“hey adam i have a great idea for a movie, im only 12 so i really dont know where to go to submit it and i know what ur thinking this is just some kid who is wasting your time and im wasting my own time too but as i see all those other movies out there i realize that my idea could have as much potential as those movie…. what do i do???”

Only a fool would dismiss an idea based on the youth of its author. That, or someone who hasn’t been to the cinema since 1976.

Much of what fills the 10 month void between Serious Festival Season could benefit from the wisdom of a 12 year old, rather than the narcotically skewed perception of what a 12 year old wants to see via a committee of escort abusing execs (if you really are 12, that was a car reference). That’s how stuff like Grown Ups and Scott Pilgrim gets made. Did you go and see Burlesque? I think not.

Today I watched a trailer called Real Steel. It’s a film about a boy who has a Big Robot and he gets Wolverine to train it to fight other Big Robots. This made my day because, if I was 12, this is the sort of film I’d want to see and it’s been a long time since I’ve felt that from a trailer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwfmV3nn6QA

I’m pretty sure that was the result of some CEO stood at his breakfast bar with his tie flung over his shoulder as he ate his bran cereal, looking at his son lying on his stomach on the living room floor, beaming wide grins of joy as he puppet-mastered an epic dual between his two favourite plastic toys.

Forgetting briefly the knot in his lower back caused by sleeping on that very couch the night before because he can’t stand to look at his wife and that his favourite “car” was already booked, something dawns on him:

“What if I could turn this moment of pure, uncynical joy as seen on my only son’s face into $$?”

And that’s how the Big Fighting Robot film got made. Probably. And seeing as it is a Dreamworks film, that means Steven Spielberg had some say in it (probably not, just go with it).

Your best bet is to send your ideas to Speilberg. He’s always banging on about being a kid in an adults body, he’ll totes love the shit out of your stuff! It worked for Brett Ratner (see special features on the Rush Hour DVD).

Just promise me one thing – don’t be anything like Brett Ratner.

Also, if you’re sitting on the next There Will Be Blood then I apologise for the patronising tone of this reply – I don’t have children and I can’t remember being 12 so I’m not sure how developed your brain is?

BEST OF LUCK!

Adam

“hello adam please can you help with my question i phone a company in
a news paper but they are asking me for £350 pounds to join thats
before i even make a film do companys charge before you even meet
anyone think it was the daily sport i seen it in and phoned to get a
start in the industry hope you can be of help.”

The only time I’ve been asked for money by an advert in the Daily Sport I received an unmarked VHS tape with some rather strong asphyxiation porn on it.

I’m not sure what the advert is that you are referring to, and I’ve never tried making my own film, but I’ve always assumed aspiring film-makers asked people for money, not the other way round?

What is it you are thinking of joining? The only things I’ve joined that were free were the Young Ornithologists Club and the He-Man Club. Anything I’ve joined on the internet has been subscription based and along the same lines as the VHS tape.

Even so, £350 seems better invested in what ever film you are trying to make, should you have it to hand?

Here’s a tip: 3D is very expensive, I’d suggest you don’t use it.

Many thanks,

Adam

Martha Low asks “I need to know the best way to shoot flames – the script calls for “at night.” I have a studio that is willing to have a fire set in it – how do you “light it?” What are some lighting tips to show fire at its best? Also, some shots need to be outside – should I aim for well-lit evening light and color correct in post to make it look dark? Or do I go for a special effects “fire file” – where would I get one for cheap or free? Oh yeah, no budget and needs to be in High Def. Thanks! – Martha”

and then adds

“oops! Sorry, asked a question before fully reading. I’m looking for videotaping techniques (not film buff stuff). – Martha”

which is why Chris is answering this one…

Hiya Martha. Fire is a wonderful beast to shoot, as fascinating in the viewfinder as it is to simply stare at. Maybe it’s the flickering nature of the light, the constant change, that draws us in to simply watching the flames. Much like TV can distract completely. And so, onto videoing it. To make it look it’s best you just need to point the camera at it. Being a source of light you don’t need to light it.

Ok, so that’s being a bit fatuous. Obviously I’m expecting you have actors in the scene and you want to light them – which does depend as much on your camera and on how big you want your fire to be. If it’s an embers sort of fire then you’ll need to add extra light to imitate the flicker of the fire. However a larger fire shot on the Canon 5DmkII would give enough light for the actors’ faces without any recourse to extra lights. I recently shot a scene lit almost entirely by candlelight, using a dozen candles in one room and two dedo lamps for low-level shafts of moonlight coming through the windows, and the 5DmkII worked well with this. Below are two examples of stuff shot on a Canon 5DmkII – firstly by our friend and camera operator Chris Storrar and secondly the candlelit scene which I shot for the fantastic director Lorna Love. Both of these are for music videos and I’ve literally just ripped a few shots from the rushes to show you examples. They’re entirely ungraded.

As you’ll see from the stuff Chris Storrar shot of the fire, if it’s a decent level you’ll get a nice glow on people’s faces – if they were sitting down next to the fire you’d be good to go. In terms of cameras the Nikon D3 is apparently even better in low-level light (though can only shoot 720p) – Zacuto have produced some great videos to show off how DSLRs and film work with low-level light.

If you’re using other cameras you may need more fill light. This can be done in different ways, which has been discussed pretty well at Roger Deakin’s brilliant forum, which I’d urge you to have a scout round – likewise cinematography.com. Another way of creating flickering light on people’s faces would be to use tin foil, or any reflective silver material, which you can scrunch up a little to create an uneven surface – bang your source light into this and have someone float it around in their hands and you’ll get wonderfully uneven light. They used techniques a little like this to get the amazing sun lighting in ‘Sunshine’. Would probably be best to use a frame for it so you had less noise coming from the foil when wafting it about.

But yup, it’s not hard to create a flicker on set. We’ve used one flicker filter before for our short short 0507:

This was to mimic the light of a TV, and we used Luca’s Light Flicker for this. Which obviously costs money, though not a huge amount at all. But quite a long render time. Set at a very low level, because it’s daytime and the curtains are open so the light from the tv wouldn’t be particularly pronounced, we also used a matte so it went only on the foreground. So a fair bit of work in post for something that can be done by gently waving a reflective board around…

It’s up to you whether you want backlight to give an edge onto the actors, perhaps a ‘moonlight’ type of thing, and likewise with how much of the background you want to see. If you go for the ‘only light from the fire’ route, then it can help on the wides to use some sort of silhouettes in the foreground to give a sense of depth – branches, logs, rocks, whatever, something out of focus.

By the sounds of it you want a black night sky. In which case let it be black. Don’t light for evening light, shoot it as is, let the light fall off. If you have to shoot matching shots outside then you only have a very small window to get dark blue skies, and a whole night to get black ones. Unless, of course, you’re hoping to see more of the locations you’re shooting, in which case dark blue skies are the way to go – once it’s black, it’s black, and you’ll see very little. To do that then you’re looking at shooting it with blues in the background on your studio shoot. However to make things match (and to disguise the fact you’re shooting in a studio) it would be a lot easier just to let the backgrounds fall off into black.

Hope this is of some small help. If you have any more questions don’t hesitate to ask.

Much love

Chris

Some three months later “Keith” of Barnet, North London writes “Now see here buddy. What kind of a show do you think you’re running? Sort it out.”

Adam eventually replies…
Dearest Keith, I apologise for the length of time it has taken me to reply to your most recent of questions. The reason for my tardiness is that I have been on a retreat. I have spent the last few months in Norway studying the films of Emilio Estaves with some like-minded individuals. As they don’t have computers yet in norway I have been thus unable to check my electronic mail account. Again, I am sorry.

As it has been so long since we last conversed, indulge me a little in the discussion of the answer to your question posed thus; “how many extras appeared on the film ‘Sleepless In Seattle’?

‘Sleepless In Seatle’ or ‘SIS’ as I prefer to call it, found Tom Hanks at a stage in his career when fame had yet to restrict him in the choice of roles he could under take. As it is well documented, the studio (in this case Columbia) had insisted on the central relationship to be between two homosexual retards – a staple (if not a cliche) of studio filmmaking. Hanks was adament that they should go for the more riske depiction of a male/female coupling to the point that he threatened to leave the whole project all together and everything. The studio, using the forsight that they are known for, conceeded to Hank’s diva like demands and went ahead with the censor troubling version they had so wanted to avoid. The film came out and some people saw it and some didn’t, others said they had but they lied. For all of Hank’s painstaking efforts at making a film from left field, the ultimate irony is that he would go on to attain two back to back Oscars for portrayals of? Thats right, a gay queer and a peanut!

With that in mind, let’s tackle the question at hand. Going back to the pre-production stage of ‘SIS’, Hanks was trying to tailor the film to be that which would break him as a serious actor and get him his much sought after Oscar (his loss to that other person when he was nominated for his role in ‘BIG’ (I joke not) had been a spiritual wound that was yet to heal). Hank’s logic was this; Obi Wan Kenobi had won an Oscar and he was in a film where he played multiple roles (about eleven or less or more). It was his aim to out do this by playing all the cast, including the extras using a blue screen, and so win an Oscar. The studio told him he was being greedy and that greedy people don’t win Oscars. Tom believed them and so 117 crap actors were employed as non-talking extras to keep the unions happy. Tom would later have his dream come true by starring in a film which only he was allowed to be in about a man. He didn’t win the Oscar despite his nomination because they gave it to Russell Crow because he wasn’t allowed it the year before.

I hope I have been some help. Until next time. Adam – your friend.

Adam writes…
I’m sorry my reply is late, I was still in Sheffield dotting the I’s and crossing the W’s on my latest project – a biopic of Sheffield. As for the question – you BASTARD! I only got a 3rd at universtity! As ever though, I am man enough for the challenge so, here I go. In Jaws Chief Brody was played by Quincy Jones (in a performance I think was deserved of an Oscar). Now, bare with me…in the sequel Quincy passed the mantle onto non other than Rod Stieger. This is correct because if it wasn’t it would be wrong, and more importantly, I would be wrong. If you can think of a question better than that I’ll send you a signed photo of myself in a posing pouch!!

Adam writes…
A tough one but I enjoy the challenge. So, “who played Superman in ‘Superman 2′”? Well Keith, the answer to your question is not the one most people will tell you. Contrary to public opinion it was not Forest Whitiker who donned the famous tights, in what has to be the most underrated sequal of all time, but, in fact, Judd Nelson. I know this because I have seen it, unlike many of these so-called ‘film buffs’ who merely regurgitate passages from “Barry Normans Family Film Review 1995″ and pretend to have seen films such as “Superman 2″ for effect. I hope this will put your mind at rest and feel free to write with anymore tuffies.

Adam writes…
The film that you are thinking of in which Emilio Estevez returns home from the war is called “The War at Home”. The war in question was indeed Vietnam; the one that George of the Jungle started with Alfie, not many people know that. The Producers originally intended it to star Charlie Sheen alongside father Martin as some kind of illegitimate, left-field sequel to “Platoon”. However Oliver Stone rejected the offer to direct outright stating “No. Fuck off”.

Undeterred by this as sequels not directed by the original director often surpass the original (see; “The Crow: City of Angels” or “The Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers”) they turned their attentions to that old cad Charlie. Months of tense negotiations, legal battles and name-calling later it was apparent that Mr Sheen Jnr. would be unable to break his contract doing voice work on another sequel “All Dogs Go To Heaven 2″. With only Martin Sheen on board for the ride it looked as if the project would never see the light of day. In steps Emilio. Out steps everyone attached to the film apart from his dad. Unperturbed by this apparent cold shoulder, Emilio went on to Direct, Star and Produce the film, a movie inspired by his long time hero Woody Allen.

I haven’t seen the film because I think it will be rubbish, despite the overwhelming input of my man Emilio. For my money if he aint teaching under-privileged kids from the hood to learn valuable life lessons via the medium of comedy ice-hockey then it aint worth watching. You can buy in online at www.play.com on Region 1 only for £6.99. Nuff said.

Adam writes…
Dear Patsy, The black & white film featured in SIS is “An Affair to Remember” (1957). Glad to help.

Adam writes…
Rod Taylor is alive! He was also in a quite camply brilliant film with cool opening credits (it was made in the 60s) called “The Liquidator” which Ben, Zee and I watched once whilst drunk but then we had to stop watching because “The Dukes of Hazard” was on. That show rocks! Rod Taylor is 74 so how long he has left is questionable.

Adam writes…

Before I start, all the swearing had to be modified as I’m sending this from work and there is some c##ting thing stopping me from sending rude words.

Sorry I mised you earlier. Have a good weekend? I will be off wed/thur/fri and maybe even saturday! How cool is that! You should come round for an evening of beer and film although as I’ve managed to string a few days together no doubt you will be abroad or something. Let me know. I think I’m going out thursday night so wednesday or friday would be good.

I got “21 Grams”. I think I really liked it although I’m not too sure so I think I should watch it again. It’s edited like a crazy mother, as if he had all the scenes on his computer and rather than editing it he just put it on random. It seems clever but I don’t think it is. Still, the acting is well good.

I saw “The Passion Of The Christ” too. It’s, well…I wasn’t sure at first but…yeah, no it’s sh1t. Some of it looks really nice, or nicely nasty, but it’s pointless. He gets captured, they try him, they beat him, they beat him, they beat him, they beat him, they beat him, they beat him, they crucify him but Ta Daa!! He comes back to life, it ends. Now I know that’s pretty much how it goes in the book he’s adapted but it doesn’t make for an interesting or entertaining film. Theres f##k all tension or emotional engagement, we all know he’s the Son of God and it’s all going to be OK and stuff, hell even Jesus knew, he wasn’t bothered. He kept telling everyone to quit blubbing, “I got this man”, that kind of thing. So yeah it’s quite relentlessly bloody but that gets boring quickly. I still get all watery when Sean Penn gets executed in “Dead Man Walking” and his character was a murdering, rascist, red-knecked rapist. To be honest, Jesus makes for a rubbish character. He just stands around looking noble and spouting some fortune cookie sentiment. What’s the point of this film? It’s not even amusingly anti-semetic enough. At least Scorsese had Jesus fantasising about goosing Mary Magdalene.

On the other hand the remake of “Dawn Of The Dead” is f##king fantastic! It’s got a great pre-credit sequence, Jonny Cash plays over the credits, they don’t even attempt any exposition as to why or how people started turning into zombies they just get on with it and it is so much fun. You should go see it. Or wait till I get the DVD and then watch it.
See ya soon.

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