Buy a brand new film and fund a brand new one?

[Nandan Rao]

I'm advertising/trying to get word out/looking for support/comments/thoughts/friends.

Basically, I'm promoting our kickstarter page where we are raising money for a new film. For a $15 donation we will give you a copy of BUMMER SUMMER, a film made in the summer of 2009 in the Pacific Northwest. We have so far played at Cinequest, BAFICI, and Brooklyn (where we won the spirit award). Variety called it "fresh, unpretentious filmmaking that turns its limited resources into a virtue" and Dazed and Confused said it was "an impressive debut...shot with a painterly eye." It's actually got some good reviews about the cinematography. Which is fun cuz it was one of the first films ever shot on a DSLR. You can learn more/see a trailer at our website here: http://www.bummersummermovie.com

I realize this isn't all that impressive or that good of a sales pitch, but we are both 23-year-old kids who just graduated from film school and had never made a feature before so it's all pretty exciting to us and honestly we really got a kick out of making this film and would love to be able to make another, but unfortunately we are still trying to figure out how to find a way to economically support our own filmmaking. Which is, I guess, why we are trying to get the word out and find individuals looking to support us making another film.

Which is what our Kickstarter page is about. We are trying to get to Argentina to shoot a new film called THE INTERNATIONAL SIGN FOR CHOKING. We are trying to raise $8,000 for plane tickets and lodging and food, and we are only a few hundred dollars short. Help?

I would really appreciate it if you took a look at our kickstarter page: http://kck.st/dkw3Up

If this all looks interesting we would love to talk to you about film in general, and if you have a blog or twitter or want to invite people to our facebook event (http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=14427051558798) we would be super-grateful and hyped! I realize everyone is trying to raise money for their own films and projects but I did want to try and communicate to people what we are doing and if you wanted to help get the word out that'd be great.

Thanks!!!

Nandan Rao
http://www.newhardentertainment.com

 

[Jean Iona]

It's black and white???? WTF? This is year 2010!
And don't give me the crap "it's for artistic reason"...Really....why is it black and white?

 

[Jay Gannon]

I love Kickstarter but I wish it would accept Paypal, I have junk cash in there that I would be happy to spend but don't wanna use my CC unfortunately.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

It's black and white???? WTF? This is year 2010!
And don't give me the crap "it's for artistic reason"...Really....why is it black and white?

I'm in post on a B&W short.

I just love how it looks.
If that's not a good reason, what is?

 

[Jay Gannon]

It's black and white???? WTF? This is year 2010!
And don't give me the crap "it's for artistic reason"...Really....why is it black and white?

Jean can I make a suggestion, you come across very aggressive in almost every post you make and don't seem very friendly or constructive, maybe take some time away and consider what your adding to the community by being on RedUser.

 

[Brian Petrie]

I'm in post on a B&W short.

I just love how it looks.
If that's not a good reason, what is?

What are you thinking?!?! Film making has no place for being artistic and you damn well better not be using creativity!!!:tongue_smilie:

 

[Pietro Impagliazzo]

Using B&W convincingly today is a hard thing. 'Tetro' looks good and even being from a very famous director I'm sure the audience is quite small.

But that's not a reason to give up, it's a reason to try harder.

 

[Jean Iona]

I don't like B&W... It's to much strain on the eye. After watching more than half an hour of B&W footage it gets really depressing...

 

[Tim Hole]

I love Black and White, I love playing with colour too. Just because something is black and white does not mean it is either, a flashback, memory or trying to be 'old'. Just because you have a blinkered view on cinema doesn't mean you have to lash out against something you don't appreciate.

One of THE best films last year was Black and White, it was called The White Ribbon. Sorry if some of us try to be artists as well as feeding the masses the fodder they yearn for.

I agree with Pietro it is difficult to make a convincing Black and White film nowadays...the only reason for this is the stigma attached. Maybe I am just too much of a cinema fanatic and watch a lot of films and a lot of the best films ever made...are Black and White. I'm happy to watch these films over and over again.

 

[Richard Foster]

In part you can thank you know who for that, who violated and colorized a lot of the classics. But Black and White is just another artistic choice, and it can work beautifully, just as super-saturated, reduced saturation, or any particular color or contrast or grain or tone is a choice, and can work excellently for the subject and story chosen.

 

[C. Jagan Mohan]

Let us not call B&W is an art form. Who ever is saying that, can I ask them how many B&W films they made? Way back, it was just a technological limitation. On those old sets every thing was in gray? NO. Does artists used gray paint on there faces? NO. It was color, everything was in color. Frankly speaking there is nothing called B&W in nature. So why a film should be in B&W? Can anybody explain?

 

[Jay Gannon]

Let us not call B&W is an art form. Who ever is saying that, can I ask them how many B&W films they made? Way back, it was just a technological limitation. On those old sets every thing was in gray? NO. Does artists used gray paint on there faces? NO. It was color, everything was in color. Frankly speaking there is nothing called B&W in nature. So why a film should be in B&W? Can anybody explain?

I shoot B&W photos for clients still, its an artistic medium that was born out of a technological restraint.
Its can cut through a subjects surroundings and make you concentrate more on the composition and the actual thing that the photographer is drawing attention to.
And remember not all animals see in color, many see in b&w so there is a case to be made that B&W does exist in nature.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

I love colors.
I love B&W.

Can't help it.

I even love film and super8. DV. Wow. What am I doing here???
Me & video-DSLRs haven't really become friendly yet, but we might go there.

You know - I basically love the palette, and to make choices from it...

And I was fed on B&W stuff as a kid, and really come to love the aestetics.

That's it! Blame my parents.

Or not,

Gee. In my former life I studied Jazz. Think of it. Jazz. And wrote music with ink and paper. AND did electroncal and contemporary stuff...

Gee.

Have some fun!

B&W can be fun. To some. To me at least. Thus...

For others... Well. Do whatever you think is fun.

Cheers!

 

[Eren Ozkural]

To be honest I can't believe that we're seriously discussing the merits of B&W photography on a forum like REDUSER.

It has it's place both in history and today. It's a perfectly valid artistic choice and to be honest I feel like I'd validate arguments against it just by justifying it's use. But I will because I'm passionate about it's use both in stills and motion.

B&W photography provides focus. Without the distraction of colours you're free to concentrate on utilising shapes, geometry and very subtle tones to tell your story.

It provides a certain mood. An atmosphere. It's evocative of different eras. This can be used straight up: set a film in the 1940's and by using B&W photography you can make your locations and sets belong in that period easier. It's a shortcut. Or you can go entirely the other way, make a very modern science fiction film with it. The photography will help lend it a timeless look.

Arguing that it used to be a technical limitation that shouldn't be adhered to anymore is like arguing that there's no place for concertos and symphonies performed by orchestras because we have electric guitars and pop music now.



Both are valid forms of art. Now lets stop hijacking this thread.

I wish you guys the best of luck. I'm 24 and am about to direct my first feature in early 2011. The fact that you've just graduated from film school, finished a feature and are about to embark on another is simply fantastic. While I can't contribute financially (unless there's a paypal option) right now, you have made a supporter and a friend out of me.

 

[Martin Weiss]

Frankly speaking there is nothing called B&W in nature.

Frankly speaking, what you refer to as color is just the human eyes' way of interpreting different light wavelengths. Now with animals, they interpret these wavelengths in totally different ways -

Cows see in purple as well as black and white. Horses see only in black and white. Pigs see neon colors, but not black and white. I know that cats see in full colour.

Bats see with their ears... And bees see a lot of infrared colors - rendering "boring" flowers into works of art (link).

I find it superfluous dissing other filmmakers for their choice of expressing themselves, of which going black and white was one of them. Would you say that just because we can shoot 3D now, everyone should? Should every film be shot at 24 fps 180 degrees shutter, because that is the norm? There was a time when there were two Oscars for cinematographers, one for color and one for black and white.


Anyway, wanted to congratulate the first poster on their adventure.

 

[Joel Kaye]

Does artists used gray paint on there faces? NO.

Ever heard of charcoal drawings? Pretty sure they still do 'em. Every day. Same with black and white photography.

Black and white eliminates color so we focus on form. It's very useful. Desaturated and contrasty is a very popular movie look. It feels more graphic and a lot of people like that.

 

[Stephen Matthews]

congrats to the OP and hope all works out.

now on to the off topic stuff...

Some of the best movies of all time are shot in B&W and I can't imagine them any other way... Seven samurai, Casablanca, citizen kane, the big heat, The Asphalt Jungle, the Maltese falcon, touch of evil, the killers, Rashomon, Stray dog, Ikiru (can you tell I like Kurosawa) and the list just goes on and on. I can't imagine not watching them just because they were not in color. I expect this attitude from most of my friends but not from filmmakers but I guess you learn something new every day.

 

[Michael McVicar]

We get most of our visual information in B+W. Think of the rods as the Gamma of your eyes. They are also where we get most of our motion information.

There are major functional differences between the rods and cones. Cones are adapted to detect colors, and function well in bright light; rods are more sensitive, but do not detect color well, being adapted for low light. In humans there are three different types of cone - responding respectively to short (blue), medium (green) and long (yellow-red) light. The human retina contains about 120 million rod cells and 6 million cone cells. The number and ratio of rods to cones varies among species, dependent on whether an animal is primarily diurnal or nocturnal. Certain owls have a tremendous number of rods in their retinas — the eyes of the tawny owl are approximately 100 times more sensitive at night than those of humans

Artists are classically taught charcoal drawing and monocolor painting first. Then they can see value without being distracted by color.

Good luck with your project. Remember a B+W film, Schindlers List, made $321,200,000 and a Best Picture Oscar. Not too shabby. I hope yours does at least as well.​

 

[Subhadip Sen]

What is curious is that back in the 1940s and 1950s, it was colour that was being perceived as a gimmick. Perhaps like 3D today? Colour has been around since the 1930s, but several master filmmakers stuck to black and white till the late-1960s and early-1970s. I am talking of the likes of Antonioni, Fellini, Welles, Kubrick, Tarkovsky, Bergman, Kurosawa, and many more. At the same time, likes of Hitchcock, Powell/Pressburger embraced colour early on. It was not due to "technology limitations". In fact, Kubrick went back to B&W for Strangelove and Lolita after Spartacus in colour. Would I want to see Dr. Strangelove in colour?

Even today, it is a very valid aesthetic device. Though I do state my preference for colour, some films just work much better in B&W. At the same time, it could be misused as well, just like any other artistic choice. Jean Isidore-Isou's film Venom and Eternity makes good points as to why beautiful cinema can be made out of scratched negatives. It can. The possibilities are endless. To dismiss cinema on something as elementary as Colour/B&W seems extremely negative. But sadly, it seems some people just want more and more formulaic films fitting into a very, very specific definition of what is "good" and "bad".

 

[Jeetu Chawla]

:jacked:

If we can't encourage him & his team, then let's stay out of his thread/post!

Thank you!