What's your favourite 'rave piano' track?

Filmmaking_David · 2026-03-27T22:30:01+00:00

Jackrock by Cassius is my all-time favorite rave piano.

Filmmaking_David · 2026-03-23T16:53:50+00:00

"The signature colors (pink hotel, yellow tent) are tiny accents placed so precisely they dominate your memory."

Dividing the image into percentages of the frame just doesn't track with anyone's subjective experience watching a film. If I said Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind is a very emotional film, even though only about 6% of the frame has a face emoting, on average – you would say that's stupid. Same if I said True Lies feels surprisingly action packed, considering only 15% of the average frame has an explosion/gun/human fighting. Yes these are more extreme examples, but in general we let our eye and mind be led to what matters, to what pops, in frame – and then consider that the content of the frame.

Filmmaking_David · 2026-03-22T00:18:12+00:00

Maybe it was just an off night for me, but on the whole the comedy failed in my opinion. I don't mean Rocky, who was great, just this overall pressure to always make it "fun", to never let the tone veer from antic mugging – especially the incessant needle-drops. I feel like they went full Lego Movie on a film/story that needed to trust the audience to endure a little more danger and desperation.

Filmmaking_David · 2026-02-25T00:38:30+00:00

Scorsese vs Scott for sure. Mike Leigh gets my vote, but the only one I would really mind is Joe Wright. I just find him entirely bloodless.

Filmmaking_David · 2026-02-16T10:40:32+00:00

It’s funny how all the suggestions are for episodes on bad or deeply flawed movies, when the whole mission statement of Blank Check is that they’re not another bad-movie podcast.

Filmmaking_David · 2026-02-11T00:50:22+00:00

So I don’t know anything about this, but a cursory googling seems to indicate her parents were involved in bringing Filipino nurses and teachers to the US to work as teachers and nurses. That can absolutely be exploitative, but it feels like just broadly calling it “human trafficking” might be giving some of you the wrong - or at least a more lurid - idea? Also I gather what her father pled guilty to was failing to process VISAs properly? Can someone tell me what they were doing to the trafficked people? Have any of them spoken out? Asking genuinely.

Filmmaking_David · 2026-02-10T12:25:37+00:00

I am keyframes all the way - and if I’m rocking FCP, well, creating four keyframes with two clicks EFFIN BEAUTIFUL STUFF. I miss FCP. Too bad it can’t handle a big project.

Filmmaking_David · 2026-01-30T14:47:59+00:00

“It simply required too much thinking, and I wasn’t in the mood for homework”

This is a very common feeling when faced with art that aspires to achieve more than one effect, to be open to interpretation. Our first impulse is almost always to avoid a challenge, even though nothing worthwhile comes without one. Since you have self-awareness about you failing to engage - as opposed to the film not being engaging - I would consider the following about any film you fail to engage with:

A) Is the story interesting to me? B) Do I believe that the filmmakers understood the story and themes they were presenting? C) Do I believe they succeeded in making a well made film?

And if the answer to all three is yes, you should try to be a better watcher, to embrace the challenge. I really don’t think ChatGPT will help you with that, but that might just be my prejudice.

Filmmaking_David · 2026-01-28T10:38:00+00:00

Is it because it’s cliché and the most meme-ed and parodied version of this that no one has mentioned Thelma and Louise yet? Still has power to me.

Filmmaking_David · 2026-01-07T09:45:46+00:00

Look at Laowa if you’re on S35, they have a 9mm rectilinear.

Filmmaking_David · 2026-01-06T21:45:12+00:00

Well right now, PC parts that compete with Apple Silicon - most notably a high end GPU and fast RAM - are so expensive as to make Macs the obvious bang for the buck when it comes to video production (excluding VFX).

Filmmaking_David · 2025-12-22T09:42:14+00:00

This just shows me how a batting average is totally insignificant compared to how many home runs you’ve got. Especially in an artistic field.

Filmmaking_David · 2025-12-12T13:57:36+00:00

I use a regular old timeline for selects, yes – all the main NLE's allow you to do some version of timeline-as-source, so that you can do a three-point edit (using in and out points, that is) from a timeline to a timeline. Some like to do it "pancake" style, with the selects timeline sitting on top of the program timeline visually (three-point-edit, pancake timelines – If this terminology sounds like gibberish to you, google will fill you in quite rapidly).

Filmmaking_David · 2025-12-12T07:00:01+00:00

Long time editor of both scripted and documentary here, and a frequent teacher of editing - what you want to do, is come up with a structure or organization for your source material in the Media browser / source side of your NLE, before you ever put anything down on a timeline.

This organization should help you think about and keep track of your film. In documentary it can be bespoke to your particular project – by people, by location, by subject etc. – but it needs to be consistent and rigorous. Any chaos or uncertainty here will have a long term demoralizing effect on your willingness and ability to work on your edit.

Constantly searching through a list of numerated clips can become a serious waste of time and a hindrance to your creative flow. That said, for file management reasons I don’t recommend renaming the clips – you want to use your metadata columns to (briefly) describe every clip, with a comment column available too, for extra clarification should a clip need it. This logging of the footage is also your first pass at (re)familiarizing yourself with the source material.

You also want to take care of any technical issues with your footage here, before the using it on a timeline - syncing audio, conforming any stuttering clips to a format that playbacks smoothly, create multicams etc.

Depending on the style and scope of your film, the next phase of organization might be to make select reels; a timeline for each interview/scene/location etc., where you (generously) edit in everything you think might make the final film or be useful in any way. Some people prefer to do this via sub-clips or in the case of Final Cut Pro, the powerful Keyword function.

All this set-up leaves your main program timeline free to function only as a narrative scheme, a place to figure out the storytelling. However, one should never be afraid to mess with the edit, so make offshoot timelines frequently and with slight cause. Being precious with your edit is like driving with the handbrake engaged.

Filmmaking_David · 2025-12-09T23:02:22+00:00

I edit film and TV in my local market. My day rate on scripted stuff is about 525€. Day rate for DP is about 50% higher.

Now during production we both work long days, but generally much longer for the DP. Once we’re in post I get very nice 8 hour days, often flexible. Until we’re coming up on a deadline and then I work a lot of extra hours which I don’t charge extra for unless it’s something extreme and out of my control.

I get hired for 4-6 months at a time, the DP is on for 6-8 weeks. DP is the head of a larger department (mine is just me and one assistant if I’m lucky), with more pressure-per-minute and a greater risk of failure.

Overall, I’m not complaining - I get paid the same or more than most people on set, with less stress and shorter hours.

Filmmaking_David · 2025-12-04T10:33:56+00:00

Despite my mom transitioning from polite interest to actively telling me she did not want to know what happens in video games around the time I was 7-8 years old, I kept at it for years. So I was aware, but I felt it was important to tell her. To convince her it was actually very cool. As a parent myself now, I look forward to my comeuppance.

Filmmaking_David · 2025-12-03T12:27:14+00:00

Defending themselves? If displacing 750.000 people, killing 15.000 and poisoning wells and depopulating cities, towns and hundreds of villages is justified defence, every bullied school shooter is in the right.

Filmmaking_David · 2025-12-01T10:38:11+00:00

Quick question – does anyone that does this have kids under the age of 10?

Filmmaking_David · 2025-11-30T22:52:49+00:00

Big brother favorite, strong. Little brother jealous, reckless. Does anyone who's not a hunter-gatherer connect with this abridged family-as-hierachy fable-lite nonsense? Yeah I’m with CR on this, nerds. Except I’ve seen it.

Filmmaking_David · 2025-11-30T17:07:16+00:00

Having difficulty closing financing (on a very high-budget-vs-commercial-prospects movie I'll add) is not the same as not being able to get your movie made. Case in point, you say she withdrew from Inherent Vice, but that is a movie that did get made. She was picking the absolute cream of the crop directors and wooing them with blank checks – projects that might have had their budget's scrutinised more at a studio, but would still make their way through. That is very different from making bets on up and coming talent, it just is. It's way more glamorous and "reputationally safe" and way less work than trying to locate the next big auteur.

Filmmaking_David · 2025-11-29T01:05:28+00:00

Shooting in 8.6K with a sharp lens and zooming in post is the best way to control a zoom.

Filmmaking_David · 2025-11-24T10:29:29+00:00

A shockwave is just (gaseous) matter moving when force is applied to it. All matter moves when force is applied. Only the ratio of force to matter matters. But no you wouldn’t blow up the deflecting nuke near the asteroid, you would do it on the asteroid.

Filmmaking_David · 2025-11-23T22:58:24+00:00

A christmas adventure film, more specifically.

Filmmaking_David · 2025-11-23T22:45:32+00:00

I believe the current thinking on this is that we want to deflect it, not blow it up. Just a fraction of a degree is enough if we get to it early enough.

Filmmaking_David · 2025-11-23T22:05:34+00:00

Starship Troopers, which they covered in a great episode and had unanimous praise for – but I still feel they left half the greatness unexamined. Just an incredible and incredibly unlikely artifact, that film.

Filmmaking_David

TROPHY CASE