MENTOR SERIES - The Late RALF D. BODE A.S.C.

One of the questions I get from up and coming filmmakers is where did I learn the craft. I often reply that since I did not attend film school I am self taught. But that really is only half of the picture. I fact I have sought out and been lucky enough to have connected with a series of mentors who have shared either directly, or indirectly their wisdom.

One of the earliest and most important mentors I learned from was Oscar nominated cinematographer Ralf Bode. I took a master cinematography class in Rockport Maine and Ralf was the teacher, but we stayed in close contact for years after. I would call Ralf up of I had a particularly tricky sequence or was trying something new. For me it is important that you have something in common with a mentor, such as a certain aesthetic or approach that you can relate to or work well be learning from. In the case of my friendship with Ralf we shared both.


There are things that Ralf taught in that class that I am only really beginning to grasp NOW. One fundamental truth that Ralf shared and that has stayed with me is that the process of testing, be it your film stock, cameras. workflow or any other variable and fully understanding it BEFORE the actual shoot is ongoing and a necessity for every single major project. Certainly Ralf with all his years of experience knew so much about how film would respond, yet even if KODAK had not changed film types between projects he went ahead and retested the latitude before every project just in case there were subtle differences in the BATCHES of film. In this digital age with technologies changing so quickly this axiom holds even more true today.

But it was also clear that while a scientific method could be applied to control and master variables he knew that what really makes the work soar is emotion. Another lesson that has stayed close for me is that in any full length feature film, the face of the lead character will be on screen for a tremendous time... and one must think of filming that face in many different lights, angles and perspectives to fully realize the character and support performance. There can be a tendency to film from an actor's "best" angle. While this is important to be aware of, repetitive filming can detract from performance and story intensity. As in all things, balance.

These are just a few things I learned from the gracious and gentlemanly Mr. Ralf Bode. He was known for being especially sensitive to filming actresses well. Things you may have seen that Ralf filmed are, the famous B unit scene in ROCKY where he climbs the Philadelphia steps, the principle filming on SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, Jodi Foster's riveting performance in THE ACCUSED and his Oscar nominated film for cinematography COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER.


RALF BODE - 1941-2001

Getting In Sync!

Been spending the last few days meeting and greeting my new adopted doggie and when she sleeps I get time in between to sync the takes of the Edie Carey video for LOVE. Syncing takes is always the moment when you reacquaint yourself with what you just did. In my case this time it was holding my breath and making sure I had gotten everything.
After all we had three days blocked for filming. The first two were for primary filming and the third a weather day. As it turned out we got gorgeous light on evening one with less grand light forcast, so I made the command decision to get it all then. Was it an ok choice?
Looking at what I have here I am feeling like I did make the good call. We really rolled a lot of footage in that 3 hour light window. I am sure I will want to film a few transitional timelapses, but that's fine.
Much of a music video's energy and "story" comes through editing. This one is no exception. Color choices are also key. While I planned that to some extend there is always room to play. And to discover new things.
Edie did a great job preparing and giving me a lot to work with. I will share discoveries as I come upon them. Some of the joy of editing is in the accidental juxtaposing of images.
Okay, back to it! More soon!

On The Day

Filming is always a venture into the unknown... You can plan and prep but "On The Day" you must always adjust to what is. Yesterday we began, and probably completed the principle photography for Edie Carey's video LOVE. I say probably because Mother Nature is involved and basically she is in charge of our lighting department for this shoot. We hated to put her to work on Mother's Day but in spite of it all she delivered.

We had two full days and a rain date scheduled. But in her infinite wisdom Mother N decided to test our prowess by giving us almost two hours of spectacular light and she basically said"I dare you to try and get everything done". Having checked the modern oracle of the iphone I saw that this was going to be our best light window so our crew swung into action and we got great stuff.

Thanks to Chase, Quin and Ned for their great work... Lots of hurry up and prep and wait for light and then a scramble. I have a few more pickup and transitional shots to get but I think for the performance stuff Mother N won't be sending us any better opportunities... and in filming you have to jump on those moments!

I'll post a few more pics soon... Also it was my first shoot operating a steadicam... I need work on my operating on it to really be proficient but you've got to start somewhere. I think my handheld stuff was more dynamic but my 20 years expertise handholding vs two days practice on the steadicam makes a difference. Still that steadicam is amazing.

More soon! Thanks to a great crew, snappy camera assisting from Michele and Edie's patience and workability! Fun stuff...

Thanks to www.vintagebluesguitars.com!

We are only a week away from the EDIE CAREY/LOVE video shoot now and Edie has approved the concept. It is a simple one which echoes the elegant simplicity of the song itself.
In the song we are going to have Edie perform the verses three different ways, representative of three different phases of life, or three different points in the curve of one's maturity. I will not give away every element of the concept here but to say that her three selves will of course need three different guitars.
Since this concept will hinge on the details and not on any one flashy effect or big budget performance section we knew we would have to get across the differences in Edie in the three sections visually quite quickly and so having her perform on three different guitars seemed to be called for.
Our friends at www.vintagebluesguitars.com have sold collectible guitars to numerous famous performing artists, so who would know better about distinctive looks for Edie than these guys. Sure enough they had some great guitars in their inventory which we can use for the shoot, and by the way all of these beauties are currently available, although I think a call may have come in for one of them.
Listen to the song LOVE on the homepage of ediecarey.com and if you are a guitarist or instrument lover you really should check out vintagebluesguitars.com.
More soon, we are really gearing up now for this shoot!

I learned a great lesson on one of my early short films LANCASTER COUNTY 2020. I was shooting a section to music where the lyrics told of a futuristic carnival atmosphere in a song called AMISH WUNDERWORLT. The idea was that in 2020 there was this crazy wacky amusement park which was very exploitative of the Amish. There was a lyric that said "And for you thru the keyhole peerers, an Amish home with two way mirrors! Watch them sleep and watch them eating! What them pray in Sunday meeting!". This was to be a funhouse in the carnival where you could watch Amish people as an attraction.

Naturally this was beyond the capability of our budget (ZERO!) to pull off an actual Amish House populated with Amish people and a crowd watching them, but we did not know how to interpret this and did not want to lose the idea entirely, so what is a filmmaker to do?

Being in a jam often leads to a much better idea that is cost effective, do-able, less literal and much better anyway! I wound up shooting a crowd of onlookers with a fisheye lens and ten faces jammed all up at my lens looking at it. I used this visual under this whole section and it was so much more powerful than recreating the whole thing. At it's essence it was about the lookers, not the Amish funhouse. Problem solved! Budget intact! BETTER IDEA!

So I didn't panic when my first idea for the Edie Carey LOVE video ran into a glitch. I had looked into the possibility of getting one of our fabulous local opera houses (Fulton, Strand) for a performance section. I had some things in mind to make it a bit more than straightforward, but it would have been a simple lovely location to film... but in many ways not that creative.

Those theaters are pretty booked up and this video we are filming is low budget. Rentals on those buildings weren't in the plan and especially rentals where we load in and rush our filming, trimming the good ideas from the shot list to make it happen on their timetable. There is another thing I've learned... make sure you have a location where you have full control and aren't rushed.

So these last few days I have modified my original idea and now have something MUCH more creative, much more doable on our budget (shoestring) and one that I think will be a much better video in the end. I have yet to go over everything with Edie but just got in touch so we can do that... If she likes I will share! I hope I am in the right direction, but first and foremost I am interpreting her work and must be 100% in keeping with her thinking and feelings about the song.

I will report. Wish me luck... but I know that when you get sent back to the drawing board, you so often draw something better. Never fear, just know it will come.

coming soon --- LOVE!

I am going to start blogging on a project we are very excited about... The upcoming filming of a music video for singer/songwriter Edie Carey! Edie and I have agreed that we are going to be cinematically interpreting the first song on her CD Bring the Sea... The song title is LOVE and you can hear the track on the main page of her website www.ediecarey.com!
A few years ago Edie got in contact with me about doing a video for her last album. At that time I was finishing up my last feature film HOME and I had to keep putting off the project. Well if you wait long enough good things happen... Edie released another album, HOME is done and out to it's audience. So when I saw I had a window of time for the project I got back in touch with Edie. The timing worked this time, so here we go, with LOVE.
I get many requests to share my working process with up and coming filmmakers. A lot goes into shooting a music video well. We are about 6 weeks away from filming and while I have a few concepts I haven't even shared them with Edie yet, so that is how early we are in this project.
I invite you to follow along on this blog as the project evolves. Okay, now with you watching the pressure will be on... Here we go... ready, set... LOVE... coming soon!