The Harvest: Recent Episodes
Xavier Garcia, Jonathan Garcia
Hello! Welcome to THE HARVEST, where we discuss everything cinema & story. And as we learn, you learn; as we grow, you grow.
In conjunction with last week’s episode about the DP and the script, the Production Designer helps translate the words from the script and the ideas from the DP to a tangible product. They are an essential role on the director’s team in creating a unique and consistent stylistic approach to the design of a production - the set, locations, props, lighting, costumes, even camera angles are all details that a production designer needs to consider in order to complete their job at leading the artistic team effectively.
“Good work that people think is the cinematographer’s is often that of the production designer. We light their work, and when their work is beautifully accomplished, by which I mean well matched to the story, the result is vastly superior.” - DP Robert Richardson
Hello! Welcome to The HARVEST; Where we discuss all things, cinema & story and As we learn you learn; as we grow you grow. Please enjoy our BTS movie making discussions and by all means visit our youtube channel with comments, questions, thoughts or just witty banter.
LINK TO: The Harvest YouTube Page here!
Last week we began a long and in depth conversation regarding the relationship between the Director of Photography and the Script. We kicked off the discussion by identifying the position the DP holds as one of great privilege. They are the first audience-member to the performance and yet they’re simultaneously the most important crew member in the crafting of the story and therefore must be completely removed as a passive observer. It’s a really interesting dichotomy and one that often clashes on set as the acting is happening right before their very eyes.
Today we continue the discussion with PART 2 and dig a bit deeper into specific circumstances where THE PLAN falls apart. How to handle the unexpected and being creative in moments where your back is up against the wall.
We are taking a unique approach to the exploration of script and story. After having spent four weeks dissecting how an actor breaks down a screenplay, via study, observation, research and technical preparations; we are now going to look through the lens and the POV of the DOP: Director of Photography (DP) and their relationship to the roadmap known as the script (oh such wonderful puns await us!)
DPs occupy a very sacred space in the creative movie making process. He/she is the individual closest to the story being told. They’re the first and most intimate outsider receiving what’s being created (specifically when they’re not just a DP but also an operator) and are therefore the first audience. But because the DP is such a crucial influencer of story, they're thrust into a unique relationship with the filmmaking process - as an audience they must be passive to receive, but as a DP they must be active in the modeling of the story.
Today we’re going to take a look at this dichotomy, as well as the many nuances that go into this relationship.
We have spent three episodes digging into the actions, the behavior, the preparations; even THE MIND of an actor. And if you haven’t listened to those, you MUST check them out. This past week we had a chance to speak to Bobby Bishop and it was a treat just hearing his input regarding the long-term psychological effects of being a METHOD ACTOR.
This week, we are going to talk about actors, but not in the way you may think.
We’ve been talking a lot about some of the more practical and pragmatic factors involved in the ACTOR to CHARACTER relationship. Things like prep, professionalism, passion, techniques, line memorization, blocking, etc. But today, we’re going to weave into our discussion how the script informs the actor in ways beyond the LOGOS words on the page.
Every person within the filmmaking machine has a unique relationship to the script. But none is like the Actor’s relationship to the Characters presented on the written page. An actor is immersed in a study of character-specific circumstances, conflicts, motivations and objects of desire; as well as the BECOMING notion. A notion where an ACTOR must embody and represent - something, someone, an idea that serves a very specific purpose: THE TELLING OF A STORY. This is a VERY unique relationship, unlike any other.
Last week, we talked about great actors and their characteristics; such as intuition and instinct, taking risks and letting your guard down, experiencing empathy and feeling what your character feels, being versatile and flexible, being vulnerable to the experiences of your character, having camaraderie with your scene partners, having passion - the kind of passion that can’t be taught.
These are certain traits that filmmakers look for in a great actor - I encourage you to check out EP26 for more information on just key identifying features of a GREAT ACTOR.
This week we’re going to continue exploring acting, but we’re gonna get a bit more nerdy about it and dig deeper into the psychology of performance.
-With Special Guest-
Bobby Bishop
Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker with extensive case management experience and advocacy in a multi-cultural environment. He has his Masters in Social Work from Salem State University.
And Interestingly, Bobby has extensive experience with the music industry. He’s been signed by branches of Warner, Sony BMG, and Universal Music Group and presently has over 100 cue sheets in rotation - this is personal music that’s playing in Films and Network Television. And he’s currently authoring an autobiographical book titled “PROPS” and this book is about Bobby’s personal experiences engaging the ever so prevalent subject matter of racial and social identity as well as his diagnosis with Anxious Attachment Disorder.
This past week we started a much longer discussion about the good vs the great actor and what separates the two. But in order to dig into such a nuanced topic we needed to define lots of terms, styles and acting philosophies. We briefly discussed the main points to what defines Method acting vs Practical Aesthetics Technique, as well as how actors are utilized by varying “TYPES” of directors. One thing was clear, is that a mediocre actor for the right role yields a greater performance than any oscar winning actor in the wrong role.
Having said that, we scratched the service about the casting process, but determined that 50% of a great film is the tedious casting process. But the one piece of conversation that really intrigued us both was the comparison between Christian actors and non-Christian actors and the quality of work we see across the board in faith based vs secular films.
This is a topic that has been discussed ad nauseum but the twist we brought to the conversation was a philosophical and psychological one that we haven’t really heard talked about very much. And that’s the concept of biblical righteousness, spiritual conviction and moral justification when applied to the Christian Actor’s duty to interpret a role.
But before we go down THAT rabbit hole, let’s talk about certain TRAITS / CHARACTERISTICS of a Great Actor.
VIDEO NOW ON YOUTUBE!
And WE’RE BACK! We’ve missed you the last 3 weeks. After EP 25. Things got a little hectic with the Documentary we were producing and editing. But post-production is complete and the world premiere of “The Great Suppression Film” was this past Friday OCT. 2nd.
In Episode 25 we really enjoyed answering some of our viewers' questions, and based on the feedback, it looks like you all enjoyed it as well! Certainly continue to submit questions to us at MountHarvest@Gmail.com or info@mountharvest.com
Without further ado, we are now at episode 26 and this week’s topic is one that we haven’t really discussed at all in our podcast so far - ACTING and ACTORS!
If the filmmaking word was a car engine, the actors are the oil that make it run! So let’s talk about that!?
We’ve reached somewhat of a milestone: EP25! And to celebrate our 25th episode we are doing something a little different. We’ve collected questions from a handful of our listeners and we’re going to do our best to answer them right here, on today’s episode.
We received a good amount of questions, some harder to answer than others. Some actually deserve their own episodes so we were careful about which we chose and we’re hoping that we will do a satisfactory enough job at giving your amazing questions thoughtful and sufficient answers.
Today we’re going to be discussing a topic that is very near and dear to us: faith-based films. There’s a lot of good and not so good examples of work within this SPACE known as “FAITH BASED” - as there are in any other FILM “SPACE”.
This is a topic that we find both interesting and perhaps even necessary to discuss, because it’s a movement within the larger FILM INDUSTRY that is gaining traction and soon will be regulated more heavily by the “Gate-Keepers” of the industry so that it fits a definable - profitable box/category. Right now, it’s considered irrelevant, as was mumble-core back in the early 2000s but out of that irrelevant movement were birthed Director powerhouses such as Oscar nominated GRETA GERWIG (Lady Bird & Little Women), and the DUPLASS brothers (Cyrus and Jeff Who Lives at Home), amongst others.
So we will be discussing not only the characteristics that make a faith-based film, but why this genre is important, why it’s relevant, and why you should care?
For a quick recap - last week we discussed the symbiotic relationship that is art and culture. How culture can define art, but how art can help shape culture. This week we are talking a bit more specifically about how within that relationship, art and culture together impact the individuals. Whether it is a specific group in society, or just one person, art can impact us emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. This is something that I believe everyone can understand - no matter the content, no matter the medium, everyone at some point in their lives has been impacted by art, because art is the representation of what makes us human, wherein lies it’s power. This is why it has been born from major movements in history, helped define or create those movements, and has been able to convince people through education and entertainment of a particular idea or ideas.
We’re gonna change things up a bit today and slightly stray away from some of the more technical discussions we’ve been having the last few weeks to talk more about art in general. We’re gonna get into how art impacts everything from people to culture.
At the end of last week’s documentary episode (Ep21), we touched a bit on this topic - the importance of creating films, stories, and art that help spread and preserve information to educate and entertain the masses. This week we are expanding upon that idea. At one point or another, we’ve all been impacted by art. Likewise, Art and/or an artists have all been integral to some of the greatest moments in world history-- Both good and evil. Art both bridges and divides us at a cultural seam as it informs, shapes and influences the very core of what makes us human. Ultimately, all of this is why art matters.
Welcome to PART TWO of our Documentaries series. Last week we began a little exploratory journey into the wild-world of Documentary Films. Our talk was primarily focused on what it means to be a Documentarian and sort of the initial story development process one ought go through when “breaking the story”.
The documentary film, in and of itself, is THE protagonist speaking directly to the audience in a continuous state of a broken fourth wall. The film, as the protagonist, appeals to the viewer via both entertainment and information. And this type of story is very powerful to the viewer in a myriad of ways, both consciously and subconsciously. Which is why we discussed the ethical responsibility of the documentarian to ask him or herself a set of questions before beginning the story process.
- Should this story / statement be told?
- Should this story / Statement be told BY ME?
- Should this story / statement be told NOW?
Last week we covered the WHAT - the Content. This week we dig deeper into the HOW, and the WHY of the documentary filmmaking process.
For the last couple of weeks, we’ve been talking about our writing process for screenplays and highlighting how we create “STORY”. So this week, we wanted to discuss the genre of storytelling that built our company when we first began filmmaking professionally, but have yet to address, on THE HARVEST - DOCUMENTARIES. Oftentimes people hear “documentary” and associate that with “boring” - people want action, drama, comedy, entertainment. However, you can absolutely incorporate all of those aspects of storytelling into Documentary filmmaking. Docs, like NARRATIVE filmmaking, come with it’s own unique creative process.
One of the reasons that we wanted to discuss this topic is because we are actually working on a DOCUMENTARY as we speak. If you saw last week’s episode on YouTube, you may have noticed we weren’t in our typical location. We drove out to Pennsylvania to film content, all over the state, for a documentary we were hired to produce and edit. This is our fourth time working on a project like this, and similar to our storytelling process, we have a certain method in creating this GENRE of film, to ensure that it is as entertaining as it is insightful... because this really is the beauty of documentaries - it is a creative story-approach to preserving history and culture.
This is part two in our story writing series. We are continuing our discussion from last week where we covered some of the basics of our process for setting up and preparing to embark on our writing journeys. This week we will focus on what happens after that set up: our actual writing process, story design, structure, plotting, character, archs, reversals and how we develope narrative flow for every project.
Again, we should reiterate, what works for us may not work for everyone. Nevertheless, over the course of many projects scripted for commercial advertising, for on stage theater and for film, we’ve discerned that there’s a little bit of truth being preached by all of your major screenplay gurus. And we’re here to talk about it!
On this week’s episode we are going to take you on a journey through our writing process! From research and story SET UP, through the actual writing, all the way to revising and editing a final draft - we have created for ourselves, a specific method by learning from others and learning from our own mistakes. Writing is not one size fits all; so what works for us may not work for everyone. Nevertheless, over the course of many many projects scripted for commercial advertising, for on stage theater and for film, we’ve discerned that there’s a little bit of truth being preached by all of your major screenplay gurus. And we’re here to talk about it!
This episode is a two-parter and in part Part I we will be taking you through the phase we call: research and set up.
Today we have a special episode. Joining us via video chat from Colorado, is composer James G. Lindsay. Based in New York City, James’ music has been championed by some of the country’s most distinguished artists, including the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He holds degrees in music performance and composition from the Boston Conservatory at Berklee, New York University, and the Mannes College of Music, and has created a number of compositions and film scores, including the score of our award-winning short film, A Blood Throne.
We HAVE arrived! This is PART 3 of our Three Part Series on KILLING YOUR DARLINGS in the creation of story. When making a movie, a story is written & re-written three times. And in each of those times, DARLINGS are formed. So we engaged a three-part journey to discuss Darlings in all three phases of story creation, The Writing - The Filming - The Editing. And this week’s episode, we focus on the THIRD phase of re-writing the story - post production: the Editing.
Main Content:
So here’s a REFRESHER:
What are DARLINGS?
In the WRITING Process, DARLINGS are words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, and even chapters or WHOLE scenes that we (the writer) are often most proud of.
In the FILMING process, DARLINGS could be complicated Camera Moves, intricate Blocking, rare Props, or elaborate scene Set ups that you planned and plotted out and are totally in LOVE with.
And in THE EDIT process, DARLINGS can be unique shot sequences, or heavily edited takes, or perhaps B-ROLL footage that’s just magnificently filmed, or for animators; certain background animations that took hours to create the intricacies of movement and all of these are just so dear and special.
We love these DARLINGS to the point where we almost don’t care if those DARLINGS are clear to our audience or not. We love them, and we want to keep them. The problem is: they can perhaps become distractions or can even be unnecessary weights burdening your story. AND THE MUST BE KILLED!
The Mount Harvest creatives at "THE HARVEST" podcast share exactly how they produced an award nominated film in less than two months, from beginning to end, on a budget of only $1,200. They highlight the importance of surrounding themselves with a like-minded team, and having the motivation to work towards common goals, no matter the obstacles that always inevitably come.
The Mount Harvest creatives at "THE HARVEST" podcast discuss certain self-care solutions during the Coronavirus quarantine occurring nationwide. But also talk about how to maximize your time and the importance of reaching out to those potentially in need.
The Mount Harvest creatives at "THE HARVEST" podcast discuss how to take advantage of film festivals. From awkward meet & greets to being present with a purpose and as well as the importance of being prepared. We touch a bit about our short film "UNDERGROUND" currently in post production and certain inspirations that lead to its creation.