Freekstorm VFX Blog

On all production and filmmaking company web sites you will usually find not only a description of the aims of the company, but also a section devoted to the bio’s of the company directors.

So when Rich designed the Freekstorm web site, he allocated a section for the bio’s of the cast, crew and most importantly the director (Rich) and the producer (moi.) As I do most of the writing (it is after all my raison d'être) this task has fallen to me. So for the last two weeks I have been wrestling with the herculean task of trying to squash our life accomplishments to four short, dry paragraphs (each.) This has the fairly depressing side effect of making you feel as if you’ve done absolutely nothing of note with your life and you really should get off your ass, head for Hollywood, make a blockbusting movie and thus have a glamorous resume crammed full of festival awards and various gongs, just so you can have a bio as glamorous as all the other (clearly fabulous) directors out there.

Take Rich’s bio, for example. Although his talents outside the movie world are considerable, he is new to filmmaking and so his VFX and filmmaking credentials are somewhat...erm...limited (as are mine.) This does not make for a dazzling filmmaker’s résumé and so a certain amount of embellishment (carefully worded) is required in order to make the proverbial mountain from the molehill. Of course as the number of short films we make increases, then his list of accomplishments gets bigger and his bio will expand accordingly. It wouldn’t hurt to win a few film festivals either.

*sigh*

Oh well. In time...

So how do you write a bio that is suitable not only for your web site, but also suitable for your future press releases and (one day) your IMDb listing? It has to be factual, yet descriptive, inspiring, professional and above all it should make you seem like the real bona fide filmmaker that you are.

This process often terrifies ordinary mortals who are not used to having to make up this sort of thing. But hey, we’re all filmmakers here! Your bio is just a (very) short story of your life’s work, no different from any other movie character’s synopsis, just a bit more formally worded. If you have no idea what to write then the easiest way is to Google the bio's of other directors and producers. You can then get a feel for the type of thing you should be writing as well as a suitable style of wording to use in order to best reflect your magnificent accomplishments in the film world. If you are completely and utterly desperate then you could always crib someone-else’s and re-tailor to your own history as appropriate, although you really should use your own original wording you know. Nice people don’t copy – they reinvent stories and make them their own.

When writing Rich’s bio, I specifically tried not to copy the ideas and wording of other directors’ bio's (largely because they were either too famous or too awful or both) and tried to devise suitable wording of my own. This took many hours of blood, sweat and tears for a few short paragraphs and the result is very far from perfect. It’s rather more formal than I’d like, but it’s the best I can do for the time being. I’ll keep nibbling it over time as our repertoires expand, and with any luck, in a couple of years time it will look positively impressive. Well, that’s the plan anyway.

Unbeknown to me, whilst I was wrestling with words to make his bio sound as professional as possible, Rich effortlessly tossed out a humorous version for his Facebook profile which is SO much better than my herculean effort. Damn! I hate it when he does that! He is such a great writer, although he’s terribly modest and really doesn’t think he is very good at all. But truth be told, if there is one thing he can do well, it’s humour. I really wish I could use his version instead of mine but he thinks my formal, stuck-up, dry version looks more “professional” for our web site.

So without further ado, I give you my version:

Richard has spent over 30 years as a self-confessed computer geek. He has had a life-long passion for visual effects, digital art, photography and filmmaking.

After winning multiple awards for his black and white photography, Richard became fascinated with cinematography. To that end he has written and directed several short films including "Dick Ikon and the Petulant Princess" and "Diabolus Domi," both of which have been featured in the DVX film festivals.

When he is not making films, Richard is a highly successful computer software designer with his own international software company. He has a degree in Physics and Electronics and is married to Lin Bang, a writer and film producer and they have three wonderful kids who are also enthusiastic members of the Freekstorm team.

Richard founded Freekstorm in 2009 with the aim of exploring the worlds of filmmaking and Visual Effects. It is Richard’s creative desire to tell stories which merge fantasy with reality, thereby connecting the real world with the power of our imaginations.

And Rich’s version:

Richard, who does not normally refer to himself in the third person, is a keen film and visual effects director. When not writing cutting-edge software, he spends his time creating visual effects films and blowing zombies to bits in "Left 4 Dead."

His debut starring role in “Dick Ikon and the Petulant Princess” received such praise as ‘the acting was a bit off’ and ‘the acting of the father I found a little bit rigid.’

You can follow the exploits of Richard and his team of filmmakers on the Freekstorm web site.

Now which of the two gives you a better idea of Rich’s character, his wit and the style of films he loves to make? Which tells you what type of director he really is?

Yep, I rest my case. Effortless humour wins over constipated formality - every single time.

Labels: director, filmmaking, marketing

One of the masterpieces of cinema is Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane. The film opens with the famous deathbed scene, which could easily stand alone by itself as a most excellent short film. As he dies, Kane’s final whispered word is “Rosebud.” This single word forms the mystery of the film – “rosebud” is his final and most powerful memory which defines him as a person, the key to unravelling the mystery of his life. “Rosebud is the emblem of security, hope and innocence of childhood, which a man can spend his life seeking to regain.”

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everyone could have such an epiphany? A single extraordinary moment which forever changes the direction of their life? A recent interesting article in The Independent addressed this very subject and detailed the Rosebud moments of famous directors which ignited their passion for filmmaking and thus changed the course of their lives forever. After reading this, I figured that most great directors experienced such epiphanies, so I asked my own trusty director to identify his very own “rosebud moment” which made him want to go into filmmaking.

“I don’t believe in epiphanies,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Because I’ve never had one.”

“What? Never?”

“Nope. I think they’re a bit too melodramatic, to be honest.”

Well, so much for defining moments. It turns out that my dear director believes in evolution not epiphanies. He believes in a more logical (for that read “Vulcan”) approach where a person’s direction in life changes due to cumulated experiences, rather than because a light-bulb goes on somewhere. He is way too sensible for epiphanies – he is far more likely to change the course of his life in response to an intellectual challenge, rather than a sudden revelation.

He told me that when he was a kid, he spent endless hours watching t.v. animation shorts such as Morph in Take Heart. He was inspired enough to want to make animations like these, but in those days the opportunities simply didn’t exist for teenagers to create things like that, no matter how ambitious they were. So he shelved his ambitions whilst growing up and instead became fascinated with computers. He threw himself into programming in a big way, and this formed the cornerstone of his career path. As technology developed, he began to see the possibilities of reviving his interest in animation, not through stop-motion but instead through designing CG characters and animating them on the computer.

“The latest CG animation technology is still in its infancy,” he says. “A few years ago the average six minute animated short film would take around two years to do. I want to develop technology that will reduce the two year period to something manageable, like three months or so. It is only in the last year that the price of the CG software tools has come down enough to make this timescale possible for the serious amateur. Now the sky’s the limit.”

“But why animation?” I asked.

“The real world exists,” he says. “You just have to put a camera in it and record it. You can then put your character into the real world and see how it interacts. I love mixing reality and fantasy. That’s what telling stories is all about.”

So? Less of a single rosebud moment, and more of a slowly growing shrub?

“I’m not trying to open a door to my past,” he says. “There was no epiphany I’m afraid. I know you think there should be, but frankly, I’m just not that deep a person. All I want to do is to tell stories. Now, thanks to modern CG technology, finally I can.”

Labels: director, filmmaking