A backpack producer is a term used to describe a producer who is able to work on a film or video production with minimal equipment and a small team. The term “backpack” refers to the idea that the producer is able to carry all the necessary equipment in a backpack, allowing them to be mobile and work in a variety of settings without the need for large crews or expensive equipment.
A backpack producer is typically someone who is able to handle multiple roles on a production, such as producer, director, and camera operator. They may have a small team of assistants, but are able to handle many aspects of the production themselves. This type of producer is often found in independent film productions or smaller-scale video productions, where budgets are limited and there is a need for flexibility and mobility.
The term “backpack producer” has also been used to describe a new breed of digital content creators who produce content primarily for online platforms like YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok. These producers are able to create content quickly and inexpensively using a variety of portable devices, such as smartphones or small cameras, and often work independently or with a small team.
Backpack producer’s gear for remote production in Europe
Crazy wisdom is a term used in some Eastern spiritual traditions to describe a type of spiritual realization that is characterized by unconventional and seemingly irrational behavior. It is believed that individuals who have attained crazy wisdom have achieved a deep understanding of the true nature of reality and have broken through the limitations of the ego and the intellect.
Crazy Wisdom by Chögyam Trungpa
In some traditions, crazy wisdom is associated with enlightened masters or spiritual teachers who exhibit unconventional or seemingly bizarre behavior as a way of challenging their students’ preconceptions and helping them to see beyond their ordinary ways of thinking. This behavior may include acts of defiance, irreverence, or even apparent insanity, and is believed to be a way of pointing students toward a deeper understanding of reality.
Examples of modern crazy wisdom might include:
Using humor or absurdity to challenge traditional beliefs or perspectives
Using seemingly irrational or counterintuitive methods to achieve goals or solve problems
Embracing paradoxes or contradictions as a means of transcending dualistic thinking
Using shock or surprise to disrupt habitual patterns of thought or behavior
Using playfulness or irreverence to subvert conventional wisdom or authority
It is important to note that the concept of crazy wisdom is often controversial and subject to interpretation, and what might be seen as crazy wisdom by some people may be seen as foolish or inappropriate by others.
While the concept of crazy wisdom is often associated with Eastern spiritual traditions, it has also been adopted by some Western spiritual seekers and has influenced certain movements within contemporary spirituality.
Is Drunken Master an example of crazy Wisdom?
Drunken kung fu does really exist – moves using lurching movements and falling have been incorporated into Shaolin kung fu, for instance – although it is not a style in its own right, and does not actually involve alcohol. I have always seen this film as a modern representation of the concept of crazy wisdom, which can be enjoyed by contemporary audiences.
To see beyond ordinary ways of thinking
Drunken Master is a 1978 Hong Kong martial arts comedy film directed by Yuen Woo-ping, starring Jackie Chan, Yuen Siu-tien, and Hwang Jang-lee. The film was a breakthrough for Chan, and it helped to establish him as a leading actor in the Hong Kong film industry.
In the film, Chan plays a character named Wong Fei-hung, who is a talented martial artist and the son of a famous doctor. Wong is trained in the “Drunken Fist” style of kung fu, which involves pretending to be drunk in order to throw off an opponent’s balance and timing. Wong is initially reluctant to use his skills, but he is eventually forced to defend himself and his family against a group of villains who are trying to steal a valuable treasure.
What examples can you share? Please leave in comments below.
I am reminded of how artists develop methods to create their work. In 1991, I was at Paramount Studios working as an office production temp and a director’s assistant to Bruce Robinson, who was in the completion stages of his script “Jennifer Eight.” The film had yet to receive a green light from the studio. Robinson was grappling with making required changes and script rewrites. Since he was the type who banged scripts out with a typewriter, I was hired because I knew how to use a computer and scriptwriting software like Final Draft, which was new on the market.
Robinson’s script style was a challenge to reformat and update. Besides justifying the left margin with a simple carriage return, the right margin was filled with misspellings, unnecessary spacing, and other things to maintain a clean line on that side. Later, he would reveal how he enjoyed repairing antique Swiss watches. There wasn’t a need to justify the script’s right margin, but as he explained, it helped him focus on the creative process. Perhaps the system and methods I outlined in this post about making a documentary are similar to mine in that regard. As I’ve always said, find what works for you and let it become your muse.
Better Be Brilliant!
Better Be Brilliant!
BRUCE ROBINSON – SCREENWRITER, DIRECTOR
For those unaware of Robinson’s work, he is arguably most famous for writing and directing the cult classic “Withnail and I” (1987). The film possesses comedic and tragic elements, and is set in London in the late 1960s, where Robinson revisited his youthful experiences as a “chronic alcoholic and resting actor, living in squalor.”
Peter Selby Conti departed during summer solstice from injuries sustained in an auto accident in his hometown, Longmont, Colorado.
Conti studied the spectra, mass loss and evolution of the large variety of massive stars, in particular O-type and Wolf Rayet stars. This led to the famous “Conti-scenario” that describes the evolutionary connections between the different types of massive stars. He also discovered a new class of galaxies, so-called “Wolf-Rayet galaxies” which are interacting galaxies with a recent short-duration starbursts.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
4 what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?
5 Yet you have made them a little lower than God,
and crowned them with glory and honour.
Psalm 8
Peter Selby Conti was born on September 5, 1934, in White Plains, New York to Marie and Attilio Conti. He was an only child but enjoyed the company of many cousins and other relatives in the extended families of his parents. His mother was an elementary school teacher and his father was a career businessman.
1943 – Mayfair Acres, Valhalla, NY – Peter S. Conti (left) & Allan Newcomb
Early Life
As a young boy Peter was an avid reader of science-fiction. The stories fueled his imagination, allowing him to travel beyond his surroundings and the world. His interest in astronomy increased when he received from his aunt Jean – sister of his mother and herself interested in astronomy – a small telescope for his 10th birthday.
SEEING FIRST LIGHT was a living tribute in 2002 to my father. For me, there was something special about having a father whose job it is to study the heavens. His love of work made a big impact on my own career, not just the stars of Hollywood but the stars of mystical knowledge.
Peter attended Briarcliff High School where he was a member of the chorus and starred in a play during his senior year. He enjoyed chess and invented, together with friends, an advanced 4-level chess game. Many years later he was amused to find that “their” game had been rediscovered and was commercially marketed by a major firm.
Peter Conti (left) is about to move in the “four-dimensional “chess game he and his opponent, Charles Anderson, seated at the right, invented and built. (1952)
After graduation in 1952, he received a Regent’s Scholarship from the State of New York and entered the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. Professor Robert Fleischer and a visiting professor from Harvard encouraged his interest in astronomy and Peter became president of the school’s astronomy group. In May 1956 he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in physics.
After receiving his bachelor degree Peter began three years of military service with the U.S. Navy. He was stationed aboard the USS Finch, a destroyer escort, first based in Seattle, Washington and then in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. He was an operations officer and attained the rank of Lieutenant Commander by the end of his service. His tour of duty had taken him from patrols near the Aleutian Islands in the north to Guam in the south.
Ensign Peter S. Conti off Diamond Head, Honolulu, Hawaii – 1958
During his Naval career, he narrowly escaped death while climbing the 6,300-foot Chair Peak in the Pacific Northwest’s Cascades range. While leading a roped ascent, Peter slipped while only 200 feet away from the summit. He fell 100 feet and landed in proximity to the edge of a massive drop-off. Although injured, it would take Peter six hours of walking to meet a rescue team. He was carried on a stretcher for three hours until they reached a road to be transported to a local hospital.
Injured mountain climber Ensign Peter Conti lies on stretcher in Nelem Memorial hospital North Bend after 100-foot fall Sunday near Snoqualmie pass summit. September 9, 1957
In 1959 Peter enrolled in the graduate program for astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley where he was George Wallerstein’s first PhD student. In 1961 he married J. Carolyn Safford and in 1963 he obtained his PhD on the dissertation “The atmospheres of metallic-line stars in the Hyades star cluster”. From 1963 to 1966 he was a research fellow at Mount Wilson and Palomar Observatories (California Institute of Technology, Pasadena) where he worked with and was inspired by Jesse Greenstein.
His talent for innovative research already showed in 1965 where he discovered a new class of sharp-lined early-A-type stars with peculiar abundances, resembling those of the metallic-line stars. This major breakthrough inspired new theoretical ideas for the origin of abundance anomalies in A-star atmospheres.
Dr. Conti received his doctorate in astronomy from the University of California at Berkeley in September 1963.
Through 1966, he was a research fellow at Mount Wilson and Palomar In 1966 he became staff astronomer and assistant professor at Lick Observatory of the University of California, Santa Cruz, a position he held until 1971. In Santa Cruz and later in Boulder, Peter and Carolyn hosted many dinners and gatherings of astronomers, both visiting and local, at their home.
“The atmosphere was usually exciting; one could almost see sparks of light released as ideas and academic references sped about the room. The creative energy was amazing.”
– Carolyn Conti
Peter’s early research interests were metallic-line stars and peculiar A stars, and the abundances of Li and Be in stars of different types. In 1969 Wallerstein and Peter co-authored a landmark review article about these light elements in stars for Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysics.
In 1969-1970, supported by a Fullbright fellowship, Peter was a visiting professor at Utrecht University (The Netherlands) where he worked with Anne Underhill, a specialist on the spectra and atmospheres of hot stars. His family joined him and his children attended Dutch schools. Here his interest moved from A-type stars to massive hot stars, a field in which he was to become one of the world’s foremost research leaders.
In 1971 he began innovative research with William Alschuler on the properties of massive stars. The spectral sub-types of O-type stars were quantized through measured line strengths, rather than eye estimates. They showed that the ratio of helium line strengths could be used to determine effective temperatures of the O-types through calculations of these line strengths from model stellar atmospheres.
In 1971 he was offered a position at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA) and a full professorship in the Department of Astrophysical, Planetary and Atmospheric Sciences (APAS) at the University of Colorado in Boulder. He would later serve as chairman of both JILA and APAS. He formally retired as a professor at the University of Colorado in 1996 but remained actively involved in astronomy until his untimely death.
Throughout his career, Peter proposed and led observing programs at the major ground-based observatories in Chile, Hawaii, and the US and with the Hubble Space Telescope to unravel the evolution of massive stars.
Star Maps Here: Dr. Peter S. Conti in Hollywood, Photo by Michael M. Conti. 1991
A Lifetime of Influence
One of Peter’s most significant traits was his talent for identifying new research areas and problems where major advances in understanding them could be made by applying his unique observation methods.
“The Conti Scenario”
One of Peter’s most important traits was his remarkable talent for identifying new research areas where major advances in understanding could be made by applying clever observing techniques.
Together with his many students, and postdocs, Peter started a number of observing programs to disentangle the evolution of O-stars and Wolf-Rayet stars. He collaborated with many international colleagues, observers as well as theorists, in studying the connection between mass loss and stellar evolution. This large group became known as “the O-star mafia” with Peter as “Godfather”. The group met every few years at conferences such as the Boulder-Munich workshops and the “IAU beach-symposia” to discuss the rapid progress in this field and make plans for follow-up observations.
In 1975 this led to the famous “Conti scenario” for the evolution of massive stars, that describes evolutionary connections and properties of the many subtypes of O-stars and Wolf-Rayet stars with their different luminosities, temperatures and atmospheric chemical composition, and the resulting supernova types. Peter presented this scenario during a conference in Liege (Belgium) in 1975, where he was awarded the “Gold medal of the University of Liege”. In 1977 he spent half a sabbatical as guest professor at the Universities of Amsterdam and Utrecht. In 1993 on the occasion of the 350th anniversary of astronomy at Utrecht University, he was awarded an honorary doctorate degree (honorary promotor Henny Lamers) “in recognition for his important contributions to our understanding of the physics and evolution of massive stars”. In 1995-1996 he spent another 6 months in Utrecht as a “Minnaert guest professor”.
In 1990 Peter turned his interest to “Wolf-Rayet galaxies”, which in their integrated spectra show the broad emission feature at 4686Å that is commonly attributed to HeII emission from Wolf-Rayet stars. A major observational program to study these galaxies, in collaboration with many colleagues, revealed that almost all are galaxies with recent, huge, short-duration starbursts. This work was summarized in a graduate-level textbook, From Luminous Hot Stars to Starburst Galaxies (Conti, Crowther and Leitherer, 2008 and 2012). ——————————– Peter described his work on his website (colorado.edu/aps/peter-conti) as follows:
“My research deals with understanding the nature and evolution of massive luminous stars, those of the hottest spectral types. These are primarily O-type and Wolf-Rayet stars found in the Galactic plane and in other galaxies. In starburst galaxies, the numbers of these stars are sufficient that they may be detected collectively, even in those objects at very large redshift. I am currently emphasizing photometry and spectroscopy of luminous stars in our Galaxy in the near infra-red, at about two microns, where the absorption of the intervening Galactic dust is low.”
Conti-fest
Peter retired from JILA in 1996. In 2008 he was celebrated with the “Conti-fest” a 4-day workshop entitled “Hot Massive Stars, A Lifetime of Influence” at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, organized by his former graduate students Kelsey Johnson, Margaret Hanson and Phil Massey. Here many of his national and international colleagues and former students and postdocs paid tribute to the godfather of the O-star mafia.
During his career Peter Conti served on many national and international organizations and committees, often as chairman:
1980 – 1986: Chair of the Dept of Astrophysical, Planetary and Atmospheric Science (LASP), University of Colorado 1983 – 1986: Chair of the Board of the Associations of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) 1988 – 1991: President of Commission 29 “Stellar Spectra” of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) 1989 – 1990: Chair of the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA), University of Colorado
Between 1971 and 2001 he supervised the work of nine PhD students and a number of postdocs at the University of Colorado, many of whom would later obtain important research positions.
As asteroids go, Minor Planet 25961 Conti is fairly average in size. The asteroid is 4.5 kilometers, about 2.79 miles, in diameter. Conti sits about 2.6 astronomical units from the sun, between Mars and Jupiter. The asteroid takes a little more than 4 years to make one trip around the sun, traveling in a pretty circular orbit.
Peter’s desire for exploration continued into his retirement. He and Carolyn enjoyed many diverse travels and explorations during this time. They lived in Maui for a while and made trips to Europe and Russia to renew contacts with friends. They loved the South Pacific and the Eastern Canadian Arctic.
Carolyn and Peter in Maui, Hawaii 2003
Part of one summer was spent camping on the land with Inuit friends near the Arctic Circle.
A photo collage of Inuit sculptures & Carolyn and Peter at-sea dress-up party -2002
He will be remembered with admiration as a friendly and modest man by his students and colleagues, many of whom became good friends with his family.
Peter S. Conti is survived by his wife Carolyn, his three grown children Michael, Karen, and Kathe, and seven grandchildren.
Thank you to Henny J.G.L.M. Lamers and Ed P.J. van den Heuvel for writing and providing so many wonderful words and descriptions of Peter’s professional life.
Peter’s obituary has been published by American Astronomical Society and to The International Astronomical Union.
Nominal releases (35.3%): movies that have theatrical release dates, but reported no box office figures. This could happen when a filmmaker rents a theater to show their movie to a small audience, for example.
Small releases (8.1%): movies that reported grosses up to $100,000
Large releases (17%): movies that reported grosses over $100,000
The remaining 39.6% of films indexed got no theatrical release, though may have premiered at a theater or played in film festivals. Others were released straight to streaming platforms.
“You should accept the fact that you can get there, but do not expect to make money on your theatrical release.” –
Bruce Nash, The Numbers
Note the irony that Avengers Endgame was opening right same night on April 25, 2019
Before considering Self-Distribution
Make a film that people will want to see (seriously!)
Test screen to audiences, respond to their feedback
Meet all cinema standards, i.e. professional audio mix
Market for placement in a crowded film market with a compelling title and poster art
“If you thought making the film took a long time, getting your film properly monetized takes 4 times longer.”
Michael M. Conti, Filmmaker
Disclaimer: Our approach worked for a 70 minute inspirational doc, not narrative or dramatic feature.
Note that the game changer from Netflix, ROMA, was playing on the big screen too.
Results after Self-Distribution
Sixty-one theatrical screenings in 20 cities in 7 states within one year, 2 in the UK.
Thirty-one screenings in one month alone! #EarthMonth
Over five thousand paying audience members experienced the film in theaters or other venues
Net income from each tour covered expenses for travel, rentals and marketing costs.
Monetizing the film justifies the initial costs to make the film
Today, I can see the summit. I envisioned the final result of “The Unruly Mystic: John Muir” on the first day of principal photography in May 2015. I would spend 18-months interviewing people and traveling throughout the US and Canada. After three months of editing, I could see the film’s outline above the trees.
There were multiple steps taken to achieve this editing milestone. I will explain my process and approach to encourage others with their filmmaking projects by providing specific details. There are many articles and books available on the editing process, but I want to share what worked for me.
I will focus on what happens after filming has been completed. This post primarily addresses the editing process rather than production. It also requires a working understanding of Adobe Premiere and will help you understand it as a database tool rather than a visual means to edit video.
Multi-camera monitor
Information is readily available on how to capture great shots and sound using a two-camera setup. To assist with the editing process, it is essential to ask your interview subjects the same questions so you’ll have a variety of responses on one topic.
Defining Your Topic of Interest
Michael’s notebook
First I asked each subject to share their favorite John Muir story and suggested one when Muir climbed a tree during a thunderstorm. In doing so, I could retell the story using multiple narrators. This approach was also useful with other questions, which is why you should establish the focus of your film before production begins. I wrote an outline on the topics I thought would be relevant and kept it with me throughout filming and editing.
Since I work with Adobe Premiere Pro (PrPro), I know from previous documentary productions that I don’t want to edit interview sequences in their original MXF* files. I have experienced instances where an original file was corrupted or “lost” that ruined an entire sequence when I was ready to export it. This step allows me to keep the “original” files off-site while working with a facsimile of the original footage. Each file became a new MXF by exporting a sequence after importing the original files. *MXF is the output for a 1.9 GB video file when shooting with a Canon XF 100.
Footage preparation
I re-import the facsimile MXF files, create a multi-camera edit, and then add a timecode to the sequence. It isn’t necessary to edit back and forth between the cameras during this step of the editing process. You need one camera angle (preferably front) and the best audio file to begin exporting but in a lower resolution to upload the file online with an embedded timecode for an H.264 file.
Transcription
The H.264 file is the resource for the next step. I didn’t have the luxury of using this when making my previous documentary. This involves creating a transcription of the interviews in a Word file based on the timecodes. There are multiple businesses that provide this service and I was happy with the one I chose. On average, prices are roughly $100 for an hour of footage and billed by the minute. The benefits are worth the expense based on the variety of ways you can use the transcriptions.
Colored Topics
The following process is one that I created and worked best for me. Once I had the transcriptions, I reviewed each document with different color markers. I had previously outlined the topics, assigning them different colors.
Transcription Binder
By implementing the idea of hearing the John Muir tree story retold multiple times, I would highlight that section. There could be multiple themes I was following and I would do the same for those.
Interview Sequence Marking
After I went through the 15-page document, I would open the multi-cam sequence in PrPro and mark each beginning point for the timeline topic.
I would also copy and paste from the Word file the specific transcription sentence or paragraph into the marker’s description. I would also color code the marker to match the highlighter for future reference in the sequence. Next, I would place a cut at the marker in-point and another at the end of the edit. The clip would be nested with the same description from the transcription.
The Matt Fox timeline looked like the following:
Sequence with color markers in place
Descriptive nested sequence and themed topic bin
After creating a descriptive nested sequence, I could drop the file into a bin for similar topics. Ideally, you want a manageable number of bins for the nested sequences. Once in their bin, I made sure the nested sequences had a uniform color (i.e. green for forest) so I would know if I had used the clip after creating a new sequence for a rough cut. Once I used the clip in the new sequence, I would return it to the project folder from the edited sequence with a smartkey I made (Alt+D). I would change the color to red (rose). While PrPro can reveal clips that are being reused in a sequence, it won’t do the same for nested sequences.
Topic Bin before changing labels based upon usage in the edit
While I didn’t create descriptive nested sequences into specific bins until I completed my interviews, you can do this after each interview but it’s important to be open to the entire spectrum of the interview footage. This helps you refresh your memory by reading the transcriptions and highlighting the essential dialogue related to your chosen topics. This is important when interviewing several people overover a long period. If the interviews are short and few, you can start earlier. I had one hour of footage for each of the 15 interviews.
Now that I have my nested descriptive sequences into their bins, I can select those sequences and make a new sequence for editing. I like to know who is speaking (thumbnails are not available with nested sequences), so I would go through the clips and assign a color to each speaker. I could also randomly place the clips so that no two clips followed in the same color.
Because the topic was similar, there was no harm in doing this as I could move the clips when I started editing. This process would lead to new discoveries while editing.
Edited sequence showing label colors per speaker and descriptive mouse-over
I noticed each bin consisted of 10 minutes of material from 20 clips. I treated rach sequence as a separate film, I could watch the sequence, move the clips to improve the flow, and clean up the dialogue at the in and out points at the original nested sequence. Ideally, you should do this in the edited sequence, but I didn’t always have access to the visual cue of the waveform on a particular sequence without rendering it again.
Conclusion
With a new sequence created with this process, I could start editing on the themed topic bin. I knew I had the relevant descriptive nested clips in one bin, so I could find where I took that clip in the original interview by reviewing the descriptive markers on the sequence. I designed a method that noted which clip was used and could double click any nested clip to open the descriptive nested sequence to access each individual multi-cam edit. This was helpful in cutting back and forth between two cameras to improve dialogue edits after I decided on my final edit.
