May 15, 2025 • 28 mins
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What does it take to fall in love with filmmaking and stay in love with it for decades? Bob Krieger's journey from a kid "borrowing" his dad's Super 8 camera to an award-winning editor offers a fascinating window into the evolution of visual storytelling.
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Sponsored by Jana McCaffery Attorney at Law. Have you been injured? New Orleans based actor, Jana McCaffery, has been practicing law in Louisiana since 1999 focusing on personal injury since 2008. She takes helping others very seriously and, if you are a fellow member of the Louisiana film industry and have been injured, she is happy to offer you a free consultation and a reduced fee to handle your case from start to finish. She can be reached at Support the show
Follow us on IG @nolafilmscene, @kodaksbykojack, and @tjsebastianofficial. Check out our 48 Hour Film Project short film Waiting for Gateaux: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5pFvn4cd1U . & check out our website: nolafilmscene.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi y'all, I'm Bob Krieger, I'm an editor and
filmmaker and I'm offended.
I'm on the NOLA Scene podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Welcome to NOLA.
Film Scene with TJ Plato.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
I'm TJ.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
And, as always, I'm Plato.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Bob Krieger welcome.
Thank you for joining us.
No worries, it's good to haveyou here.
We just wrapped up a sessionwith you on your podcast.
And tell the audience the nameof yours.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
My podcast is called anecdotes or anecdotes 2.0
because it's a continuation of apodcast or web series I did
about 10 years ago, very cool.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
And this is a continuation of that one.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
So we're part two, this is part two of of Bob's.
So in yours you went around andasked everybody how we broke
into the entertainment industryand how we got started.
So to hear our answers, we alsohad Michelle Busquet and Dave
the Barber Burdick on, becauseBrian and I just shot a 48 film
project with them and they toldus how they met and how they got
(00:59):
involved.
Bob, how did you get into it,into editing and filmmaking?
Wow?
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Well, a long time ago , on the land, far, far away,
when I was a young kid, my dadgot a Super 8 film camera and I
stole it from him, basically,and would go to KB.
For those of you who rememberK&B Drugs- that's right.
Yeah, it was purple kb purplebaby and would buy three minute
(01:26):
super eight cartridges that werevery small, throw it in the
camera and we would make ourfilms from that, and then I
would for those kitties outthere.
That's film it wasn't digital,you know film and then analog,
had to get it developed supereight millimeter that's right
had to get it developed and thatwas actually the fun thing
because it only took a week.
I would bring it back to K&Band they would say it'd be done
(01:47):
in a week.
And it came back in a week andI'd look at it and I'd like,
okay, let's reshoot some stuff.
But then editing was actuallytaking the film and using a
razor blade and cutting it andthen taping the pieces together
and making the film like that.
Special effects I loved sciencefiction, so a lot of my special
effects included lasers, whichwas me taking a needle and
(02:09):
scratching on the emulsion oneframe at a time to make the
laser go across.
Oh, wow, it was horrible and itwas fun and it was great.
And my favorite film was aspoof of the Six Million Dollar
man, which we called the FiveMillion Dollar Kid.
I wish I still had it.
It's somewhere, I think, mainlyat the bottom of the Gulf,
(02:31):
because Katrina washed it awayand that would have been so
horrible and fun at the sametime to look at.
Oh, it was awesome.
But then in high school Istudied just regular study, but
we had a film or a video classwhere we actually had a two
camera video studio and playedin the switcher and did all that
(02:53):
other kind of fun stuff andthat was great.
I mean I love that my dad wasworking at Channel him all the
time to go behind the scenes andsee all the equipment they had.
And that was fantastic as wellbecause I wanted to hit the what
do they call it?
The quantel.
That was the graphics machineand the graphics that it made.
(03:14):
They were cheap and chintzycompared to what we can do today
on your phone.
I went to Loyola for college andwas going to get a film degree
and we shot 16 millimeter film.
Then the best part of dadworking at the TV station was
that he could get me a few rollsof 16 millimeter black and
white tri-X and I would throwthat in the cameras that we had
(03:36):
and would shoot, and it saved melots of money but we'd be able
to shoot a lot that way.
It was great.
And then from there, when I wasgraduating, I had a choice of
following a couple ofacquaintances out to California,
sleep on couches and try tomake it big in Hollywood or join
the Navy.
So of course I did the nextbest thing.
I joined the Navy.
(03:57):
I wanted to be a photographer'smate and make films for the
Navy.
They didn't want that.
They wanted me to be a bosun'smate and anybody who knows about
the Navy.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
They dragged their knuckles on the deck and they
move heavy things around.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
It would have been great.
No, but they basically said ifyou don't want to do what we
want you to do, you're not goingto do what you want to do.
So I went next door to theofficer recruiter, said I'm a
college graduate, what you gotfor me.
And he, uh, got something foryou.
And next thing I know I'm abrand new enswine in the united
states navy and sailing in sevenstates.
Yep, it was so much fun andactually I enjoyed my time in
(04:33):
the navy.
Didn't do much filmmaking,trying to become a pao public
affairs officer that didn't workout, but I am qualified to
drive any ship in the fleet andservice warfare officer.
Very cool, that does be here,you know, uh, but that's all
right.
It looks cool and a shadow boxon the wall.
That's about it.
But I always kept my hand in infilmmaking and editing and
(04:55):
playing.
I remember my ship went to Japanand in one of the stores near
the docks I bought a Panasoniccamera which was connected to a
VHS, a portable VHS recorder.
And you have this thing, youwear the recorder over your
shoulder, you put the camera uphere, this big heavy cable
connecting it, and it was great.
(05:17):
And I bought a second recorderand put them in my stateroom on
the ship and had a controller soI could actually cut edit from
tape to tape on the ship.
And it was great and I wouldtake what we made and give it to
the guys in the TV station onthe ship and they play it,
usually late at night because noone really wanted to see what I
was coming up with.
But we had fun with that.
(05:37):
But you always keep your handin, you always try that.
So, as I'm working a regular jobbecause I'm married, I've got
kids.
They like to eat, they like tohave a roof over their head, so
that really takes priority.
But I've always tried toinnovate and keep up with the
time.
I got an old Mac, the blue iMac, and edited on Final Cut there
(05:58):
and it was great, it was fun,and then progressed to other
machines.
I built a few editing machines,pcs.
In the meantime.
After I got off active duty andbecame a reservist, I stayed
Navy and every place I went Ialways carried a camera with me,
just because it was fun.
Who knows what kind of footageI could get and then you edit
and you play with it.
But I've kind of stuck withthat whole thing of filming or
(06:22):
shooting with a camera and thencoming in and seeing what I can
do with it.
Edit wise, I always like tohave the latest and greatest
equipment, but of course theboss in the house has to make me
justify it and sometimes Ican't do that.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
That's right.
I don't get the latest orgreatest.
You have to justify it to thecomptroller.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
You know how that works, but editing has always
been my passion.
I always love just kind ofgetting in front of the computer
and trying to figure it outLike.
I've edited a number of 48 hourfilm projects I can't remember
how many.
I mean I started when in 2009.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Seems to me that you've also won some awards
editing 48.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
A few, a few.
Last year we had one besteditor for the Grind.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
That was a great film , oh, thank you.
Last year we had one besteditor for the Grind.
That was a great film.
Oh, thank you.
Love that film.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
We had fun with that.
I work right now at a schooland that school makes a lovely
location kids acting class orteenager acting class so it was
like what better location to dothan a school and have them
pretend they're school kids andit just all worked out well
there.
I did have one of the kids takethe cards after we're done
shooting or filling up a cardand shooting a scene, taking
(07:30):
that card and downloading it toa hard drive for me.
So he was kind of assistedediting, which helped kind of
clean things up.
I did think I did spend moretime showing him what to do and
telling him that it's okay, youdid well here, or please change
that or make that.
It would have been quicker forme to do it, but then he
wouldn't have learned anything.
And now you're ready for thisyear, now maybe?
No, he moved off to college.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
You got to get him as a freshman.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
They got to come in and stay.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
But I don't know how many college kids I've had.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Okay, I'm going to do something else or I got.
But the idea is just to I liketeaching.
It's kind of what I do now.
I'm a tech director at a schoolbut I teach kids and it's just
fun to impart knowledge.
So when I'm editing or shootingor doing whatever it's always
like let me explain what I'mdoing to the people that are
helping.
Let me, to the ones who want toknow, let me explain what's
(08:19):
going on and they just love tokind of understand and like, oh
okay, I get it.
And they just love to kind ofunderstand and like, oh OK, I
get it.
That's why this happens Allright, and it gets a little bit
more excited with how things aregoing.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Yeah, you know it's funny that you mentioned that
about the camcorder setup, thatyou were using the portable.
My dad was somewhat of atechnophile and in the early,
early 80s I always forget thispart of my story when I'm
talking about my love for actingand how I got into it, because
when I was little we made ourown films with his camera.
(08:50):
My niece nieces were close tome in age and they would come
down and stay for a few weeksduring the summer and then we
had some of the neighbor kidsthat would come as well and we
would do skits and film it.
My dad was traveling one time.
You remember the scene fromHome Alone when the mom is
trying to get home and she'sgiven all this stuff to the
(09:10):
older couple to swap seats withher.
My dad had that coming backfrom Japan.
A man needed a different flightand he gave my dad a really high
end camcorder set up.
It was two that were not muchbigger than a sheet of paper and
came with a bag.
So you take the one side thatthe VHS tape actually went into
(09:31):
portable and it had a cable.
I think it was an RCA and acamcorder and, of course, if you
use the remote to watch moviesor whatever, it was a cabled
remote, but he had that.
It was a really nice setup.
He had a nice tripod and wewould set that up in the living
room or in the backyard and, youknow, make some little films we
didn't edit.
He knew how to cut and spliceand fix tapes if they were
(09:54):
damaged inside, but that was tooadvanced for what we were doing
.
You know we were nine, 10, 11years old doing that.
When you talked about that, itreminded me of that part of my
story Makes me wish I would havestuck with it as I was growing
up.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
It's fun to think back about where things have
gone and how things haveprogressed from way back when,
from just film and waiting solong to get three minutes done
and that's before editing To nowI have this little camera in
front of me, this little webcamthat's shooting me and
everything is going to someplace online in this high
quality version that we wouldnot have been able to dream of
(10:31):
years ago.
And I wonder if the kids todayshooting with their phones and
doing their little TikTok videosand YouTube shorts and so on
and so forth, if they will havethe same fond memories when, 30
years from now, there'ssomething even better than that
available and running and going.
I can almost imagine having aconstellation of three, four,
five little drone cameras thatalways follow you around and
(10:55):
buzz around.
You get 360 footage, and so youJust tell them what you want and
it'll.
You know that's very possible.
It'll edit it itself, no humantouch, and you've got everything
right there.
So it's actually here.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
But it's coming yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
And but are they going to have the same fondness
for that?
I mean, yes, it was a pain towait, the waiting part was
difficult.
And then the editing andcutting.
It's not like now where I canedit and I want to reuse a shot.
I can reuse that shot multipletimes, no problem, I don't care.
Cut and paste, copy paste.
It's all good, but in film thatshot is just this little bit of
(11:33):
film.
You know this.
12 frames, let's say, or 18frames, so it's one second 18
frames of film.
I can only use it in the onespot.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
There we go For the audio podcast.
His camera automatically zoomedin on him.
Bob felt the pressure of anactor which he's not used to.
It wasn't good this is one ofthose.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
You were beautiful, babe, you were beautiful.
It's one of those AI cameras,so if you do a hand gesture, it
reacts to it and says hey, youwant me to do something Like
nope, we're not doing that.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
But I think what you're saying the painstaking
way you had to edit films, thedifficulty to having to wait for
film that when you finally gotthe product it made it that much
more enjoyable.
Oh, it did.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
We would have premieres.
When we did the $5 million kidsilly thing, it ended up being
12 minutes long and it was great.
I can't believe how much moneyI put into film doing this.
And we had a premiere in mycarport, had a bunch of kids, a
bunch of my friends who gotfolding chairs from their houses
and we set it up like a littletheater.
(12:33):
My mom helped out in thekitchen and pop popcorn and we
got sodas from the store downthe street we got.
Actually, I wish I was able totalk people into these things
like I did there.
I said, hey, do you have sodasfor us that we can use for our
premiere drink, you know, forfree?
And he was like sure, whatever,he had some expiring big shot
sodas all right big shot and wehave so everybody's got their,
(12:58):
their bottle of big shot.
Oh, keep my hand out of thebottle of big shot, their little
bag of popcorn, because momwent all out and bought little
brown paper bags and filled themup and everybody had their
popcorn.
We showed the film like threetimes in a row Rewound it showed
it, reround it showed it, andit was like the same audience no
, not three audiences and it wasgreat.
It was just so much fun.
My brother brother starred init and so he was like I'm a star
(13:21):
baby, I'm doing pretty good, Icould do all this fun stuff, but
it was.
I think the fun part was tryingto figure out how to do special
effects.
Back then and I'm not talkingabout just scratching on the
film this was a parody of the $6million man.
You know, astronaut SteveAustin, the bionic man.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
We know it to those who are younger.
He was in a crash.
They gave him a robot arms, arobot eye, robot hands.
So he was stronger, he wasfaster, he could see further, he
could jump higher.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
I think when he parachuting, or he had to punch
out from a test plane orsomething.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
I think so.
Yeah, it was a test shuttle iswhat it was that crashed in the
desert, and we can rebuild them,we can make it better, and I
always thought they only spent$6 million to do this.
That's pretty good.
So my brother he was in ahorrible bike crash.
That's what we came up with.
Okay, we lived in New OrleansEast at the time, near the lake,
(14:14):
so we had him riding along thelevee and then going down the
levee and we found an old bikesomewhere that had been mangled
and we threw that on one side ofthe train tracks that were up
there.
Train didn't hit it.
We didn't want the train to runover it because we didn't want
to derail a train for this,which we did in my kitchen on
the kitchen table and hung whitesheets all over the place and
kind of draped white sheets overeverybody with handkerchiefs
(14:36):
over their faces, masks, youknow that kind of thing.
Okay, doctor.
And then we did the threestooges tool thing, you know
where.
Okay, doctor, I need theanaphano-phanistan and then a
(14:58):
big pipe wrench would go in thehand.
And then you know, another kindof tool, kind of tool maybe the
paint roller, all thesedifferent things are in there
doing its thing.
And I broke apart an oldtransistor radio and used the
transistor boards as thecomputer boards and it was fun.
But then to show how strong hewas, he needed to lift weights.
One of my other brothers had abarbell set up in the carport.
(15:19):
So it's like, okay, how do youmake it look like you're strong?
Well, you lift the weights.
Well, these were real weights.
Okay, well, he can't do itanyway.
But it just took framing.
So we brought the actualweights themselves in on the
board a little bit, on the polea little bit, and had two people
on either side holding the endsof the barbell and just frame
those out.
And so lift, and then he justused his two fingers to lift it
(15:41):
up and put it back down againand it was great, it worked.
Everybody was like how did hedo that?
Oh my gosh.
Then he started.
Something went wrong with hisleg.
Another neighbor had a car witha huge dent in the fender and
so we just kind of went to oneside of the car where the fender
wasn't dented and had him walkby it and then flipped around to
(16:01):
the other side and had him jerkhis knee into the dent and pull
back.
Like, oh my gosh, I dented thecar and it was easy enough just
to flip the film when I'mediting.
And there it was like how didyou do that?
And it was like special effects, but a lot of it was just
during the time we didn't plananything out.
It was like, oh, look, thislooks cool, let's try that, All
right.
And that right there just kindof brings out that whole joy of
(16:23):
filmmaking and editing.
It's like what can we do?
How can we tell this story?
I've just always loved thatpart.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Yeah, and you started young.
You had the equipment to playwith, and then you got deferred
and then came back to the dream.
I had a chance.
A company came to town.
My mother actually went downand paid the money for me to be
in the movie and it turned outto be a scam.
So that crushed me, so I thinkthat I never thought about it.
Now, later in life, the dreamis coming back.
(16:51):
I don't know if TJ's weredeferred like that, but he's
finding it later in life, and somany of our friends.
So it's always an inspirationand hopefully we can inspire
younger ones just to get outthere and do it while they're
young.
Oh yeah, but it's never too late.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
No, it's never too late, and I wouldn't say that my
dreams were deferred.
I just had different prioritiesthroughout life.
I've always had a camera and acomputer or some way to edit,
you know, vcrs and all this,which was always fun because I'd
be sitting on the living roomfloor with the VCRs in front of
me.
You know going play, start,record, stop.
(17:28):
You know boom.
How do I add in special effects?
I was able to get an Amigacomputer.
I don't know if anybodyremembers the old Amiga.
They had a card inside calledthe video toaster, and the video
toaster was such a wonderfulinvention.
This Amiga, a very slowcomputer, it worked.
(17:48):
The video toaster card inside.
You would put video into it.
It would actually do time-basedcorrection, and that means when
you have different videosignals coming in from different
VCRs that's what it would be.
Vcrs coming in, the signalswouldn't match up and so there'd
be a break in the video as youtried to cut from one to the
other.
Well, this one had automaticcorrection in it, so you didn't
(18:10):
have to worry about it, but itdid all these wonderful effects,
the transitions, dissolves,wipes, slides see your basics
plus things they called kikieffects and those people who've
ever used or seen an old videotoaster, know what a Kiki effect
is?
There was a girl who worked atNew Tech the company that made
video toaster called Kiki, andshe was one of their
(18:32):
spokespeople, you know, and shewould do tumbles and twirls and
things and they would use hersilhouette as a transition to
the next scene and it was agimmick.
It was a big gimmick but it wasfun.
You know, we kind of do that.
You could also add in, createyour own graphics using the
Video Toaster's built-in graphicthing and throw graphics up
there, so lower thirds, otherlittle things like that.
(18:54):
And it was just like an eyeopener to see that, but seeing
the changes as they come.
There was a friend who hadaccess to Adobe Premiere I think
it was before it was calledPremiere but he was able to edit
video on his computer and theframe size was it could only do,
of course, up to 480 interlaced, which is what normal
(19:17):
television was at the time.
And I looked at that and againit was like wait, all that is on
a computer.
You did that all on yourcomputer.
And he says, yeah, I did.
You needed to bring it in acertain way, using a certain
kind of card, you need to have acertain kind of computer.
The thing weighed like 10pounds, and the battery lasted
for at be more than 10 minuteslong because of the processing
power that was necessary to dothat, and I was like, well, this
(19:46):
is pretty clunky, but this islike the first iteration.
What else can it do Now?
Looking at the way what thingscan do now, it just blows your
mind.
There are people, though, thatlook at the effects and the
capabilities of all thesedifferent editing systems and
think this is the end all be all.
Let's see what kind of specialeffects I can throw into my film
.
Let's see what I can do withthis, this actual story, and
(20:09):
that is what's important.
It's not how you get there, butthat end result.
Does the special effects you do, do they help tell the story,
or do they take away from thestory and make you focus on the
special effects?
Got an example for you.
(20:30):
We did a film, good Girl forthe 48-hour film project Didn't
win anything, oh well.
And the story was about a girlwho had cancer and died and her
dog who helps her brother copewith it.
You know it's a tearjerker.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
We got drama.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
And in one scene the boy goes to the graveyard where
his sister is buried and has aconversation with her, and the
dog comes and helps him andtakes him home.
That's near the end.
Well, I looked at the namesthat were on the tomb and they
all belonged to our director.
It was his family tomb and thenames we had to use in the film
weren't that.
(21:05):
So we needed to change that.
So I went into PhotoshopPremiere, grabbed the frame and,
basically, using graphics,re-edited the tomb.
So it read and we saw thelittle girl's name and the date
she died and so on and so forth.
So it updated it and that shotwas only in there for about
three seconds because we focusedon the kid rather than the tomb
(21:25):
.
But if you looked at it youcould see oh, this is the little
girl's tomb, this is what thatis.
And I was kind of upset becauseI wanted to win best editor, I
wanted to win best graphics, andit didn't work because
everybody thought, oh well,that's just what it is, it's no
big deal, what's, who cares?
We just shot it there withsomebody with that particular
name who happened to just die,who happened to be that girl's
(21:48):
age.
It just happened that way.
But that is when specialeffects in editing adds to the
story and doesn't take away fromit.
It's not the star of the showWith most editing.
You know, if you have a film,people come away and talk about
the story, what happened, whythis character did this, why
that character did that, anddon't talk about the editing.
Then it's actually prettysuccessful.
(22:09):
You know, yeah, you can say,well, I edited it and they're
like okay, so you know theydon't understand what really
goes into it.
Editing is the third rewrite ofthe film.
I don't know if you ever heardthat story before.
Second chance to direct.
The second chance to direct.
It's a very important thing andpeople seem to dismiss it but
it's very difficult to pick up.
But once you get it it's notthat difficult really to get it,
(22:31):
but you have to kind of workout a little bit.
It becomes easier, you're ableto see clearly and how things go
If you have a scene and thescene has a lot of coverage,
that's multiple angles of thesame scene shot here and there
and you do have to spend timelooking at each shot and seeing
which one best relates the storyat that particular moment.
(22:52):
Which take of an actor showstheir reaction that actually
emphasizes what's going on inthat scene and does cutting to a
different shot take away fromthe scene or add to it?
There've been plenty of timeswith editing.
I'm looking at a scene and it'sbest when it's just a standard
two shot and you leave it aloneand let the words and the acting
(23:14):
carry the scene, and that's achoice that sometimes needs to
be made.
There's other times when you'reediting and you see these great
shots and great scenes andgreat stuff that you need to
just cut and get it out of there.
Okay, We'll put it in thedirector's cut for the director.
We'll do this, but it's notwhat the audience wants to see.
It doesn't help the story, soyou have to what they call it
(23:35):
kill your babies.
You know they get rid of thatLean and mean.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
That's the hard part of it.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Oh yeah, but sometimes, like the technical
side in terms of cutting for the48, we'll use the 48 as an
example you have to make a filmthat's between four and seven
minutes long and a lot of times,you know, you end up with that
first cut and it seems prettytight when you look at it and
it's eight minutes, nine minutes, it's longer.
So you need to cut things and soyou have to.
(24:04):
First thing you do is you lookthrough it and it's like what
line of dialogue can be lost andnot lose the story?
What little action can beshortened?
And then you go through whereyou start cutting a frame off
the beginning and the end ofeach cut and tighten up a
transition from a minute to, say, 20 frames, and you kind of
move it like that and yourealize, wow, that actually
(24:26):
moves pretty good, it's prettyquick, and you're working at it.
And next thing, you know you'reunder seven minutes and there
it is.
And then the director looks atyou okay, we got 10 extra
seconds, what can we put back in?
That's when you look at himcrossly and say no, and you're
good, and you move on.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
There's a lot of content in two minutes.
When you write the way you haveto write for a 48, it doesn't
sound.
Two minutes doesn't sound likea lot.
But when seven minutes is thelimit and you have two minutes,
that could be a lot of dialogue,a lot of story content right
there and that people don'tunderstand.
I've always said that thechallenging part of a 48 is
(25:01):
telling that whole story in ashort period of time.
Sometimes it's more difficultto tell a short story than it is
a full narrative piece.
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
I mean, I taught a class at school on filmmaking
before COVID.
Then the class ended but I hadan exercise for one of the
students who said oh well, thatdoesn't sound like it's that
hard to do four to seven minutes.
I'm like, okay, that's fine theclass, here's your assignment.
We're going to do a 30 secondcommercial and, of course, since
these were high school kids hadto tell them what a 30 second
commercial was, because no onewatches broadcast television
(25:31):
anymore.
And you're going to do a product.
And I looked around, we were ina library and I pulled up a
book.
I said you're going toadvertise this book 30 seconds.
I want you to advertise thisbook and this is what I want you
to do.
I want you to tell me why Ishould buy it and what's so
great about it.
And they're like 30 seconds.
That's easy, that's so short.
Yeah, I can do that right now.
So we'll go do it.
(25:52):
And they spent like three classperiods trying to figure it out
.
Most were terrible, of course,and they realized at that point
like, oh yeah, at 30 seconds,isn't a lot of time to get
information out To tell thestory.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
It's all storytelling .
Speaker 1 (26:10):
It's all storytelling .
How do you tell the story?
What can you do?
And they had one kid, though,who did it 30 seconds.
He showed a quick shot of himgetting the book off the shelf,
looking at the title of the book, and then it dissolved into a
narration of what the story wasabout for about 20 seconds.
What a great story of love andredemption, and blah, blah, blah
(26:32):
, blah, blah.
And they just kind of cut fromdifferent pictures in the book,
and so he took a picture theseare just stills flashing back
and forth and at the end, buy itnow on Amazon for $5,000 or
whatever.
He did at the end and it wasvery effective.
People were like, oh okay, Ilike that story.
Well, that was easy.
Yeah, but you didn't thinkabout it.
Think about what you need to do.
(26:53):
How can you tell that story inthat short period of time?
So we did it again, another,not a commercial, but another
short film telling a story, andthey all seem to get it at that
point.
It's not about the time, it'snot about how easy it is or
difficult.
It's about telling that story,getting that story out, a
beginning, a middle and an end,and the ending is the hard part,
because people don't seem toend things, they just let it go.
(27:16):
It's always rewarding to seethe light bulb come on and they
get it.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Yeah.
So, bob, I'm going to have tobe the editor now and cut you
off because we're out of time.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
That's all right.
That's all right.
Anybody who wants to find outmore about me can follow the
Anecdotes podcast that's goingto be released real soon.
I'm on Facebook at Laughvilleand Productions and more on that
as I get it, so be welcome.
More followers, stay tuned.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
And we'll link to your podcast and any socials you
want below when we publish thisExcellent.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Maybe, if you pay us enough, I didn't pay you enough
already Got to work on that.
Well, that was the entry fee toget out of the room.
That costs a lot.
No Wait, you got paid, don'tworry about it, tj.
Thank you a lot for coming, bob, it's been a pleasure.
Oh, it has been a blast.
I appreciate it, guys.
(28:08):
Thanks for joining us.
Hi y'all, I'm Bob Krieger, I'm an editor and
filmmaker and I'm offended.
I'm on the NOLA Scene podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Welcome to NOLA.
Film Scene with TJ Plato.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
I'm TJ.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
And, as always, I'm Plato.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Bob Krieger welcome.
Thank you for joining us.
No worries, it's good to haveyou here.
We just wrapped up a sessionwith you on your podcast.
And tell the audience the nameof yours.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
My podcast is called anecdotes or anecdotes 2.0
because it's a continuation of apodcast or web series I did
about 10 years ago, very cool.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
And this is a continuation of that one.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
So we're part two, this is part two of of Bob's.
So in yours you went around andasked everybody how we broke
into the entertainment industryand how we got started.
So to hear our answers, we alsohad Michelle Busquet and Dave
the Barber Burdick on, becauseBrian and I just shot a 48 film
project with them and they toldus how they met and how they got
(00:59):
involved.
Bob, how did you get into it,into editing and filmmaking?
Wow?
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Well, a long time ago , on the land, far, far away,
when I was a young kid, my dadgot a Super 8 film camera and I
stole it from him, basically,and would go to KB.
For those of you who rememberK&B Drugs- that's right.
Yeah, it was purple kb purplebaby and would buy three minute
(01:26):
super eight cartridges that werevery small, throw it in the
camera and we would make ourfilms from that, and then I
would for those kitties outthere.
That's film it wasn't digital,you know film and then analog,
had to get it developed supereight millimeter that's right
had to get it developed and thatwas actually the fun thing
because it only took a week.
I would bring it back to K&Band they would say it'd be done
(01:47):
in a week.
And it came back in a week andI'd look at it and I'd like,
okay, let's reshoot some stuff.
But then editing was actuallytaking the film and using a
razor blade and cutting it andthen taping the pieces together
and making the film like that.
Special effects I loved sciencefiction, so a lot of my special
effects included lasers, whichwas me taking a needle and
(02:09):
scratching on the emulsion oneframe at a time to make the
laser go across.
Oh, wow, it was horrible and itwas fun and it was great.
And my favorite film was aspoof of the Six Million Dollar
man, which we called the FiveMillion Dollar Kid.
I wish I still had it.
It's somewhere, I think, mainlyat the bottom of the Gulf,
(02:31):
because Katrina washed it awayand that would have been so
horrible and fun at the sametime to look at.
Oh, it was awesome.
But then in high school Istudied just regular study, but
we had a film or a video classwhere we actually had a two
camera video studio and playedin the switcher and did all that
(02:53):
other kind of fun stuff andthat was great.
I mean I love that my dad wasworking at Channel him all the
time to go behind the scenes andsee all the equipment they had.
And that was fantastic as wellbecause I wanted to hit the what
do they call it?
The quantel.
That was the graphics machineand the graphics that it made.
(03:14):
They were cheap and chintzycompared to what we can do today
on your phone.
I went to Loyola for college andwas going to get a film degree
and we shot 16 millimeter film.
Then the best part of dadworking at the TV station was
that he could get me a few rollsof 16 millimeter black and
white tri-X and I would throwthat in the cameras that we had
(03:36):
and would shoot, and it saved melots of money but we'd be able
to shoot a lot that way.
It was great.
And then from there, when I wasgraduating, I had a choice of
following a couple ofacquaintances out to California,
sleep on couches and try tomake it big in Hollywood or join
the Navy.
So of course I did the nextbest thing.
I joined the Navy.
(03:57):
I wanted to be a photographer'smate and make films for the
Navy.
They didn't want that.
They wanted me to be a bosun'smate and anybody who knows about
the Navy.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
They dragged their knuckles on the deck and they
move heavy things around.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
It would have been great.
No, but they basically said ifyou don't want to do what we
want you to do, you're not goingto do what you want to do.
So I went next door to theofficer recruiter, said I'm a
college graduate, what you gotfor me.
And he, uh, got something foryou.
And next thing I know I'm abrand new enswine in the united
states navy and sailing in sevenstates.
Yep, it was so much fun andactually I enjoyed my time in
(04:33):
the navy.
Didn't do much filmmaking,trying to become a pao public
affairs officer that didn't workout, but I am qualified to
drive any ship in the fleet andservice warfare officer.
Very cool, that does be here,you know, uh, but that's all
right.
It looks cool and a shadow boxon the wall.
That's about it.
But I always kept my hand in infilmmaking and editing and
(04:55):
playing.
I remember my ship went to Japanand in one of the stores near
the docks I bought a Panasoniccamera which was connected to a
VHS, a portable VHS recorder.
And you have this thing, youwear the recorder over your
shoulder, you put the camera uphere, this big heavy cable
connecting it, and it was great.
(05:17):
And I bought a second recorderand put them in my stateroom on
the ship and had a controller soI could actually cut edit from
tape to tape on the ship.
And it was great and I wouldtake what we made and give it to
the guys in the TV station onthe ship and they play it,
usually late at night because noone really wanted to see what I
was coming up with.
But we had fun with that.
(05:37):
But you always keep your handin, you always try that.
So, as I'm working a regular jobbecause I'm married, I've got
kids.
They like to eat, they like tohave a roof over their head, so
that really takes priority.
But I've always tried toinnovate and keep up with the
time.
I got an old Mac, the blue iMac, and edited on Final Cut there
(05:58):
and it was great, it was fun,and then progressed to other
machines.
I built a few editing machines,pcs.
In the meantime.
After I got off active duty andbecame a reservist, I stayed
Navy and every place I went Ialways carried a camera with me,
just because it was fun.
Who knows what kind of footageI could get and then you edit
and you play with it.
But I've kind of stuck withthat whole thing of filming or
(06:22):
shooting with a camera and thencoming in and seeing what I can
do with it.
Edit wise, I always like tohave the latest and greatest
equipment, but of course theboss in the house has to make me
justify it and sometimes Ican't do that.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
That's right.
I don't get the latest orgreatest.
You have to justify it to thecomptroller.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
You know how that works, but editing has always
been my passion.
I always love just kind ofgetting in front of the computer
and trying to figure it outLike.
I've edited a number of 48 hourfilm projects I can't remember
how many.
I mean I started when in 2009.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Seems to me that you've also won some awards
editing 48.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
A few, a few.
Last year we had one besteditor for the Grind.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
That was a great film , oh, thank you.
Last year we had one besteditor for the Grind.
That was a great film.
Oh, thank you.
Love that film.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
We had fun with that.
I work right now at a schooland that school makes a lovely
location kids acting class orteenager acting class so it was
like what better location to dothan a school and have them
pretend they're school kids andit just all worked out well
there.
I did have one of the kids takethe cards after we're done
shooting or filling up a cardand shooting a scene, taking
(07:30):
that card and downloading it toa hard drive for me.
So he was kind of assistedediting, which helped kind of
clean things up.
I did think I did spend moretime showing him what to do and
telling him that it's okay, youdid well here, or please change
that or make that.
It would have been quicker forme to do it, but then he
wouldn't have learned anything.
And now you're ready for thisyear, now maybe?
No, he moved off to college.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
You got to get him as a freshman.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
They got to come in and stay.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
But I don't know how many college kids I've had.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Okay, I'm going to do something else or I got.
But the idea is just to I liketeaching.
It's kind of what I do now.
I'm a tech director at a schoolbut I teach kids and it's just
fun to impart knowledge.
So when I'm editing or shootingor doing whatever it's always
like let me explain what I'mdoing to the people that are
helping.
Let me, to the ones who want toknow, let me explain what's
(08:19):
going on and they just love tokind of understand and like, oh
okay, I get it.
And they just love to kind ofunderstand and like, oh OK, I
get it.
That's why this happens Allright, and it gets a little bit
more excited with how things aregoing.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Yeah, you know it's funny that you mentioned that
about the camcorder setup, thatyou were using the portable.
My dad was somewhat of atechnophile and in the early,
early 80s I always forget thispart of my story when I'm
talking about my love for actingand how I got into it, because
when I was little we made ourown films with his camera.
(08:50):
My niece nieces were close tome in age and they would come
down and stay for a few weeksduring the summer and then we
had some of the neighbor kidsthat would come as well and we
would do skits and film it.
My dad was traveling one time.
You remember the scene fromHome Alone when the mom is
trying to get home and she'sgiven all this stuff to the
(09:10):
older couple to swap seats withher.
My dad had that coming backfrom Japan.
A man needed a different flightand he gave my dad a really high
end camcorder set up.
It was two that were not muchbigger than a sheet of paper and
came with a bag.
So you take the one side thatthe VHS tape actually went into
(09:31):
portable and it had a cable.
I think it was an RCA and acamcorder and, of course, if you
use the remote to watch moviesor whatever, it was a cabled
remote, but he had that.
It was a really nice setup.
He had a nice tripod and wewould set that up in the living
room or in the backyard and, youknow, make some little films we
didn't edit.
He knew how to cut and spliceand fix tapes if they were
(09:54):
damaged inside, but that was tooadvanced for what we were doing
.
You know we were nine, 10, 11years old doing that.
When you talked about that, itreminded me of that part of my
story Makes me wish I would havestuck with it as I was growing
up.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
It's fun to think back about where things have
gone and how things haveprogressed from way back when,
from just film and waiting solong to get three minutes done
and that's before editing To nowI have this little camera in
front of me, this little webcamthat's shooting me and
everything is going to someplace online in this high
quality version that we wouldnot have been able to dream of
(10:31):
years ago.
And I wonder if the kids todayshooting with their phones and
doing their little TikTok videosand YouTube shorts and so on
and so forth, if they will havethe same fond memories when, 30
years from now, there'ssomething even better than that
available and running and going.
I can almost imagine having aconstellation of three, four,
five little drone cameras thatalways follow you around and
(10:55):
buzz around.
You get 360 footage, and so youJust tell them what you want and
it'll.
You know that's very possible.
It'll edit it itself, no humantouch, and you've got everything
right there.
So it's actually here.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
But it's coming yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
And but are they going to have the same fondness
for that?
I mean, yes, it was a pain towait, the waiting part was
difficult.
And then the editing andcutting.
It's not like now where I canedit and I want to reuse a shot.
I can reuse that shot multipletimes, no problem, I don't care.
Cut and paste, copy paste.
It's all good, but in film thatshot is just this little bit of
(11:33):
film.
You know this.
12 frames, let's say, or 18frames, so it's one second 18
frames of film.
I can only use it in the onespot.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
There we go For the audio podcast.
His camera automatically zoomedin on him.
Bob felt the pressure of anactor which he's not used to.
It wasn't good this is one ofthose.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
You were beautiful, babe, you were beautiful.
It's one of those AI cameras,so if you do a hand gesture, it
reacts to it and says hey, youwant me to do something Like
nope, we're not doing that.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
But I think what you're saying the painstaking
way you had to edit films, thedifficulty to having to wait for
film that when you finally gotthe product it made it that much
more enjoyable.
Oh, it did.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
We would have premieres.
When we did the $5 million kidsilly thing, it ended up being
12 minutes long and it was great.
I can't believe how much moneyI put into film doing this.
And we had a premiere in mycarport, had a bunch of kids, a
bunch of my friends who gotfolding chairs from their houses
and we set it up like a littletheater.
(12:33):
My mom helped out in thekitchen and pop popcorn and we
got sodas from the store downthe street we got.
Actually, I wish I was able totalk people into these things
like I did there.
I said, hey, do you have sodasfor us that we can use for our
premiere drink, you know, forfree?
And he was like sure, whatever,he had some expiring big shot
sodas all right big shot and wehave so everybody's got their,
(12:58):
their bottle of big shot.
Oh, keep my hand out of thebottle of big shot, their little
bag of popcorn, because momwent all out and bought little
brown paper bags and filled themup and everybody had their
popcorn.
We showed the film like threetimes in a row Rewound it showed
it, reround it showed it, andit was like the same audience no
, not three audiences and it wasgreat.
It was just so much fun.
My brother brother starred init and so he was like I'm a star
(13:21):
baby, I'm doing pretty good, Icould do all this fun stuff, but
it was.
I think the fun part was tryingto figure out how to do special
effects.
Back then and I'm not talkingabout just scratching on the
film this was a parody of the $6million man.
You know, astronaut SteveAustin, the bionic man.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
We know it to those who are younger.
He was in a crash.
They gave him a robot arms, arobot eye, robot hands.
So he was stronger, he wasfaster, he could see further, he
could jump higher.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
I think when he parachuting, or he had to punch
out from a test plane orsomething.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
I think so.
Yeah, it was a test shuttle iswhat it was that crashed in the
desert, and we can rebuild them,we can make it better, and I
always thought they only spent$6 million to do this.
That's pretty good.
So my brother he was in ahorrible bike crash.
That's what we came up with.
Okay, we lived in New OrleansEast at the time, near the lake,
(14:14):
so we had him riding along thelevee and then going down the
levee and we found an old bikesomewhere that had been mangled
and we threw that on one side ofthe train tracks that were up
there.
Train didn't hit it.
We didn't want the train to runover it because we didn't want
to derail a train for this,which we did in my kitchen on
the kitchen table and hung whitesheets all over the place and
kind of draped white sheets overeverybody with handkerchiefs
(14:36):
over their faces, masks, youknow that kind of thing.
Okay, doctor.
And then we did the threestooges tool thing, you know
where.
Okay, doctor, I need theanaphano-phanistan and then a
(14:58):
big pipe wrench would go in thehand.
And then you know, another kindof tool, kind of tool maybe the
paint roller, all thesedifferent things are in there
doing its thing.
And I broke apart an oldtransistor radio and used the
transistor boards as thecomputer boards and it was fun.
But then to show how strong hewas, he needed to lift weights.
One of my other brothers had abarbell set up in the carport.
(15:19):
So it's like, okay, how do youmake it look like you're strong?
Well, you lift the weights.
Well, these were real weights.
Okay, well, he can't do itanyway.
But it just took framing.
So we brought the actualweights themselves in on the
board a little bit, on the polea little bit, and had two people
on either side holding the endsof the barbell and just frame
those out.
And so lift, and then he justused his two fingers to lift it
(15:41):
up and put it back down againand it was great, it worked.
Everybody was like how did hedo that?
Oh my gosh.
Then he started.
Something went wrong with hisleg.
Another neighbor had a car witha huge dent in the fender and
so we just kind of went to oneside of the car where the fender
wasn't dented and had him walkby it and then flipped around to
(16:01):
the other side and had him jerkhis knee into the dent and pull
back.
Like, oh my gosh, I dented thecar and it was easy enough just
to flip the film when I'mediting.
And there it was like how didyou do that?
And it was like special effects, but a lot of it was just
during the time we didn't plananything out.
It was like, oh, look, thislooks cool, let's try that, All
right.
And that right there just kindof brings out that whole joy of
(16:23):
filmmaking and editing.
It's like what can we do?
How can we tell this story?
I've just always loved thatpart.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Yeah, and you started young.
You had the equipment to playwith, and then you got deferred
and then came back to the dream.
I had a chance.
A company came to town.
My mother actually went downand paid the money for me to be
in the movie and it turned outto be a scam.
So that crushed me, so I thinkthat I never thought about it.
Now, later in life, the dreamis coming back.
(16:51):
I don't know if TJ's weredeferred like that, but he's
finding it later in life, and somany of our friends.
So it's always an inspirationand hopefully we can inspire
younger ones just to get outthere and do it while they're
young.
Oh yeah, but it's never too late.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
No, it's never too late, and I wouldn't say that my
dreams were deferred.
I just had different prioritiesthroughout life.
I've always had a camera and acomputer or some way to edit,
you know, vcrs and all this,which was always fun because I'd
be sitting on the living roomfloor with the VCRs in front of
me.
You know going play, start,record, stop.
(17:28):
You know boom.
How do I add in special effects?
I was able to get an Amigacomputer.
I don't know if anybodyremembers the old Amiga.
They had a card inside calledthe video toaster, and the video
toaster was such a wonderfulinvention.
This Amiga, a very slowcomputer, it worked.
(17:48):
The video toaster card inside.
You would put video into it.
It would actually do time-basedcorrection, and that means when
you have different videosignals coming in from different
VCRs that's what it would be.
Vcrs coming in, the signalswouldn't match up and so there'd
be a break in the video as youtried to cut from one to the
other.
Well, this one had automaticcorrection in it, so you didn't
(18:10):
have to worry about it, but itdid all these wonderful effects,
the transitions, dissolves,wipes, slides see your basics
plus things they called kikieffects and those people who've
ever used or seen an old videotoaster, know what a Kiki effect
is?
There was a girl who worked atNew Tech the company that made
video toaster called Kiki, andshe was one of their
(18:32):
spokespeople, you know, and shewould do tumbles and twirls and
things and they would use hersilhouette as a transition to
the next scene and it was agimmick.
It was a big gimmick but it wasfun.
You know, we kind of do that.
You could also add in, createyour own graphics using the
Video Toaster's built-in graphicthing and throw graphics up
there, so lower thirds, otherlittle things like that.
(18:54):
And it was just like an eyeopener to see that, but seeing
the changes as they come.
There was a friend who hadaccess to Adobe Premiere I think
it was before it was calledPremiere but he was able to edit
video on his computer and theframe size was it could only do,
of course, up to 480 interlaced, which is what normal
(19:17):
television was at the time.
And I looked at that and againit was like wait, all that is on
a computer.
You did that all on yourcomputer.
And he says, yeah, I did.
You needed to bring it in acertain way, using a certain
kind of card, you need to have acertain kind of computer.
The thing weighed like 10pounds, and the battery lasted
for at be more than 10 minuteslong because of the processing
power that was necessary to dothat, and I was like, well, this
(19:46):
is pretty clunky, but this islike the first iteration.
What else can it do Now?
Looking at the way what thingscan do now, it just blows your
mind.
There are people, though, thatlook at the effects and the
capabilities of all thesedifferent editing systems and
think this is the end all be all.
Let's see what kind of specialeffects I can throw into my film
.
Let's see what I can do withthis, this actual story, and
(20:09):
that is what's important.
It's not how you get there, butthat end result.
Does the special effects you do, do they help tell the story,
or do they take away from thestory and make you focus on the
special effects?
Got an example for you.
(20:30):
We did a film, good Girl forthe 48-hour film project Didn't
win anything, oh well.
And the story was about a girlwho had cancer and died and her
dog who helps her brother copewith it.
You know it's a tearjerker.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
We got drama.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
And in one scene the boy goes to the graveyard where
his sister is buried and has aconversation with her, and the
dog comes and helps him andtakes him home.
That's near the end.
Well, I looked at the namesthat were on the tomb and they
all belonged to our director.
It was his family tomb and thenames we had to use in the film
weren't that.
(21:05):
So we needed to change that.
So I went into PhotoshopPremiere, grabbed the frame and,
basically, using graphics,re-edited the tomb.
So it read and we saw thelittle girl's name and the date
she died and so on and so forth.
So it updated it and that shotwas only in there for about
three seconds because we focusedon the kid rather than the tomb
(21:25):
.
But if you looked at it youcould see oh, this is the little
girl's tomb, this is what thatis.
And I was kind of upset becauseI wanted to win best editor, I
wanted to win best graphics, andit didn't work because
everybody thought, oh well,that's just what it is, it's no
big deal, what's, who cares?
We just shot it there withsomebody with that particular
name who happened to just die,who happened to be that girl's
(21:48):
age.
It just happened that way.
But that is when specialeffects in editing adds to the
story and doesn't take away fromit.
It's not the star of the showWith most editing.
You know, if you have a film,people come away and talk about
the story, what happened, whythis character did this, why
that character did that, anddon't talk about the editing.
Then it's actually prettysuccessful.
(22:09):
You know, yeah, you can say,well, I edited it and they're
like okay, so you know theydon't understand what really
goes into it.
Editing is the third rewrite ofthe film.
I don't know if you ever heardthat story before.
Second chance to direct.
The second chance to direct.
It's a very important thing andpeople seem to dismiss it but
it's very difficult to pick up.
But once you get it it's notthat difficult really to get it,
(22:31):
but you have to kind of workout a little bit.
It becomes easier, you're ableto see clearly and how things go
If you have a scene and thescene has a lot of coverage,
that's multiple angles of thesame scene shot here and there
and you do have to spend timelooking at each shot and seeing
which one best relates the storyat that particular moment.
(22:52):
Which take of an actor showstheir reaction that actually
emphasizes what's going on inthat scene and does cutting to a
different shot take away fromthe scene or add to it?
There've been plenty of timeswith editing.
I'm looking at a scene and it'sbest when it's just a standard
two shot and you leave it aloneand let the words and the acting
(23:14):
carry the scene, and that's achoice that sometimes needs to
be made.
There's other times when you'reediting and you see these great
shots and great scenes andgreat stuff that you need to
just cut and get it out of there.
Okay, We'll put it in thedirector's cut for the director.
We'll do this, but it's notwhat the audience wants to see.
It doesn't help the story, soyou have to what they call it
(23:35):
kill your babies.
You know they get rid of thatLean and mean.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
That's the hard part of it.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Oh yeah, but sometimes, like the technical
side in terms of cutting for the48, we'll use the 48 as an
example you have to make a filmthat's between four and seven
minutes long and a lot of times,you know, you end up with that
first cut and it seems prettytight when you look at it and
it's eight minutes, nine minutes, it's longer.
So you need to cut things and soyou have to.
(24:04):
First thing you do is you lookthrough it and it's like what
line of dialogue can be lost andnot lose the story?
What little action can beshortened?
And then you go through whereyou start cutting a frame off
the beginning and the end ofeach cut and tighten up a
transition from a minute to, say, 20 frames, and you kind of
move it like that and yourealize, wow, that actually
(24:26):
moves pretty good, it's prettyquick, and you're working at it.
And next thing, you know you'reunder seven minutes and there
it is.
And then the director looks atyou okay, we got 10 extra
seconds, what can we put back in?
That's when you look at himcrossly and say no, and you're
good, and you move on.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
There's a lot of content in two minutes.
When you write the way you haveto write for a 48, it doesn't
sound.
Two minutes doesn't sound likea lot.
But when seven minutes is thelimit and you have two minutes,
that could be a lot of dialogue,a lot of story content right
there and that people don'tunderstand.
I've always said that thechallenging part of a 48 is
(25:01):
telling that whole story in ashort period of time.
Sometimes it's more difficultto tell a short story than it is
a full narrative piece.
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
I mean, I taught a class at school on filmmaking
before COVID.
Then the class ended but I hadan exercise for one of the
students who said oh well, thatdoesn't sound like it's that
hard to do four to seven minutes.
I'm like, okay, that's fine theclass, here's your assignment.
We're going to do a 30 secondcommercial and, of course, since
these were high school kids hadto tell them what a 30 second
commercial was, because no onewatches broadcast television
(25:31):
anymore.
And you're going to do a product.
And I looked around, we were ina library and I pulled up a
book.
I said you're going toadvertise this book 30 seconds.
I want you to advertise thisbook and this is what I want you
to do.
I want you to tell me why Ishould buy it and what's so
great about it.
And they're like 30 seconds.
That's easy, that's so short.
Yeah, I can do that right now.
So we'll go do it.
(25:52):
And they spent like three classperiods trying to figure it out
.
Most were terrible, of course,and they realized at that point
like, oh yeah, at 30 seconds,isn't a lot of time to get
information out To tell thestory.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
It's all storytelling .
Speaker 1 (26:10):
It's all storytelling .
How do you tell the story?
What can you do?
And they had one kid, though,who did it 30 seconds.
He showed a quick shot of himgetting the book off the shelf,
looking at the title of the book, and then it dissolved into a
narration of what the story wasabout for about 20 seconds.
What a great story of love andredemption, and blah, blah, blah
(26:32):
, blah, blah.
And they just kind of cut fromdifferent pictures in the book,
and so he took a picture theseare just stills flashing back
and forth and at the end, buy itnow on Amazon for $5,000 or
whatever.
He did at the end and it wasvery effective.
People were like, oh okay, Ilike that story.
Well, that was easy.
Yeah, but you didn't thinkabout it.
Think about what you need to do.
(26:53):
How can you tell that story inthat short period of time?
So we did it again, another,not a commercial, but another
short film telling a story, andthey all seem to get it at that
point.
It's not about the time, it'snot about how easy it is or
difficult.
It's about telling that story,getting that story out, a
beginning, a middle and an end,and the ending is the hard part,
because people don't seem toend things, they just let it go.
(27:16):
It's always rewarding to seethe light bulb come on and they
get it.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Yeah.
So, bob, I'm going to have tobe the editor now and cut you
off because we're out of time.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
That's all right.
That's all right.
Anybody who wants to find outmore about me can follow the
Anecdotes podcast that's goingto be released real soon.
I'm on Facebook at Laughvilleand Productions and more on that
as I get it, so be welcome.
More followers, stay tuned.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
And we'll link to your podcast and any socials you
want below when we publish thisExcellent.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Maybe, if you pay us enough, I didn't pay you enough
already Got to work on that.
Well, that was the entry fee toget out of the room.
That costs a lot.
No Wait, you got paid, don'tworry about it, tj.
Thank you a lot for coming, bob, it's been a pleasure.
Oh, it has been a blast.
I appreciate it, guys.
(28:08):
Thanks for joining us.
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