This is an ongoing list of things I don’t want to have in any of my films and other work. I’m sure I’ll look at this after a while as the perfect set of things I should be doing.

1. No scenes where the person doesn’t know how to tie a tie.
2. No extremely fit men.
3. No aliens (from other planets).
4. No weddings.
5. No men with dogs.
6. No cool bartenders.
7. No pistols.
8. No World Wars.
9. No villains that I wouldn’t want to be.
10. No dying words, unless they are meaningless.
11. No hackers.
12. No car chases. Chases involving all other modes of transportation are encouraged.
13. No talking animals.
14. No famous/public figures as characters.
15. No story that takes place before 1900, unless there are no humans in the film.
16. No sex scene montages.
17. No black and white cinematography.
18. No voice-over narration.
19. No math geniuses.
20. No expected nudity.
21. No time travel.
22. No superheros.
23. No dinosaurs.
24. No flashbacks.

See You Later, Scott – Preview from Matthew Miller on Vimeo.

Here is a little preview of the short film I have been working on. I wish putting together the whole film was as simple as putting together the preview. Maybe in the future our attention spans will be so short that previews will replace feature films altogether. Watching a film in theaters would be similar to watching the Japanese horror film House, in which every scene plays out at the speed of a commercial.

The 2012 Vimeo Awards has shortlisted Matthew Miller’s short film “A Bitch.”
The awards cover everything from animation and motion graphics to documentary and narrative films.
Grants will be awarded to the winners of each category to help fund their next project.

You can vote once per day, per category, between now and April 30. 5 days left!
Watch + vote here: https://vimeo.com/awards/vote/narrative

The judges will consider your votes when deciding which films move on to the festival.
The judging panel includes Peter Greenaway, Geoff McFetridge, James Franco, Lucy Walker, Chris Milk and Colin Greenwood of Radiohead.

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Vimeo Awards 2012
When: June 7-9
Where: NYU Skirball Center in New York City
https://vimeo.com/awards

I recently did my first set of corporate headshots for a company called Ad Colony. We did a couple of different poses with shoulders at an angle and straight on, plus some where they looked off to the side. I didn’t end up using those because they were a little too cheesy. It was a simple two-strobe setup against a semi-reflective black background–one strobe camera left in front of the subject, one strobe camera right behind the subject pointing toward the back of the head. I obviously should have done more shadow control with a reflector but forgot to bring it, whoops! Nonetheless, I’m pretty proud of myself. =)

Click to see the rest of the photos….

Here is some aggressive typography:

This “DAD” one is tricky for other letters, but I have yet to try the whole alphabet. I like it for the simple cuts, but I think you’ll lose that with a lot of other letters, like G.

I am working on a short film with a few friends and planning a kickstarter project to fund it. We tried to go camping a few weeks ago to give it a go, but we were only able to do some tests. Right now I am working on a budget for the project and trying to consider all possible costs that are out of my own budget (which are most of costs).

I have also been doing some research on successful and unsuccessful kickstarter projects. The successful ones don’t really help, because it still seems a little crazy that some of these things get funded. The proposal video seems essential, and it begins to make sense why after looking at a lot of projects. It can be the most direct and personal way to communicate with your audience. Establishing that audience is also essential, and something that I had not considered prior to this project.

Who wants to see what you make? I’m sure every film studio has big marketing teams dedicated to this, but what can you do by yourself? There is actually an interesting article that I recently read about Stanley Kubrick researching the right market for A Clockwork Orange, which led to the publishing of box office revenues. I imagine that assessing this information is still fairly difficult, which is why having films on the internet is so cool.

With a video on Vimeo or Youtube, you can see how many people view your films/videos on a daily basis and how many people “like” them. You can even see what countries these people are from with Vimeo Plus. One person has watched one of my films in Latvia! While I was really excited about that, part of me didn’t know what to do with that information until now. That one Latvian is now part of my audience, and I should consider that person when spreading information about a new project or film that I have posted.

I have never been interested in the “business side” of anything, but it really can’t be ignored if you want to do things yourself. I’m just skimming the surface of things with this kickstarter project, but I’ll continue to post my findings and eventually the project as I get things together.

Links:

Kubrick Article: http://news.moviefone.com/mike-kaplan/stanley-kubrick-box-office_b_1195323.html

Kickstarter Article: http://www.filmindependent.org/resources/7-things-we-did-to-ensure-a-successful-crowd-funding-experience-part-i/

I’m not the best at documenting my print work. Sometimes people take a video,  some take photos, some scan, and some just post the original digital files. Sometimes the photos are static and sometimes they are a variety of closeups. How do you like documenting your print work? I just redocumented some of my work again, keep reading for some samples…

Twentieth Century Type Remix, typography study book. Hand-bound with perfect binding techniques.

Natasha Lookbook (final documentation yay!)

Memories of Childhood, a book about 5 random objects that somehow hold a special meaning to my childhood.

So this time around I chose to only take a few photos of my books at different perspectives. I feel like it’s more dynamic and shows the most important parts. In the past I’ve just done it with the camera in one location and static with me flipping pages and snapping the photos. I’m always trying to figure out what’s best… suggestions?

I finally got around to printing the lookbook for my Natasha shoot! I printed on a gray matte cardstock and then printed on semi-gloss photo paper for the photos on top of the patterns. They’re pasted on so it has a cool raised and glossy DIY touch to it. I’m really happy with it! I glued the pages back to back and then bound it together with a printed pattern along the spine! Hope you enjoy! These are just photos from my iPhone but I’m sure I’ll document this a bit more professionally in the future!

I don’t pretend to be a film photographer because, frankly, I don’t know much about it. But just because I haven’t done it doesn’t mean I’ve never wanted to! This is a review on my first film camera, a wonderful automatic film camera called the Fuji Natura Classica!

There are a great deal of film cameras on the loose, many of which are cheaper than the Natura Classica. I was introduced to this wonderful camera by my friend Steven, and since then I have always been fascinated by it. It does indeed have a cult following, mostly in Japan, since it is only sold in Japan (or in my case, online.) What’s so great about this camera, you ask?

- Great colors. Very true to life.
- Amazing low-light photos. This is what the camera is best known for and this is really the strong point of the camera. The camera has an NP (natural photo) mode that measures the brightness range of the subject and adjusts exposure according to natural light.
- An awesome looking camera. Sleek and simple.
- Easy to use. Just point and shoot! (There are different settings to choose from if you wish, however.)

Some simple specs:

- It has a 28-56mm f/2.8-5.4 zoom lens.
- It runs on one lithium CR2 battery. (Easy to find)
- Uses Autofocus.
- Exposure settings: slow-shutter, red-eye reduction, self-timer, remote control, landscape

Here are some of my first photos developed from the camera. I’m excited to shoot more! =)

Something to note about this camera is that it works best with Natura Classica 1600 film, which actually is impossible to find here in the US, but the Fuji Natura Superia 1600 film is actually the same film! Fuji renamed the film but stuck to “Natura Classica” in Japan. I know this wasn’t quite an in depth review but hopefully it’s cool to see some insight on the camera, if ever you were in the market to get an automatic film camera! If you want a better review of the camera, I found this one to be quite helpful.

I will be updating R&R with more photos as they come but if you’re interested I will be posting all my photos in a newly made film diary on my website! =)