VIEW THE FILM

Chuck posted RUNG online.
Enjoy the film, and let us know what you thought.

The long, long shot?

In all honesty, this Blog was first created to keep Chuck and me on point. And to this end, it was successful. We finished shooting quite a while back and I edited the film and added sound and made a DVD and sent out dozens to festivals and peers.

In previous posts I tried to update the film's status in the festival circuit. Cannes was a longshot, as were TIFF, Berlin, and Venice. But, Chuck and I are surprised to find that no festival has accepted our short. This includes SF Intl., Annecy, and a few other small venues I felt certain would find Rung of interest.

What this means for animated independent short films that don't make use of CGI? I'm not sure.

What this means for stop motion films? I'm not sure.

What this means about our film Rung? I don't know

Both Chuck and I agree that a decade or two ago, a stop motion film like Rung would have likely been more attractive to festivals. But with the inclusion of more mainstream films in smaller and smaller festivals, and heavy reliance on CGI and 3D, the competition for independent films has become more commercial (especially with the inclusion of folks from Pixar and Dreamworks and all the resources companies like that provide for their employees.)

This is not to say that commercial short films aren't good. Or that they aren't art. But that a bully film like Logoland could win an Oscar is truly a disappointment. The 'golden arches' reach far and smother all...

So where is the niche for art films today? Where can independent films, the kind made by folks in their basements, find a home and an audience? This is tough to answer, even for an auteur of said art films. My gut tells me there isn't much more than Youtube, where you are lucky to get a handful of one line responses.

For the few folks who have seen Rung, the reactions have been positive. There is a powerful 'wow' factor, especially from those with a nostalgia for miniatures and models and shooting with actual film. But that 'wow' seems to be the pinnacle, and nostalgia doesn't sell unless it's geared around the self serving 80's. Consider Hot Tub Time Machine.

That's not entirely true, and my intention isn't to come off as bitter.

The best thing to come from Rung is the interest sparked in first time, and reasonably seasoned, animators working on their own films. A reminder of what you can do with some creativity and a low, low budget.

I teach in the Bay Area (computers if you can believe it) and several students have used Rung as a study tool. I field a lot of questions, but find myself encouraging less students to pursue stop motion - specifically for any project over 30 seconds long.

To those who continue making art films, I applaud you.

To those hoping to fashion a career from those kinds of art films, I ask that you tread carefully and pay close attention to which films the 'industry' is hungry for. My guess is that 'art' has less to do with it than say, technique du jour. As if the film industry is always in search of a cheaper and more efficient microwave oven. Seems that story is less important than product placement, or that story is only important if it illustrates simple violence and anger. But isn't that always the case?

For those of you who press forward regardless, who push the boundaries of creativity rather than their computer's processor, who research established techniques and masterworks, who pass along the craft and endure, for those of you who make films - my heart goes out to you.

Where can I see your little film?

Most major festivals require a "first screening," so showings in the next year will be few, and invite only.

If your interested, and in the bay area, leave a note and we'll try and arrange a showing.

In the can?

The film is finished!

In so much as it's festival ready.

I sent it to Cannes, but as you can tell it wasn't accepted (along with many new auteurs not making it to the finals).

A copy is in Toronto for TIFF, and another in Venice for the Venice Film Festival. We'll hopefully hear back late Summer.

Most festivals appear to not accept blu-ray, so I'm still trying to compile a high-def version that will fly with the bulk of festival requirements.

Likely HD-Cam, (but surround sound becomes an issue).

Hi-Def? That could mean a lot of things.

If the film is accepted at Cannes, they'll require either a 35MM Print, or a Hi-def version. But what exactly is Hi-def?
As recently as last year, this might have included DS tape, but with the advent of Blu-ray the quality could be much higher.
Our film with uncompressed 5.1 surround stems could weigh in at nearly 70Gigs. So the research into how to best compress the "Hi-def" version of the film begins, and I welcome your thoughts and comments.

The first tests burning Blu-ray content to a standard DVD-5 yielded some nice results. Using the just released Toast 10, I managed to fit several 2 minute clips that played smoothly, albeit with odd aspect ratios. Menu authoring in Toast is pretty poor at this point, a little worse then DVD Studio Pro, and I'm not much in the mood to build the menu in Motion and then import some snazzy graphics into DVD Studio Pro.
Luckily, our 7 minute film should fit on a standard DVD-R, but I have yet to add the surround stems. I'm also not clear whether Cannes will accept a DVD-5 authored Blu-ray?

Oddly enough, video post services in the bay area don't appear to work with Blu-ray yet. I've yet to explore Los Angeles...

It's been a long time, but NEWS will surface.

New Posts are coming soon...

My high school French tells me Cannes received the film.

Monsieur / Madame Jesse BRODKEY

Nous avons bien reçu votre film RUNG

La conférence de presse annonçant les films sélectionnés pour le Festival de Cannes se déroule durant la seconde quinzaine d’avril.

Si votre film est sélectionné pour le Festival de Cannes, vous serez prévenu avant cette date.

Nous essayerons dans la mesure du possible de donner des réponses à tous les candidats avant la conférence de presse.

Cordialement,

Festival de Cannes

Département Films

DVD cover by Yael Braha

I simply cropped a few screenshots and wrote a little synopsis, but here's what Yael tastefully threw together between meetings and deadlines for her own film "24 Hours of LeMons."

To Cannes via AirMail

Actually it should read, to Cannes via FedEx.
The DVD has been sent to France. Just waiting for confirmation that the little sucker arrived...

A conservative 120+ audio tracks

Steve Orlando and I finished our primary pass on the 5.1 surround mix for the film. This one will be good enough for the pre-selection DVD that I will send to the Festival de Cannes in France.
With all original recorded sound effects, we struggled to get the track count low enough that an HD2 pro tools system could handle the load. We still required an extra HD Accel card to play back the entire session - this with a hefty load of AudioSuite and RTAS plug-ins used to put a good deal of processing on the computer rather than the HD cards.
We played the compressed ac3 file on several surround systems with good results, often removing a lot of high end with a sharp dip and rolling off a marginal amount of bass. Our struggle with brightness could likely be the horns on several speakers as well as poorly tuned rooms. A little adjusting with an SPL meter smoothed out some of the troubles.
We'll do one final pass for the final HD version sometime early next year.

Who knew a 6 minute film could be well over 70Gigs?

The folks at The Post Group in Los Angeles have managed to transfer our 16MM color negative to DPX 10 Bit Uncompressed 4:4:4 RGB files. I should say GIGANTIC DPX 10 Bit Uncompressed 4:4:4 RGB files that weigh in at over 190 Gigs for 15 minutes. I've hardly had a chance to view the data as few consumer computers can even open these bohemoths. From the frames I've seen though, they look truly beautiful.
Now the files are heading off to our colorist Page Frakes. Let him work his magic.

The negative came back positive.

I'm both happy and relieved to announce that our 5 rolls of film, a little over 500 feet, have been successfully processed. No dirty baths, careless lab assistants, rips, tears, smudges, burning, lashing, or evil ghosts managed to corrupt our negative. FotoKem did a bang up job (with the exception of a careless prepping error.)

Now on to telecine...

Rung Sound Team introduction: Michael McCormick

Michael McCormick is an Oakland based sound artist who works in both sculptural media and film. His main interest lies in exploring the physicality of sound through its referentiality to events and the following cognitive representations such as memory and emotion. Documentation of older sculptural work and sound collage exist at http://dipolesource.org, however, there is no current online representation of his film work. As a film sound artist, Mike has designed several short films, most notably Gordo, a Latino Filmmaker Showcase Finalist which premiered on Showtime.

Rung Sound Team introduction: Eric Arvai

Eric Arvai, a native Chicagoan, began playing piano at age 5. He studied jazz theory and piano performance from Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA. He went on to graduate from Ohio University with a B.S. in Visual Communications in Interactive Multimedia with a specialization in Electronic Music. While providing live improvised accompaniment for modern dance classes at Ohio University School of Dance, Eric met his lifetime friend and mentor, world-class concert pianist, Andre Gribou.

He went on to work for a Santa Cruz advertising agency, Full Support Advertising & Design, where he produced many projects in the bay area; most notably scripting, engineering, scoring and mastering a radio campaign for the American Cancer Society.

Currently, Eric is the Director of the Media, Sound & Visual Department at Ex’pression College for Digital Arts. He can also be found teaching MIDI, Game Audio and Music Theory.

Eric contracts work as an Audio / Video Post-Production Engineer for Top Speed Productions, a company producing documentaries on off-road motorbike racing based in San Jose, CA. He most recently worked as an audio consultant on a documentary for NASA and scored a feature length documentary currently in international film festival rotation on American Sculptor David Hostetler entitled “Last Dance.”

He lives in Berkeley with his wife Jennifer and in his free time enjoys rock climbing, golf and his jazz trio. One day, long from now, his epitaph will read Died Tragically Rescuing His Family From The Remains Of A Destroyed Sinking Battleship.

Resume

Here's a link to my current resume: Jesse Brodkey

Principal photography is COMPLETE.

Chuck and I have finished the last shot for Rung.
Dare we strike the set?
Thus begins Chuck and Holly's packing frenzy as they make ready to leave in the next week for London.
And...
Thus begins my heavy work on post production. I've already assembled the sound team and we've had our first and second meetings. I'll post the team's bios later this week.
I've also found someone to do titles. I'll post her bio this week as well.

We'd like to thank everyone who worked or helped or hindered or generally had anything to do with the film this far. I'll compile a 'thank you' list shortly.

Thanks,
Jesse and Chuck

>2 shots left

Chuck's 50+ frames into the 2nd to last shot. We might be able to set up the last shot tomorrow night and film it Wednesday.
Gear up for the wrap celebrations that will be taking place through the weekend...

Working faster than even we know.

For the past two weeks, I've been trying to get an accurate scene and frame count. We're shooting so fast that it's nearly impossible. As Chuck finishes a shot, I'm setting up the next one.
It might be easier to have a shot countdown instead.

I believe there are only 5 shots left.
Really. Only 5 shots.

Nearly nearer and the quest for $

As soon as we get an accurate scene and frame count, I'll update the statistics.

Until then, just know that Chuck and I are putting in all hours. There are about 10 scenes left which include many close-ups and cut-aways.
We're hoping to wrap principal photography before the end of the month, in order to make room for several weeks of drinking and toasting Chuck and Holly off to Jollyville.

In the meantime, I'm on the hunt for funding and acquisitions. FAF is having fiscal troubles, but there are a couple others I'll role dice for. If you have any ideas about loose pockets in these tight fitting jean times, please let us know.

Birth of a Sound Effects team.

By two weeks end, I'll be able to announce the official 'Rung" sound effects team.

I've met with some real talents over the past few months (some friends and some new folks,) who all show imaginative and creative promise. With our first official meeting early next week, I'll have more detail for introductions.