Art Film Talk

Feedback

"thanks for giving filmmakers like me the opportunity to chat in longer form than the usual sound byte" (Chris Payne, Director, Who Killed The Electric Car)

"nice natural style of interviewing" (Steven Lubetkin, Managing Partner, Professional Podcasts LLC)

"really compelling stuff […] the future of radio" (Aaron Faulls, Director, Still on Her Keel)

Overview

Hello, my name is David Tamés, in this podcast I interview filmmakers and other people working in the industry on the art, business, and technology of filmmaking. I hope both filmmakers and film buffs will find the conversations with both emerging and established filmmakers, as well as people involved in the business and technological aspects of filmmaking, interesting. It's all part of the "triad" that makes up the industry as I see it: art, technology, and business.

Music

The music used for the introduction and closing segments of each episode is from the track "This Day in American Life" from the CD 20 Minutes Into the Future by Colin Owens, used with permission.

Production

Currently interviews are recorded with one of three setups, depending on the context: 1. Telephone interviews are recorded with Boom Recorder running on a MacBook Pro laptop using a JK Audio Digital Hybrid telephone interface and an Edirol FA-66 audio interface. 2. Lean and mean field interviews are recorded with an M-Audio MicroTrack 2496 digital recorder (no longer sold by M-Audio, Microtrack II is the current model) and Giant Squid Audio Labs Stereo Omnidirectional Microphone (used as two mono mics). 3. When the setting and time allows, I sometimes will use a Sound Devices 302 mixer as a front end to the MicroTrack and a variety of microphones including the Electro-Voice RE50.

Post-Production

The interviews are edited using Final Cut Pro or Digital Performer and mixed in Digital Performer. Clearly, simpler tools like Audacity and GarageBand are probably easier to use for editing a podcast, however, I'm using the tools I already use in my video production work. When I don't feel like taking the time to tweak the dynamics manually, I'll use Levelator to balance and smooth out the audio levels. It's not as good as carefully adjusting the levels and adding just the right about of compression to the dialog, but often there's not enough time for that, and for an automatic process, Levelator is excellent. MP3 compression is done using LAMEBrain and ID3 tags are added using ID3X (though better utilities exist).

History

Colin Owens and I began podcasting Art Film Design on October 4, 2005 using Colin's recording studio. The original concept was to post interviews with artists, filmmakers, and designers, in which they discuss their work, share insights about their craft, and talk about what's important to them. It worked for a while and then everyone's life got crazy and posting was on an erratic schedule. I renamed the podcast as Art Film Talk, with a new emphasis on filmmaking with no specific production schedule, I post interviews when I find the time to record and post them. Sometimes the lag between recording and posting is measured in days, sometimes in weeks.Colin Owens continues to be involved as an advisor and his music is used for the introduction and closing of each episode.

Share This