Nick Brenner

The INTERSTELLAR theme in the key of A minor and played on the white keys only

@Calvbetton @atptour @TennisTV Shocking and disrespectful

Have been saying for a while that the @atptour is obsessed with promoting stars rather than promoting the sport. There are two 250 tournaments on this week, and @TennisTV so far has only one post about each. It does however have:

@CinemaTweets1 The soundtrack by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis was also exemplary.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford has a handful of Oscar winners & nominees like Casey Affleck, Brad Pitt, Sam Rockwell, Jeremey Renner & the late Sam Shepard. But the film’s star? Sir Roger Deakins. His visuals are the best thing within a great film.

@DuncanMcNab Add the millions spent on the Heston Russell case too.

$1.1m spent by the ABC on external lawyers in the Lattouf case - roughly half the cost of the mess that was the Luna Park doco, around the cost of debacle doco/podcast on Juanita Nielsen & a few of us could make a few great crime docos for this money. theaustralian.com.au/breaking-news/…

@mattdoran22 Nice to see you’re still on the case

Huge news today with Arizona prosecutors curiously abandoning their push for the death penalty for Aussie mum / accused child killer Lisa Cunningham. My thoughts on the case after I interviewed her: news.com.au/entertainment/…

@archiebombora09 This from the Jeff Koons of backhands. Robert Hughes described both the backhand and Koons as “the slimy assurance, the gross patter about transcendence through art, of a blow-dried Baptist selling swamp acres in Florida”.

Nick Brenner bludgeons with his double handed backhand but, like all double handed backhands, it isn’t pretty. I prefer artistry over armoury.

Rome 1st Century AD

@PeterCronau Doesn’t say news managers took calls. Letters sent to board.

Why are ABC news managers even taking calls from lobbyists? “According to her claim, Antoinette Lattouf's ABC manager called her on December 18, informing her that ‘Jewish lobbyists were unhappy that she was on the air’.” abc.net.au/news/2024-01-1…

@AmyLundyDahl The 7pm start is because the Oz tv network News finishes at 7pm. It’s the same with all sport in Oz. Fitted around free to air TV News schedule

Inflation rose 14% between July 2020 and July 2022. But corporate profits rose 75% over those two years — 5X as fast as inflation. Profits are still hovering near record highs, hitting $3.28 trillion for Q3 2023. Can we stop blaming higher prices on workers' wages? Hello?

@AvidCommentator Also when building certification control was taken from Govt agencies and then builders payed the certifiers directly. Plenty of stories on this from the day about safety and conflicts of interest. The sell - was to increase supply.

'Four in 10 new apartment buildings have major defects: NSW Building Commissioner' Story time: A friend of the family has been involved in building various high rise and large commercial real estate projects since the 1980s. He told me back in the early-2010s that one of the major issues was that too many building companies had insufficient experience building large high rise residential buildings. That the sheer increase in demand would see inadequately resourced and trained companies take on projects they really couldn't handle. This data appears to justify his concerns. It seems we couldn't just double the number of people working directly on building new homes in a decade without issues arising. domain.com.au/news/four-in-1…

@stevecutsdocs Also in docos - try pulling out your music before your interviewee breaks down. Silence under their sobs and sniffles is much more powerful.

📷 Music Is The Lady In The Red Dress: Back in the day, I had a wall filled with Post-it notes. These were short quips that I could share with others that contained storytelling wisdom. Some quotes were from others, for example, Director Jim Jarmusch: “Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination.” Others are based on my 30-plus years of editing #documentary. One of those post-it notes was the title of this short essay. The wonder of music in film is that she (as the lady in the red dress) adds drama to your film, but that is also the problem. No matter how boring a scene is, add music and the scene gets better. It does not however transform the bad scene into a good scene. A good scene doesn’t require music to make it compelling. A good scene however, is enhanced with music. Music in Documentary is also tricky, as she will add emotion to a scene, again this is both bad and good. Good if the emotion is dictated by a well-cut scene. Bad if the emotion is dictated by the music. In the negative, music puts a thumb on the scale. pointing to how the viewer “should feel” about the scene. On the positive, Music elevates the engagement of the audience – and who doesn’t want that? Music is a distracting crutch in storytelling. Specifically, it is the melody of song that is the curse to a scene; unless the melody IS the scene. I’ve worked with many composers and I am always urging them to remove the melody. Melody tends to dictate the cutting and the emotion of a scene. I want the images and narrative to do that. Composing afterward is better but still, music wants to rise to the top of the emotional experience in film. In the serious world of the public affairs documentary series @frontlinePBS I would keep the melody out as much as I could, and trim out as much music as I could before broadcast. One drawback of pulling out the melody in a song is that the music will then depend more on the rhythm and percussion to enhance a scene. This tends to move music towards a beat-track or drone sound. It takes a talented composer to ride the wave and not reduce a cut of music out of existence. I was fortunate enough to work with @johnedwardlow who gracefully humored me. If you get a chance to work with him you won’t be disappointed. Alfred Hitchcock, a master Director of storytelling, knew the value of a scene without sound or music. He started in silent films, and one technique he used in his later films was to play the cut with the audio turned off. He would watch the scenes of their inherent natural visual drama and when possible pull back on the music in those scenes. I have taken that on in my work, I was not always successful, but my intent was always for the viewer to engage with the content, not with the music. I hope you found this valuable content, I look forward to your comments. I do not pretend to know it all, but I like to share what I have learned, especially with aspiring great editors. I’ve been inspired by the content of the comments so far to continue to post on @X #PostChat @ACEFilmEditors @WGBHOutPost

@stevecutsdocs Also with score - don’t bring in the sad track before the interviewee goes there. Don’t presuppose it for the audience.

@natalie_barr @7NewsSpotlight Great interview Nat. Brought us her story and her character. Emotional and engaging.

For the first time, Kathleen Folbigg tells what it was like being convicted for murdering her 4 children. In a few minutes. 7pm on Channel 7 @7NewsSpotlight

@TimCPalmer I’m glad someone’s taking this joker to task.

@sergioandreola @AlbertGalera Love how small the crew is.

Harry Dean Stanton on the set of “Paris, Texas”, directed by Wim Wenders, 1984. _______________ Ph.© Robin Holland

@scottmelker It’ll go the way of squash. Dead

Just drove by the pickle ball court and saw a middle aged guy writhing in pain on the ground holding his knee. Every time.

@Calvbetton Else you then move up to iMovie, then for bigger projects to Final Cut X then to Premiere for Commercials, then Avid for TV shows and Film cutting. It’s all a pain to learn.

Any video editing people - I'm looking for a piece of software or an app for Mac that allows me to quickly clip out numerous pieces from a longer video. Ideally where its one clip to start the clip and one click to stop it, and then save that clip. Any advice would be ace.

@Calvbetton Use Shutter Encoder a free app for the Mac. It will open any video file and you can trim it and export to mp4 and set the size of final clip.

@Calvbetton QuickTime does this very simply and easily. Open the video clip, go to trim in the edit pull-down menu. Drag sliders from left for in and slider right for out.