Hey everyone!
I know it has been awhile since we posted anything, but we thought it would be fun to share some of our thoughts on some movies and TV shows we're into (or not so in to). I thought I would start us off with what is currently my favorite TV show, Psych. For those of you who have never seen it, I'll give you a short break down. The show follows Shawn Spencer (James Roday) and his partner/side kick Burton 'Gus' Guster (Dule Hill) as they work to solve crimes. The spin on the show is that Shawn claims to be a psychic for reasons explained in the first season and now is stuck with everyone believing that this is true when in reality he is just hyper perceptive.
The show has a fantastic ability to create a child like fun innocence in the middle of a crime scene. Shawn and Gus have awesome banter back and forth that shows off not only the impressive acting but also the impressive writing and editing. One of my personal favorite parts of the show is the commentary on films. Each episode makes some reference to popular mainstream cinema whether it be blatant or not. One of my favorite references was when Shawn explains to a detective how he is psychic like the Mentalist except that he is a real psychic otherwise it would be exactly the same situation as in the mentalist. Obviously Shawn is a fake and I applaud the shows willingness to comment on and joke about the fact they are very similar to another show. One cannot overlook the amazing supporting cast that this show has. With actors like Timothy Omundson, who plays Carleton Lassitor, the gun totting yet lovable lead detective for the SBPD who always seems to be one upped by Shawn, and Maggie Lawson, who plays Juliet O'Hara the young up and coming detective who also happens to be Shawn's love interest. She creates a fantastic buffer between Carleton's no nonsense detective work and Shawn's play it loose attitude by simply wanting to solve crimes and using any resources available, including Psych. The character that I think could easily be overlooked as far as importance is Shawn's father Henry Spencer (Corbin Bernsen) who some may know from L.A. Law. Henry is the backbone of the show in many ways creating depth to Shawn's character and one of the few people who know that Shawn is not truly psychic thus allowing him to be a vital resource in many episodes. Henry gives some back story to Shawn which in many episodes is shown in a flashback to Shawn as a child in the 80's when his dad molded him to become a cop before they had a falling out.
I think what really sets this show apart from the other wacky detective shows like Monk, Bones etc. is that I really feel that these characters are portrayed in a way that is incredibly believable. Credit needs to be given to the cast and crew for not only making a quirky detective but making one that people can relate with, want to hang out with and see a little bit of humanity in through the many episodes. So much can be said about the interesting pieces to this show, however I will cut it off there and recommend that everyone check out at least a few episodes. Personally I recommend skipping the first few unless you plan to watch the entire season as I feel they did not really develop the characters completely until at least half way through season one. Season one in many ways feels a bit darker with many conflicts within Shawn that I think were vital it explaining his character's quirks but at the same time not quite as entertaining as the later episodes. Hope you like the show!
-Jimmy Boratyn
Friday, February 3, 2012
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Shot Time is Online
Hi again everyone!!!
Since the last blog post Shot Time has been busy. We now have a website and facebook page up and running, and I'm pumped about it. First here are the links (but open them in a new tab and read the blog first of course) www.facebook.com/shottimeproductions and www.shottimeproductions.com. Exciting right?! So I thought I would talk a little about the exciting world of facebook pages and website designing.
The facebook page was pretty straight forward. You fill in the blanks and pretty much get what you get, but we spent a ton of hours pulling stills from movies and getting behind the scenes photos for the site. I personally am a big fan of branding so when my awesome graphic designer pitched putting a watermark on each and every photo... I was all for it. Ya it made the process of uploading pictures way longer, and I really don't care to terribly much who makes copies of our photos because our goal is to get as many people to see our work as possible. My thought is that if our logo is on every picture we can pull a nike where every time your turn around you see there logo. Anyway... Pics uploaded, fancy description posted and the make public button is pushed. That is the point where we have the most exciting part of the process, watching our 'likes' climb up rapidly. Well that didn't exactly happen. You see I posted it sometime around three or four in the morning when the normal people are asleep and only a nerd like me is working still. We did get a couple hits that night, and I think I annoyed my team a bit by yelling how we got seven 'likes' instead of six now at 4AM when they were having a beer and watching a movie. I calmed down later, not much, but some. We ended up being able to gather around 135 'likes' in I think about three days. I think that's pretty cool. Now I have always found facebook to be pretty fun and relaxing much like anyone else, but I have learned the biggest drawback to having a facebook page for a company is that it is now work to be on facebook. I fear that I may begin to ramble on the facebook page, and I still want to talk about Wix.com so let me just say business facebook pages are awesome but a lot of work and if you're going to do one you NEED to keep updating it. I know to many people who have made company facebook pages or personal pages to advance a career where they post it and never update... What's the point? If anyone has more questions about the facebook page making process just ask, and we shall answer.
Now the website was a bit trickier. We didn't want to get a web designer just yet, and we don't know how to write code or design websites from nothing so we searched around and found Wix.com. Wix is a pretty good website. It basically starts you off with a template and you go from there, choosing colors, link, fonts etc. Wix made it really easy for us to make our sit, but it did have it's flaws. The first being that on wix you don't have the option of making a screen that scrolls down. You can choose only screens that are square and that's about it (unless I missed something, which if I did please tell me). The website is somewhat counter intuitive for someone who has spent years working with software like final cut pro or photoshop. It definitely takes time to figure out how to order a page or link a tab. It also has the issue of being crazy slow sometime. I would NOT recommend using Wix if you have a slow web connection. That said when all was said and done the sight looked good. I think it may be a bit wordy looking back, but that is something easily fixed with time. The best part of Wix, besides having a template to work from, is that when you are ready to launch your site you can buy hosting from them for relatively cheap. With that price you can also get your domain name and some coupons for facebook and google advertising worth $125. Overall I loved and hated Wix. Knowing we could never have created a website from scratch on our own it was great, but it was extremely frustrating at times when we would be sitting and yelling at our computer for not linking to the right page. O and Wix is free to design until you want to post, which is a huge incentive to at least try it out. I say give it a try and see if you like it. If you don't you only lost a few hours and can search for an alternative.
So as alway please send us any questions or comments you may have. We would love to reply to any questions our reader may have in another blog or just in comments. Also 'like' us on facebook and post something on our page. We are more than happy to answer questions or give our opinion on just about anything that isn't politics or religion. So thanks to all of you for reading!
-STP
www.facebook.com/shottimeproductions
www.shottimeproductions.com
Since the last blog post Shot Time has been busy. We now have a website and facebook page up and running, and I'm pumped about it. First here are the links (but open them in a new tab and read the blog first of course) www.facebook.com/shottimeproductions and www.shottimeproductions.com. Exciting right?! So I thought I would talk a little about the exciting world of facebook pages and website designing.
The facebook page was pretty straight forward. You fill in the blanks and pretty much get what you get, but we spent a ton of hours pulling stills from movies and getting behind the scenes photos for the site. I personally am a big fan of branding so when my awesome graphic designer pitched putting a watermark on each and every photo... I was all for it. Ya it made the process of uploading pictures way longer, and I really don't care to terribly much who makes copies of our photos because our goal is to get as many people to see our work as possible. My thought is that if our logo is on every picture we can pull a nike where every time your turn around you see there logo. Anyway... Pics uploaded, fancy description posted and the make public button is pushed. That is the point where we have the most exciting part of the process, watching our 'likes' climb up rapidly. Well that didn't exactly happen. You see I posted it sometime around three or four in the morning when the normal people are asleep and only a nerd like me is working still. We did get a couple hits that night, and I think I annoyed my team a bit by yelling how we got seven 'likes' instead of six now at 4AM when they were having a beer and watching a movie. I calmed down later, not much, but some. We ended up being able to gather around 135 'likes' in I think about three days. I think that's pretty cool. Now I have always found facebook to be pretty fun and relaxing much like anyone else, but I have learned the biggest drawback to having a facebook page for a company is that it is now work to be on facebook. I fear that I may begin to ramble on the facebook page, and I still want to talk about Wix.com so let me just say business facebook pages are awesome but a lot of work and if you're going to do one you NEED to keep updating it. I know to many people who have made company facebook pages or personal pages to advance a career where they post it and never update... What's the point? If anyone has more questions about the facebook page making process just ask, and we shall answer.
Now the website was a bit trickier. We didn't want to get a web designer just yet, and we don't know how to write code or design websites from nothing so we searched around and found Wix.com. Wix is a pretty good website. It basically starts you off with a template and you go from there, choosing colors, link, fonts etc. Wix made it really easy for us to make our sit, but it did have it's flaws. The first being that on wix you don't have the option of making a screen that scrolls down. You can choose only screens that are square and that's about it (unless I missed something, which if I did please tell me). The website is somewhat counter intuitive for someone who has spent years working with software like final cut pro or photoshop. It definitely takes time to figure out how to order a page or link a tab. It also has the issue of being crazy slow sometime. I would NOT recommend using Wix if you have a slow web connection. That said when all was said and done the sight looked good. I think it may be a bit wordy looking back, but that is something easily fixed with time. The best part of Wix, besides having a template to work from, is that when you are ready to launch your site you can buy hosting from them for relatively cheap. With that price you can also get your domain name and some coupons for facebook and google advertising worth $125. Overall I loved and hated Wix. Knowing we could never have created a website from scratch on our own it was great, but it was extremely frustrating at times when we would be sitting and yelling at our computer for not linking to the right page. O and Wix is free to design until you want to post, which is a huge incentive to at least try it out. I say give it a try and see if you like it. If you don't you only lost a few hours and can search for an alternative.
So as alway please send us any questions or comments you may have. We would love to reply to any questions our reader may have in another blog or just in comments. Also 'like' us on facebook and post something on our page. We are more than happy to answer questions or give our opinion on just about anything that isn't politics or religion. So thanks to all of you for reading!
-STP
www.facebook.com/shottimeproductions
www.shottimeproductions.com
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Shot Time Productions in the 48 Hour Film Project - Chicago
Hello again and welcome!
The Shot Time team took part in the 48 hour film project a couple weeks ago here in the windy city. It was exhausting, long and at times tense but it was also a ton of fun. We spent a couple weeks before the actual weekend of the event prepping as many potential locations as we could so we would have no issues once we got our genre and of course once we got our genre we got thrown for a loop. Reading the many potential genres there was maybe 2 that we didn't want and of course we got one of them... Family film. I gotta say, directing a family film is not something I though I would be doing anytime soon, but it was a lot of fun. Brendan or 'God of Animation' as we have dubbed him had a ton of work to do. In about 24 hours he put together three short animations and also our logo animation and he did great.
One of the most exciting parts of the shoot was the fact we got a sick camera hook up by our fantastic cinematographer. He was able to get us the brand new Sony NEX FS100 with a few prime lenses. I gotta tell you that camera is everything I could ever ask for when shooting on locations where lighting was uncontrollable. Since we only had 48 hours we had little time to set up big lights and ended up using some great little blender LED lights that were battery operated when necessary, but when we didn't the camera still worked like a charm. Only one situation came up where we needed to bump up the gain to +3, but the noise was negligible. We even used the sweet slow motion shooting system. Now this could have been a mistake on our part as we didn't have much time to practice with the camera prior to shooting, but the slow motion shooting had limited shooting length, as in we shot for about 15 seconds and it would stop... Probably our fault, but it was rarely an issue. I think the only thing that seems strange about the NEX FS100 is the fact it has no ND filters. One could be snobby and say that's why you buy ND lens filters and to them I say... shut up... Just kidding. It was not an issue really, but I could see where one would have issues if using this camera for many shoots.
I mentioned those blender LED lights earlier... How freakin awesome are those things?! I mean not only is it only like 5lbs (no more sore back) and battery powered (no more worrying about blowing a fuse) but it also let's you blend color tempertures (no more gels and tape and burning your fingers putting gels back on!!!) Speaking of temperature the thing didn't even get all that hot. I was able to pick it up bare handed while on and move it. Great lights in my opinion especially if you're looking for portability and ease of use! Oh and they apparently have different adaptors available so if you use Sony or Canon or Panasonic you can buy that battery adaptor and not have to go out and buy a whole bunch of new batteries. I am personally in love with these lights.
Anywho back to the tournament. We spent 48 hours working our butts off and made an all around good movie for being done in 48 hours and being a family film which none of us really had any preconceived ideas in the back of our minds for. I know one is not supposed to plan stories before hand but anyone who is really a filmmaker has at least 10-12 movie ideas in their mind that they think would be great, and I am hard pressed to believe they just said well I knew that idea already so let's think of something else.
All in all it was a fun festival. They asked all of the directors if they would do this event again next year, and I think I was the only one who said no. I don't say that because it was a bad festival but because I think Shot Time will begin to grow and try to spend several months to a year putting together one great movie and compete in the feature film categories. So to anyone wondering if they should do this festival, I would say yes if you have the money laying around to pay all the fees since it costs around $160 to enter then $12 dollars for tickets to the screening and $20 for the winners screening. It adds up quickly, but it was fun seeing the movies at the Logan theatre and the Vic. If not get a bunch of guys together and put together your own 48 hours film festival. In 48 hours you can't sweat the small stuff and you really learn a lot about working quickly and efficiently and how/when mistakes are made. That is what I think was the best thing I took from this event.
As always I hope to hear from you via email/comments. Until next time, take care!
It's Shot Time,
STP
The Shot Time team took part in the 48 hour film project a couple weeks ago here in the windy city. It was exhausting, long and at times tense but it was also a ton of fun. We spent a couple weeks before the actual weekend of the event prepping as many potential locations as we could so we would have no issues once we got our genre and of course once we got our genre we got thrown for a loop. Reading the many potential genres there was maybe 2 that we didn't want and of course we got one of them... Family film. I gotta say, directing a family film is not something I though I would be doing anytime soon, but it was a lot of fun. Brendan or 'God of Animation' as we have dubbed him had a ton of work to do. In about 24 hours he put together three short animations and also our logo animation and he did great.
One of the most exciting parts of the shoot was the fact we got a sick camera hook up by our fantastic cinematographer. He was able to get us the brand new Sony NEX FS100 with a few prime lenses. I gotta tell you that camera is everything I could ever ask for when shooting on locations where lighting was uncontrollable. Since we only had 48 hours we had little time to set up big lights and ended up using some great little blender LED lights that were battery operated when necessary, but when we didn't the camera still worked like a charm. Only one situation came up where we needed to bump up the gain to +3, but the noise was negligible. We even used the sweet slow motion shooting system. Now this could have been a mistake on our part as we didn't have much time to practice with the camera prior to shooting, but the slow motion shooting had limited shooting length, as in we shot for about 15 seconds and it would stop... Probably our fault, but it was rarely an issue. I think the only thing that seems strange about the NEX FS100 is the fact it has no ND filters. One could be snobby and say that's why you buy ND lens filters and to them I say... shut up... Just kidding. It was not an issue really, but I could see where one would have issues if using this camera for many shoots.
I mentioned those blender LED lights earlier... How freakin awesome are those things?! I mean not only is it only like 5lbs (no more sore back) and battery powered (no more worrying about blowing a fuse) but it also let's you blend color tempertures (no more gels and tape and burning your fingers putting gels back on!!!) Speaking of temperature the thing didn't even get all that hot. I was able to pick it up bare handed while on and move it. Great lights in my opinion especially if you're looking for portability and ease of use! Oh and they apparently have different adaptors available so if you use Sony or Canon or Panasonic you can buy that battery adaptor and not have to go out and buy a whole bunch of new batteries. I am personally in love with these lights.
Anywho back to the tournament. We spent 48 hours working our butts off and made an all around good movie for being done in 48 hours and being a family film which none of us really had any preconceived ideas in the back of our minds for. I know one is not supposed to plan stories before hand but anyone who is really a filmmaker has at least 10-12 movie ideas in their mind that they think would be great, and I am hard pressed to believe they just said well I knew that idea already so let's think of something else.
All in all it was a fun festival. They asked all of the directors if they would do this event again next year, and I think I was the only one who said no. I don't say that because it was a bad festival but because I think Shot Time will begin to grow and try to spend several months to a year putting together one great movie and compete in the feature film categories. So to anyone wondering if they should do this festival, I would say yes if you have the money laying around to pay all the fees since it costs around $160 to enter then $12 dollars for tickets to the screening and $20 for the winners screening. It adds up quickly, but it was fun seeing the movies at the Logan theatre and the Vic. If not get a bunch of guys together and put together your own 48 hours film festival. In 48 hours you can't sweat the small stuff and you really learn a lot about working quickly and efficiently and how/when mistakes are made. That is what I think was the best thing I took from this event.
As always I hope to hear from you via email/comments. Until next time, take care!
It's Shot Time,
STP
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Beginning of Something Awesome
Welcome to Shot Time Productions official blog!
I think I should explain who we are and what we do since this is the first blog and all. Shot Time is a group of film makers, animators, photographers, graphic designers and all kinds of awesome media related professionals who decided it was time to start doing something sweet with our talents. Our tagline is simple, "We tell stories, it's what we do." The focus of our company is movie production. Whether it's pre or post or all that fun stuff in between we got it covered, but we never turn down a chance to do something creative and we are trained in all that other great stuff I mentioned as well.
So what's so special about Shot Time you might ask? You probably wouldn't but I'll tell you anyway. We freakin love what we do. We're young and driven and don't feel like settling for "the way things should be done" when it comes to filmmaking so we're doin it our way. Frank Sinatra would be proud. I know it's "my way" in the song but whatever dude. Working your way up the Hollywood food chain is so 1955, the resources are there and we aim to take advantage of them. We work with great clients who are looking to expand their businesses through online media. We make something fun and exciting for them and the proceeds go to help us pay the bills and finance our next big movie. We love the film festival scene, and we will soon be self distributing our own films via all those nifty new things on the world wide web where the kids buy stuff.
So what to expect from Shot Time and it's brand spankin new blog? Well we will write about what we want when we want, which in all honesty will probably be pretty regularly cuz we have a lot to say... Everything from what we think of the new equipment we just bought or that new client and their exciting ventures or our new movie and the many awards it wins and how we made it and why, and we may add in other stuff if we feel like it. Plus what better venue to say we told you so to all those nay sayers who told us to put on a tie and get a real job than this? I say none.
So once again welcome to Shot Time Productions new blog! We launch our website in the next couple weeks so I hope all of our tens of soon to be followers will come check it out, and I will always leave the option for anyone who is interested to email me, Jimmy Boratyn, at shottimeproductions@gmail.com if you like what you read, have a question, want to hire us or just want to leave a comment/ask a question.
Best!
STP
I think I should explain who we are and what we do since this is the first blog and all. Shot Time is a group of film makers, animators, photographers, graphic designers and all kinds of awesome media related professionals who decided it was time to start doing something sweet with our talents. Our tagline is simple, "We tell stories, it's what we do." The focus of our company is movie production. Whether it's pre or post or all that fun stuff in between we got it covered, but we never turn down a chance to do something creative and we are trained in all that other great stuff I mentioned as well.
So what's so special about Shot Time you might ask? You probably wouldn't but I'll tell you anyway. We freakin love what we do. We're young and driven and don't feel like settling for "the way things should be done" when it comes to filmmaking so we're doin it our way. Frank Sinatra would be proud. I know it's "my way" in the song but whatever dude. Working your way up the Hollywood food chain is so 1955, the resources are there and we aim to take advantage of them. We work with great clients who are looking to expand their businesses through online media. We make something fun and exciting for them and the proceeds go to help us pay the bills and finance our next big movie. We love the film festival scene, and we will soon be self distributing our own films via all those nifty new things on the world wide web where the kids buy stuff.
So what to expect from Shot Time and it's brand spankin new blog? Well we will write about what we want when we want, which in all honesty will probably be pretty regularly cuz we have a lot to say... Everything from what we think of the new equipment we just bought or that new client and their exciting ventures or our new movie and the many awards it wins and how we made it and why, and we may add in other stuff if we feel like it. Plus what better venue to say we told you so to all those nay sayers who told us to put on a tie and get a real job than this? I say none.
So once again welcome to Shot Time Productions new blog! We launch our website in the next couple weeks so I hope all of our tens of soon to be followers will come check it out, and I will always leave the option for anyone who is interested to email me, Jimmy Boratyn, at shottimeproductions@gmail.com if you like what you read, have a question, want to hire us or just want to leave a comment/ask a question.
Best!
STP
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