Election Silence

Ok, the picture is not really great but it's a document. On Tuesday we finished the sound mix for the short Election Silence. We are in Viba Sound Studio - Slovenia, left to right: Sound Editor Julij Zornik, Martin Schinz - re-recording mixer, my good friend Boris Petkovic and Rudi Jesenicnik - studio assistant. In the background you can see the opening shot of the film, the ass belongs to main character Valter Dragan.


J.J.B.

I don't

do this normaly but this is fucking great.

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

J.J.B.

Elvis Jackson - Market Sweets

One more for the archive: I think we shot this video in 2001. DOP was Radovan Cok for the "story" part and concert's shots have been made by me and Janez Stucin. We shot the concert with two 16mm bolex cameras. The guys who were preparing the concert were loughing at us because those cameras work on spring. We looked really old school but the images are great.

J.J.B.

Eicar - new website

I'm receiving through this blog more and more questions about Eicar - International Film School. We have a new webiste, here is a link, check it out.

J.J.B.

Casablanca

It's been 2 months since we started with classes at Eicar. This year I teach production for bachelor 1st year and master 1st year. Those are mainly theoretical courses 2 hours a week.
"My class", where I teach directing, is 2nd year bachelor program. We have almost 40 students so we divided them into two groups and the other teacher is Adriano Valerio. We alternate classes so that both group can have lectures from both of us.
There are two premises in 2nd year program. First, how to tell a story in realistic way, stressing also the film structure, dramaturgy... Second, it's working with actors.
Last week we started with exercises with actors. The students get the given scene from films and then they have to direct with actors. Each year I choose the scene from Casablanca, where Ingrid Bergman comes to ask for transit letters from Humphrey Bogart, to be the first one because it's very easy to break it down into units and to find objectives and obstacles. In one class three students work with actors on the scene and then we analyse their work together, then the following week one of them shoot the scene.
So here is the picture from shooting, where actors Jon Russo and Heike try to do their best of Bogart-Bergman.

At one moment my student Madison took my photo and made some pictures. After, I found this one that I like a lot. D.O.P. August at work (not to forget, director was Brandon).

J.J.B.

Reflection

When I came to Paris in October 2003, I had a Russian plan: I will stay in Paris for 5 years no matter what happens and after that period I will draw a line and see if the things are working for me or not. The fifth year have just started and it's still a bit too early for final account, but here are some pluses and minuses in the last 4 years.

- After being in Paris for 2 months, in december 2003 I shot a short film-exercise on super16. I've already written about that here, now I finally uploaded the whole film.

in case of problems, try to open it directly from here

- first year in Paris was very tough for me, I was almost all the time without the money, I didn't understand the word of French and it didn't seem at the time that the things will change. I remember that I was crying out of frustration several times. However, through Balkan connections I got a job at Orly airport (I was "slapping" the luggage as we say in Bosnia) and somehow survived that first year.

- second year started much easier since I got a scholarship from Slovenian Ministry of culture. Suddenly I had a lot of free time since I didn't need to run around like crazy trying to earn few euros. Consequance will be described in next line

- I spoke with at the time my directing professor Ilka Jarvilaturi. I told him how frustrated I'm because I don't speak the language. He told me:"To learn a language you have to either shoot a feature in French or you have to find a french speaking girlfriend.". Just to be sure I did both :)

- third year, partial breakthrough, I got a job as a professor of film directing at the school where I was a student. Great international environment. Big plus.

- that same year passed by working on post-production of paris.love

- fourth year, continuation of teaching. Started a project with Brina Svit, travelled with her to Buenos Aires and spent a summer shooting in Slovenia

- voila, here we are, fifth year, not bad at all. The only big minus that's following me all this years is French breaucracy. Although Slovenia entered the European Union in 2005, the things for me haven't changed much; I still need to wait in queue to get my working papers and the fact that I'm from European Union doesn't make the things really easier

- anyhow, recently I started to work as a camera operator and editor with a swedish journalist shooting the news for swedish TV. Although I started my career back in 94 working the same things, I enjoy a lot rediscovering it now

- so, when I don't work at school or with swedish guy, I edit the documentary about Brina. So, here I'm am, doing my best of Rodin's Thinker.


J.J.B.

Ratatouille - film location

Today I passed by this place and I finally made a photo. I remember how impressed and shocked I was the first time I saw it, few years ago, before the film came out.

For cinema buffs who will visit Paris, you can find it on 8 rue des Halles in the first arrondissement.
J.J.B.

Sstress

It's a good title for what I'm going through at the moment but I will be able to speak about that in few days. Meanwhile I continue uploading my films.
So, Sstress was shot a year after Director's Cut, following two basic ideas: first, film reels are again the leftovers from the frige (this time Danijel Hocevar gave two and Franci Slak one), second, the film should be in one shot following the idea that the specific of the frame is that there are some things outside it that we can't predict or imagine.
So, the crew: Vladimir Vlaskalic sat on a chair, again Bozo Zadravec as D.O.P., Mojca Gorogranc as make-up artist, Marjan Jelnikar as a grip, Julij Zornik sound-mix, editor Janez Bricelj, producer Danijel Hocevar and I operated the camera and directed it (I am credited also as a producer). We shot it during several hours one sunny night.

Trivia:
- the electric chair was primary designed for video clip of a famous Slovenian group Siddharta by Pepi Sekulic

J.J.B.

Films, Films, Films... - Director's Cut

I've just started uploading my short films and other stuff on internet, because I would finally like to have most of my work in one place (which will be on this blog - in several days I will rearrange Filmography section).
I've decided to publish them also on posts, as I will upload them, with the short stories about shoots, festivals, etc...
So, here we go:
In winter 2001 I was sitting in Emotionfilm production office chatting with Danijel Hocevar about god knows what. He prepared me a coffee and I went to get some milk, I opened the frige and I saw inside 3 small reels (120m) of 35mm film (I think two were 500 ASA and one 800 ASA). I asked him what's that for and he explained that those were the reels - leftovers from previous project, they didn't use them and soon they would be out of date. I turned around and told him: "Dane, I have an idea!".:)
As I remember, that year we didn't shoot a lot of films in Slovenia, so for one afternoon shoot I called my friends, Sloveniian film workers to help me. Dunja Zupanec and Blaz Valic accompanied by Jurij Meden were actors, Bozo Zadravec was D.O.P., make-up Alenka Nahtigal, costumes - Sabina Buzdon, grips Stane Podobnikar jr. and Marjan Jelnikar, prop master - Rudi Pozeg, sound post-production Julij Zornik, Danijel Hocevar produced it and I was screenwriter, director, editor and camera operator.
Here is a crew.

And a picture from rehearsal.

Funny thing was that this was really no budget shoot, so we borrowed the electricity from Nino&Jelena's appartment. To fix it over the street it looked like this.


Anyhow, here is the film. It was kind of festivals hit, they really liked it, esspecially showing it on closing ceremonies.:) And the film is really made for cinema, because it uses the cinema hall as a film element.


Trivia:
- the voice of producer at the end of the film is acctually the voice od Danijel Hocevar. As I remember Julij Zornik recorded it directly from his mobile phone.
- Jurij Meden, Slovenian famous film critic and filmmaker plays the role of the director.
- on the first few screenings in Slovenia, at the sound of teared film and blank white frame, the cinema operators were constantly stoping the projection. We had to accompany the film reel with the warning: "In this film the effect of teared film is used. Please don't stop the screening.".

J.J.B.

A bout de souffle - commercial

Voila, finally.
I helped Andrew Brooke, the friend of mine, who last year graduated at Eicar film school on his commercial assignement.
He didn't need to persuade me a lot, A bout de souffle is one of my favorite films and I had a lot of fun editing this. It took him another year to fix the music and sound but finally, here it is.


J.J.B.

Summer Time

...and the weather is easy. After the heat-wave last week I can finally do few things (not just trying to survive in horizontal position). Last week, apart from few meetings, I haven't done much. I shot a statement for Slovenian internet portal vest.si regarding the situation in Slovenian film industry. It's a long story and I don't want to go in details here but few guys in power managed to destroy the politic of Slovenian Film Fund literally over the night. The text in the statement is:
The situation in Slovenian film is finaly balanced and it can be explained by Newton's 3rd Law: If object A exerts a force on object B,
then object B exerts an equal and opposite force on object A.
Populary we call it the law of action and reaction.

Yesterday we had a barbecue with a guys from Luksuz Production. At around 6 p.m. it was still quite easy and then exactly at 7 p.m. we started. I was chef, because I really enjoy in that and the great thing isthat the day before Tom bought new grill.

In few hours I will go to Ljubljana. The whole next week we will continue shooting Brina's portrait for national TV.

J.J.B.

Slovenia Strikes Again

After Buenos Aires I've rested for two days and then I was again on the shoot. Another Slovenian student Gregor Andolsek was selected to shoot a film on S16 mm. He wrote the script together with Spanish student Ivan Tobalina. Supervising this shoot was quite ok, they were doing a good job so I didn't interfere much. First day, on Monday, they were shooting in the bar.
While Gregor was rehearsing with the actors, Camille, the producer was preparing the food for the crew. I'm glad Gregor "got" his bar in Paris (once you shoot in it, you "owe" it, mine is this one). What I envied him is the name of the nearby street. I would kill to be able to shoot on that street in Paris :). Anyhow, next day we were on the street in Plaine Saint-Denis, shooting the sceene in front of the doors. We had access to the building because we took the electricity from there. However, we didn't have the key from the doors and by Murphy's law, at 2 in the morning someone by mistake closed the doors. Of course a lot of stuff got locked inside. But the window on the second floor was open. We tried with the highest ladder that we could find but of course it was not high enough. Luckily, that night we had a security guy with us (two weeks earlier the van full of equipment was stolen from our students not far away) and he called a friend of him, the fireman. So, he climbed up and opened the doors. That action was definitely the highlight of the day (pardon, of the night). Yesterday, we were again on streets of Paris, nothing really special happened. The shoot finished at around 5 in the morning. Here are more photos.
Apart from that, Brina called me today, she's just got from Buenos Aires and her book went into the print today. We will meet next week to organize next shoots. Tomorrow, me and Mirella will go to Slovenia for a screening of paris.love. Looking forward.

J.J.B.

Lady Svit in Buenos Aires

Voila, here we are. I came the day before yesterday in the morning after the 13 hours flight. Together with Sabina I spent the afternoon and evening putting the equipment together. Yesterday at 11 o'clock we met with other two crew members Lorena and Pedro for equipment checking and around 2 p.m. we finally started shooting. I brought with me from Paris the text (I got it from Brina's publisher) of Brina's new book designed as it will be for print. This is a moment when the book is finished but there are still minor details to correct so I wanted to capture the moment when Brina gets it in her hands. And it was quite ok, I guess I got some emotions from the scene. In the afternoon we shot Brina and Sergio having a private tango lesson in the middle of the parc. Here is the picture.

After the dinnner we went to the same parc to document some more moments. Brina took part in milonga as she does every day. We shot some moments and that was that for the first day. Today we will walk with Brina around Buenos Aires and try to get just some moment of her and the city. As for the evening, of course, another milonga.

J.J.B.

Bueno Buenos Aires

Things are slowly coming together in Buenos Aires. I'm leaving Paris on Wednesday and hopefully I will be there on Thursday morning. Brina has been there already for two weeks. At the moment our Slovenian contact in Buenos Aires Sabina Dogic is renting the equipment and putting together the crew. We will be shooting on HDV but today I checked super 8 camera (thanks a lot Alex) because throughout the shoot I want to capture small moments also on super 8. Anyhow, just for a taste, here is a short moment shot by Sabina with Brina in one of the dance halls in Buenos Aires .


J.J.B.

Shoots, shoots, shoots...

Yesterday, probably under the impression of elections, I went to see French film Le Candidat. I was not really impressed and I'm not in the mood to analyse it. In front of the cinema this guys were preparing a shot.

I didn't ask anything, I saw HDV camera and I assume it was commercial. However, today I passed by another shoot. Stylianos Constantinoy, 2nd year student, was shooting his 35 mm selected project in the church. Luckily, the church authorities didn't know that the film speaks about sexual abusment of the child made by priest:). Here are some moments.

Just before that I met my old friend (she is not old, the friendship is old :)) from Slovenia Hanna Slak. She is on her way back to Berlin with her boyfriend and they stopped in Paris for few days. She is also a film director and we know each other for more than 10 years. We did together Desperado Tonic, and last year I have worked for two days on her last film Teah directing the extras (we created a party in the forest with people dancing all around). The project is finished and it will be presented at Film Market in Cannes (where it should be also screened her first feature Blind Spot). Good luck!

J.J.B.

She Is the Boss

"I've never been to the film festival before and now, my first one will be Cannes." That's what Mirella Habr told me on Saturday while we were celebrating the news that she got selected among 60 other young cineasts from France (she represents Parisian region!) to participate The Cannes Film Festival. Seven from them will form Jury-Jeunes, the jury that will decide the laureat of Prix de la Jeunesse. During the festival they will attend a lot of screenings and workshops and of course, they will meet a lot of interesting filmmakers.
My cooperation with Mirella goes back to first years at Eicar film school. We worked a lot together, at the time she was the most wanted script supervisor at the school and I DOP-ed her fiction short film Crisis in Hell. After that, at her age of 22, she produced my feature paris.love. Here is a nice picture of her from that shoot.

After that I again DOP-ed her documentary Little Beirut and our cooperation went into several other directions, but here, I will keep them hidden:). She speaks five languages fluently and she is one of the most talented and creative people I've ever met. Be aware, she is on the move.
J.J.B.

About

tracking shot I want to speak today. On Sunday I took the train to reach the shooting location. Driving with the metros all the time I almost forgot how beautiful is to travel with the train and to look outside the window. It's just a loooooooong tracking shot. Ok, it's not exactly 1:1,85, even less a wide screen, but still: moving images par exellence. And then, the real beauty comes out when you start to combine those shots with other camera movements. I guess, sans precedent was Orson Welles' opening shot in Touch of Evil, over a 4 min long shot in which the frame heights are changing all the time and we travel through the whole city, through many different atmospheres, hundreds of extras and at the end, still in the same shot, we even change the country. Although Hitchcock shot Rope in 1948 (the whole film in 9 shots), it's impossible to compare those shots with Touch of Evil in a way of richness of the mise-en-scene. Robert Altman's opening scene in Player is a great hommage to Orson Welles and I like it a lot. As I also like the opening scene of Kusturica's film Time of the Gypsies where (I'm just speculating) they did a good job together with director of photography Vilko Filac. After all, I'm not a great lover of Sokurov's Russian Ark, because he had to help himself with a kind of narrator, and for me, it was a bit of just showing the muscles. I got the same feeling with Haneke's Code inconnu.
Anyhow, I shot quite some of my films by myself and, especially in my student's years, I did some camera work for the other directors also. Here is a shot I did in a short film by Shailesh Macwan and there is some motivated camera movement. The idea was to have steady shot at the begining (we shot with Aaton A-Minima S16 mm camera so it wasn't really steady :)) and when the actor approaches we start with dolly and it finishes with hendheld when the fight starts. I was assistant director on Slovenian film Headnoise directed by Andrej Kosak, where director of photography Dusan Joksimovic had done something similar and I just wanted to try it by my self.

J.J.B.

Undisclosed

On Sunday we finished another student's shoot. It was the 2nd term awarded script by Adriana Calvo. The film was shot on S16 mm and the shoot was very well organised. Most of the days we were at Epinay-sur-Seine, 20 or something kilometers out of Paris.
Undisclosed


J.J.B.

Sierra Grande Lodge

I'm cleaning my drawer, putting the archive slowly together. So, here is commercial that we shot in August 2005 in New Mexico (published on this site with a permission of the author). Screenwriter and director was Karim Raoul, Director of Photography Gilles Arnaud, I was the assistant director and later the editor, Andrew Brook was assistant camera and Ishan Shapiro a gaffer. Sound post-production was made by Jean-Nicola Risler and I forgot the name of the guy who wrote the music (Karim please help, so I can update this later).
Anyhow, we shot it in a town with a really funny name: Truth or Consequences. When I entered the States, the border policeman hardly believed when he saw this name written as a destination. Btw, the story with the name is quite interesting. Back in 50's there was a very successful radio show called Truth or Consequences. They offered some free publicity to the town in US which will take the name. So, the town called Hot Springs took the opportunity and changed the name into the Truth or Consequences (more about that you can read here). The story goes further; after changing the name, local economy, which is mostly established on tourism (health resorts with hot springs) instead of growing up, started to fall down.
Anyhow, in 2005 it reminded me of an old and abandoned film studio.
But here is the commercial, shot in 35 mm, and the post-production was made in HD.
sierra grande


To get the feeling of the town and our shoot, here are some photos (for a teaser, just this amazing religious advertising).

J.J.B.

Student's shoot - Andraz Sumrada

Today I started supervising second year Eicar – International Film School short film. At the end of each trimester we select several scripts to be shot on 35 mm, S 16 mm, 16 mm, HDV or DV. This is Andraz Sumrada's selected project Freezer from the 1st trimester. Here are some moments from the 1st shooting day.

student's shoot



J.J.B.