The Film Lab: FROM THE VAULT

Hey guys, Rajo here. I know we’ve been teasing everybody with this impending relaunch (which is literally right around the figurative corner) and it must seem like we’re lying or something because it still hasn’t arrived but I swear to gosh it’s coming. It’s coming!

It’s not like we’ve been slacking, either. We’re wheeling and dealing with some backroom bigwigs to get thesubstream content out to even more viewers, we’ve got some great new ideas that’s going to make the conversation about film we have here on thesubstream.com that much more interesting and we’re currently putting together some fresh new Film Lab content (made in conjunction with Whites Interactive) that we can’t wait for you to see. There’s a great big fireball of a sun just waiting to leap over that horizon and burn out your eyes with the awesome power of the soon-to-be new and improved thesubstream.com. Hot dog...

In the meantime though, you know what I’ve been doing? Watching a ton of old, completely awesome Film Lab episodes from the past three years. Do you have any idea how clean and bare this studio used to be? Can you imagine a time when me and Mike chose to only wear ill-fitting coveralls? Wait - are you a new-ish thesubstream.com admirer, and maybe HAVEN’T taken a sec to explore our back catalogue?

Well what the heck are you waiting for? Click on the video titles below to take a trip back through time...


THE FILM LAB: INTRO TO EXPOSURE
First Edition! Episode One! This is where it all started! This video is actually before my time, though I’ve since added bumpers, a watermark, etc. Mike, alone in the giant, empty void of a studio manages to explain what the heck exposure is while playing with his balls (sorry, couldn’t resist).



THE FILM LAB: RULE OF THIRDS
Aww, how cute... remember those original bumpers - aka fun with Garage Band? Here, Mike objectifies Rajo completely, contributing to years of crippling low self-esteem. Good lesson though. Too bad the guys behind The King’s Speech didn’t catch this one...



THE FILM LAB: LENSES 01 - FOCAL LENGTH
Part of a well-executed one-two punch of lens info, this early favourite de-mystifies the concept of focal length so that you might have even just a passing understanding of what your cinematographer is talking about. Also: a goose.



THE FILM LAB: REMBRANDT LIGHTING
This video was a high water mark in the old days. Whenever people asked us what the hell we did all day we’d play this video for them and bask in the glow of their admiration for us. Also, it won the Academy Award for live action short subject - it’s that good. We’re currently remastering this sucker for fullscreen HD.



THE FILM LAB ON LOCATION: EPISDOE 03 - GRIP AND LIGHTING
I did a handful of these and I’m really, really proud of them, this one in particular. Despite, of course, my slightly hammy narration. Aw hell, I don’t even mind that so much...



THE FILM LAB: BINGO’S LINGO - C47
Mike had written a script for a new series we wanted to do about on-set terms we’d heard over the years, but the more we talked about it, the more we realized it had to be a riff on Sesame Street in order to be funny/worth our time. So I made a faux Muppet with whatever was lying around the studio - a hoodie, some rubber gloves, a fake Frankenstein head (used in a great Genre Jam episode about Universal Monsters) and a couple of bright yellow plastic balls. I have a fun job.



THE FILM LAB: PULLING FOCUS
Another great example of how we are super-smart when it comes to educating people who don’t know no better about a pulling focus today. Thankfully Mike insisted on buying a house with a rooftop shower, which ended up being the perfect setting for a short film he wrote called Toronto Outdoor Shower Murder. Footage from that film contained within...


THE FILM LAB: STOP MOTION RECORDER
A Film Lab for the new Millenium. We predict that the phenomenon started by YouTube of millions of regular people making movies will continue to explode exponentially thanks to devices like the iPhone. Here we review and demo our favourite stop motion app which I am still amazed by to this day.


Please keep checking back to thesubstream.com for more updates and of course our eventual launch! Follow us on twitter and like us on facebook for up to the minute info, and drop us a line with any Film Lab show ideas! We’ve come a long way in three years and we’re just getting started...

- Rajo Zakic