'The Movie Should Be About You': 'Babysitter' Director on Why the First Feature is its Own Genre

"If I could make this film again, I would make it much more explicit. I would give less of a f*ck about pissing people off or being politically incorrect."

Babysitter, which premiered at SXSW last year and was just released on iTunes and Amazon, is an exposé on the chaos of middle-class life alongside an unusual sexual awakening—Max (Max Burkholder), a confused kid in high school, falls in love with his babysitter.

No Film School interviewed writer/director Morgan Krantz twice: once just after his SXSW 2015 premiere and once a couple weeks before his May 3rd VOD release. Below, we juxtapose some of Krantz's answers to get a sense of the perceptions and lessons that have calcified over time. Krantz also talks about how he learned to embrace the personal nature of his storytelling.

NFS: This feels like a very personal story. How do you approach that subject matter without it feeling overly diaristic?

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Online Video Grows Up [PODCAST]

This episode of Indie Film Weekly leads us to wonder: are we in a new era for online video?

With increased spending and more platforms represented at the digital NewFronts presentations to advertisers (including an announcement by Refinery29 of directorial debuts from Kristen Stewart and Gabourey Sidibe); a new merger between Vimeo and VHX; and over 50 film & video categories in the prestigious Webby Awards, online options for filmmakers are more credible, sophisticated, and potentially lucrative than ever before. Co-host Ryan Koo and I discuss these developments, along with a controversy at this year's HotDocs festival in Toronto and some follow-up to No Film School's NAB coverage, including our exclusive in-depth demo video of Lytro's game-changing Cinema Camera. As always, the episode includes our Ask No Film School segment, plus grant and festival deadlines, upcoming indie film releases, and other notable things you might have missed while you were busy making films.

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AJA Updates Firmware on the CION While Also Debuting USB Converter Boxes

AJA updates the CION's highlight handling while also showing off new U-Tap streaming tools.

AJA's 4K RAW-capable cinema camera, the CION, recently received new gamma modes via a firmware update meant to increase shadow and highlight handling while also renaming the picture profiles. Included gammas are now Standard, Cine, and None, which disables any gamma adjustment and allows it to be set more effectively in post. A CF adapter for their media slot also now allows users to use CF cards instead of AJA's proprietary Pak SSDs.

For videographers and filmmakers requiring livestreaming, their U-Tap SDI and HDMI converter boxes will now allow one to stream directly into their computers for $345.

No Film School's complete coverage of NAB 2016 is brought to you by My RØDE Reel, Shutterstock, and Blackmagic Design.

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P+S Technik Introduces New Full-Frame Front Anamorphic 1.5x 35-70mm T3.2 Lens

P+S Technik, a German company known for camera and lens accessories, has added a new front-anamorphic zoom to their product line, the PS-Zoom 35-70mm CS T3.2 in PL mount.

The lens has an anamorphic squeeze ratio of 1.5X. While not being the traditional 2X squeeze used historically, 1.5X is enough squeeze to take a 16:9 frame towards the 2.39 of Cinemascope with a little extra room on the sides to crop. Cameras without a 4:3 mode would then be able to shoot anamorphic and maintain the traditional scope instead of merely cropping the frame to fit. Camera tests showed a strong flare along with other anamorphic distortions. The lens can cover RED's 6K sensor and was shown on a Sony mirrorless SLR, and P+S Technik also manufactures the EF and E-Mount adapters for their PL lenses. The lens itself costs €21500 (about $24,700), so it's primarily a rental option, but it's a good rental option if you're looking to shoot anamorphic with a 16:9 sensor with PL, EF, or E-Mount.

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Benro Swings into Action with 3 New Jibs and 2 New Hi-Hats

Benro, the camera support division of The Mac Group, showed off updated jibs as well as new hi-hats and tripods.

Benro previously had the MoveUp4 ($499), their 4kg-supporting jib, but they introduced the MoveUp8 ($749), MoveUp15 ($999), and MoveUp20 ($1499), all respectively referring to their kilogram load capacity. They are designed for ease of use and only require two major components to be clipped together before assembling the rest of the rig. They all come with their own convenient rolling case, and a remote head is slated to be released in the fall.

Benro also introduced two new hi-hats in 75mm ($199) and 100mm ($249) ball versions with removable feet, while improving the sturdiness of their BV series of tripods by using stronger legs.

No Film School's complete coverage of NAB 2016 is brought to you by My RØDE Reel, Shutterstock, and Blackmagic Design.

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Never Fry a D-Tap Again with Lentequip's SafeTap

Lentequip has manufactured a simply engineered solution to what can be a devastating problem.

The P-Tap/D-Tap port popularized by Anton Bauer has the unfortunate design flaw of being too easily reversible. A slight curve on one side of the port is supposed to prevent this, but differences in build tolerances amongst manufacturers have led to many a piece of gear being fried by a D-Tap plugged in the wrong way. Some products were even designed to take reverse polarities, meaning that you have to purposely wire it the opposite way.

The SafeTap's most basic feature is that it will not pass any current if the plug's polarity is incorrect​.​

You can only imagine the myriad problems that might occur if a DP tasked a less experienced AC with managing their camera build, or hasty set conditions that might cause a mistake to happen in the dark. Thousands of dollars in damage can occur to D-Tap powered monitors, follow focuses, and transmitters if the plug is reversed.

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How to Shoot Rain Like a Pro

From Jurassic Park to Spiderman, rain scenes have a special place in popular culture. But how do you actually shoot them?

We filmmakers are always looking for ways to create exciting moods to heighten the drama of a movie. One of the most effective and available tools we have at our disposal is the tried and true rain sequence. It’s a cheap trick, but it might just work.

But the truth is, to do it well is not that cheap. It takes a lot of equipment, manpower, and planning.

This is not the kind of shoot you show up for with all the equipment and try to figure out on the fly.

In order to look how to shoot in the rain, let's first take a close look at a rain sequence from one of my older car commercials.

Don’t shoot in the sun

One of the first things you should notice is that there is no hard sunlight in any of these shots. This was actually one the hardest things to achieve in making this commercial—we shot in Florida, in June. But ultimately it's what gave the spot its authentic look.

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Ikan's One-Handed Gimbals Hold Smartphones, GoPros, DSLRs

Ikan, popular for their wide variety of budget-conscious filmmaking hardware, shows off several one-handed gimbals designed for anything from a smartphone to a DSLR.

The Fly-X3-Plus ($329) is a smartphone gimbal that features adjustable clips, allowing it to hold a variety of phones.

The 3-Axis GoPro stabilizer ($330) can be pre-balanced for specific GoPros, and a 5-way joystick offers additional control. In the future, Ikan will also provide wireless control, but current users can wire the controller from a distance.

Ikan's largest gimbal, the Beholder DS1, supports up to 3.7 lbs and will be available later this year for $799. A handlebar attachment mimics the look and feel of classic Ronin and Movi gimbals.

No Film School's complete coverage of NAB 2016 is brought to you by My RØDE Reel, Shutterstock, and Blackmagic Design.

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The Artistic Philosophy of Andrei Tarkovsky's Poetic Filmmaking

Though they're often described as poetic works of "pure cinema", free of symbolism, full of emotion and atmosphere, the films of Andrei Tarkovsky are enigmatic.

Enigmatic though they may be, Lewis Bond dives into the work of the great Russian auteur to help us understand, or rather, appreciate not only his films, but the philosophy upon which those films stand.

Tarkovsky's films are, to say the least, hard to classify and pin down, because to him, cinema was an art form that existed to help us answer the many important philosophical questions about life and existence. In fact, it seems futile to study his work without first studying the philosophy with which his creativity was intertwined.

Like director Andrei Konchalovsky says in Bond's video essay, Tarkovsky's work is so rooted in his own personal philosophy that while it's possible to imitate, it's completely impossible to follow. This is evidenced in how some of today's greatest filmmakers utilize his cinematic techniques, even going as far as to replicate shots from his films, but fail to capture the poetry that made Tarkovsky's films what they were.

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Dramatic Experience 'the bomb' Shakes Up 360-Degree Moviegoing

For 'the bomb' filmmakers, the only way to move audiences out of apathy was to put them in the middle of an explosion.

For anyone born in the past 40 years, the atomic bomb can seem like an antiquated problem, a hangover from our parents' generation. But the threat of nuclear holocaust is more real than ever. More than 15,000 nuclear weapons currently exist—90% are owned by the U.S. and Russia collectively, and they are 20 times more powerful than those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Just one explosion, accidental or otherwise, could obliterate humanity as we know it.

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IDX's New Duo-C Batteries Power Your Camera...And Your Cell Phone

These new D-tap and X-tap batteries are both practical and affordable.

IDX's new V-log Duo C-Series batteries are slimmer and more powerful than the previous model, not to mention half the price of their name brand competitors. According to IDX, the Duo-C 190 will now get you 185 watt hours vs. 146 watt hours, and it has several cool new features. It contains 2 D-Taps, a clutch USB port for charging your phone or tablet and a third D-Tap that IDX is calling the "D-Tap Advanced" which features a third pin used for charging. The Duo-C 95 is even smaller and lightweight than the Duo-C 190, so if you're a run n' gun type, this travel-friendly battery will hold a charge for up to 100 watt hours. You can grab the Duo-C 190 for $450 and the Duo-C 95 for $350 starting mid-May.

They also showed off their new 2-channel simultaneous charger, the VL-200S, and their 7.4V X-Tap battery systems for Panasonic, Canon and Sony Cameras. Like the C-series, the X-Taps are less expensive than their name brand competitors.

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Lowel's New LED Lights Minimize Nasty Color Spikes

The location lighting company promises full color with their new Tungsten and LED products.

Lowel walked No Film School's Andy Zou through their new line of lighting products at NAB 2016. They were quick to show off their new models of LED Hollywood Fresnels, which they claim have a Color Rendering Index (CRI) of 98% of the visual spectrum. While historically many LED lights haven't included enough of the red spectrum, Lowel's new fresnels are designed to keep a full range of color throughout their entire dimming range. This dimming range can be controlled digitally from a back panel to go up in increments as small as one percent, and Lowel claims that the unit has a life in excess of 50,000 hours. You'll be able to find these lights in a few different models once released: the smaller, 650 watt Aura Lux as well as the larger, 1k and 2k watt Vega Lux.

They also introduced us to a new, weather resistant LED array light, designed specifically with parameters from The Weather Channel in mind, and an upgraded model of the Pro Power LED.

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5 Lessons for Indies From Godard's 'Alphaville'

Godard's masterpiece is a lesson in imagination over budget. Here are five takeaways you can apply to your own work.

Alphaville, Jean-Luc Godard's 1965 film is many things: a science fiction film about a city under the grip of a totalitarian super-computer, the story of a hard-boiled detective, a low-budget experimental piece, and a philosophical meditation on modernity.

The origin of Alphaville lies in Godard's desire to work with French-American actor Eddie Constantine, famous for his portrayal of hard-boiled detective Lemmy Caution in a series of 1950s B-movies. Constantine was similarly enthusiastic about Godard, and during a meeting with a producer, Godard mentioned his idea of putting the Caution character into a science-fiction story like the one featured in Brian Aldiss's novel Non-Stop, about life in a vast spaceship the size of a city. It quickly became apparent that the special effects required would be prohibitively expensive. In looking to create a manageable project, Godard took inspiration from a short that he had contributed to the anthology film RoGoPaG two years earlier, The New World:

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5 Reasons Why SoftPanels' Built-In Color Meters Will Change LED

With these new LEDs, you'll never have to manually color-balance again.

SoftPanels are a completely new approach to LED lighting. With a built-in color meter and intelligent color management technology in every light, they provide unprecedented color precision and smart control over the emitted light.

1. Instantly read and balance a scene's ambient light

The built-in integrated digital color meter uses SoftPanels' autocolor matching technology to instantly read the current ambient color conditions for a given shot. Then, it exactly color-balances the LED color output to match that of the scene’s ambient conditions.

With this new level of control, you can instantly color-match other lights as well as ambient conditions, providing color consistency in a variety of studio and location applications.

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Check out Marshall Electronic's New Monitors, Including a Full HD 10" LCD Panel

Known for their on-camera monitors, Marshall Electronics gave us a peek at the new ones they brought to NAB, ranging in screen sizes from 6" to 10".

Though all of Marshall's monitors have a range of features that give you the information you'll need to monitor your footage, including false color, clip, peaking filters, and more, only some have a native 1920x1080 resolution. The 7" panels range quite a bit in terms of specs, including resolution, multiple inputs, and built-in HDMI loop-through; the 9" and 10" models feature high resolution panels and the ability to mount a battery bracket so you can use whichever battery you want. The 10" monitors not only have full HD resolution (1920x1200), but they come equipped with waveform and audio monitoring, and HDMI/HD-SDI cross conversion.

No Film School's complete coverage of NAB 2016 is brought to you by My RØDE Reel, Shutterstock, and Blackmagic Design.

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Want to Know if a Film's Story Really Works? Don't Watch the Trailer

When was the last time you saw a movie you knew almost nothing about?

Outside of the film festival circuit, going to a movie without watching the trailer first has become exceedingly rare for most moviegoers. Even if you do actively try to avoid trailers, autoplays bombard you all over the internet from banner ads and newsfeeds.

But if you really want to see if a film’s story works, don’t watch the trailer first.

I should admit this right now: I love trailers, especially on the big screen. When they do their job well, trailers make me want to see a film without revealing too much about the story.

But once I know I want to see a film, I actively avoid all trailers and clips. Why spoil even the smallest detail?

One of my favorite films last year was Ex Machina. I went to see the film purely based on its print ad in the Sunday New York Times, knowing nothing else about it. No trailers. No film stills. No in-depth reviews from critics.

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VHX and Vimeo Join Forces to Compete With On-Demand's Big Guns

What will the merger mean for independent creators?

Vimeo announced today that it has acquired the video monetization and distribution service VHX. VHX enables direct-to-consumer sales of video content for those who don’t have access to more established outlets like Netflix—or choose to forego them, like Aziz Ansari did when he sold his 2012 comedy special Dangerously Delicious from his own website using the VHX platform.

Although they pulled the "tip jar" feature that let fans donate voluntarily to beloved videos, Vimeo has been attempting to make an impact in the direct-to-consumer sales market since it launched On Demand in 2013, allowing creators to set their own price for work and keep 90% of revenue after transaction costs.

Vimeo will only keep 10% of profits from video sales, a much lower percentage than its competitors​.​

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World-Building Tips from 'Se7en' Writer Andrew Kevin Walker and 'Metalocalypse' Showrunner Chris Prynoski [PODCAST]

The strength of any film—even one as irreverent as Nerdland— can be found in its most specific details.

As I was making my first pass at Tribeca's extensive program of films to cover, there was one title in particular that jumped out at me. Admittedly, at first, it was because Paul Rudd was starring. Everybody loves Paul Rudd.

Then, I looked a bit more closely. This strange animated film, Nerdland, was produced by Adult Swim production powerhouse Titmouse Inc., the group of animators responsible for creating some of the most revolutionary cartoons to have been featured on television ever. These guys made the contemporary classics Black Dynamite, China, IL, Metalocalypse, Superjail! and The Venture Brothers, which everyone should check out if only for their sheer abrasive creativity.

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Tiffen Shows off Lens-Mounted Filter Holder & 2 New Diffusion Filters

Tiffen Filters makes improvements to their filter line for cinematographers by adding a 4x4 filter holder as well as vintage-inspired diffusion filters.

Landscape photographers are no stranger to strapping 4x4 or 4x5.65 filters to the front of their lenses, but cinematographers would have to use a supporting matte box. Tiffen's new Pro 100 Series Filter Holder allows photographers or run-and-gun shooters to attach those filters to the front of any lens with an 82mm thread or less. The filters are snugly secured in the mount via rubber grips and can also be rotated.

Tiffen also added two new filters to their diffusion line, the Antique Pearlescent and the Warm Satin. These were made with 4K footage in mind, which may seem "too sharp" to some. Generally, these filters are designed to soften skin tones and bloom the highlights as a throwback to the film age. While some may argue that the digital era allows us to do all of this in post, you save time by doing it in-camera — and who doesn't like to do it the old-fashioned way?

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Flanders Scientific Introduces Live Grading Tool, BoxIO, Along with a New Monitor

Flanders Scientific is known for having the highest fidelity coloring peripherals on the market, which is why they've expanded to offer the BoxIO.

BoxIO is a completely new product category from the premium monitor manufacturer that allows DITs or colorists to downstream a live color grade made on set. With the flagship 2 SDI-In 2 SDI-Out BoxIO ($1195), a DIT could output different looks to two different sources.

To put this into perspective, imagine the director wants to see the image in Rec709 while the cinematographer wants to check exposure, or the AC needs more contrast and the client demands the final look. Or perhaps everybody wants to see if the shadows were bluer and the skin tones softer. Now it can be done on-set while you're shooting.

The BoxIO Lite ($975) reduces the number of in/out SDI ports to 1 while the BoxIO Lite DP ($895) takes 1 SDI-In and only has 1 DisplayPort Out.

Flanders Scientific also showed off a little brother to their 24.5" DM250 ($7995) monitor with the 17" DM170 ($3695), a smaller monitor for colorists and DITs desiring the highest production quality.

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