Each year video and film enthusiests look forward to the tech and industry news coming out of NAB. This year, those lucky enough to attend will have a chance to attend a talk by Hunger Games director Gary Ross. Among other films, Mr. Ross is known for directing Seabiscuit and Pleasantville, as well as writing the mega-hit Big. At the time of this posting, Hunger Games is at the top of the box office charts in the united states and has had the third highest grossing domestic opening weekend ever. In addition to Gary Ross, Hunger Games sound designers Lon Bender and Bill Dean will be participating.

The talk is part of the Creative Master Series at NAB, which Mr. Ross is headlining. Additional sessions include:

“The Walking Dead: Creating a Thinking Person’s Zombie Drama,” featuring executive producers Brian Lowry, Dave Alpert, and Robert Kirkman, as well as showrunner Glen Mazzara

“The Brave New World of Filmmaking with Digital Technologies,” featuring Rich Carter, Production Designer of Avatar and War Horse, Caleb Deschanel, director of photography for Spiderwick Chronicles, and National Treasure, and Scott Farrar, Visual Effects Supervisor and Second Unit Director for Transformers: Dark of the Moon, and Minority Report

“Producing Live Event TV with ABC,“ featuring Robert Deaton, Executive Producer of The CMA Awards, Michael Gelman, Executive Producer of Live! with Kelly and Hollywood Squares, and Larry Klein, Executive Producer of New Year’s Rockin’ Eve and the American Music Awards. Additionally, ABC executives Marc Bracco and James Goldston will appear.

It’s not unusual to find interviews of blockbuster movie and television directors shortly before and after a nationwide release, but these NAB talks are less about promoting the movie and more about talking shop with industry peers. In addition to all the new tech being announced and showcased at NAB this year, video industry geeks will definitely have plenty to obsess over.

We’re always interested in stories of up-and-coming indie movie projects.  One such project that caught our eye was  Sledgehammer, an Aliens-inspired science fiction film about a group of space marines marooned on a distant planet full of hostile monsters. The design of the monster was what really did it for me. The concept art, by 3D artist Wesley Griffith (who also worked on Dan Trachtenberg’s Portal: No Escape) shows a nasty spiny insectoid, something like a giant sand flea, sure to inspire the heebie jeebies in any arachnophobe.  Science fiction is one of the most difficult genres in independent film, for obvious reasons:  Science fiction means special effects and special effects cost money! So we had to know, how do you make a critter like that on a budget?

The man behind Sledgehammer is 15 year veteran 3D video game artist Frank Silas, who has worked with  Rockstar Games and Activision Blizzard; he previously directed the award-winning short film Box on a shoestring budget of $2000, but Sledgehammer promises to be a more ambitious special effects extravaganza.  He’s using Kickstarter to raise the money to make this film a reality.

Frank spoke to Videomaker about the challenges of putting together an independent science fiction movie, sharing some tips about finding funding, recruiting actors and creating special effects on a tight budget. Aspiring sci fi directors, take note!

VM: What have you learned from working on Sledgehammer?

FS: I learned about being an Executive Producer. If you are able to bring in active investors at the target amounts you need per film then you can make any film you want. That’s the rub, because those two things are directly proportional. So in most cases you will not be able to make exactly the film you want. I’ve learned to be detached from the details just as long as I like the outcome. I write the script that I want to write, then we shoot what we are able to shoot based on locations, crew, cast etc. Then we edit what we have to turn that into the best possible film it can be. Even in post production it depends on how many people or how much time we can put on to it, but that keeps each stage of the process an adventure, somewhat experimental which frees me to not only shoot more films, but to enjoy the work more. I could see the struggles of other directors who have a crystal clear vision that they want reproduced from their mind’s eye with complete fidelity. I don’t want to struggle against the film making process. I want to enjoy it and I want my crew to enjoy it.

VM: Besides Kickstarter, what other alternative funding options have you explored?

FS: I brought on a couple of friends to help me pay for the live action shoot. That’s what allowed us to shoot the film in the first place. It’s tough to be an Executive Producer on your own film as a Director. Our purpose on Kickstarter.com is to raise funding to create the visual effects for the film. Our studio normally shoots DSLR on Cannon 5D Mark ii and Cannon 7D. With this film we were able to get our hands on a RED Epic from one of the same companies that supplied RED Epics for Ridley Scott’s Prometheus. So now we need to do vfx at a very high resolution, which means insurmountable render times unless we acquire the proper software and hardware tools to deal with that.

VM: What advice would you give to other aspiring filmmakers?

FS: The advice I would give to other film makers working on low and micro-budget films is to be a bit more Depak Chopra about it. Your careers will last longer and so will your crews. As for the Sci Fi Film aspect, you’re really going to need to love it. It is the most difficult kind of film to do. It also takes the longest amount of time to make. It cost more than any other type of film to produce, but if you can hit a home run there…those fans are forever. I know, I am a sci fi fan thanks to George Lucas, Ridley Scott, and James Cameron.  Sci Fi raised me.

VM: How did you find the right actors for Sledgehammer?

FS: We screened over 30 actors to discover the cast we have on Sledgehammer! We were very selective about those 30. I promised all of the backers of our Kickstarter to tell them first exactly how we found the actors and what we were looking for. We’ll even show you the process we went through to get them ready in the feature length documentary we are shooting on the making of Sledgehammer, provided our Kickstarter is successful!

VM: What was your idea for how the alien should look? How do you build a good alien when you’re on a budget?

FS: Building an alien on a budget really comes down to what you are trying to accomplish with that character in your film. For us, we knew that there wasn’t just going to be one alien and since I’m a 3D Artist with 3D Artist friends creating our aliens in 3D just made sense. Not everyone can do that on a budget, but we already had that background coming into this production.

With the alien design, I wanted to create something that people have not seen before. It needed to look believable, but not quite like anything else. I call it a cross between JJ Abrams, Starship Troopers, and Avatar. I want the audience to feel scared, intimidated, grossed out when they see it. The thing is the size of a mini-van. Here’s a spoiler, that’s not the only monster in our movie.

To learn more or support Sledgehammer, check out the Sledgehammer Kickstarter page.

One of my favorite things about getting my hands on a new Hollywood release is the chance to check out the DVD Extras that some movies now come with. Especially now that many movies are released on Blu-ray, which can hold a lot more information and space than an ordinary DVD.

I love watching the Behind the Scenes footage (BTS), where they show the setup of some scenes. And the Director’s Commentary on most movies is very enlightening. After I’ve watched a movie from Open to End Credits, I watch it again with the commentary audio on.

If the comments are done by the director, sound person, director of photography or screenwriter, then there’s some good tidbits you can learn.

For instance, I was watching the original Star Wars trilogy, [yeah, we've had a lot of rain lately, so boredom does sink in!] but the “Bonus Disc” was stock full of BTS footage, setup, greenscreen, modeling, and comments on how they did it. The sound guys told a great story about getting the “right” sound for Darth Vadar’s footsteps from an old abandoned military bunker in San Francisco. You can read about some of it in our just uploaded Audio Column “Sound FX: Think Outside the Source”

Besides the bunkers, they talked about using ordinary dumpsters to get great “outer space” noise – jumping inside a dumpster and banging on the walls. The level of “Junk” in the bin changes the feeling of the sound. (Hum – I just got an image of Luke, Han, and Leia falling down that garbage shoot!)

In the Back to the Future movies, (again with the trilogies!) the director talks about how they got  Michael J. Fox’s character in the third movie as an old time 1880s frontier man to hand over a baby to the 1980s Michael J. Fox character – both in a split scene at the same time – and the director used a quick “natural wipe” of Fox’s “mom” character passing through to bridge the gap. Really cool stuff.

Sometimes you learn how simple and easy a fix is, other times you realize how complex a problem solving issue was. In our recent Inspiring Directors feature, Director Ron Howard talks about how he had to work around location difficulties when filming Angels and Demons, his sequel to The da Vinci Code.  Yup – even big time directors have to fight City Hall sometimes.

I’ve found that some audio commentaries are lacking in any substance, for instance recently I was watching a movie with the main actor doing the commentary, and he invited the head chef of the catering department to assist. Most of the talk was about the food or silliness on the set. I’ve found that usually if the commentary is done by an actor, there’s not a lot of “learning” , they’re somewhat narcissistic and mostly talk about themselves.

I recently bought the HUGE 6-disc Blu-ray collection of the making of Avatar and it looks like yet another late spring storm might be headed our way, so I’m planning to hunker in and watch more “how to make a movie” tips on some DVD extras. Have a nice 3-day weekend, everyone!