The Hardest Parts About Filming Birds

As you may have read from earlier posts by Joe and I in this blog, using birds in your movie can be extremely beneficial. This may seem all well and good, but big problems may arise once you have committed to a movie about birds and realize the many problems with filming them. Although there are many complications when it comes to capturing birds on film, I will detail the three biggest problems that I have personally had while filming birds in my film.

1. They fly away

Birds have wings that allow them to fly, and that makes them some of the most elusive creatures on the planet. Being able to easily escape from situations is evolutionarily advantageous, but it is not a good trait when it comes to filming.

2. They are high up

My whole life, I've been used to filming people who live on the ground and I've taken it for granted. It wasn't until I had to film birds that lived really high up in trees that I appreciated how easy it is to film human counterparts. In order to film a bird successfully you either have to tilt your camera up really high or get really high up in a tree to film horizontally like you're used to.

3. They don't speak English

Unlike dogs who listen to you and know what you're saying, birds just fly away when you try to tell them what to do. This one kind of ties back into #1 because usually when you try to talk to a bird to calm them down they fly away. Not only do they not speak English, they don't speak any language except for bird calls.

How many F**ks Do You Give?

Profanity seems to be increasingly more acceptable in the media as time goes on. The question is, does this help or hurt the final product? South Park released an episode in its fifth season that literally had a "shit-couter" that went up every time the uncensored word 'shit' was used. In total, there were 162 spoken shits, and 38 written shits, making an even 200 occurrences throughout the half hour time slot. This became one of the top ten South Park episodes that changed the world, according to a 2006 exclusive documentary. This pushed the boundaries of uncensored profanity in television, and set a new standard for producers in comedy. Now, in movies, 'shit' is a common word in any movie from PG-13 and up. 'Fuck,' however, is the more controversial word. According to a chart I found on Wikipedia, there is one movie that uses the word 824 times in its 93 minutes. This, however is a documentary about the word itself, so I don't think it should count. Second on the list, though, is a movie called Gutterballs, that uses it 625 times. Now, this is not a widely popular movie, however, if you continue down the list, you'll find some very well-known, and in some cases, award-winning movies.

For example:
Casino (398)
Goodfellas (300)
Jarhead (278)
Reservoir Dogs (269)
Pulp Fiction (265)
The Big Lebowski (260)
Boondock Saints (239)
The Departed (237)
American History X (214)
Scarface (207)
8 Mile (200)
and even Good Will Hunting (154)

The rest can be seen here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_that_most_frequently_use_the_word_%22fuck%22

As you can see, these are some very famous and successful movies that gave a lot of fucks (mostly gangster movies). But, in contrast to this, I skipped over quite a few movies that were far less successful, and that you've probably never even heard of. So, the moral of the story is that if you're going to fuck a movie, make sure you fuck it well. Back to my question - how many fucks do you give?

On Set Lingo

Do you need your "juicer" to bring some more "C47s"? Did your "crafty" leave a "Gary Coleman" in the shot? Will you know what to get when your supervisor asks for a "stinger"? The world of film has its own set of traditions, practices, and of course, language. Crews have created their own shorthand for everything from positions to clothespins. And if you're going to be successful in the film world, it would be best to become familiar with the language as well.
Here's a few words to know before heading on a professional set:

• C47 – a clothespinCrafty – craft services area and/or person
• Day Player – a crew member hired for only one day or a handful of days worth of work
• Furnie Blanket – a furniture blanket or sound blanket
• Gary Coleman – a small C-stand
• Hot Points – yelled when carrying something with the potential to hit somebody like dolly track or a C-stand. Usually said when going through a narrow hallway, doorway or around a corner
• Juicer – an electrician
• Last Looks – phrase to call in hair/make-up to give a final touch-up to actors before a scene is filmed
• Magic Hour – the time right before sunrise/after sunset in which the sky is somewhat dark but still illuminated. Often lasts only 20 minutes despite its name
• Martini – the last shot of the dayPicture’s Up – phrase to alert all on set that cameras are almost set to start rolling
• Scripty – the script supervisor
• Sides – a half-sized script that contains only the scenes being shot that day
• Sparks – an electrician; see “juicer”
• Stinger – an extension cord
• Video Village – the area in which viewing monitors are placed for the director and other production personnel. Referred to by this name because of the propensity to fill with people, chairs, and overall “too many cooks in the kitchen”

This is only just the iceberg of the filmmaker's language. It takes practice to become fluent, but just like real languages, it comes with many different dialects. Each crew will have their own, special code that develops organically throughout production. Knowing what to say and what's being said will go a long way to being taken seriously on set, and moving up the ranks, from Scripty to Director.

Mono

I have been progressively more vocal about Second Life's scripting language inadequacies. While the syntax is simple enough it lacks the ability to be versatile, it in my opinion doesn't measure up to the creative people doing projects and programming in Second Life.

While I am sure the LSL is "Turing Complete" it is slow and lacks a lot of feature available in languages such as python, java, ruby..etc. Moreover, LSL lacks the libraries and the huge communities developing those libraries and other applications. However this is about to change. Linden Lab has started moving to Mono a C# like language. This move could very much be the deciding factor for the future of Second Life and Linden Labs.

Less important in my opinion is the fact that mono scripts run 220 times faster than their LSL2 counterpart. Yet a welcomed addition

Mono, will allow developers to program more flawlessly, focusing on content rather than spending time struggling with LSL.