Sid Kali

UFO Phenomenon, Space Aliens and Filmmaking Technology



Posted: Saturday, January 08, 2011

by Sid Kali
Slice of Americana Films

UFO phenomenon, space aliens and filmmaking technology are interesting to me. I have been watching documentaries on UFO phenomenon and space aliens lately. It is an interesting topic if you are a believer or nonbeliever that extraterrestrial life exists and has visited this planet. There is excellent entertainment based on the subject of alien abduction and invasion. Orson Welles caused panic and hysteria with The War of the Worlds radio drama he narrated and directed as an adaptation of H.G. Wells' novel in 1938. Steven Spielberg thrilled movie audiences with Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

The whole space alien and UFO phenomenon for whatever reason got me to thinking about the filmmaking process. Movie production technology keeps getting better each year. It is almost like science fiction reality when you look back at the history of cinema. Nowadays people can shoot an entire feature film with their iPhone, edit it on their computer, and stream it on social networks to millions of viewers across the globe.

The only downside to this freedom to create movies is sometimes we as filmmakers depend too much on the film and editing equipment we are using and neglect the basic core of entertainment – telling a good story. I caught myself recently getting too distracted by which camera to rent to shoot Internet Predator. We are only at the budgeting stage of production, but I am already thinking RED is the only family of digital cameras we should be using. I caught RED fever.

At Slice of Americana Films I always send the final draft of a screenplay and my shot sheet (I personally do not storyboard yet) to Editor Tim Beachum so he can do an extremely rough EDL. With most independent film productions there is rarely the money to do reshoots of a scene to get it right if something is missed or screwed up during filming. When I read Tim’s notes for Internet Predator I fell back down to Earth. The in-house budget for Internet Predator could not support the production cost involved with renting a RED camera package and my shot sheet revealed a couple of oversights on camera moves that required more lighting time.

The benefit of coproducing indie films with a friend is the brutal honesty that exists. It is like you are space travelers walking on the moon for the first time. Planning gets you there, but there are still a lot of unknowns running wild around you. Editor Tim Beachum told me, “Amigo, there is no point trying to make a RED camera work for this movie budget. I picked up a Canon XL H1. Shoot with what we have.”

I have always been a filmmaker that made it work with whatever budget there was. But reading so much online about kick ass cameras I finally got caught up and forgot the main go of it. Filmmaking technology is only a tool, not the driving force of making movies. We are as the writers, producers, actors, directors, and editors of movies. This is indie filmmaker Sid Kali typing FADE OUT
Slice Of Americana Films was born in a pub that had a great jukebox, cheap happy hour and free freshly made popcorn. Check out the life and times of filmmaker Sid Kali to get crisp indie film production information on screenwriting, directing, producing, film editing, movie marketing and film distribution learned from the school of hard knocks.
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