTOR
Image from: pxfuel https://www.pxfuel. com/en/free-photo-oxahf
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Jeff Stacy’s Experience In Film
You walk into the dark theatre as your movie is about to begin. You smell the popcorn and the trailers begin. Most everyone has gone through this experience,
Jeff has worked on several films over the years so naturally there would be variation in his style over time. The overall understanding and workmanship put into the film may improve as he learns from his past mistakes. “I would hope that my directing has improved over time. But, my approach to directing has always been to treat everyone involved in the production as fellow creators.” Jeff says after being asked how his style and quality of films have changed over time.
Although Jeff is a well-versed filmmaker, he sees himself as a realist, as many of the projects he hopes to work on may not be possible due to the norms and standards of the film industry. This can be noted after he says “There are several dream projects that I would like to do, But, I’m a realist in terms of the industry.” Along with this point, having more control over his projects allows him to do things that he wouldn’t be able to do with a different director or script.
and this is how Jeff Stacy, writer, director, producer, as well as crew member, started out at this simple beginning as well. Jeff Stacy was first intrigued by the film industry as an audience member but has grown to direct several of his own films.
Jeff Stacy has had his short films screened at film festivals across the country and has worked on several major motion picture films one being “Forest Gump.” Although he does enjoy making short films, he “would have to say longer forms are more interesting to [him].”
In his films, he likes “the idea of merging visual and literal objectives within a form, as well as how dramatic conventions can be manipulated.” This can be seen in his works as well as his favorite film, Les Enfants du Paradis.
While Jeff may have been in the crew or produced some films he didn’t have much control over, he prefers to have more control over his projects, as he has written and created a few of his own shorts. When he says “To your question, as a writer, it’s preferable to have control over what you’ve written, and that usually entails directing, unless you find a director that is remarkably sensitive to your voice/perspective.” it can show how having control over your project can be very meaningful to the outcome as well as your perception of the movie.
Jeff is best known for the films he con tributed to, 12 Monkeys, Body of Lies, and National Treasure: Book of Secrets. He says “When I was doing crew [works] in the film industry my favorite film that I worked on was probably 12 Monkeys.” He is currently working on the film Tell Me Why You’re Going to Hell, a full-length feature film he is directing and has written. He has also directed a few award-winning shorts as a director, writer, and producer.
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How Are Dubbed Animes Directed?
Many people have watched anime or at least know what it is. There is a lot of work that goes into dubbing and directing anime such as matching words with mouth movements and much more.
When directing anime, especially dubs, the experience can vary from other forms of directing. This begins in the writing process and carries on into the rest of the project. “When dubbing live-action, you have to be very aware of the shapes of the mouths,” said Kyle Jones when speaking on the differences between directing live-action and anime.
Kyle said, “Plosives, oohs, eehs, aahs - they all have different sounds.” explaining how when dubbing an anime, you have to pay attention to several small details in the mouth’s movement and the words you use to replace the original ones. This can be very important because “The more the writing strays from that, the more distracting it can be.”
Along with the focus on scriptwriting, when making films, the technology used is also quite important. The goal is to record the lines as quickly as possible which can be achieved with the current technology. In the past, however, technology was not as efficient.
In the past, they “were able to record at most about 20 lines per hour.” Now, they can get upwards of 60 making it much faster. Kyle Jones believes that along with the technology changing over time, his experience in the industry has improved.
He believes that finding a good relationship with his crew and understanding their skills is best. Kyle said he “learned early on to let the people involved do their thing. If [he] cast great actors and work[s] with great sound engineers, then why tell them how to do their jobs? Sometimes it’s best to just get out of the way.”
Kyle is also a voice actor for anime dubs and has had a lot of experience in relationships between directors and actors. He believes that “Once he has worked with a sound engineer long enough, [they] start reading each other’s thoughts - especially when it comes to placing the dialogue to the mouth movements.”
Kyle is more laid back when it comes to directing compared to other directors, saying “I’m also a big believer in keeping things loose. Some directors like to crack the whip. I’m more of a shepherd I guess.” It is important to have fun while also being productive as well as being collaborative and making an enjoyable atmosphere.
At the beginning of his career, Kyle was somewhat intimidated but mostly felt like he didn’t know where to fit in. He said, “While at first, that can seem intimidating, it also let me know that nobody has to do everything.”
t
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Kyle Jones Image from IMDB
Andrew Garrison’s Insights in Film
Starting in the film industry can be difficult or intimidating in the beginning. The film industry only comes easier with experience, which Andrew Garrison has a lot of. He has worked on films such as Trash Dance, Night Ride, and One Ring Circus, filling positions from Director to cinematographer. He has been interested in film and the many aspects of it since elementary school. This is how he got to where he is today as well as what he has learned along the way.
Andrew has been interested in “photography, sound, and moving image since elementary school...but my desire to make things, to also work with technical tools, and to play with my imagination could have led in many different directions.” He has several stories from when he was younger when he was experimenting with these genres. He recalls his “best friend in fourth grade and [him] projecting shadows on the ceiling from our toy dinosaurs, with flashlights, to make up stories.”
He explored a lot more in his youth going as far as making
flip books, to playing with cutout magazines. “By 6th grade, [he] had started shooting with [his] mother’s 8mm home movie camera, scenes of [his] model airplanes going down in flames.” which shows his investment in middle school. He has been set on the film industry for most of his life and constantly used his imagination and available equipment to explore the art. Throughout middle school and high school, he gained access to more technologically advanced gear. This was when he started to work with television cameras as well as sound. There were some restrictions that he wished were not put on the equipment, but nonetheless, his “imagination was fired up”
In college, he gained access to half-inch portable video, and not only that but his college greatly encouraged him to experiment with the new technology.
“I got into filmmaking because my friends and I thought making and distributing media could help change the world. I know that to be true, though I also have broader ideas about how change
happens.” Andrew said, summarizing what made him go down the path of filmmaking. Andrew was asked if there are any “tips for up-and-coming filmmakers that want to follow a similar path as” him. He said that while the path will inevitably be different than his, “to keep doing things that intrigue you, Keep trying to do new things even if they seem insufficiently important (they are not), be patient with yourself, hear and see how people respond to your work, but listen to your own voice about how to shape it, and say “yes” as often as you can to [work] with other people, but only if it is fun. By fun, I mean intriguing, compelling, or yes, hilarious.”
Andrew is now an independent filmmaker based in Austin, Texas, and has experience in several areas of film, whether in the sound department, as a director, as a cinematographer, and even more. He has years of experience in the film industry and is currently working on a movie called Because I’m Here. He is still a filmmaker as well as a film teacher at the University of Texas.
Image from Pixaby
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Essentials in
Directing Emphasi
Directing is full of several crative freedoms and plays
Directors must sis in certain bring across a
“The director shapes the story, or the script”
-MILNE
This means that they have control of how the audience or viewer feels.
“so a particular sis is stressed”
-MILNE
This will lead intresting and movie
Sources:
https://milnepublishing.geneseo.edu/exploring-movie-construction-and-production/chapter/5-what-is-directing/ https://www.managementstudyguide.com/directing_function.htm
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in Directing
Emphasis must use empha scenarios to point. Without particular empha stressed”
-MILNE lead to a more and intruiging movie
Theme
--
As a director, you must con vey a certain theme to your viewer. There are several different themes that you could choose from, but it is required to have a meaning course is presented.”
https://milnepublishing.geneseo.edu/exploring-movie-construction-and-production/chapter/5-what-is-directing/
-MILNE
Best Movies from Each 2010 to 2020 Acording to
IMDb 12
Each Year IMDb
in the winter of 2022
TheUntoldTruth AboutEditors
Film Editors go Unnoticed by the General Audience
By Rylan Berry
Photo by Catie Cacci
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The movies that we all know and love are twisted and turned by a largely unknown person or even group of people are known as editors.
Film editors help to make the movies we all know and love through the process of editing, which is cutting together footage and making it a cohesive and singular film. This is because,
on the rest of the process, but the same goes for any department, whether its cinematography, music, they all play such a big factor in how a movie ends up, but editing for sure, you’re almost the final creative piece. And it can really make or break a film.”
The editor’s job is of the most importance, which makes you wonder why they go so unnoticed by most people. It’s likely because they don’t know its true importance to a film. On top of that, Crouch also thinks it’s “‘cause a lot of people don’t know what goes into editing.”
during filming, the filmmakers have multiple clips that are usually out of order that need to be put together, so the editors come in and put that all together. More hilariously, James Crouch, who has been editing for nearly a decade, said “I basically watch something over and over and over again until it feels right, usually in a dark room.”
This process can be very important to films. It is just as important as the writer, director, actors, and so on, and Crouch thinks that “It’s extremely important, it can make or break a movie. But it’s just one of the many really important parts of the process, I found that it’s really important for a film to work at the script level because if it doesn’t work at that point it has a ripple effect
Everyone knows the writers and the directors, but why not the editors? It could also be because they work after production concludes, putting them in postproduction, but they can sometimes start before production in the case of Crouch he works “on things as they are shot” so he gets “all the footage and [puts] them together to assemble scenes,” which would go into the final film.
Editors don’t just know these skills as they are born, they have to learn it, and even then it’s a constant case of learning. Jessica Lund, a senior assistant video editor for PBD Post, said that she’s constantly learning and she would go on to say that “even to this day, I am learning from my editors that I work with, my superiors, from the internet. I’m always looking for more skills, and the programs that we work with grow and develop all the time so it’s never like you finish and you achieve and you know everything, there’s always more to learn.”
Once an editor has learned how to edit they can work on a variety of things. Lund would say that she works on “all kinds of things from commercials to short films.” It’s inferred that editors work on all kinds of films, but they can also work in singular genres, for example, Crouch works “specifically [as] a scripted fiction film editor.” To decode that, it means he edits fiction movies or films, that usually have a script in them. So Crouch works only “in the scripted feature film world” whereas Lund works on a variety of films. Once they decided on what kind of films they were going to edit, they’ll have to go to work, and while they work they have to interact with the director of a film. Crouch said that “Typically I’m working really close with the director,” going as far to
“Over the course of the last 9 years, I’ve been able to do some really cool projects. ”
say that as an editor you “have to be pleasant to be around because you’re going to be in close proximity with a director… for months at a time.”
Editors don’t only just work with the director, for example, Catie Cacci, a film editor that went to UT, said “I have two assistants that log the footage…so that the sound fits the picture. And helping in that sense, and then I’m cutting the scenes together and putting
Photo by IMDb
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James Crouch
the whole story together.”
Even Lund says that sometimes in her company she works in a team “when there’s bigger projects [and] need more people involved to make sure things are going smoothly and efficiently, but a lot of times there’s something that one person can handle we’ll work independently,” and she goes onto say that working independently “is super fun as well but typically were always collaborating with a client, so you’re not completely alone, you
have someone to bounce ideas off of.”
Crouch works in a team but “not from the start but [he’s] always consistently working with at least one assistant editor and their job is receiving the footage from set and pro-
cessing it, ‘processing it’ meaning making sure that it’s synced the sound and picture, making sure that it is logged, it’s organized, and it’s set up the way that [he] prefer[s] it. Basically, ingesting it into the product file and making sure it’s ready for me so I’m consistently working and that there’s not much downtime. And there with me throughout the whole process, even when I’m finished.”
Not only do
editors collaborate with a team, but they also have to collaborate with other departments in postproduction. “Well, then what are the other departments?” You may be asking, well Cacci says that the postproduction process starts with editing then “it will go to color correction it’ll go to sound design, mix, and then it’ll go to online which is when they do the finishing and final watch through, and put in the visual effects and all of that as well if there happened to be any.”
But editors don’t have to directly collaborate with the other departments, for example, once Crouch is finished with editing, his assistants will “help maintain the work beyond with the other departments, like sound, color, visual effects, music, and be that kind of middleman.”
Even though some editors may rely on assis-
“Working with a passionate filmmaker is pretty rewarding.”
Catie Cacci
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Photo by Catie Cacci
tance, it’s really important to stress the importance of an editor to a film, to hit that point home here’s what Lund thinks about the importance of editors
“I think it’s a pretty crucial but sometimes underappreciated part of the process, there’s a lot of collaboration so most of the time the people who are involved like the director or writers of things are getting to participate in the editing process so that’s super cool to have that influence and guidance, but there’s a lot that editors are able to offer and just kind of display and present ideas that weren’t considered before. So it’s super important and it feels very Wizard of Oz, you’re behind the curtain doing lots of things that are really shaping each project but maybe people don’t realize or don’t know so sometimes you are happy to just sit back and know that you have a big influence” on the project.
To continue with the importance of editing, here are Cacci’s thoughts on its importance, “I believe editing is very important it’s one of the most important processes in filmmaking. I think first, you usually have something written, an idea, and then the director implements that idea and shoots it and puts their story together visually, and then it comes to me, and it’s the next part of the creative process, and the next piece of developing the story is in the editor’s hands and the collaboration that they get to make, that an editor gets to have with the director is also one of the most important steps, but its that process of putting together all the pieces that are so important.”
So the next time you watch a film, think about the many times an editor has had to sit through it and perfect the timing of each and every camera angle and scene.
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Photo by Rylan
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Advance in film technology.
Lights, camera, innovation: Exploring the cutting-edge of film technology.
In the past few decades, filmmaking has experienced a significant shift from the traditional way of filming to the use of modern technology. With the rise of digital filmmaking, the industry has undergone a dramatic change in terms of the quality of films and the way they are produced. These tech-
nological advancements have opened new doors for aspiring filmmakers, enabling them to produce high-quality films using minimal equipment.
From the development of high-tech cameras to the integration of
software applications, the evolution of technology has significantly transformed the film industry. Modern cameras come
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equipped with features that allow filmmakers to capture stunning visuals, high-resolution images, and perfect sound quality. Moreover, filmmakers can now shoot movies in 4K, 6K, or even 8K resolution, allowing them to capture
even the slightest details. In addition to cameras, drones have also revolutionized the art of filming. Drones allow filmmakers to capture aerial shots and panoramic views that were previously impossible to achieve. Moreover,
If someone is interested in creating film, how should they begin?
This thing right here in my hand, a pen or a number two, pencil and a good piece of paper or even a notebook. Write, write, write, write, and when you think you’re done, keep writing.
Martin Jones at Austin Film Society
correction, special effects, and sound editing, making it easier to produce high-quality films.
With the emergence of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR), filmmakers can now create immersive experiences for viewers. VR technology provides viewers with a
360-degree view of the film, enabling them to feel as though they are part of the story. AR technology, on the other hand, adds digital elements to the real world, enhancing the viewer’s experience.
the use of drones has significantly reduced the cost of shooting aerial scenes, enabling filmmakers to produce high-quality films with minimal investment. Another notable advancement in filming technology is the integration of software applications. Applications like Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, and DaVinci Resolve have revolutionized the editing process, allowing filmmakers to edit films using computer software. These applications provide filmmakers with a range of features, including color
According to Martin Jones, a seasoned filmmaker and director,
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“The advancements in filming technology have enabled young and aspiring filmmakers to create high-quality films with minimal investment. The emergence of modern cameras, drones, and editing software has made
of VR and AR technology has also opened new doors for filmmakers, enabling them to create immersive experiences that engage viewers. These technological advancements have transformed the art of filmmaking, enabling
film industry. With the development of modern cameras, drones, editing software, and VR/ AR technology, filmmakers can now produce high-quality films with minimal investment. These technological ad-
it easier for filmmakers to produce high-quality films that capture stunning visuals and perfect sound quality.”
Jones continued, “The use
filmmakers to produce films that were previously impossible to create.”
The advancements in filming technology have significantly transformed the
vancements have opened new doors for aspiring filmmakers, enabling them to create films that capture stunning visuals and perfect sound quality.
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As technology continues to evolve, we can only expect to see further advancements in the world of filmmaking.
2023
Michael Scaramuzzi
Rylan Berry
Wylie Main