The would-be filmmakers thread - Page 2

I forgot about Rosenblum's book. Thanks for reminding me. I need to go re-read that again.

I like Blinkas a primer for editing but I find Conversations and Behind the Seen great for really hammering home his points made in Blink. Regardless, if you want to be an editor and not just a cutter the Murch books are a must.

It's good to hear G-dude, good luck!

And now that I've finally got my hands on some photos I can unveil the incredibleness of the first public screenings for The Supermarket. We had a 7pm and a 10pm showing last Saturday, both at the local high school. The whole town was chomping at the bit for the thing and our promotional team did everything from get articles in all of the major CT newspapers all the way down to having a guy walking around the local fair in a sandwich board (I did my share of that too). And it paid off, as the 7pm screening had 500 people show and the 10pm screening had fucking 300!







The place was packed to the gills, it was like Star Wars in '77 with this huuuuuge line going way out the door! We made a bundle and got great feedback, the audience really went wild for the movie. Going over to LA and saying you got 800 people from your hometown to watch your movie, I assume nobody'd bat an eye (800 hicks = .8 city people, and if they're from your hometown they all might as well just be your parents anyway), but even so this is the kind of huge victory I may never see again. Just getting on a stage and having 500 people all start clapping and cheering for ya.... that's why we got in the entertainment business.

That's exactly right. Enjoy it! Enjoy the hell out of it!!!

Good work, sir. I'm willing to bet that's one night you will remember forever. Because you may have greater success in the future, and I hope you do, but there's nothing like the first time.

Big congratulations to you -- you've earned it.

Just got home from Our 48hrs competition. I ended up being an actor co-director writer and editor so I have had almost no sleep,and words a very fuzzy right now. We got super hero film as our genre, which was one of those sneaky genres that we neither wanted or feared so we hadn't given it any thought.

We got it in with 20 minutes to spare.

Like Greg this has probably been the most surreal thing I've ever written. it involved a lumberjack being killed by a mad scientist, who was trying to cross breed trees and sharks. The forest brings him back to life and he goes on a quest for revenge. It also involves tales of men being raped by killer whales, telekenisis, and a brief but fun penguin vs axe fight.

Congratz to Stormin for his big success. Lines out the door, good to hear.

So when we gonna see these films?

Congrats stormin, I'm still afraid to ask my friends to be in the short films I play with and stick to 0$ budget and lego people.

I guess I'll drop a little shortcut, on my last film (theres a link somewhere), I had a walking lego man. To save time on creating the stop motion sequence, I shot all the shots of him in one position, just moved over and then went back and shot him in the other walking position. Went into Premiere and moved the footages to alternate and you had a stop motion walking lego man.

I'm working on a longer version of the last film ala a Evil Dead 2 way, and I'll see if I get more than 10 hits on youTube.

Ours should be going online within the next few days along with our entries from previous years.

Congratulations to everyone; I will make sure to check out everyone's movies. Since I want to have attention paid to me instead of other people, I will post the first 4-5 minutes of my short film within the next two or three weeks.

Also, I think I just got my first job as director of photography for a direct to video feature film, but my the director won't email me back about it! Congratulate me anyway...or actually once he emails me back.

Well done dude. DOP is a big deal. Even if it is for an emanuelle sequel.

Thanks; it's actually for a horror movie but the budget is probably the same as it is for most soft core porn. The director (my friend, actually--otherwise I'd have no shot at his job) hasn't gotten back to me in a week, which has me worried since I may have made some demands he didn't like, but hopefully it will all go through. I'm incredibly excited to say the least, especially since the studio that's doing it has gotten good distribution on all their previous features, or at least their recent ones, but the film is still low budget enough that the pressure shouldn't be too overwhelming.

Also, sorry for some snarky comments in the above post; this week sucks and I'm in a mood.

There's some really nice use of light on display there.

Our Heat's tonight, nervous time.

The important thing about a Q&A is just not to look like an asshole. Seriously. Invariably when I see a shorts Q&A with an assembly of the filmmakers, one of them turns out to be a gabby egomaniac who clearly thinks his film is the greatest one in the festival (and oh, how wrong they invariably are). It's a real turn-off, especially -- I'd imagine -- to anyone in the audience who actually has the power to hire you for their next project. In my opinion, the speakers who do best when talking about their films are the ones who are modest, informative without talking too long, and have a positive attitude about the challenges they faced getting their short made. Anyway, here's hoping you guys did well at yours.

Well what an odd audience reaction, The seemed to laugh at all the visual gags and kind of laugh at the jokes, so I was thinking uh oh I've miss judged what people find funny, but then when the credits started rolling we got a huge cheer and applause, one of the loudest of the night. (and not in the yay it's over sense)
Then the host came out and was like "we have a very strong heat here folks." So I'm not sure what to make of it all. I guess in these situations you tend to sit there and pick apart all thats bad in your own film and notice all thats great in others, forgetting everyone else is doing the same.
I guess I'll just have to wait and see what the judges have to say.

How much should one worry about coverage? If you have a clear idea of how the scene should be shot, is it nessecary to cover all your bases, or is that just a waste of time (and money)?

I think you should plan for a bit extra because while you can plan that you want to stay on angle A,you might find in editing that you want the first half of take one and the second half of take 3 so you need somthing to cut to that makes sense for a few seconds, to band-aid over the cut.

I'd say if you do have a clear idea of how a scene needs to be shot, and are experienced enough to feel confident, go for it. But I certainly wouldn't recommend that for anyone starting out. The key word is experience.

On my first movies, I was pretty bad at it. I knew how I thought it should cut together, but wasn't always right. It wasn't until I had a handful under my belt that I started to actually know that I could pull off a scene just by shooting the way I wanted. As with anything, we learn by doing.

So how do you know if you're experienced enough to shoot it without extra coverage? If you have to ask, you probably aren't experienced enough, and should err on the side of caution. That's my two cents.

Well said.

Just Spent the day working on the crew of a musical film. I was just helping out really working the boom mic and operating the fog machine etc. But I did get to contribute a few ideas that got picked up. Anyway it was a lot of fun.

Greg, how did your Q&A turn out?

I figure I might as well post a short that I made last year, took 9 months of post-production and was finally finished January this year. It came third in a local festival, I got a free pass to Zodiac as a prize along with a magazine and a DVD.

http://www.niceshorts.com.au/watch.a...=wmhigh&play=1

All in all it cost me $1700.

Looks like alot of fun. unfortunatly we almost never have a camera rolling when not filming a take, so our bloopers are few and far between.

Well, some of the people I spoke to seemed to think it very good, one of entry judges thought it was the best film of both nights, it was a worthwhile experience making it though. It even got picked as editor's choice on the website that I posted the link to.

I believe Greg was talking about his own movie, not yours

Don't I feel stupid.

My computer and internet are too old and slow to view streaming videos, so I can't watch your movie unfortunatly.

Well we didn't make it through to the city finals this year. The last 2 years we got through on movies that I didn't think would make it. This year I was a lot more confident and then denied, so I guess you never can tell. Pretty dissapointed, but oh well.

Name in print, awesome.

So I know most of the In's and Out's of film production but one thing I'm rather clueless about is an animated short.

How much does a budget differ from a "physical" film to an animated one? I have zero artistic talent when it comes to drawing so I'd have to have a friend or someone else expand on my characters from my archaic drawing techniques.

And I'm talking 2-D animation. Everything's possible in the 2-d world. That's why I love it.

Plus, I don't have to rent dollies and light kits.

I would send a private message to Ryan S~ about it. In addition to being stand-up guy and good source of knowledge, he also apparently works in animation.

Plus, he sent me the AVID, so I'm kinda in love with him.

Avid software or the hardware too? Because if it's the latter...man, I'm gonna punch you.

Thanks for the kind words, Patrick. (How's the Avid working out by the way?)

It's a very different kettle of fish, I'm afraid. I started working on an animated project a little over a year ago. We did the character designs, the storyboarding and the script assuming that it would be like doing a short film. We had no idea how wrong we were.

We recorded the dialogue and started doing the storyboards to interest potential investment capitalists. We then realized that the recording didn't work with the boards. Then we realized that our characters didn't work with our script.

So, now we're back to square one. We've completely redesigned the characters and the backgrounds. We've eliminated one character completely and altered one to the point that they are unrecognizable.

We are now ten thousand in the hole and have exactly no frames in the can.

I tell you this because we have learned much from the experience and I can hopefully pass this on to you.

Your pre budget is much larger and your post is much larger. Your production cost is about ten percent less then live action.

I can send you a copy of our budget spreadsheet in a few weeks if you want. It may help you decide if this is the right path for you.

Me too. The project I'm currently working on is 2D blended with 3D ala Futurama.

There is that but you do have to pay for all sorts of other things that you may not think of. Let me know if you want that budget sheet and that may give you an idea why animation is not necessarily a huge money saver.

I would love to look at that budget sheet whenever you have the chance to send it.

Lots of help, thanks man.

Some ideas I have would just cost too much to physically make due to the weapons, costumes, weird concept inventions that would need to be made so I wondered how the animation route might differ and help to at least establish a world and it's design instead of trying to make physical props.

Sure. We should have the revised one done in a couple of weeks. I'll send it to you when we get that done.

That's why I went with animation in general. I love the lack of limitation on my imagination. It particularly helps with my characters. I don't have to limit their appearance due to lack of make up or sfx funds. Nor do I have to limit their bizarre character quirks (we have a character that is vaguely humanoid but has a tail that borders on psychopathic) This current project (I'll call it WYS) would have cost about a million an episode if we did live action. As it is we can get away with around 200,000.

Good the fuck luck!

So one of the reasons my posting (and writing for the main page) dropped off so suddenly over the past few weeks is that not only did I start working 90 hour weeks again, but I was also busting my ass during my freetime to finish up "Redemption Falls" and work with my producer on a fundraising campaign.

Long story short, the most recent draft of the script is done (although it's still way too long at 155 pages), but that draft was enough to secure us a ten-thousand dollar investment in the film. After drastically cutting our budget, we're pretty sure we can make up the difference -- between two and five thousand dollars -- through additional contributions and investments. And if not, we'll pay for the fucking thing out of our own pocket.

Thanks to everyone in this thread and their continued support, and a very special thanks to the two Gregs and Stormin, who have been offering their advice and tips on this project since the very beginning.

I never thought it would happen, but it's going to. Holy shit. I'm making a movie.

Congratulations.

Congratulations, I was wondering where the hell you went. 90 hour weeks? Fuck that with nunnery.

Hey Rath,

My company is willing to make a small donation in kind if you want. We can give you up to 70 hours of post-production audio as an investment into the project. That would give you enough time for a dialogue mix, fx and bgs plus a pretty decent stereo mix.

Let me know and I'll write out a letter of investment with everything laid out for you.

Good luck.