02.27.08
Posted in Entertainment, new movies, FilmMaking, movies at 3:47 pm by mcclung_1
So many times in my career I have been told that I can’t possibly be a serious editor or filmmaker if I didn’t edit with the big A - no not Adobe… Avid. Now of course I hear some of those same people telling me I can’t possibly be a serious editor or filmmaker unless I use Final Cut. eeesshhhh…
When I started planning and testing for Blood Ties, I originally checked into as many shareware video editing programs I could find, just for the foreseeable joy of saying I used one. I checked out quite few, but as I am somewhat of an After FX Guru and pretty comfortable with most of the advanced features of Photoshop, I gave Premiere Pro another look.
As my work flow ends up creating the entire 93 minute movie with uncompressed tiff’s, I am glad I went with Premiere for it’s media handling abilities. Blood Ties exists across 17 hard drives with thousands of files being accessed from hundreds of directories. I won’t pretend it’s worked flawlessly, but most my issues have come from hard drive failure, my own stupidity, and from the unique work flow developed from 3 years of extensive testing to allow me to take my humble MiniDV footage and turning into something much more palatable.
See before and after examples here
Let me say here that I am in no way putting down any other editing system or platform, but the reality of the Blood Ties budget meant building my own computer with my limited budget and computer building skills, and the near constant integration of After FX and Photoshop in a work flow that takes me back and forth in several relatively complicated steps.
For sound, I spent time with Pro Tools and Nuendo, but once again found myself relying on Premiere, so I investigated and eventually settled on Audition for the more advanced chores.
My color correction was done in After FX and Photoshop, then re-imported back to Premiere for the rendering. Here’s another example.
Later, the DVD and the menu creation for Blood Ties were also done in Adobe programs. And of course the art, the posters, the box cover and the website.
Could someone else have done better with Avid or Final Cut? I don’t think so. Could they handle more layers or more effects, or done it quicker? Maybe.
They might have found a better way to cut the “gun scene” - seventy-seven seconds of mayhem with 142 cuts, 114 tracks of audio mixed in 5.1, and visually composited in After Fx with over 1200 layers, each with multiple filters, and controlled by hundreds of animated masks. Maybe.
When I trained full time in the martial arts (for over 20 years), I always knew there must be someone who had more talent, was faster - stronger, had more time, better teachers, and a better situation for learning. So I made myself work harder. I have several blackbelts, have worked with some of the greatest teachers of the world, and traveled across the world and back to learn more.
It probably shouldn’t surprise anyone that for my first feature film, I called on my experiences working with some of the greatest low budget filmmakers of the world, worked 12 to 15 hours a day for four years and traveled across the world and back to shoot it.
I guess if I had film cameras and film to put in it and money to process it, had a Smoke, an Inferno, and a Da Vinci in my living room, I could have maybe been more ambitious and pushed even harder. I hope someday to have all those. In the meantime, I am building a new computer, and investigating some really cool new shareware programs….
And nope — I don’t work for Adobe… I’ll pretty much use any hammer at hand if it will drive the nail - though I am looking forward to whatever they come up with next!
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02.25.08
Posted in Entertainment at 8:11 pm by mcclung_1
Yeah, yeah. The movie’s not that long, it just has been for me. Everyone else, besides friends and family, will get to see the 93 minute version. And the reality is, I might be on it another couple years, though what anyone sees will still be the 93 minute version.
“Blood Ties” was filmed with no money by a crew of three in both the US and Thailand (with just a few moments over the border into Cambodia). Just to make things a bit more complicated, we filmed in the mountains of Virginia, Washington D.C. on the Mall, The Port of Miami, and Atlanta. Our crew numbers stayed at a maximum of three and our cast grew to 154.
And post production? Me. Sound, visual effects, editing, ADR, Foley, graphics, titles, music? Me. Which is not to say everything is great, it’s just what we could afford on a no budget movie. Every time I’d get ready to fire myself, I’d remember that I’m the only guy I could afford! And even with that, I definitely had some long talks with myself.
Is it worth watching? We hope so, and our success on the beginning of the film circuit says we might be right. Blood Ties won The Action on Film International Film Festival’s “Action Film of the Year”, The Audience Award for “Best Director” at the Big Bang Film Festival, “Best of the Festival” at the Indie Fest USA International Film Festival, “Best Visual Effects” at the same, and has been nominated for various other awards at various other festivals.
Could I teach something about directing? Yeah, probably, even though Blood Ties is a first movie. About editing? Yeah, I’m known as a strong editor. After Effects, sound editing, composing for film, and 200 other subjects involved in making a movie? I’m pretty sure I could. But that’s not want I want to teach or preach or pass on in these few words.
The lesson I hope to share right now is in creating a vision - not only of the movie and what you want it to be but how you want to be perceived - keeping it in mind, and striving toward it with as little compromise as possible no matter how long it takes. Knowing that in twenty or thirty years, your first film won’t matter in the scheme of things except that it will always be, no matter how successful or not, your first film.
One of the things to strive for is surrounding yourself with a strong cheering section. My film partner, my family, my amazing girlfriend. Though they might not physically take on the work, without them, there is no movie. My film partner, Robert Pralgo put up the initial money, as well as a seemingly endless trickle of money since. He also co-starred, help cast, pushed, pulled and dared me to make a better movie than what we thought was possible. My family never talked down to me even though I am the one brother of five who they all have to worry about if I have a roof over my head. And the Amazing Amanda let me see the movie from many different angles, again setting me up to challenge myself to make it even stronger. Our crew of three rotated several times, and our cast gave their all because they somehow knew that I believed in what I was doing. There would be no movie without all of their many efforts. I give credit to almost everyone I meet and genuinely mean and feel it. They color the way I look at myself and my work, and are reflected in the images jumping around on screen. And jump around they do!
Blood Ties embraced the hand held look simply because I knew where I was wanting to shoot, a tripod, a dolly, or a steadicam would get us arrested. “You mean you aren’t supposed to shoot on the Mall or the Port or in the streets of a foreign country without permission?” Permission is relatively easy to get, if you pay for it. And that just wasn’t part of the budget!
I am sure I could talk about the making of the movie for the about the same length of time it took to make it. And maybe I’ll get the chance to write more. There is a lot more information on our website and other people are starting to talk and write as well. What I hope with this introduction is to pass on the challenge to others to make the movies they want to see. To learn and persevere. To look at the art around them and if they find themselves saying “I could do that” – then to do it!
Kely McClung
previously published in Blogger
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Posted in Entertainment at 8:04 pm by mcclung_1
BLOOD TIES wins The Action On Film International Film Festival’s “
ACTION FILM OF THE YEAR“!
Screening on July 28th (2007), at the AOFF, BLOOD TIES (http://www.bloodtiesmovie.com/) was able to win “Action Film of the Year”. Though the festival was predominately action, there were many films that stretched that definition. Rob Pralgo (co-star and executive producer) and I really did not think it would happen even though we of course knew about the nomination for both AFOTY and the ‘Best Action Sequence of the Year.
Mark Harris (the kick ass role of Rourke in the film), traveled across the country to cheer us on and partake in the fest’s atmosphere and seemed convinced it was a lock, but Mark’s… Mark, so who knew?
We had other cast members show up as well, most who had moved to LA to seek their fortunes, including the always wonderful Samantha Worthen, (another cast member) who always seems to be everywhere at once supporting everyone.
We were thrilled that many other friends made it and we had a really strong and positive screening, with enthusiastic questioning and responses at the end.
My girl, the “Amazing Amanda”, who always seems to have it together so much more than me, was there by my side, trying to rein in my enthusiasm and excitement over our film and the response it was getting.
With over 1000 people attending the awards ceremony, our sit down dinner had me facing away from the awards stage, and the announcement really didn’t register until “AA” started trying to get me to quit eating the cheesecake and realize they were calling our name.
The fest was great - and of course the win made it SO MUCH BETTER - and we all saw some significant talent, and though it sounds pretty corny, we made a lot of new friends including David No (FORGED - Best Short Film at Dragon Con and The Melbourne Underground Film Festival), Igor Breakenback (GOOD LUCK WITH THAT), and Takeshi Maya (KAGE).
Can’t wait for what’s next… oh yeah… the Rome International Film Festival last month, the Big Bang Film Festival in Philly on the 17th -21st, and of course the Indie Fest USA!
Kely McClung
Previously published in blogger…
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Posted in Uncategorized at 7:40 pm by mcclung_1
Traveling the World with “BLOOD TIES”
Written by Nathan Flood Saturday, 15 September 2007
That’s how it always starts. “I’ve got this great idea for a movie.”
Pretend you do have this great idea for a movie (I know it’s hard, but try). You decide to pitch it to a buddy with a little bit of money in hopes he’ll jump on board. You’ve got this great script and you’re ready to go, where at this point your buddy asks, “Where you going to film it?” And your answer is?
If your answer is Thailand, you’re lying (or insane), unless your name happens to be Kely McClung, because that was really his answer. Throwing independent filmmaking logic out the window, Kely pitched the idea for his film Blood Ties and its halfway-around-the-world bizzaro location to friend Robert Pralgo, and somehow, someway, got him to say yes.
Blood Ties, is an action film set not only in Thailand, but also a few more wallet conducive locations including; Washington, D.C., Miami, Virginia, and, oh yeah, Atlanta.
Filmed in a jittery, cinema verite, Blair Witch meets Bourne Ultimatum style, the concept of the film is, as listed on the filmmakers’ website (http://www.bloodtiesmovie.com/), “Jim, (Robert Pralgo) would be kidnapped, and Jack, (Kely McClung) would save him; in essence, Rob would get his ass kicked everywhere he went, and everywhere Kely would go, he’d kick everybody’s ass.” How’s that for an action film? Okay, there’s a lot more to it than that, but at its core it’s an action film, so you have to figure there’s a significant bit of ass kickin’.
The obvious story here is about Thailand. What the hell are two Atlanta boys doing shooting in Thailand? I mean, I like Thai a whole lot, but these guys must have Pad Thai running out of their brains or something. Half the budget’s blown before the plane even touches the ground. Now that’s a story, and it’s a great angle for the film, but after spending a little while talking to Kely and Robert I realized they weren’t curry freaks, they knew what they were doing. They sold me on Thailand. It was the perfect choice for the film.
Knowing the film’s action would be focused around Kely’s martial arts skills (he’s a black belt in 5 types of martial arts as well as a former world champion in full contact stick fighting), and having no sizable budget for guns, squibs and FX, shooting it on the streets of Atlanta wouldn’t play real. According to Kely, “How do you justify filming in an Atlanta setting where someone will bring out a Mac-10 and just shoot you?” Couple that with the fact Thailand looks seriously cool as well as your actors and crew will work for a fraction of U.S. prices and suddenly you’re talking Thai.
Now that I see shooting in Thailand makes sense from both a cost and quality standpoint, where’s my story? Do you ever watch the DVD extras? You know, where the director or whoever tells you about all the behind the scenes you don’t really care about unless you’re some type of fanboy (see my article in last month’s CinemATL for explanation if you don’t know what a fanboy is). Well, it’ll be worth listening to on Blood Ties. There’s not a scene in the film where they didn’t have some interesting story.
Story after story after story. A huge blowout over an $8.00 toy gun purchase, dealing with a Thai mobster for a location agreement, getting stopped by the secret service in Washington D.C., almost getting busted by the NSA in Miami, border guards harassing them in Cambodia, broken ribs, food poisoning, hiring Thai taxi drivers to play thugs, meeting your D.P. for the first time in Thailand, making fake rain, shooting in an abandoned and burned out 42 story building and a bunch of other stories of things that happened to them over the filming. They literally told me so many stories I started to wonder if the film was going to be half as interesting.
The bad guy awaits a beating.To find out, they showed me a small clip of the film where Kely’s character kicks some serious ass and takes out 23 bad guys in 77 seconds (or 1 bad guy every 3.4 seconds). I was impressed. It didn’t just look good, it looked great.
They told me one of their best and funniest compliments about the scene was someone who remarked, “This looks like it’s a real movie”. And they’re right. Seeing that one fight scene, I knew they had something special. It looks like it could be in the Bourne Ultimatum yet they achieved it with 1/3000th of the budget.
And then came the stories. There were the professional fighters who brought their own stunt gear including a Styrofoam chair to be smashed over someone’s head and fake rebar to be impaled on. There were the 4 plastic guns that had to be shared by all the bad guys to make it look like every one had a weapon. And in post, to make the guns and everything look real, they had to add 1327 layers in After Effects, each with multiple animated masks and 4-5 effects in each layer as well as 140 tracks of sound.
And that’s just 77 seconds. That’s when I realized they were going to have the impossible task of telling all this on the DVD commentary track. I suggested they pause the film during the commentary track just to get in all the stories. Probably stretch the movie to 3 hours.
But that’s one of the great things about this film, all the extras. Not that you’ll see the stories on screen, for that, you’ll have to wait for the DVD extras. Some seriously great stories.
Nathan Flood is an editor for CinemATL
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Posted in Uncategorized at 7:34 pm by mcclung_1
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