Free Online Film School

June 6, 2007 6:26 PM

TakeZer0 is a weekly videoblog by two young filmmakers aiming to be a free basic film school for anyone interested, with lessons so far on shot composition, lighting, camera stabilization & the overall process.
posted by jonson (12 comments total)

Along a similar theme but without the video, check out Straight answers to frequent and seldom-asked film and video questions you will not find answered anywhere else.
/me grumbles something about jonson forcing my hand
posted by furtive at 6:35 PM on June 6, 2007 [3 favorites]

Awesome, two posts in a row where I've scooped someone else's undoubtedly better & more fleshed out post with a timely single link post. Talk about first mover advantage, suckas!!
posted by jonson at 6:37 PM on June 6, 2007

Better late than never. I just posted my first short film to Proejcts but I'll definitely use these resources for my next project.
posted by strangeleftydoublethink at 7:56 PM on June 6, 2007

Addendum: I got one minute into the lighting video and wanted to scream. The lesson was "Make your video interesting and to the point, goddamn it!"
posted by strangeleftydoublethink at 8:02 PM on June 6, 2007

Comment, take three: I couldn't watch those videos they were so bad. Bad editing, bad composition, bad scripts (or rather complete lack of).

But the link provided by furtive, nice, very nice.
posted by strangeleftydoublethink at 8:07 PM on June 6, 2007

Their theme song is by this guy. His album is on my good list.
posted by roll truck roll at 8:55 PM on June 6, 2007

MetaFilter: A vest and some springs.

Really nice post, jonson.
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 9:25 PM on June 6, 2007

In talking about thier future plans for the videoblog:

GUY: Were trying to improve ourselves, improve our information, (pause) presentation... (looks at other guy)
OTHER GUY: yeah
GUY: yeah, ok

I hope they are trying to be funny and self referential, but still it drags on a bit. If they do improve thier presentation it might be pretty neat. Yeah.
posted by DanielDManiel at 11:50 PM on June 6, 2007

From Furtive's link: "Notice that in movies and on TV the camera doesn't pan tilt or zoom unless there is a very good reason to do it. Panning, zooming and shaky hand held shots are the hallmark of an amateur."

He wrote this in 2004? More like 1984. It seems everyone's doing the shaky-cam thing. I bet he hates Bruckheimer films.
posted by Poagao at 2:12 AM on June 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

It was cool to see how the Hitchcock dolly zoom/camera zoom thing is done! Thanks!
posted by chuckdarwin at 5:52 AM on June 7, 2007

Yeah, the hand cam thing really seemed to get traction with Saving Private Ryan and subsequently with Band of Brothers. You see it a lot now but it is almost always in the context of an action sequence. Having the hand cam effect in a mundane scene would be really jarring.

(The exception to this, of course, is shows like the Office and Reno 911 where the point of the show is that it's being filmed 'live' and things like camera shake, focusing, and zoom are necessary.)
posted by quin at 10:37 AM on June 7, 2007

Cool, more of this and media theory and its academia will be less beset by dudes pissed that they have to waste their precious shoot time in class reading Brecht watching Maya Deren films. Film Art != Film Craft.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 1:36 PM on June 7, 2007