BELLADONNA Episode no 1. FIlm secrets!

LAUNCHING!!! Yes.... here we go!!
Episode 1. CAN YOU HEAR THE KISS?

BELLADONNA the creative process

I couldn't resist this..inspirational.. for all. Please watch it
ANNIKA

Filmmakers Independents Independence

Change is a constant in life, but the rate of change sure is variable. In the last year changes seem to have reached a crescendo. Climate, Economic, Political, Technological and Social changes seem to be interacting in a kind of maelstrom. With no time to fully integrate new things into any system, a new kind of constant adaptability becomes the way situations are addressed and solved. Todays solution is only valid for today, tomorrow the context will be different.
One of the victims of this is the illusion of certainty.
The challenge for the independent filmmaker in extracting every drop of value from a budget is to make use of this changing landscape. Digital image / sound capture and post production are one of the most obvious areas for increased accessibility and cost saving. The path previously to a high quality image included film, processing, one light prints for editing, etc etc, all of which had high unit costs and specific hardware and arcane skills that were the domain of specialists. Digital democratisation means the computer you write the script on can in a pinch , be your edit station and post house. Relatively affordable cameras like the Red one with slr lenses are one of the main missing pieces in this puzzle.
It is finally feasible for an independent filmmaker to own all the machinery of production (Sounds like the beginning of a Marxist analysis), not just to make a film but a seamlessly high quality one. Owning the the tools doesn't make you an instant expert , but allows unbelievable flexibility in choosing options and a kind of unstoppable ability, with a small team, to get a project finished.
This is a new kind of immersive full contact filmmaking, its not perfect for every project but makes new kinds of projects possible. The upside is control and the ability to experiment and tweak, the downside is constant education and long long hours. ( incidentally not really downsides if you love what your doing, which is the only reason I can imagine for being a filmmaker.)
So its a kind of revolution, a revolution of possibilities in a world of uncertainties. In a world of change there are no shortage of interesting and relevant stories. And then there is the internet and the possible future of independent online distribution.
Bring it on.
Get to it.

BELLADONNA how does it all happen?

Hi All Happy 2009!!

How amazing that it is already February, here in BELLADONNA land its go go go, and we have some really wonderful stories lined up. Over the last few months I've received many e-mail about the whole 'creative process' how do you do it?... what are the practical steps but also starting to talk about the 'magic' of creativity. How a thought can become manifest... I 'm really passionate about this because it extends to everything we create from our a cake to a film to your life. Also filmmakers WATCH OUT FOR THE ORANGE TEXT this is directly to do with information about the technical do's and don't (well from my perspective) and GREEN as Marcus Blogs about his experience with the RED CAMERA. Also we have made some wonderful creative friends along the way which I want to introduce to you, they are wild, collaborative and fabulous in their intent and how it is expressed in the world. First thing is first few of you have asked about the rehearsal process.. . here is a list of why I think its vitally important to rehearse.

1.Actors , no matter how famous ,are humans who have particular ways of working... some love to rehearse and block the action for hours and some don't. The rehearsal process is a time where you get to know how bring out the best qualities forward.
2. ON SET everything is very much heightened.. time of precious.. everything must go to a schedule.. everyone is standing by... it is rarely a time where things can be explored and beautiful moments found.. if an actor doesn't feel safe you'll see it and feel it.
3. This I think is a key one... some actors get better with every take... while others get it on the first or second take and then start to feel frustrated.The rehearsal period is the time to find that out, and find a way to work around it.
4. Personally I think one of the most wonderful ways to work with is to paraphrase. It means that they use their own words instead of the scripted words... that way it becomes very clear for both actor and director when the intention of the scene is really understood. Questions such as: how can we make this clearer.? does it need to be re written? or understood in a wider context.?
5. I like to work with physical exercises at the beginning to get the body moving. Yoga.. voice.. breathing... relaxation...
6. Finally, rehearsal is a time where you can discover, play, make mistakes.. and build trust.. which is essential...because once you 're on set... surrounded by people expecting you to "GET IT' make up artist powdering.. sound people pealing back the layers of your clothing to attach the mics , lights and extras, it is tricky to find your centre the bubble of trust that allows the magic to happen.
7. If as a Producer or Director you're not convinced or sure just put yourself in the actors shoes...and then remind yourself that the film relies on the actors ability to convey the character authentically...and that authenticity I think can only blossom when there is respect flowing both ways. Take the time.

BELLADONNA more then just a Movie

Dearest All

The trailer for BELLADONNA is almost ready hooray!!! it has been somewhat tricky (as I have mentioned before) Marcus is colour grading it and and is doing a fabulous job! As I have been reflecting on the last 2 years I came across this lecture which I wanted to share with you(below) because it dares to ask a really interesting question. What would you give your last lecture on?( I know 'tiss a season to be jolly' but stay with me) because I think ultimately refining the really important impulses in our lives is what brings focus joy and purpose. So I asked myself Annika what would your last lecture be about? It would be about the utter goodness of humans, courage,and the personal and social contract that we all are a part of.
The Making of BELLADONNA really was an experiment, in what humans can do together. The film is shot on a modest budget and alot of what you'll see on the screen is literally given in form of creativity, knowledge, time, effort and skills. So much intensely hard work went into this project and it was a collective effort. A truly collective effort filled with goodness. Yes at the end of the day we have a beautiful film but what an honour having experienced it first hand.

BELLADONNA what's in a name?

Greetings friends!!

People often ask me about the name BELLADONNA why? what does it mean where did it come from? Well once upon a time in a land far far away..(or at least 2 years ago) I was refining thescreenplay in which the 16th Century lead character Jadwiga,is a herbalist, and back then it wasn't so easy to be one as they were considered to be witches. So I researched the commonly used herbs back in the 16th Century and here are just a few:
Butterfly weed, Lady’s Mantle, St. John's Wort, Foxglove, Belladonna, Dwarf Iris
Evening Primrose and many more....
Can you imagine a film called "Dwarf Iris"? or Lady's Mantle? or St. John's Wort? (that could be a nice dark sort of children's fairytale about St John)so I did come to the conclusion that BELLADONNA was pretty good... Lily of the Valley was the second favourite.

In the past, it was believed that witches used a mixture of belladonna, opium poppy, and other plants, typically poisonous (such as monkshood and poison hemlock) in flying ointment they applied to help them fly to gatherings with other witches... Ohh dear imagination and all that fear.. and all those women who were drowned and burnt because of their relationships with nature.

The common name BELLADONNA originates from its historic use by women - Bella Donna is Italian for beautiful lady. Drops prepared from the belladonna plant were used to dilate women's pupils, an effect considered attractive, but also incredibly dangerous as the dose between beauty and death was unknown.

Belladonna is one of the most toxic plants found in the Western hemisphere. All parts of the plant contain tropane alkaloids. When we arrived in Poland in April to shoot the 16th Century part we wanted to find the actual plant with flowers as it is fareasier easier to use the real instead of making each flower individually. We missed the flowering season my 6 weeks, and had to make each individual flower by hand. The Production Designer and the Art department made them out of rose petals..(as they had to be eatable) hand painting every flower with purple food dye.
Have a look some of the photos below.


Annika

P.S Belladonna the movie is now on FACEBOOK, and if you are a fan here please join us there we are new and would love some company.

Katia Mazurek who plays Jadwiga was incredibly wonderful this day.. as most of the day she had to sit in the cold ditch eating the flowers..this shot was particularly tricky as it involved a descending camera, snow and perfect timing of all action.

BELLADONNA bee hive

Greetings friends!!

You may be asking what's happening now at the Belladonna Beehive?
Well lots and lots..

1. We are in the middle of cutting the trailer
2. Editing our webisodes for UTUBE
3. Planning the Strategies for World Release
4. Creating a campaign the AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE.
And doing lots of reading and listening to Podcasts about film distribution. From people who work for the Hollywood Studios to Sales Agents, distributors and film makers... so so interesting!!
5 And much much more which will all be revealed very soon.

Have a look at this add... I think it's great...somehow appropriate for any venture that requires everything.

Cherio Annika

The world has changed

Greetings again so soon!!

I found a great link which I wanted to share with you, because I believe things have shifted towards a better world, more conscious kind and wise. Truly wonderful and deeply miraculous!!

HOW TO BE A BELLADONNA SPY

Greetings friends!! As promised part 3 to sound design. A most of you know this is our first feature film and never before having followed the process to the end of post production many of the steps literally brand new. I think perhaps the "sound boys' very a little surprised when they realised that we did not in fact have a post production sound supervisor, and they'd have to deal director and cinematographer. Luckily Marcus had the technical know how and in our down time would teach me the finer points and " boys tech talk" . FUNNY LIFE FUNNY MOMENTS DURING SOUND POST PRODUCTION.
1. Our first meeting with the Sound designer..."What sort of sound would you like there" Annika answers "For it to sound like the subconscious" (there was a good reason for it as Luke gets hypnotised) a blank look ... ohh subconsicous ......then off we went to deep discussion about film that just get made for the film festivals versus films that are made for people!! (more on that later).
2. One sunny afternoon Annika discovers a strange lump on her behind.... what could it be? A TICK... yes a tick not just any but a special stream of Polish tick....which meant I had to get tested in Poland... see if limes disease was on the cards... and then another 3 weeks to get the results (all clear!!) just another test... as I have a paralytic fear of blood tests!!
3. Sound mixing is a pretty intense expensive step in the process. During that particular period we worked from 6pm to midnight.... no buses after midnight..."what about taxis I hear you say" not so easy... because a taxi is not a taxi is not a taxi... and how many ways can one get shafted? well many really.. so a few times Marcus and I resorted to walking home in the middle of the night or catching the really really bad bus... the broken people with broken dreams bus... avec police!!
4. Then the trip home... we knew the owner of the apartment where we had been living had the keys....and knew that she had been visiting the apartment when we were at work. So Marcus drew on his best tricks form HOW TO BE A SPY book and we would insert clear pieces of plastic in the front door to see if we had visitors. This might sound rather paranoid but at this stage, almost at the end of the 3 months we had 16 500 gig drives with the complete film, all the files. music, camera, equipment, computers...our whole 18 months of work.

BELLADONNA NEWS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

Ohh yes some what embarrassing!!! How long has it been? where is part 3 you may ask?

Well we have been literally around the world in the last month. We had a wonderful screening of BELLADONNA in Krakow which is a stunning city where 18th Century architecture and 21st Century life meet with total grace, I don't mean to sound like a travel agent but it's so worth visiting.
So much has happened that hard to know where to start.
Firstly it was really amazing to sit amongst an audience watching the movie. Previously we had 6 test screenings of the film but somehow this was different. It is a fine line between absolute ecstasy and total pain. I read somewhere when G. Lucas first screened Star Wars he was so nervous that he spent his time in the bathroom vomiting. It really is a heightened experience. All that time effort and great among of work converge into this moment. After the screening we had a question and answer session which was great then a couple of TV interviews one for Canal + a french TV station and the other for a Polish TV station. There was lots of wonderful conversations with friends, family, industry people and the Polish actors.
After Krakow we travelled to Warsaw where we orgenised a photo shoot with Kasia Mazurek for the poster.
During ourprevious post production time in Warsaw we took some photos which have a lovely 'light feel' as an alternative we decided to take thesame sort of photo, this time in Autumn.
The image is only half the poster as we plan to shoot the other half in Australia soon. I'll post the photos soon.

and yes part 3 is coming up!!
Cherio

AnnikaMalgosia Corvalan Belladonna's Polish Producer with actor Pawel Smagala (who plays Pawel in Belladonna) and actress/director Lauma

My interview for canal +

above:
Marcus doing an interview
below:
Annika Marcus Di and Lucille in Krakow

Can you hear me? Belladonna calling

Greetings! Part 2 Sound

I recently read an article by Walter Murch a wonderfully talented film and sound Editor, I think of him as a poet able to group ideas feelings into succinct lines of thoughts. He talked about the mind set of the director when on set,who has to live in 3 different spaces, the past the present and the future. You really realise how true that is when you're in post production.
The PAST: Any creative, financial, practical decision you make has a profound effect on the way the shooting of the film goes and beyond that, what ramification it will have in the editing process and post production. What seems like a short cut often comes and bites you later!!!

THE PRESENT: When your're on set you have to be present with the actors and crew to feel what they need on that day, that hour and how best to help them.
THE FUTURE: ANY DECISION that's made, is made pretty much made forever. Unless there is a budget for re shoots and major pick up's it is pretty much it. So as we were sitting on the sound stage working with Kacper and Marcin all the decisions that you wish were made differently you see or hear over and over again. You see the shirt that you wish you could change, or the shot you wished you could have improved, the dynamics, colour on and on..on!! But at the end of the day, art, whether its film, theatre or architecture evolves, it would be easy to fall under the spell of perfectionism rather then learning and engaging those lessons in the next project. and the one after. One of the major learning curves with sound was that when we were shooting the Polish Part of the film because of the remote location and other colourful reasons we were not able to watch the rushes or hear the sound. Can you imagine our surprise, horror when we review the footage and realised that some of the scenes had almost no sound!! (This is I think every directors/Producers nightmare) So thank God that we could do ADR with Daryl who plays Jan here in Australia and Kasia and Pawel when we arrived in Poland. Part 3 coming up!!!


Below is what happens when the people in the Kindgom go a bit MAD!!

Annika talks with Kasia ( this is a beautiful scene in the film)

Belladonna's fabulous sound design

Part One:

The moment we finished colour grading the picture we moved straight onto sound. Over the years I have heard people talk about the tendency of producers and filmmakers in general to lean their budget towards the picture, the look, the feel the executing and let the sound somehow “take care of itself” I must admit that I made this mistake with one of my short films and vowed never to repeat it. So Malgosia Corvalan (Co -producer) and I went with a company called Dream sound in Warsaw, their quote was much higher then many of the other ones but as it turned out absolutely worth every penny. I never expected to learn from this process as much as I did. Not only the really technical aspects about sound but also about collaboration. I think the most important aspects about art or any collaboration is as I call it ’ The care factor’. You can’t make somebody care, and I think in fact you can’t pay somebody to care. Caring for a project is to make a personal investment in it to take pride in your work and try to really achieve the best result. and that is definitely what happened with Tomek, Marcin, and Kacper. Caring also translates into moment by moment decisions. Its like building a house of cards each move depends of the previous one, that every decision is the ground work for the next. If you make 'poor cutting corner choices' that will eventually influence the whole process. (I digress).
Having invested really an enormous amount of everything in Belladonna it was such a relief to know that the sound was in great hands, from the recording of few of the key music tracks, to the music mix, to sound mixing, and foley. I knew this was going to be the case from the moment we arrived and meet the boys at WFDIF a Warsaw version of Hollywood. They were working on foley and wanted us to approve their sounds. At this stage we had just finished editing the film and the idea of watching the film in detail AGAIN was almost overwhelming, kind of like torture, I had to get over myself pretty quickly. (We have shot some footage for behind the scenes for the making of Belladonna, it is really funny a little like the world of Being John Malkovich)

Let there be Colour

So we started colour grading! Wow the film is re born for my eyes again. Having spent so much time looking at the film over and over the colour grade is making the film look new for a moment. It is stating the obvious, but colour determines the way you feel...and in a way asking exactly the same sort of questions as when we first startedproject. 'what is this scene about, what is the intention, the mood.' After hours of staring at the screen you cease to see the actual picture. ( is a bit like life) you loose perspective, and no longer can say if something really does look too yellow or too green.There is a word for it being 'metamesmorised.' I guess you can be metamesmorised by too much information, by living in thesame city for your whole life and no longer really being able to 'see it' So our colour grading answer is to look at white walls or to go outside to reset the eye, or more precisely the brain.
Here is a little bit of really interesting information about colour perception.

' The objects that we see usually reflect/emit a very wide spectrum of light, with different frequencies emitting at different intensities. Essentially, our take on the colour of the object is done with a three-point sample. We miss a lot of the complexity of the true “colour”.
What this means, is that you can have two objects that reflect wildly different spectra, that will, none the less, appear as exactly the same colour to us because of the sampling errors of our eyes. This is called metamerism. It’s only really a factor when you create a representation of that colour - for example, a painting, a photo, or an image on a screen. To us, it looks like a good representation of the original object, but in fact, it’s lousy - it would look ridiculously wrong to someone who had, say, four or five colour receptors in their eyes (even if their colour sensors didn’t extend into UV or IR) instead of the three we have.'

So as we spend days sitting in the dark, yesterday Marcus made a funny comment and said it was like being in a casino. You sit in a dark room, with no perception of time spending large amounts of money. The unfortunate effect is that I want to colour grade my dreams, maybe lift the highlights, make the sky a little bluer, make a vigniette around the face. Likely we are working great people at PAY a post production company in Poland and a fabulous colour grader who drives the Quantel and machine with ease and great skill. See photos below.
Annika

What time(code) is it ?

Long time no Blog . No sleep till Warsaw.
Well the last month in Australia before we relocated to Poland for Post production was mad.Mountains of things to render and a fixed departure date.
It's always interesting how the ramifications of simple descisions ripple through something as complex as digital post. In this case its all about shooting at 25 fps instead of the regular 24 fps.
Since we have shot in two Pal countries where digital post is really easy in 25 frames per second we have had a really straightforward time editing , synching etc the offline edit. The path for the HDACM footage we shot in Poland has been simple. The problem we ran into has been with the footage from the red camera. The RED one produces files in a raw format that you then process using RED supplied software, in our case REDCINE into files that can be colourgraded. Well since everything with RED is still in development the current REDCINE software has a small bug in it that makes it uncertain if it is writing the correct 25 fps timecode into the DPX files. (DPX files are 10 bit ,to allow maximum use of the red footages amazing grading latitude ie you can do some pretty extreme colour corrections and it still holds up without banding.)
So without the certainly that each frame of the film has the right timecode embedded in it , it is pretty scary to relocate the 8 500 gig hard drives of files to Poland to Conform ( reassemble digitally the hi res version of the film ) not knowing if the offline edit will match the assembled hi res online.This was a problem that had to be solved
This is where the excitement of bleeding edge post production occurs. Using the REDUSER.net resource we found two pieces of software that solved the problem. These are CRIMSON workflow and GLUETOOLS . These two programs are developed by what appears to be one man shows. Both solve problems beautifully and are at the moment indispensible. Both also are in development continuously. The of the guys behind these solutions offer a level of support that I have never seen before, I was just emailing them sometimes daily with questions and they patiently responded, night day , weekends. Updates arrive as they write them. great stuff. Our film is only ,say 4 months behind the first features shot on RED so its pretty exciting ( sometimes puzzling/stressful ) to be working in a complex emerging workflow situation that you have to get right.
Any way the timecode is now right and later this week we do the conform at PAY studios in Warsaw on their Quantel Pablo. Then 2 weeks of colour grading , one of my favourite parts of the whole film making process.

BACK IN POLAND FOR BELLADONNA POST

Here we are again a year later back in Warsaw, Poland this time for post production. So far it has been a heddy mix of jet lag miracles and lots of cigarette smoke.
Our apartment is close to the centre of Warsaw and judging by the furniture and the general personal touches must belong to a middle aged lady, layers soft toys on tops of cupboards (maybe she has a grandaughter) probably by this stage you're wondering why I'm mentioning these details. You see as we ran out of time in Australia and didn't finish mixing the music tracks we needed to buy a keyboard with a midi input to make it work (not really a standard piece of equipment) As we begin to unpack Marcus opens one of the cupboards and there stands a 4 octive keyboard a MIRACLE!!! How, why does this woman have this particular keyboard?
Traveling with terrabites of information stacked on an enormous amount of drives was certainly interesting, and ultimately successful, as the drives have been tested and are all OK. It's a scary process as our whole project lives as information, its not like a physical print you literally carry and feel like your last 2 years can be attached to something tangible, with the RED camera its just data, information in boxes. We transported the drives (as they are very sensitive to bumping and static) as hand luggage. Our first obstacle at Melbourne airport. Our carry on suitcase was weighed almost at immigration and was over the limit, so the kind chaps told us to just remove the drives, camera, computer, from the bag and carry them in our shoulder bags. It seemed odd but it worked. Phwee!!! We decided to wrap the drives in bubble wrap and ribbon, pink to be exact, which proved to be a very handy trick as the luggage inspectors thought we were carrying layers of cake, and it seems that all you have to say is "its a Movie please be careful". So far we have had a couple of meeting with the Sound designer and the Colour Grading Company and are about to do few test prints from the Quantal to 35 mm film. Photos are coming up. Annika