Houdini Studio Notes

'Karaoke' and the Purity of Not Knowing

2009-02-20T10:20:00.004+07:00

I've been cutting Chris Chong Chan Fui's first feature 'Karaoke'. Set in Malaysia and with dialogue in Malay and Tamil, I've discovered a sort of purity in editing a film shot in a language that I don't understand. To date, I've understood pretty much all the dialogue in the films I've cut. Except for a few snippets of the Northeastern or Southern Thai dialects here and there.

Normally, after watching full takes with the sound turned on, I tend to edit entire scenes with the sound muted. But working on a film in a non-native language is different from muting the sound. With 'Karaoke', I still get all the atmosphere and ambient sound along with the dialogue but none of it passes through the language recognition parts of my brain. The dialogue becomes just another sound element. It's direct meaning is submerged and what emerges is the purity of language, the intonation and rhythm that can convey the emotional states of the characters.

While cutting 'Tropical Malady', I had an editing supervisor from Italy, Jacopo Quadri, working with me. He told me that there weren't enough Italian films to work on so he mostly edited foreign language films. At the time, I was sceptical that one could edit a film shot in a foreign language and be able to accurately judge performance or maintain a correct rhythm. And it seemed like an impossible task for an editor to wade through hours of takes in an unintelligible language. But with 'Karaoke', I found that the purity of not knowing allows me to concentrate much more on the acting performance when I'm not pre-occupied with the meaning of the dialogue.

Phantoms and Mobile Men Online

2009-02-19T10:22:00.001+07:00

'Phantoms of Nabua', a short film produced by Apichatpong Weerasethakul as part of his PRIMITIVE installation and series, has premiered online at Animate Projects.

Phantoms of Nabua is a portrait of home. The film portrays a communication of lights, the lights that exude, on the one hand, the comfort of home and, on the other, of destruction.

The quality is great for flash video and loads really fast. Kudos to Animate for that.

Also, 'Mobile Men' part of Art for the World an event to celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights can be seen on YouTube. There are quite a few critical comments in response to the film since it doesn't seem to directly address issues of human rights, migration, poverty and etc. But as with most of his films, these issues lie at the core of the film's approach.

It's better explained in this interview:

I have been interested in a topic of extinction for a while, the extinction of species, of voices, of tradition, and of cinema. Thai society on the surface looks peaceful, however, there are so many injustices going on that contribute to the elimination of “the other”.

... the main actor is played by a migrant worker from Shan state in Burma named Jaai. The shooting of this film provided me a great opportunity to learn from his stories. He is one of the lucky ones who have decent jobs and are contented with the new living condition. But there exist many others who are still living in the opposite circumstances.

By the act of making the film, I would like to instill and capture his confidence and dignity. It is not about storytelling, but about a man who is full of life.

Geek Out and Compare File Sizes

2008-12-11T01:10:00.000+07:00

I'm Not Bruce has a great tip on how to compare files using terminal. This is extremely useful for editors to check if two files are the same even if they have different names. You might feel like a geek for doing this but at least you can confidently tell someone the files are the same.

Thai "High Society" Toasted in Torino

2008-11-28T12:21:00.000+07:00

The Torino Film Lab announced the winners of their production awards today. Aditya Assarat's 2nd feature "High Society" was 1 of 5 projects to get funding.

"For its lyrical treatment of a contemporary and universal theme, the Jury awards 80,000 Euro to HIGH SOCIETY by Aditya ASSARAT."

"High Society" is co-produced by Pop Pictures (Thailand), Memento Films (France) and Flying Moon FilmProduktion (Germany).

Aditya's first feature "Wonderful Town", post-produced at Houdini Studio, has screened in festivals worldwide and won awards in Pusan, Rotterdam and Deauville.

Apple Live in Thailand

2008-11-26T15:18:00.000+07:00

Apple has just switched on their Apple online store for all Asia including Thailand. They've included free shipping as one of the perks. No refurbished gear yet though. Hope to see that in the future.

RED Apple: FCP Gets RED readier

2008-11-15T21:30:00.000+07:00

From Mike Curtis at HD for Indies has news on the updated workflow for the RED camera and Final Cut Pro. This should be coming with the next update to FCP 6.0.5 and Color 1.0.3

"... new functionality in Log & Transfer. At present, you can import Red material and it will transcode to one of the ProRes codecs. This process is slow. The new option will be to simply rewrap the R3D files as QuickTimes. This is NOT using the reference files, these will be freestanding, self contained QuickTime files, using the native R3D data wrapped in a QuickTime, uh, wrapper. This sounds very similar to how native P2 DVCPRO HD media is rewrapped MXF files in a QT wrapper. This will allow for native 2K workflows."

This is exciting as it will quickly allow FCP and Color to migrate to a 2K workflow without having to rely on the traditional throughput necessary to handle 2K DPX files. And small facilities like ours will be able to grade a film shot on RED through a simple Matrox MXO solution.

Scarlet in More Ways Than One

2008-11-15T00:01:00.000+07:00

RED released the specs for the Scarlet and Epic cameras today. This really blows all the hype about using the Nikon D90 and Canon 5d MarkII to shoot HD video out of the water.

RED just went ahead and redefined the game with the DSMC concept (Digital Stills and Motion Camera). Basically you pick a Scarlet or Epic brain depending on the sensor size and frame rate needs you may have. Resolution from 3K to 28K. Sensor size from 4.9 MP to 261 MP. Crazy!

And just to make things a little more fun they live up to their R3D file nomenclature in more ways than one. Here's to RED 3D!

P2 Card Recording Times for HVX-200

2008-11-12T16:55:00.000+07:00

Had to search all around to try to find recording times in various formats for both the 50hz and 60 hz Panasonic AG-HVX200 models. Finally found a user who posted their own chart. Thanks to Mikko Wilson for this.

The longest recording times come with the 720pN24 and 720pN25 modes of the camera ("N" being native) that record a true 24 or 25 fps signal to the P2 card. This is accomplished by not doubling frames (25 to achieve a 50hz signal) or introducing pulldown (24 to achieve a 60hz signal).

Editing Notes

2008-11-12T16:47:00.000+07:00

Trying to add some editing resources that I can access easily from one place so I'll be posting short notes and links about editing (creative and technical).