Kely McClung on being the "coolest filmmaker on the planet"

I go out to coffee and the paper nearly every morning. My attempt at being sociable. Being a regular at a bunch of regular places gets me the inevitable question of "what do you do?" I'm a filmmaker. "Oh yeah, that sounds really cool." Yeah it is. "Where can I see your work?" Well right now, just on the web. "What's your name again?" Just look up "coolest filmmaker on the planet". "Really? That is cool!"

It's actually best to go the same places every day so the 'asking' doesn't happen so often.

If being cool was the requirement, then I would really get tossed out... of course if the requirement included confining oneself to only making films, I'd never get in!

The cool people spent the 4th of July upstairs on the roof of our downtown building looking out at a half dozen fireworks shows across the city. And though I stopped up for about 10 minutes, I came back to work on the film until long after the last cherry bomb and firecracker echoed through the streets. Pretty sure the really cool people slept in the next day, stumbled out of bed looking all cool and all, but I was up as the sun rose and started piecing together what we have done into some semblance of a story.

So one might think that making movies is all I do, that the obsession is all encompassing. It's not. Or maybe it is. I just think the defination of being a filmmaker has broadened out.

For one, I have my girlfriend. And though I don't see her or spend as much time as I want with her and her life, she is in my thoughts always. Knowing she is there is a comfort and a strength to me, and I am grateful.

Making a movie with my limited resources does not mean I am a one man band (was trying to work in "director" there as in band director but guess I'm not that clever i.e."cool").

Still, for those who take on the making of a movie, or film, or whatever the accepted word is now that digital acquisition blurs the traditional definitions, here are a few of the other things someone needs to take on.

Blogs. They are fun. They are cool. And also take a bit of work. Writing these are part of my commitment to myself and in hopes that they can help document the process for others to either take comfort in, warn off, or get a laugh from. We did almost no documentation on the making of BLOOD TIES, and I am trying hard to do better.

Business cards. A person needs an identity as they go out into the world and recruit support for locations, catering, equipment, etc... Not to be taken lightly, if a card is to represent you or your endeavors, it will probably take some thought and then the work to create it. So logos, layouts, fonts, revisions, printing, etc...

Websites. Which take on all forms these days. There again, no matter how simple, from full blown corporate flash sites to MySpace and FaceBook, they still take time and effort to accomplish something.

Computers. Buying, installing, maintaining, repairing. Hard to imagine a modern day epic, even the 60 second sleeping cat videos on YouTube, not utilizing the power of the modern desktop computer. Of course that means being educated on the latest hardware and software even if you don't have the opportunity to use it.

Music. Even if you are lucky enough to have someone say they have the time and talent to create it, it is still a major process. And don't hang out forever waiting on that first note. Or, even if you are near tone deaf and musically illiterate, you can attempt your own with the incredibly powerful software that exists to make you think you know what you are doing. Of course that means "computers" and "software" and... see above...

Want some "cool" titles for your masterpiece? Of course at this level that means interesting, effective, polished - just because I don't have a team of experts or a designer with Saul Bass-Kyle Cooper-like skills doesn't mean I don't want to compete. It means I absolutely do want to compete. And that takes work.

Work is my antidote and/or replacement for talent and resources. I'm not pretending to be humble enough to not think I have neither, I am a "film director" after all, but I try to hedge my bets by working harder.

Which is how I taught myself Photoshop. Not on the level of a Deke McClelland or Scott Kelby, but not too bad. I am sure you could spend an entire 4 year college curriculum just on Photoshop and if that's what you are into, it would be time well spent. So if those guys are the ones teaching the grad classes, maybe I'm up to starting on my masters.

Photoshop? "I just want to make a movie! What the hell is this nut talking about?" Well... you do want those business cards, websites, etc... don't you? You want to post some stills of your work. You want stills cropped and resized and placed in your MySpace pages. You want posters and DVD covers. And yes, there are other programs, both complex and simple, good and bad, but they still come down to - yep.. you guessed it. Computers. Hardware. Software. And all the rest...

Can you make a movie without Photoshop? Of course. I think. But it will definitely help your understanding of After Effects. Or Motion. Or Color. Or Flame, Inferno, Da Vinci, Nuke... And of course without the big, big toys, that means you'll have to work even harder to compete.

Wow... it's actually time to get back to work. That other work. Planning the next shooting days. Editing the material we have. Updating the websites. Expanding our presence on MySpace. Putting together another part of the film score. Fumbling my way to a kick ass trailer that shows off the other people working their asses off on this flick. Writing the next script.

I don't about 'me' being cool... but being a 'filmmaker' these days is really cool!

Kely McClung

http://www,kerberosbites.com/
http://www.bloodtiesmovie.com/
http://maifilmcorp.com/




"Talking people and doing people, for myself, I hope to do" Kely McClung

Filmmaking and Storytelling still comes down to Content

Searching for one of my seemingly one million different log ins and passwords, I ran across this bit of notes... not sure if I already posted it somewhere, but the inspiration of that day still holds and has been on my mind of late... "it comes down to content!" (my moments of inspired thought are rare, so bear with me...)

Reading and studying and trying to absord the massive amount of info available on each and every camera and each and every situation, it's easy to forget about content.

After content, it's easy to forget about the basics; that the camera only sees a part of what we point it at. It's value and values are still made up of light and shadow, expressed through composition and angle, rendered with focus or the lack of with digitally interpolated color and luminance.

After acquisition, it's easy to forget about the value and effort of editing and post. We get lost in the semantics of PC vs. Mac, Intel vs. AMD, and then the myriad debates on editing and finishing systems with more effort than in the understanding of the cut; the when and why's, the intricities of montage and rythm, of the emotional impact of our choices for juztoposition, continuity edits, jumps cuts, fades and dissolves.

Whether weddings or birthdays, corporate and industrial, music video and training tapes, shorts or feature films... it still comes down to content.

Kely McClung - back to filmmaking...

How to make a film

I was recently asked to speak at a film festival that I was lucky enough to win last year. Not only speak once - but twice - with a couple main themes. One, "How to make an action film" and two, "Why we make films". I don't know if anyone will show up to hear me talk, but it of course has made me examine my own motivations and methods.

Of all the tools available for making modern day epics, the new cameras, new lens choices, the proliferation and accessibility of high quality, DIY camera rigs and supports, and the new software/hardware combinations with the newest, latest, greatest plug-ins and newest, latest, greatest delivery formats; my favorites remain the three that started it all.

One: The desire to tell a story. Of course, that doesn't really sum up the absolute need to tell the story. The constant obsessive compulsion to dedicate and sacrifice whatever part of one's life one must in order to tell that story. Probably started somewhere before Cro-Magnon man and the advent of the RED camera. Certainly, the still amazing cave paintings of Lascaux were done before the consolidation of Intel chips on competing platforms happened. Still earlier masterpieces but less famous paintings are dated as old as 30,000 years ago.

That sacrifice will be different for each person and each set of circumstances and abilities, but the fundamental need to not just talk about doing something but actually doing it at whatever cost gets it done remains the same.

Two: The story itself. The blueprint, the themes, the foreseen actions committed and worked out on paper that deliver the message, the passages of dialog or the lack there of that inform and entertain. The plan devised with rhythm and pace and escalation, climax and denouement.

Being tied in through friends to at least the local film community, I constantly hear of the next newest, latest, greatest project being done somewhere. Even more common after being told it is being shot on the newest, latest, greatest camera by someone who may or may not have actually ever used that camera (hey, we all start somewhere), I am more often that not left with the informer informing that everything is looking really good... except that, well, maybe the script isn't so hot. It could use a little work. The story seems weak, and the dialog doesn't seem to be working.

Eeeeshhh... can't wait to see that in all its really high resolution pristine glory!

Three. The actors. And actresses. Those people and faces and voices that bring the previously conceived ideas to life. They can be trained or untrained. Young or old. Handsome or pretty or stunning or frankly a little hard to look at. They might be famous already or obscurely working away in a Bangkok bar, but the bottom line is that they are either good or they are not good.

In my quest and circumstance as auteur I wear many hats. I know that I become obsessive before, during, and after my projects. Performing so many roles with at this time still limited resources means that my projects take longer than many other peoples, which means they tax and strain my mental state, tax and strain my physical being, and tax and strain my relationships.

The discipline to work hard was probably instilled from an obsessive father who thought that Olympic type workouts were the norm for all grade school kids. I can look back on training schedules even before high school that compete with any modern day Olympian. And they worked! I was fast. World class fast! Until a short drive my first time behind the wheel (20 feet) took me off a bridge, 20 feet down, and under another 20 feet of water where I eventually emerged with two sliced knees. (guess I really made it 60 feet!)

That same work ethic let me train obsessively in martial art. I had the will to travel and learn and train around the world with some of the greatest teachers and practitioners who have lived. I was a poor student of each separate art but obsessed with the art as a whole. Most my teachers probably wouldn't claim me today, but I pay respects to each as they colored the art I displayed as I fought and later taught my own distillations and concepts in my own schools here and overseas, and to law enforcement and military. Those basic concepts can also be found in my movie fights and choreography.

And now of course I am a filmmaker. Pretty much unknown except by a very small, growing circle of colleagues and fans. Pretty much working away obsessively as I always have. And making progress. World Class progress? That remains to be seen...

Meanwhile, the fuel that keeps me going, that makes me want to get up at 5 in the morning to edit - is the realization of the three components above.

To see the long obsessed with concepts and ideas come to life, leaping or crawling their way from pages written over brief bursts of inspiration and fingers blurring on abused and coffee sodden keyboards, with the gift of performances I've been freely given or coaxed or demanded or been able to trick my actors into, from those actors and actresses who trained or untrained, handsome or a bit hard to look at - none of us famous at this time - some of them going from good to great - is why I make films.

I can not speak for other filmmakers. But as a viewer, watching everything from old cracked super8 to IMAX and flash delivered YouTube, I know I appreciate a film when I can see the primary attention given to those three: the desire and dedication to get it done, the story, and the acting.

Kely's first film BLOOD TIES won several film festivals including the Action Film of the Year at the Action on Film Int's Film Festival, Best of Festival and Best Visual FX at Indie Fest USA, Best Director at Big Bang Film Festival, and Best Int'l Film at the Rincon Puerto Rico Int'l Film Festival. He is scheduled to speak at the Indie Fest USA in downtown Disney on August 12th and 13th.

He is currently editing and obessing about his newest film KERBEROS.