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Showing posts from October, 2013

PRODUCTION JOURNAL: Midweek Morning Mixer - 10.30.13 (HALLOWEEN EDITION)

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[ Note: I couldn't get the Monday Morning Mixer out on time because of some issues with my mom's health that I had to attend to.  We're still working on it, and even though she's strong (God bless her), it's taking its toll. ]   Nevertheless, here's the midweek edition, Halloween style. To start with, October 30 marks the day for two morbidly tragic true Hollywood tales; the suicide of Max Linder and the murder of Ramon Navarro . October 30, 1925 The story of silent comedian Max Linder, who committed suicide this week in 1925, is a truly tragic one. Beginning his career in 1905, Frenchman Linder was the first great screen funnyman, writing, directing and starring in hundreds of shorts, in which he played the instantly recognizable Max, the dapper Frenchman with the cane, top hat and moustache. He was a huge influence on emerging stars like Charlie Chaplin, who called himself a “student” of Linder and was greatly influenced by his

PRODUCTION JOURNAL: Midweek Morning Mixer - 10.23.13

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October 23, 1992 Twenty-one years ago, on October 23, a small independent drama, Reservoir Dogs , was released, launching not only the career of its writer/director Quentin Tarantino but also about a decade’s worth of irony-infused, hip-seeming and violent crime pictures. Looking back, however, and despite the many copycats that came since, Tarantino’s work is still appealing cinephilic and, despite its own many influences, uniquely voiced and original. The story of a group of beaten, bloody gangsters holed up in a warehouse with an undercover cop in their midst, Reservoir Dogs borrows from the favorite films of its director, who undoubtedly watched them many times during his stint as an L.A. video store clerk, but it does so with true affection. The film’s storyline owes something to Ringo Lam’s Hong Kong pic City on Fire , the hipster attitude and carefree mingling of crime drama with pop ephemera –– Tarantino’s gangsters debating Madonna, for ex

PRODUCTION JOURNAL: Monday Morning Mixer - 10.21.13

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October 21, 1984 - François Truffaut dies One of the central figures of the French New Wave, François Truffaut, died October 21, 1984. Born in Paris in 1932, living an itinerant childhood with his single (later remarried) mother and several relatives, Truffaut became a child of the cinema early in life. He would steal away from school and sneak into matinees — childhood experiences that would form the basis for his first feature, The 400 Blows . He won the Cannes Best Director Award in 1959 for the picture, in which the 14-year-old Jean-Pierre Léaud played his alter ego, Antoine Doinel, enacted the tale of a neglected child poised between a life of petty crime and something greater. Before The 400 Blows , Truffaut had made several shorts but was mostly known as a tough-minded film critic at Cahiers du cinéma who often savaged conventional French cinema and endorsed instead the journeyman Hollywood directors celebrated by “auteur theory,” the critical school he helped found. Thr

PRODUCTION JOURNAL: Midweek Morning Mixer - 10.16.13

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Edison's Black Maria, the world's first film production studio October 16, 1894 On Wednesday 16 October 1894, rodeo star Lee Martin from Buffalo Bill ’s Wild West Show rode a wild bronco for the cameras of W. K. Dickson . Performed in a makeshift rodeo just outside Thomas Edison’s “Black Maria,” the first movie production studio located in West Orange, New Jersey, the early cowboy spectacle was part of a cavalcade of entertainments –– from cock fights and boxers to jugglers and magicians –– that Dickson filmed. Buffalo Bill, who just happed to be performing in Brooklyn at the time, brought down a range of stars from his traveling show to perform, including Martin, and, then two weeks later, Annie Oakley gave a sharp-shooting demonstration. ~~ Focus Features ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ WRITING: What are 18 exercises you can do right now to combat writer's block and fix your script? PRODUCING: What are the top 10 successful ho

PRODUCTION JOURNAL: Monday Morning Mixer - 10.14.13

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1930 National Science Museum copy of 20 frames from the Roundhay Garden Scene  October 14 The world's oldest surviving film was shot today in 1888 ; the year Jack the Ripper went on a killing spree, Vincent Van Gogh cut off his ear, Susan B. Anthony organized a Congress for Women's Rights and director F.W. Murnau, playwright Eugene O'Neill and poet T.S. Eliot were born. And on this day 125 years ago, Louis Le Prince filmed the first motion picture: Roundhay Garden Scene .  It was recorded at 12 frames per second and runs for 2.11 seconds. Was it meant to be a scene for a documentary, a fictional film or reality TV?  What do you think? If you're into movie firsts and vintage film like this then check out this YouTube channel: Change Before Going Productions. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ And now with a little history under our belt, let us proceed with the questions that will make us better filmmakers...  (FYI: There is a heavy New York

PRODUCTION TIPS: 5 Areas to Prepare BEFORE You Go to the American Film Market

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A major event for filmmakers around the world is less than a month away... The American Film Market.  "The American Film Market (AFM) is a film industry event, produced by the Independent Film & Television Alliance (IFTA), the trade association representing the world's producers and distributors of independent motion pictures and television programs. It is held each year at the beginning of November in Santa Monica, California. About 8,000 people attend the eight day event to network and to sell, finance and acquire films. Participants come from more than 70 countries and include acquisition and development executives, agents, attorneys, directors, distributors, festival directors, financiers, film commissioners, producers, writers, etc. Founded in 1981, the AFM quickly became one of the premier global marketplaces for the film business, where unlike a film festival, production and distribution deals are the main focus of the participants." ( Wikipedia

PRODUCTION JOURNAL: Midweek Morning Mixer - 10.9.13

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Oct. 9, 1964 - Guillermo Del Toro born. Guillermo Del Toro, the Oscar-nominated writer-director of Pan’s Labyrinth and the Hellboy movies, today celebrates his 49th birthday. Del Toro is, in some senses, the ultimate fanboy filmmaker, a lifelong lover of movies and comic books who moved from aficionado to auteur, bringing an uncommon artistry, intelligence and sophistication to the horror and fantasy film genres. A native of Guadalajara, Mexico, del Toro was first drawn to horror movies – from the more cheap and cheesy 50s monster flicks and Hammer Horror movies to James Whale, Mario Bava and George A. Romero films – when he still extremely young. However, as he tells it, horror was all around him anyway. In interviews, he’s talked about seeing monsters in his bedroom as a toddler, and then being haunted by the ghost of his uncle – ironically, the man who had first introduced him to horror movies and novels. He began to draw his own monsters, and the fantastical w

PRODUCTION JOURNAL: Monday Morning Mixer (TV NEWS EDITION) - 10.7.13

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Oct. 7, 1996 FOX News Channel launched today in 1996 to 17 million subscribers.  Rupert Murdoch launched the 24-hour news channel on both cable and satellite as part of a News Corp. "worldwide platform" for Fox programming, reasoning that "The appetite for news – particularly news that explains to people how it affects them – is expanding enormously." [And yet "We report. You decide." is the logline.]  Murdoch's foray into cable television faced two legislative hurdles; first, no company outside of the US was allowed to own broadcast stations there and, secondly, a company could not simultaneously own a newspaper and a television station in the same city.  Using charm, influence, vision and money, the rules were relaxed or revised. In January of 1996, Murdoch hired former NBC executive and Republican political strategist, Roger Ailes , to run the channel.  "Ailes worked individuals through five months of 14-hour workdays and several wee

PRODUCTION JOURNAL: Midweek Morning Mixer - 10.2.13

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October 2, 1979 Sony v. Universal Studios may be the most famous of all copyright cases because it was a decision that would determine the future of media. People who know nothing about copyright know that the Sony-Betamax case held that home videotaping of television programs is fair use.   One of the key moments in a case that found its way to the Supreme Court occurred today on October 2 when a district court handed down an opinion that absolved Sony of liability.  The copyright law, Judge Ferguson held, did not give copyright holders “a monopoly over an individual’s off-the-air copying in his home for private non-commercial use.”  Universal appealed to the 9th Circuit and remanded it back to the district court.  The following day, members of Congress introduced legislation in both the House and the Senate to legalize home video recording.  On June 14, 1982, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the Sony case, and members of Congress sat back to wait and see what the Court woul

CASE STUDY: 14 Lessons from Yellow Cape Communications, a Successful Multi-media Firm

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Being a successful filmmaker is not only the province of those who make it in Hollywood.  There is a thriving industry within the corporate and industrial video markets that requires the skills of a filmmaker.  Although it might not be what many dream of doing when they go to film school, it is not a consolation prize.  Corporate productions can require budgets reaching hundreds of thousands of dollars which can provide a good living.  And many filmmakers who thrive in the corporate and industrial video markets still find time to pursue more personal independent projects. Jason Fararooei is one of those creative types running a successful communications firm in Charlotte, North Carolina that serves the corporate and industrial markets.  For many of his Fortune 500 clients, he provides corporate communications videos to support organization wide training programs intended to impact and reduce expenditures for high cost line items.  For the benefit of filmmakers, in and outside of