{"id":1299,"date":"2019-12-04T15:20:32","date_gmt":"2019-12-04T03:20:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.filmconvert.com\/blog\/?p=1299"},"modified":"2019-12-10T14:30:07","modified_gmt":"2019-12-10T02:30:07","slug":"best-creative-film-filmconvert-competition-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmconvert.com\/blog\/best-creative-film-filmconvert-competition-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Best Creative Film &#8211; FilmConvert Competition 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8216;Trans Am&#8217; by Nicholas Andrews was selected as the Best Creative film for the FilmConvert Competition 2019. Judge Ryan Connolly said the film had &#8221;\u00a0a very clear and strong sense of tone. The direction was very well done, great cinematography and solid performances. Really terrific opener too.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding: 56.25% 0 0 0; position: relative;\"><iframe style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%;\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/325849352?color=08556e&amp;portrait=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><script src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/api\/player.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h1>\u00a0Nicholas Andrews interview<\/h1>\n<p><strong>Give us a bit of detail about yourself &#8211; background, profession, how you got into filmmaking and your current role<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m a freelance Sydney-based filmmaker, who works mainly in post-production for music videos, ads, short films and web content. I played drums in a band for over 10 years and while that&#8217;s on the shelf indefinitely, I&#8217;ve been able to pursue filmmaking full-time. It&#8217;s something I studied at university and was able to incorporate partially into the band as well. Right now feels like the next logical step.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tell us about your film &#8211; how did it come about?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I often put on some music and stare at the wall. A few of the initial ideas formed this way and over time I had enough pages that felt strong enough to put a cast and crew together. I wouldn&#8217;t recommend this method, but all my work only comes through grinding it out and constantly\u00a0revising.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-1302\" src=\"https:\/\/www.filmconvert.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/7-1-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"747\" height=\"420\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.filmconvert.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/7-1-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.filmconvert.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/7-1-150x84.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.filmconvert.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/7-1-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.filmconvert.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/7-1.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 747px) 100vw, 747px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>How did you find out about FilmConvert?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I grew up on &#8217;70s and &#8217;80s cinema, and the feeling of those movies is as much the aesthetic as it is the stories. I was interested in a program or plugin to help with the heavy lifting by applying different palettes to my work and discovering what it was that attracted me to that &#8216;cinematic&#8217; look &#8212; and then how to reverse engineer it to my needs. LUTs can be handy, but I much prefer deep-diving into a look and tailoring those settings to each particular project.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-1301\" src=\"https:\/\/www.filmconvert.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2-1-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"747\" height=\"420\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.filmconvert.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2-1-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.filmconvert.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2-1-150x84.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.filmconvert.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2-1-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.filmconvert.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2-1.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 747px) 100vw, 747px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Why did you decide to use FilmConvert for this particular project?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Trans Am is set in the 1980s and so we tried to keep everything as period as possible. I felt having a muted palette with pastels would suit Film Convert perfectly, as the &#8216;film look&#8217; is as much what&#8217;s on camera, as it is all the trickery behind it. I knew FilmConvert would help enhance those tones, solidify the era, and evoke the feeling I was after.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-1304\" src=\"https:\/\/www.filmconvert.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/38-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"747\" height=\"420\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.filmconvert.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/38-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.filmconvert.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/38-150x84.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.filmconvert.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/38-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.filmconvert.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/38.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 747px) 100vw, 747px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>What was the particular look or style you were going for with your video?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Soft highlight roll-off and keeping things earthy. I\u00a0try\u00a0to keep my style as close to what I see with my eye as possible, and keep the post-production tweaks for contrast, temperature and grain manipulation. Midtones make or break your grade in my opinion and it&#8217;s something I&#8217;m constantly trying to get better at gauging with each project. Having complete control over that within FilmConvert is awesome. Nitrate is the perfect evolution of this concept.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-1303\" src=\"https:\/\/www.filmconvert.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/14-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"747\" height=\"420\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.filmconvert.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/14-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.filmconvert.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/14-150x84.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.filmconvert.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/14-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.filmconvert.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/14.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 747px) 100vw, 747px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Tell us about your workflow. What settings, film stock, camera profiles and tweaks did you use in FilmConvert?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I treat Film Convert as my secret ingredient at the end of a chain. My looks are usually two passes; the technical and then the feeling I want. Once I have a look, KD5207 is a great starting point and I go from there. Sometimes I&#8217;ll stack different stocks and see how far I can push it. Your eye can easily deceive you when staring at a screen for hours, so forcing yourself to make mistakes can lead to some nice surprises.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What other effects or tweaking did you use?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>An old film scan overlay that added grit and an interesting contrast pull in the middle of the frame. In hindsight, I don&#8217;t think it always worked, but like I said, I have to grind out all my ideas to see whether they really work for me.<\/p>\n<p>If anyone needs any edit or colour work done worldwide, or camera work in Australia, contact me at my website:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/thesaddestman.studio\/\">http:\/\/thesaddestman.studio\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8216;Trans Am&#8217; by Nicholas Andrews was selected as the Best Creative film for the FilmConvert Competition 2019. Judge Ryan Connolly said the film had &#8221;\u00a0a very clear and strong sense of tone. The direction was very well done, great cinematography and solid performances. Really terrific opener too.&#8221; \u00a0Nicholas Andrews interview Give us a bit of&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.filmconvert.com\/blog\/best-creative-film-filmconvert-competition-2019\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Best Creative Film &#8211; FilmConvert Competition 2019<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1319,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[16,78,110,111],"class_list":["post-1299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-user-showcase","tag-competition","tag-creative","tag-narrative","tag-shortfilm","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmconvert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmconvert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmconvert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmconvert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmconvert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1299"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmconvert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1321,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmconvert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1299\/revisions\/1321"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmconvert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmconvert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmconvert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmconvert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}