Stefan Sargent

Queen Cristina hath writ:

The new Digital Video is organized into three primary sections: Look, Lust and Learn. The “Learn” section is purely instructional…

So I’m in LEARN.

…how to use your gear, terms and trends you need to know, and how to incorporate new skills into your workflow

That sounds like me. But wait, there’s no LEARN in my top banner. Nothing!

“We can’t put LEARN on Stefan’s page. I mean, there’s nothing there to learn.”

“Perhaps, they can learn from his screw-ups.” General laughter.

Time to fight back – yes, you can learn from Stefan’s page. Here goes:

LEARN: HOW TO GET THE JOB AND SAY “TRUST ME”

The Angel Island ferry

Dee is a friend from way back. I’ve made a couple of Web sites for her, never a video. Now she wants a TV spot. “Just show the island, the café, the Segways, the bike hire shop, the views, the tram ride, the beaches, the ferry ride, the weekend band on Sunday, some dancing – make it fun. Can you do it?”

“Sure. Trust me.”

With a ton of suggested visuals, the thing I’m really missing is words and music.

LEARN: HOW TO GET A FINISHED PROFESSIONAL SOUNDTRACK

Betsy Holm – singer/songwriter

I’m in Vegas; it’s a dinner. I’ve pre-paid $40. I’d better go; try to enjoy myself. “Hi Philip. Hi Dan.” There’s a girl playing the guitar and singing. “Now it’s time for our first raffle.” Raffle over, she sings another song. She’s good. While the next raffle is underway, I attack…

“Hi, I’m making a commercial for Angel Island in the SF Bay. Could you do a 30 second jingle for me?” We exchange cards.

Her name is Betsy Holm. She not only sings, she writes the lyrics. “Spend the day in a wonderful way, we’re heading over to Angel Island.” Wow!

LEARN: HOW TO GET THAT SPECIAL, IMPOSSIBLE SHOT

Find a student to do the animation

I say to Dee, “I want the commercial to start with a high shot looking down on the island. It’s so high that we can see the Bay and the two bridges.” “Great idea but we can’t afford a helicopter.”

My son’s best friend’s girlfriend’s girlfriend is studying animation. She has some good work on her site. Her name is Marnie Brumder.

“Hi I’m making a commercial. I need a shot looking down on Angel Island. So high we see birds flying under us – we see the GG Bridge and a ferry going to the island.”

Marnie’s animation is terrific.

LEARN: HOW TO GET TALENT WITHOUT COST

Use a hand held GoPro Hero to shoot real tourists on the ferry

I’m running out of time. I only have this weekend to shoot. I’ll cut on Monday. Dee will see it Tuesday. Get it to the station by Thursday; on the air the following week.

I have no talent lined up, nothing set-up – except there’s going to be a small jazz band at the café on Sunday.

I get on the ferry from San Francisco. On the upper deck are four attractive girls with their boyfriends. “Hi, I’m making a video for Angel Island. Can I film you? I don’t have the budget to pay you. I have some release forms…”

They giggle and sign up. I shoot them with my trusty Sony – then in a moment of inspiration, I get out my new GoPro Hero, I’d bought the day before. Press the button, the red light flashes, I hold it out at arm’s length. Nothing posed, I capture the moment as the ferry arrives.

LEARN: HOW TO ADD PRODUCTION VALUE FOR $90 A POP

iStockphoto dolphin

Dee comes over to see my edit. Tricia says she saw a dolphin the day she went to the island. I go to iStockphoto.com. I have a dolphin in HD. Dee says, “How about a deer?” Click, click… now we have a deer.

“I love it” says Dee. Her boss loves it too. Everyone happy. I get paid.

Does this all sound too unplanned, too much left to chance? Maybe. Sometimes you need to take chances. Stefan has spoken. Learnt anything?

IT CAN ONLY GET WORSE

So you think filmmaking is easy – a piece of cake. You’ve spent three years at UCLA, graduated with honors – your student film was screened at the Ventura Film Festival.

You’ve got FILMMAKER printed on your business card. It’s all rosy and then one day you enter the real world…

It’s kind of scary out here. How to get work? How much to charge? Get a crew to help? What to pay them? Charge sales tax on DVD copies? The location needs a cool $1,000,000 insurance policy …

But be warned, dear newbie – the scariest thing out here is… CLIENTS, especially if they’re a dog.

MEET BENTLEY He might only be a dog but he’s client to be reckoned with.

“Stefan, I think that cut should be a dissolve.”

“Cutting is cool, John. Dissolves look really old fashioned these days.”

“Bentley, cut or dissolve?”

“Woof.”

“It’s a cut. Thanks, Bentley.”

“Woof.”

“No Stefan, I think he’s saying wipe. Woof means wipe. And he’s right, a side wipe would be great. Good boy Bentley. Daddy loves you”

“You’re not serious? You want a wipe?”

“Why not. Try it…”

“What do you think Bentley? Isn’t that better? Yep, stick with the wipe.”

KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON Behind the photo of John and Bentley, you can see my poster, Keep Calm and Carry On. In wartime Britain, when the chances of a German invasion seemed possible, the government produced this classic. As you all know, as even Bentley knows, they didn’t invade and the poster was scrapped.

But it’s become my mantra. The visual equivalent of “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.”

CLIENT ARE THE STRANGEST PEOPLE I received an email today from Peter.

“Stefan, I showed our homepage video to Xxxxxx of the Xxxxxx Corp. and he thinks the one you made five years ago was better. Can you comment on this?”

“Hang on a moment, Peter. I’ve got Bentley with me.”

OK, Bentley, here’s the new video – like it?” Two woofs. “Now here’s the old video.” No woofs.

“Peter, my client today saw both. Loves the new one. End of story.”

MY WEB SITE CLIENT Friends, I’ve got to tell you that if you can get your head around FCP, you too can make Web sites. WEB SITES … it’s a natural extension to your filmmaking skills. I’m surprised that UCLA didn’t include it in your curriculum.

You make a video – where’s it to be seen? On to the Internet, of course. You don’t want some dumb Web designer asking for files.

So my little FILMMAKERS protect your video and learn WordPress.

Now you’ve got double trouble. Take Michael (please)… He was no fun as a video client and now he wants a site.

“Sure, I can do WordPress. Here are some themes. I really like the iFeature theme – or Striking.” He settles for iFeature. I spend two weeks creating the site. I always buy an .info site from GoDaddy. They cost just over a dollar. I host them on my shared server for the client to see progress.

Michael LOVES what I’ve created… Wow. Great. Terrific. You are a genius.

Next week an email: “Stefan, I think we’ve picked the wrong theme. Maybe Striking would have been better. On the pages where we have white type over the ripple background, please lose the background and go to black type. Finally, it’s all too big for my Mac laptop. Please shrink the site down.”

Come back John. Come back Bentley. All is forgiven. You can have woofs, I mean wipes, on every scene change. Please shrink the site down. Grrrrrr.

Keep Calm and Carry On. Keep Calm and Carry On. Keep Calm and Carry On…

STILL – IT’S BETTER THAN WORKING

^{Frozen faggots in modern day packaging. The brand when I filmed it was owned by Kraft Foods and called Brains Faggots.}

1972 Bristol, UK. Ever filmed processed food? It’s a stomach turning experience.

We are in a sausage roll and faggot factory in Kingsland near Bristol, UK, making a series of short films for a Kraft Foods convention in Belgium.

THE OFFAL TRUTH It’s clean, hygienic – we’re in hospital scrubs wearing blue hairnets. It’s not the manufacturer’s fault that we’re both feeling queasy.

Faggots began as a traditional peasant’s dish from England’s West Country. They consisted of pork offal: all the leftover bits and pieces of pig combined into balls with onions, milk-soaked breadcrumbs and herbs and wrapped in a sheep’s caul from unborn lamb fetus.

Modern faggots skip the fetus bit but it’s just as scary. There are small mountains of white lard on the floor. Nearby, tubs of ingredients like pork liver, soggy bread crumbs, ready to be poured into the machine – which is going glubber, glubber, glug – out go the faggots onto a conveyor belt.

Try to make this look attractive – it just isn’t possible – glub, glub, glub.

The factory manager is pleased that we’re here and keeps leading us to undiscovered treasures – like the thick West Country Sauce – squirt, squirt, squirt.

Hurray, we’ve finished the shoot. The manager takes us into his office and gives us a presentation pack of 24 Faggots – four in each box; yes, friends we have 96 frozen faggots to take home.

“Hey guys, surprise: faggots tonight!” Still, it’s BTW – Better Than Working.

2008 Boston MA.
LITTLE CLINIC OF HORRORS We are in a small, private clinic. It’s cramped and noisy – very noisy. People pushing past each other, telephones ringing, nurses and lab technicians clinking glass beakers. In short, a terrible place for an interview.

I find a nearby conference room. “Is this room free?” “Sure go ahead and use it.” While Tricia and Harry move the conference table and take out the chairs, I’m back in the lab. shooting five minute locked off shots that could be useful as backgrounds for the interview.  Great, I’ve captured all the un-staged hustle and bustle of a busy clinic. Will look terrific behind the interview.

Tricia sets up the green screen in the conference room – I do the lighting and lineup the camera.

We’re ready but where’s our victim, the head of the clinic?  Funny, we were told to be here and set up by 10:00.

Midday comes and goes. What’s happening, we flew here yesterday from San Francisco? Our next interview is in Florida tomorrow morning. We got a plane to catch. He’s not answering his cell. Where is he?

Waiting, waiting; we miss lunch. Finally, our star arrives, takes one look at our green screen setup and says, “I’m not doing it here.” Harry tries to explain how the lab is too cramped and noisy and besides, we’d be in the way with our camera and lights.

“Follow me,” we are all marched back into the lab.. “That’s my corner. That’s my chair. And that’s where I want the interview.” Ugh! It’s slap bang against the wall. “I’ll just get my lights…” “No lights – I want it to look real, this isn’t Hollywood.”

FEED ME SEYMOUR

Worse – we’re running so late that we’re going to miss the plane to Gainesville. Mad taxi dash to the airport. We just make it – no time for lunch and no food on the plane, well not counting peanuts. Charlotte, we land and have to change terminals. We get to the Gainesville gate and they’re boarding.

The second plane is tiny. We are in the first row. It’s bumpy. The flight attendant says that they won’t even be serving drinks. “Go on, give us a peanut.”

We arrive around midnight. Ask the cab driver for food recommendation. Burger King is the only choice. Tricia shouts into the drive in window, “Three Whoppers, please.”

We get the hotel at 12:30 a.m. Give Harry his Whopper. Hey, where are our two? Only one. What happened?

1:00 a.m. in bed. “Your turn to bite.” “There you go. Now your turn.” One Whopper between two is no fun but better than sharing a faggot in bed.

Once again – BTW, Better Than Working.

AND REBECCA’S WEDDING VIDEO

Graham Kerr (pronounced “care”),
The Galloping Gourmet.

SYDNEY AUSTRALIA June 1968
“A party, a party, hey Graham just asked us to his garden party.”

Graham has a local Sydney TV show called “The Galloping Gourmet.” I made the opening titles and, from time to time, I’m booked to shoot some outdoors sequences: Graham in a wet suit coming up out of the water with a very dead fish on the end of his spear (he bought it from the fishmonger an hour before).

Graham in the Australian bush shooting a rabbit – soon to become rabbit stew, well not that rabbit, but who cares, it’s only daytime television.

I like Graham, it’s always fun working with him. Ooops, it’s the phone again. “Hey Stefan, Treena came up with a good idea. I was going to take some shots on my Canon Scoopic but I’ll be busy cooking. If I give you the Scoopic can you take some shots – just home movie stuff; would be nice to have a record of it?’
Canon Scoopic 16.

Two days before the roasted pig barbie; “Graham again – been thinking, can you bring your Éclair – so much better that the 100ft Scoopic. Oh, and I think it would be a good idea to shoot in color.” Dear Reader, at this time Australian television is in black and white – so shooting in color is unusual. “Graham, I don’t have any color stock.” “No worries since you’re doing this as a favor, I’ll buy a roll or two. Tell me what to get.”

“Sorry to keep phoning but this party is going to be amazing. I’m building a special spit – can you come over this afternoon and film The Galloping Spit Builder… One more thing: tomorrow, get here early – I’d like shots of the house and garden and then we see the guests arriving.”

On the day: “Stefan, besides shooting the barbie, I’d like shots of the wine, Len is bringing over his best bottles. Shots of pouring showing the labels, people drinking but I don’t have to tell you. Tanya Halesworth is coming – you know her, great – some shots of her enjoying the barbeque.”

“How’d it go – I hope you managed to enjoy yourself? I kept a plate for you but somebody took it.”

Yes friends, by the time I’d finished shooting the barbie, the wine, Graham, Tanya, the beautiful people… all the food had gone.

“Stefan, I’m really sorry you missed out. Come here next Sunday and I’ll cook up something special just for you – no camera required.”

LONDON 1990
My daughter’s best friend is Anna, daughter of Rosemary and Miles.

We’re at their place. It’s Miles’ birthday and the table has about ten other guests. Much of the dinner talk is about Rebecca, Anna’s big sister; she’s getting married next month. We’ve been invited to the wedding.

“Stefan, you will film it, won’t you?”  Rosemary has chosen a moment of silence at the table. All the guests, my daughter, Anna and birthday boy Miles, are waiting for my response. It’s an out-of-the-blue surprise.

“No Rosemary, I won’t film the wedding. I’m not a wedding filmmaker.”

“But Stefan –  please take some shots; just home movie stuff.”

The table is now dead quiet as Rosemary and I are locked in battle. “Rosemary, I make corporate videos, that’s my profession. I’ve made a strict policy not to do free videos for friends, it’s as simple as that.”

“Well if I paid you …’

“No, I don’t do weddings – period. Give a camera to one of the groomsmen or book a wedding videographer. Please don’t ask me again.”

Dinner party conversation starts again. We finish the meal. Go into to their living room for coffee.

At the front door, “Stefan, I’m sorry if I upset you. We’ve been good friends, Anna and Cissy are so close – perhaps you’ll reconsider your decision.” “No Rosemary, I will not film the wedding. I’m sorry, I won’t change my mind.”

A week later a letter arrives:

Dear Stefan and Tricia,

We asked too many people to Rebecca’s wedding and have decided to cut back on the numbers. It is with regret that we have withdraw our invitation. I hope you understand.

Kind Regards

Rosemary. 

DEATH OF A FILMMAKER 2

iPhone HD movies in 9:16 AlisonScope. A breakfast edit. The owl needs a x3 blowup.

San Rafael, January 2011 “Alison tell me it’s not true, you shot everything in portrait format.”

“I can explain: when you put the iPhone down on the table it wants to play it that way up.”

“Didn’t it ever cross your mind that films and television are wider than they are higher?”

“No, never. Can’t you just zoom in?”

“I can but you’ll lose most of the frame – it’s roughly a three times blowup. Here’s an idea, since everything you shot is 9:16, lets create a new video format – AlisonScope.”

“Now, you’re making fun of me.”

“I’m sorry, the sad thing is that what you shot is excellent, nice steady shots, great subjects, it’s all terrific – high definition, good color and exposure – just the wrong way up!”

WILDCARE They’re a Bay Area non-profit located in my hometown, San Rafael. My daughter was a volunteer there. They look after injured wildlife, nurse them back to health and ultimately release them back into nature.

This is our fifth year of making a video for their gala. My colleague, John, got the job as his ex-boss at ABC radio is their vice president.

Way back in ’07, I shot their headquarters and John and I cobbled together a video from stills and some amateur film. We get on well with the WildCare people and in ’08 I get phone calls to cover various activities.

“We are returning a baby owl to its mother in a tree in Novato. 5:00 this evening in Novato. I know it’s short notice.”

“I’d have to leave in an hour. I’m editing at the moment, I guess I can do it. Email me the address.”

“Hi Stefan, we’re releasing an eagle in Olema tomorrow. Can you be at the Olema Inn at 9:00?

It’s getting silly. Most shoots are ultra short notice and I’m racking up so many half days that the second year’s invoice will be double the first. Not a good way to treat a non-profit.

HER SHOT IS BETTER THAN MINE Alison, who officially does their web site (http://www.wildcarebayarea.org.) and un-officially a lot more, is at many of the releases with her still camera but taking movies. A Red Tailed Hawk is being released. I get in close to the WildCare lady with the bird in the box. It’s open. The bird flies out… nothing in my viewfinder. Where’d it go? It flew down instead of up! I’ve missed it. Alison is way back, has a better angle and films it all. I miss it – she gets it – go figure.

Her still camera is just an ordinary camera with a movie option. The content is good but the quality is not. The Canon HV20 has just come out and B&H had a special deal going. Alison has the advantage of being there and two shoots without me will cover the cost of buying it.

She goes from strength to strength. Her shots are well framed and often the location sound is useable. WildCare’s 2009 and 2010 gala videos rely heavily on her work.

And then it happens – 2011, she goes iPhone.

ENTER THE iPHONE. I remember her saying, “The quality is so much better and because it’s my phone, I’ll have it with me all the time.”

And now today, with John’s script and interviews, her long-tall-Sally footage, I’m trying to piece it together.

“Alison, I can group three of your iPhone movies to make a split screen triptych, 9:16 into 16:9!

Three of Alison’s iPhone movies composited into a triptych.

SAVED IN POST “You see how this shot is too dark, no shadow detail.”

“Needs color correction?”

“Yes, but not the normal three way color corrector, the Lyric highlight/shadow filter is much better on this kind of shot. See how you can lift up the shadows without burning out the whites.”

“I love the Lyric.”

It’s only a matter of time before she shoots and edits herself.

Killing me softly with her pod…