Archived RAW... Hybrid Movies?

[Elsie N]

First of all, I do not know if Studios save the excess footage taken during a film-made movie or if they just save the finished negative.

The recent trailer for Stalingrad that has recently been shown on Reduser started me to thinking "How much background footage could they have used from Enemy at the Gates that was never used in that movie but could fill in time and space very inexpensively for the newer movie.

For that matter, could a team of editors and colorists take unused film from past film shoots that were along the same theme and take new actors and shoot their dialog scenes and create a low cost Big Picture movie?

Going forward I can see this happening since RAW footage can be given a new look in the future. And it should be no problem to archive the extra (unused) footage that always results from the enormous amount of takes required to get a feature length movie.

Just curious about others thoughts on this.

 

[Bill Anderson]

It seems like a good idea on paper, Elsie, but I wonder if the logistics wouldn't prove to be more problematic, costly ( and risky ) as creating new footage. Would the writer, director, etc etc, of the original movie, be entitled to compensation? I'm just guessing, but given the legalities involved in these enterprises ….

Perhaps this is something that would work between indies. ????

 

[Logan Gee]

Michael Bay reuses footage in his movies.

 

[Eryc Tramonn]

You're heading down the right path.

Studios have vast stock footage repositories (libraries) that they pull from. I used to do it all the time. And if there's something we didn't have in house, I would check the usual online libraries, first. And if that yielded a dead end, I would start placing calls to the houses/shooters themselves.

I think you'd be surprised how much footage is recycled, Elsie. Then again, I'm only speaking from my experience in large studio environments.

Personally, I save everything I have every shot (no tape back ups, yet -- except for the earliest stuff shot on film -- and yes, I'm aware of the risks). Just as you mention, we can apply different looks to material and have a completely different spot. Speaking of Stalingrad, the Russian filmmakers worked this way back quite a bit in the past. Lev Kuleshov is notable for one of these experiments. There was a shortage of film, so they would engage in drafting experiments to develop new stories from old material.

For example, I have quite a collection of custom lens flares that can be overlaid, or blended if necessary -- from subtle to J.J. Abrams flare insanity is covered. No need to buy them when you can just make your own.

So, I am in TOTAL agreement with you, and I like what you are suggesting about indie filmmakers cooperating with one another. I had an idea for a system such as this back in 1999, and formed a corporation to do EXACTLY what you are suggesting. I was a little ahead of my time though.

The stagnant domain is www.indieHollywood.com.

I knew this day was coming...that's why this camera system means so much to me.

 

[Elsie N]

You're heading down the right path.

Studios have vast stock footage repositories (libraries) that they pull from. I used to do it all the time. And if there's something we didn't have in house, I would check the usual online libraries, first. And if that yielded a dead end, I would start placing calls to the houses/shooters themselves.

I think you'd be surprised how much footage is recycled, Elsie. Then again, I'm only speaking from my experience in large studio environments.

Personally, I save everything I have every shot (no tape back ups, yet -- except for the earliest stuff shot on film -- and yes, I'm aware of the risks). Just as you mention, we can apply different looks to material and have a completely different spot. Speaking of Stalingrad, the Russian filmmakers worked this way back quite a bit in the past. Lev Kuleshov is notable for one of these experiments. There was a shortage of film, so they would engage in drafting experiments to develop new stories from old material.

For example, I have quite a collection of custom lens flares that can be overlaid, or blended if necessary -- from subtle to J.J. Abrams flare insanity is covered. No need to buy them when you can just make your own.

So, I am in TOTAL agreement with you, and I like what you are suggesting about indie filmmakers cooperating with one another. I had an idea for a system such as this back in 1999, and formed a corporation to do EXACTLY what you are suggesting. I was a little ahead of my time though.

The stagnant domain is www.indieHollywood.com.

I knew this day was coming...that's why this camera system means so much to me.

I had no idea the extent to which this was happening... would be great if there was a clearinghouse, like a stock footage repository, to catalog and identify who has such and such footage. I can see why your plan was ahead of its time because the RED cameras hadn't been invented yet.

I completely agree that the entire RED system is the key to doing this effortlessly. Like you and probably many others, I can't bring myself to delete footage. For instance, they set up and oil derrick just over a quarter of a mile from me. I turned on an Epic with a Nikkor 28-300 G lens pointed at the location and an HDMI connected monitor so I could check what was going on from time to time from where I was working on my computer. When it looked as though they were doing something significant, I would punch the Redmote and let the camera run for a time.

Usually they set up one of these rigs in the course of half a day, but for some reason this one took three days. So I've got about 1 TB of footage that I probably will never use, but since I will likely never have an opportunity to document the process so leisurely ever again, I shot the event with no expectation of ever using it. (Just one "what are the odds" note, I was especially hoping to get footage of them raising the derrick, but as fate would have it, two of my brothers came by and we went into town to have our weekly lunch together. I couldn't have been gone more than an hour but by the time I returned, the derrick was upright and a few hours later they were making hole. '-)

I suspect that there are many camera owners out there who look for an excuse to shoot something and probably have a lot of footage of interesting things. And instead of someone making a movie from old footage like the Russians you mentioned, because they were short of film... I suspect someone will do that now because there is an abundance of RAW data.

As Bill Anderson suggested, sharing footage could be a big deal among Indies.

 

[Eryc Tramonn]

I had no idea the extent to which this was happening... would be great if there was a clearinghouse, like a stock footage repository, to catalog and identify who has such and such footage. I can see why your plan was ahead of its time because the RED cameras hadn't been invented yet.

I completely agree that the entire RED system is the key to doing this effortlessly. Like you and probably many others, I can't bring myself to delete footage. For instance, they set up and oil derrick just over a quarter of a mile from me. I turned on an Epic with a Nikkor 28-300 G lens pointed at the location and an HDMI connected monitor so I could check what was going on from time to time from where I was working on my computer. When it looked as though they were doing something significant, I would punch the Redmote and let the camera run for a time.

Usually they set up one of these rigs in the course of half a day, but for some reason this one took three days. So I've got about 1 TB of footage that I probably will never use, but since I will likely never have an opportunity to document the process so leisurely ever again, I shot the event with no expectation of ever using it. (Just one "what are the odds" note, I was especially hoping to get footage of them raising the derrick, but as fate would have it, two of my brothers came by and we went into town to have our weekly lunch together. I couldn't have been gone more than an hour but by the time I returned, the derrick was upright and a few hours later they were making hole. '-)

I suspect that there are many camera owners out there who look for an excuse to shoot something and probably have a lot of footage of interesting things. And instead of someone making a movie from old footage like the Russians you mentioned, because they were short of film... I suspect someone will do that now because there is an abundance of RAW data.

As Bill Anderson suggested, sharing footage could be a big deal among Indies.

Whoops, sorry Bill. I attributed something you wrote to Elsie.

In either case though, yes, I feel this kind of cooperative could be a huge boon to indies if managed correctly. Statistically speaking, there are far more "independent" productions in a given year than studio offerings. If indies were to "organize" themselves in some manner, that represents a lot of power from a content standpoint, as well as purchasing. To a degree, group buys organized here on REDuser have proven the effectiveness of leveraging numbers for purchase.

Beyond a potential collective, a sort of DRM-solution for sharing content could be of huge use to indies. One of the biggest hurdles might be supplying a legal, turnkey solution to filmmakers which ensured they would be compensated for their footage when possible. Basically, the system would need to act as a tracking service, while also serving as a sort of contract-generator for protecting IP and attribution. In essence, it would need to perform a similar function to what ODEMAX outlined for their compensation structure.

Elsie, if you have shot a lot of material like the oil rig you mention, you might want to look into posting your footage on stock footage sites. Footage can yield dividends in a number of ways these days, and you never know when someone may be searching for just that shot.

As for my idea being ahead of its time, I think it has only become more relevant now that high-end cameras are more widespread and everyone is streaming video. Ultimately though, the people/crew members are the real commodity. That has always been the case. I love cameras and gear as much as the next person, but we can only get so much done by ourselves. We have to work in teams, and currently I have not seen a resource online that does all I would like it to. Money gets things done though, so you either have it or develop the ability to do it yourself. As a matter of fact, the EPIC is a perfect example...many filmmakers had an idea of what we wanted a camera to be capable of, but only one of us had the capability, finances and most importantly -- the guts to actually make it a reality.

Cheers, sir.

E