Massé has a release date!

After many months of hard work, we are extremely pleased to announce that our initial domestic release date has been set as October 13th 2015. Massé will be available on several Video On Demand services including, Dish Network, iTunes, VUDU, The PlayStation Network, and Google Play. More platforms will follow, along with our international release dates. We have managed to achieve one of the major goals we had set for Massé, and we are pleased to share the news with you. Bad Ferret Films is beginning a marketing push for Massé that includes various social media platforms, and we encourage those of you that support Bad Ferret to share Massé's updates on any and all platforms you utilize.

After the Premiere of Massé in Fall of 2014, Bad Ferret Films began actively seeking distribution avenues for the film. Shortly there after we entered talks with XVIII Entertainment. This lead to a finalized distribution deal with them in January of 2015. They began shopping the film around at events like the Berlin Film Market, and the Cannes Film Market. Bad Ferret is extremely happy with the work XVIII Entertainment has done for use so far, and we look forward to a continued expanding release of Massé, and future projects.

Bad Ferret Films is looking towards the future, and we urge those of you that have worked with us on Massé, and our previous film, Broken Down, keep us current with your contact information. This will ensure you hear about future projects we undertake.

Sincerely,
Jay Taylor
Bad Ferret Films

Welcome to XVIII Entertainment

We are happy to announce that our feature-length film Massé (website IMDB) has been picked up by XVIII Entertainment (website IMDB) for distribution! This LA-based distribution family represents independent filmmakers in a variety of markets, and is currently working on behalf of Massé on VOD, regional, and television placement for the film.

This week, XVIII Entertainment is in Berlin displaying the seasons newest films, including Massé, to a variety of international buyers at the European Film Market.

We will keep you all posted through the blog as Massé becomes available. For major updates, don't forget to sign up for the email list here on the blog.

Thanks to our RAW Team!

This December, the Bad Ferret Films team wraps our third year filming for RAW Natural Born Artists, and LA-based arts organization that supports local artists with showcases in cities around the globe. If you aren't familiar with these shows, here is an example of the work we do for them, the most recent promo video from the Richmond showcase:
 

After another great year, we want to say thanks to the team members of the RAW shows we worked this year.   We filmed over three dozen showcase in six different cities form NY to VA. So, while this isn't a complete list of the team members we worked with, it highlights some of the dynamic creative professionals we have the opportunity to work with through our association with RAW.

• Daraja Asili - DC/Richmond Showcase Director - Daraja Consulting
• Elisa Wells - Baltimore Showcase Director - Multimedia Creative and Arts Professional
• Jessica La-Rotta - New Jersey Showcase Director - Director of Events for Elite Styles Events
• DJ LoudTone - Washington DC events DJ - http://www.loudtoneinc.com/
• DJ Sean J - A/V Tech and DJ - http://www.djseanj.com/
• James Nasty - Baltimore DJ and Producer - http://jamesnasty.com/
• Christine DiCarlo - Performer/Presenter - http://www.rawartists.org/christinedecarlo
• Micah BamBamm White - Comedian - http://www.mbbwhite.com/
• AJ DUNK *all caps* - Comedian - youtube
• Cori J - Presenter - online
• Vernon LeePow - Photographer and Explorer - http://about.me/vernonleepow
• Nate Tyler - Fashion Photographer - http://nate-tyler.com/
• August Joseph Heisler IV - Richmond Events Photographer - http://www.augustjphoto.com/
• Carly Sullivan - Production Assistant/Illustrator - portfolio
• Heather Kirkpatrick - Production Assistant - online

Thank you guys so much for another great year!  We are looking forward to working with RAW next year, and can't wait to see what exciting performances, artists, and fashion we get to film in 2015!

Crafting Videos: Marketing vs. Journalism

While studying visual journalism in school, marketing was the furthest thing from my mind. To be honest, I didn’t know much about it and didn’t care to. Advertising and marketing seemed one in the same: artfully showing the value of a product or service for sales purposes. Yuck. Two years later and here I am, mixing the journalism skills I learned with this complex industry of marketing.

As it turns out, crafting a video for journalistic use is not much different than doing so for marketing use. For instance, let’s compare a simple business profile video and a feature multimedia story. 

• Chances are – unless it’s solely a natural sound piece – both will require an interview or voiceover, some kind of talking head telling a story so that the audience isn’t lost on the subject matter. 
• Then, to supplement the interview, the video will usually include b-roll, additional footage that shows detail of what the subject is talking about. 

Both have the same basic formula: interview intertwined with b-roll. The difference is purpose.

The purpose of journalism is to inform the public on local, national, or global current events, while the purpose of marketing is to sell a product or service. Other than technical specifics, successful videos of either subject tend to contain the following characteristics:

• Story: Journalistic videos are often based on a written article or can stand alone as a story. As humans, we are attracted to stories whether they present the pressing details first (as in journalism stories) or they follow the events of a typical plot line (as in films). There has been a trend in recent years for companies to include a story element in their marketing/advertising videos. Brands are encouraged to tell their unique story through commercial videos because it gives their customers an idea of their values and how they operate as well as a sense of experience rather than plain information.

• Emotion: If it wasn't for emotion, there would be no reason for stories. We are emotional beings. Regardless of a story's content, it evokes some kind of emotion in each reader or viewer. Personally, I recall more heartbreaking journalistic pieces, while others may be more in sync with cheerful videos. Along with storytelling, companies frequently use emotion in marketing videos in order to attract people to their brand. To this day I still get a dreamy feeling when I see anything Disney-related. Perhaps I watched The Lion King a few too many times in my youth...

• Truth: Whether you believe it or not, journalism is meant to be ethical, honest, and unbiased. Unless it's from a sensational tabloid, there is truth in a news story. Otherwise, what would be the point of producing it? People want truth, not lies. Marketing is no different. For the most part, there is an element of truth in a company's marketing plan because they are trying to attract loyal customers who continue to use their product. Companies that do lie through marketing are usually rewarded with backlash and a decrease in customers. 

While journalism videos are meant to inform and marketing videos are meant to stimulate sales, both hold more similarities than differences. Next time you see a McDonald's ad (whether you enjoy fast food or not), take a moment to analyze the elements. How do they use emotion and truth in their ad to tell their personal story and attract customers? After all, there is a reason they are the number one fast food brand in the world.

Pillars of Horror

My trembling hands grasped the balusters of the stairs just outside my bedroom door as I peered through the narrow space between. Sweat covered my palms. The pounding of my heartbeat echoing in my ears was almost audible, like distant drums of a native tribe. Down below from my hidden vantage point, my father sat watching a horror movie.

A giant shark burst from beneath the water as if almost jumping out of the TV screen.

I bolted back to my bedroom. I was only six years old. This was the first horror movie I'd ever seen. Jaws (1975).

Since that night I have only seen a handful of other horror movies that offer the scares, thrills, and adventure as fluidly and flawlessly as Jaws. Why is that? Why are great horror films so scarce? I believe the answer comes from first understanding, "What is a great horror movie?" In trying to explain my theories, I considered there to be three important pillars of a great horror movie's foundation: atmosphere, authenticity, and attachment.


Atmosphere

Atmosphere is a rather broad portion of a film's presentation. However, to simplify it more, the right atmosphere creates mystery. There is a certain barrier every horror film must break within the viewer: knowledge. The modern moviegoer lives in a time where knowledge is always at their fingertips. The world isn't shrouded in as much mystery. Because of this, horror movies must find a way to take that knowledge (don't confuse this with understanding) and deconstruct it, if only for just an hour or two. An open mind is where fear cultivates.

In a way, mystery in turn builds more atmosphere. There must be a constant cycle between the two. Without it, the audience is much more prone to pulling themselves away from the story and mood. I've noticed a recent trend in horror films is for many scenes to take place in the daylight. I'm not implying that horror scenes can't happen while the sun is shining - it can be done - but those scenes lose a fraction of their threatening tone because the characters seem more worried about sunburn than the carnivorous beast chasing them. There isn't mystery.

One of my favorite films, The Thing (1982), used atmosphere to continually keep the audience perplexed. The confined quarters that the characters are trapped in is essentially a complex maze. The cunning layout of intertwining hallways disorients the audience. The knowledge of the space is stripped from the viewer, resembling a morbid game of hide and seek with the "monster". The intelligent art design contributes to the mystery of the movie as well. Every room within the remote research facility is cluttered with "stuff". There are really no empty areas within the rooms, which plays on our fear of the unknown. The Thing could be hiding anywhere.


Authenticity

This leads into the next pillar of horror: authenticity. The fears need to be genuine. Can you recall a nightmare in which your whereabouts within the dream are oddly similar to an actual place you know of but just slightly different? Those kinds of dreams are unnerving because they blend imagination with reality. Horror movies that keep you on the edge of your seat use real fears even if the setting isn't. For example, Alien (1979) preys on our fears of darkness and confined spaces. Mankind isn't anywhere near deep space travel but the fear of being lost in an unknown environment is more than releatable. Along those same lines comes the fear of dying alone. Isolation is possibly the most impactful and visceral terror in a horror film's toolkit. Every horror movie in some way, shape, or form utilizes isolation because it is one of the most genuine fears.

Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) is another great example of real terror. The characters are isolated within a remote motel. The motel's parlor is comprised of unusual objects and taxidermist fancies that evoke death no matter where one looks. Holes in walls behind pictures bring out the phobias of being watched and stalked. Showers become a new territory of death. However, the greatest fear of them all, is Psycho's honest realization that we all can go a little mad sometimes. The contemporary deviation towards hyper-realism seems to forget that audiences don't need to be overwhelmed.


Attachment

The final pillar of a horror film is attachment. By this I mean attachment to the characters and the story. I firmly believe that the viewer cannot have one without the other. A solid story needs great characters to live and great characters need a solid story to live forever. Since great horror needs real fears, real fears come from real characters, characters that the audience must feel for and root for.

Modern horror stories tend to involve characters that make irrational choices in order to conform to predetermined cliches. As with any genre of movie, there needs to be a reason for the choices that characters make. If the audience understands the reason for characters actions, the viewer is much more inclined to root for them. The prevalent scenes of women in baths is a common staple of horror movies these days, yet those scenes aren't as creepy because the audience simply doesn't care. The viewer needs a reason to care.

Jaws is one of the best horror movies to date because at it's core are simply great characters. The choices they make are relateable, their feelings sympathetic, and their fears are our own. When Quint speaks of his experience after the Indianapolis sinks, the viewer is in the red waters beside him living the story. As a whole, that's what audiences do when watching horror films. They live the story.


Many years ago, as I watched my first horror movie through the comfort of my secret hiding spot, I lived a story that frightened me. The scary films of today lack that capability. The horror genre has become muddled with inauthenticity and detachment. There is an absence of mysticism. I will never forget the odd excitement I felt after watching a great horror film for the first time. My only hope is that I will be able to experience it again.  

Enter the H6

At Bad Ferret, we have had two distinct audio solutions that we've used for the last couple of years. For our big audio package for large multi-track audio performances or events we utilize a Tascam US-1800 audio interface plugged into our production laptop. This setup enables us to record up to 16 indendent audio feeds each at 96kHz/24bit. This is the primary setup we used during filming Massé for audio capture. Our other solution has been recording with a Zoom H4n portable field recorder.  This is our most common solution, and is primarily used to record a couple mic inputs, again at 96kHz/24bit. I would guess about 80% of our client work uses the Zoom H4n with either our Shure wireless  lav or a Rode NTG2 shotgun mic, or both.

The H4n has worked well for us. My only real complaints was it's method of needing to navigate menu screens to adjust the volume of each channel, and that the preamps would begin to introduce noticeable noise if you started to push the levels at all. The later could be a problem when using the H4n with the Rode NTG2, as these mics don't have the hottest output level. So at times I would find myself needing to boost the levels in the Zoom to get the NTG2's levels where I wanted them, and starting to introduce unwanted noise.

Now we have recently purchased a Zoom H6 for Bad Ferret, and things have changed... for the better! The H6 preamps, so far, have proven to be superior to the H4n's in both noise floor and overall gain. With the NTG2's I can raise the levels to where I want and not get an appreciable increase in noise from the preamps. I also seem to get more overall gain out of the H6 preamps compared to the H4n.  Mind you, this is all my opinion from informal testing, but to me the results are very positive. The H6 also has volume knobs for each channel's gain, so I no longer have to scroll through menus to change levels.  Just these two points here make me a very happy guy.

However, there is still more benefit from the H6 to enjoy. It is now capable of recording 6 channels of audio in 96kHz/24bit. It comes with four XLR 1/4 inch combo jacks each that can supply phantom power. You also have the XY mics or the mid side mic that comes with the unit. In addition, there is the option of a shotgun mic attachment or a dual XLR (no phantom) attachment instead of the mic options that came with the H6. We purchased the additional shotgun mic. So far in my informal testing I've found the H6 XY mics to be slightly superior to the ones on the H4n. They are heavier and feel more study to begin with, and sound wise they "seem" to capture a slightly fuller sound. The shotgun attachment mic is also nice. It's side rejection seems comparable to various on-camera shotguns I've used in the past like the Rode Videomic.  Voices come through nice and clear. If I had any thought about it was that it seems a little weak at capturing very low tones. However, for voices this isn't much of a concern for me, as I usually have the lows toned down when recording them.

The one real negative I have is the performance of the mid-side mic. In my testing with it, I noticed a higher noise floor than the other mics. I went online to read up on it and mid-side mics in general as they are not a type of mic I know a lot about, and I found that several others had noticed the same thing. In use, it does give slightly better positional information of sounds than the XY mic, and in a quiet situation when you could keep the level very low it might be perfectly usable. However, I don't see it as being much use to me in the normal situations that Bad Ferret works with.

One last note I would be remiss not to mention is that it has a "backup" mode where you can record duplicate versions of tracks 1-2 on tracks 3-4 with a -12db pad. I can see myself using this safety feature regularly, especially when recording in loud situations.

So for me the H6 retains our great portable audio solution while adding in a couple more channels, and at the same time offering a noticeable increase in fidelity.  I'm very pleased with what is turning out to be a worthwhile upgrade.

Jay Taylor