Celebrity: Jessica's Boobs caused Injury to her Buddy

Who would have thought that Jessica's huge boobs would be the reason for her stylist buddy Ken Paves getting injured by the Paparazzi camera?

Hair stylist Ken Paves is accidentally hit in the face with a camera and he ended up in the hospital.Ken was helping Jess out of the restaurant, when the sea of snappers crowded -- and in the insanity, one guy hit Ken near his eye with a part of a camera.With blood dripping down his face, Ken still managed to get Jess inside their waiting ride. Their driver then whisked the group to a nearby hospital, where Jess aided her friend inside the building.

The sad part is Ken Paves is gay, so he couldn't care less that he just took a Canon to the eye for Chesty LaRue. Talk about a recipe for pity sex going right down the drain. It'd be like getting your hands on a winning lottery ticket, then tearing it up and saying "Nope, I love penis."

Celebrity: Jessica's Boobs caused Injury to her Buddy

Who would have thought that Jessica's huge boobs would be the reason for her stylist buddy Ken Paves getting injured by the Paparazzi camera?

Hair stylist Ken Paves is accidentally hit in the face with a camera and he ended up in the hospital.Ken was helping Jess out of the restaurant, when the sea of snappers crowded -- and in the insanity, one guy hit Ken near his eye with a part of a camera.With blood dripping down his face, Ken still managed to get Jess inside their waiting ride. Their driver then whisked the group to a nearby hospital, where Jess aided her friend inside the building.

The sad part is Ken Paves is gay, so he couldn't care less that he just took a Canon to the eye for Chesty LaRue. Talk about a recipe for pity sex going right down the drain. It'd be like getting your hands on a winning lottery ticket, then tearing it up and saying "Nope, I love penis."

Dreaming in Digital

(Part 3 of my "Horror 101" series, "Werewolves and Vampires and Zombies, Oh My!," has been reposted. Go, Speed, Go!)

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The future of filmmaking is digital. Anyone who says otherwise has A LOT of money sunk into film gear.

For the indy filmmaker, this is nothing but good news. Digital equipment is more readily available, less expensive, and requires less resources and personnel to use. The home video arena, the most likely avenue for independent film distribution, has already embraced films shot on digital video rather than film.

Yet even movie theaters are slowly but surely moving towards digital projection as more studio films are being shot on high-definition video rather than film. Both Episode II and III of the Star Wars prequel trilogy were shot on HD video, as was Sin City. Most recently, for 2006's Superman Returns, director Bryan Singer elected to shoot not on a traditional 35mm film camera, but Panavision's Genesis digital camera system (co-designed by Sony.)

I'm not a techno-geek. A lot of filmmakers get their rocks off talking about the gear, specifically the camera. They'll go on about aspect ratios, codecs, imaging chips, and a morass of jargon that honestly makes my head spin. To me, the camera is a creative tool, same as the lights, make-up, and sound gear. As director, I won't be directly working with these tools, but instead working with skilled technicians who will employ these tools to help me tell a story. And from my experience, most cinematographers, sound engineers, and editors like working with a non-technical director like me because I just tell them what I want, not how they should go about giving it to me.

Still, choosing the right tool is an important part of any job. An inferior tool can create an inferior final product. Though both Women's Studies Director of Photography, Aaron Shirley and I felt a cinematic 16mm or 35mm film "look" would benefit Women's Studies most, our budget dictated we shoot digitally. Per my directing style, I told him what I needed from a camera and left it to Aaron to decide which camera would best suit those needs. Fortunately, he knew there were a great deal of tools at our disposal.

And my needs were ridiculously simple. I asked for a camera whose footage would have film characteristics such as running at 24 frames-per-second (FPS), a 16x9 aspect ratio, and the ability to create a shallow depth-of-field. (In layman's terms, "shallow depth-of-field" allows a camera to focus crisply on one item in the frame while leaving other items out of focus.) I also wanted it to have the ability to adjust the exposure levels for different visual effects, and variable frame rates in case we wanted to shoot slow or fast motion.

Any bells and whistles were Aaron's call. After a long period of research and debate, much of it with himself, Aaron decided on the Panasonic HVX200 with a Redrock M2 35mm Adapter.



Like I said before, I'm not much of a techno-geek. However, I realize a lot of folks are interested in the tech specifics. So without further ado, I give you the high priest of the HD, Women's Studies DP Aaron Shirley:

"Even though I went to a video based film school, and I make a living in video production, I've always had an aversion to story telling in video. There are several aspects of film that just draws one into the story. Even though the average viewer can't quantify what it is about film, the brain sees the rhythmic 24 frames per second with no jaggy lines (24P), the accurate detail that can only be achieved by an imaging surface with higher resolution than what is being seen (1080), and the gradual rounding of shadows into black as well as the gradual rounding of highlights into white (Cinema Matrix), and the brain starts expecting a story.

"I did what I could with video on other people's projects, but when it came to my own, I've relied on film. But the price of using film is high, and not just monetarily. In the past ten years I've completed one music video, one short and two-thirds of a movie on film. Film is difficult to use, and very difficult to use inexpensively. And you can take how hard and expensive film is in production and multiply that by ten for post-production.

"When Panasonic came out with their 24P miniDV camera (DVX100) several years ago, I dismissed it without really giving it a chance. It was video, and so what if it's 24P, that's only a third of what makes film look like film. It wasn't until I went to a seminar on high-end post production that I finally saw some professionally shot footage from it. It was footage for a Christian Children's Fund commercial where they used a million dollar color correction machine (that was really made for digitally enhancing 35mm film), to make the village look drab and scary. Everyone in the audience (including myself) thought it was film footage even before any correction had been done to it. Almost at the end, someone asked what the footage had been shot with, and when the shooter said, 'the DVX100,' everyone gasped. It's Cinema Matrix was that good.

"Since then, I've shot a short with the DVX100, taught a class on how to use it, directed a short with the HVX200, and shot a full length concert with the HVX200. The High Definition (1080) is the icing on the cake that the HVX200 adds to what the DVX100 could do (as well as better rendering of colors and tones). I spent a lot of time trying out the other High Definition cameras in the indie film price range, and they were all very close, but none of them were perfect, and the HVX200's imperfections, I decided were the least problematic of them all.

"As for the 35mm adapter, 'selective focus' is a commonly used technique in film to guide the viewer's eyes to the important areas of the picture. Your eye tends to look at what is in focus and ignore what is not. It is seldom used in video because of optic constraints of the cameras (shooting from a long distance with several settings at their maximums is the only way even some video cameras can achieve it). I looked at a lot of footage shot with different adapters and I chose the Redrock M2 because it had the best clarity and engineering of all the adapters available in it's price range."

The D.L. on the D.P.

One of the most important members of the Women’s Studies production crew is the Director of Photography, Aaron Shirley. If co-producer Cindy Marie Martin is my right hand, then Aaron is the left one. Last week, thanks to the wonderful technology of the “interweb,” we had the following conversation. Hopefully, people will still take us seriously as filmmakers after reading it.

LONNIE:
So, what are you doing at this very moment?

AARON:
I'm halfway through mastering/QC-ing an eight hour government retirement video. I think I'm going to die.

LONNIE:
Sounds horrifying. Why submit yourself to that?

AARON:
Well, I love horror.

Also, I discovered way back in college that I was a masochist, so I majored in filmmaking. It's an expensive and devastating habit that I've functioned with for over fifteen years. I've thought about trying to make a living doing something else, but then my skills would get rusty. Filmmaking is kind of like a cross between martial arts and heroin. In this area, the two main types of paid filmmaking work you can get are "boring" and "annoying." That's where the masochism comes in. I chose "boring".

The third reason is the satisfaction of helping to teach over 200,000 postal employees how to manage their retirement, at least until the tax laws change again.

LONNIE:
What if the tax laws change before you finish the video?

AARON:
I'm actually laughing as I contemplate the ramifications. In the end, I guess the same thing would happen as it would any time the laws change: We start the whole six month process over again.

LONNIE:
So, Women's Studies (the film): Pro-Life Conspiracy or Anti-Woman Propaganda?

AARON:
All the internet buzz has me thinking it's a tasty mix of both.

LONNIE:
No. See, you're supposed to emphatically defend the film. "It's cinematic genius! A celebration of womankind! Better than Cats!"

AARON:
I think my retirement video will be better than Cats, so Women's Studies should be better than Cats hands down. (Jombie cat? What the heck does that even mean?) Not only do I hate Cats, but right now I hate cats too. When I got home last night, one of mine had gotten into my editing room and ransacked the place. The other five were just staring at me like they knew I was going to freak out. My stuff is everywhere! I can't even go in there. I never want to go in there again. Is this all really going up on the internet?

LONNIE:
Yes. What were you saying about Women’s Studies politics?

AARON:
What I meant to say before was that it plays on the right-wing's fears of what empowering women might lead to, but shows what the left-wing might secretly fantasize about.

LONNIE:
Name your three biggest creative influences, off the top of your head.

AARON:
Hmm, I'm going to divide this between filmmakers and non-filmmakers.

Non-filmmakers:
-Salvador Dali
-Kurt Vonnegut
-Skinny Puppy

Filmmakers:
-Stanley Kubrick
-David Lynch
-Roman Polanski

LONNIE:
Are there going to be melting clocks and a black monolith in Women's Studies?

AARON:
No, but I am happy to report there will be a mansion with a secret, evil cult that is infiltrated by an outsider.

LONNIE:
Are you talking about Eyes Wide Shut, Blue Velvet, or Rosemary's Baby? I guess Repulsion would work too, though there's no cult.

AARON:
The correct answers are: Women's Studies, Eyes Wide Shut, The Ninth Gate, and Mulholland Drive. Curiously, the other movies you mentioned use apartments, not mansions. That brings me to an interesting theory about Roman Polanski's films. Almost all of them either have apartments or a mansion. I think Oliver Twist is his first film to have both. I can only think of two of his films that didn't have either: Knife in the Water (small sailboat) and Death and the Maiden (country bungalow).

LONNIE:
You know, I was going to mention The Ninth Gate instead of Rosemary's Baby, but was ashamed to admit I actually sat through the whole movie.

AARON:
The Ninth Gate was a misunderstood masterpiece. I actually liked it better than The Pianist. (I’m not saying it was a better film, just more “Polanski-ish.”) As a side note, how's this for my film geek cred: I saw The Pianist opening night with $750 worth of Polish zlatys in my pocket. Pirates! was misunderstood too. Now, the most pure 'Polanski' film is The Tenant. It makes Repulsion look like a first year student film. Check it out if you haven't.

LONNIE:
You realize we're showing the world what huge movie geeks we are, right?

AARON:
I thought that was the point.

LONNIE
So, what you're saying is no one should be surprised when Women's Studies looks like a Polanski film?

AARON:
Polanski changes color and light drastically from film to film, but one of his signature “looks” is his use of pan and tilt (from a tripod) to emulate the movement of the human eye across a scene. I'm currently working on a small crane that will emulate the movement of a human walking around a scene. (Most cranes use arcing movement which is not how humans move.) At the same time, the operator still has full tripod-like pan and tilt at the end of the crane for the eye-like movement. Psychologically, the viewer should feel like they're standing/walking right there in the room.

LONNIE:
Speaking of lighting, can you talk briefly about a few of your ideas for Women's Studies?

AARON:
Glad you asked. I have a couple of ideas in mind, but my current favorite is a concept I've been developing for a year or so. I've been studying amateur digital portrait photography on personal profile web sites. There's a lot of bad stuff out there but when it's good, it's fascinating, because it's very original and makes personal images for each person.

LONNIE
A MySpace lighting design? Surely, you must be joking.

AARON:
I never joke, and don't call me "Surely.” (It's Shirley.)

LONNIE:
I knew I picked a bad week to stop sniffing glue.