Film Strategy

The greatest obstacle to a filmmaker's career has always been access. Specifically, access defined as the opportunity to pitch and produce a project with major studios, movie stars, production companies, network executives, agents and distributors.  Reaching the people with the financial and logistical capabilities to make a major movie has been made almost impossible by the narrow gate that only lets a privileged few through.  For the most part, to get through has required a combination of networking, winning a major festival award and luck.  Despite the advent of digital technology (or maybe because of it ~~ more competitors trying to make it) it's still hard to break in.   But now, Amazon Studios is offering the public at large the opportunity to make their filmmaking dreams come true.  And while the opportunity offered still requires talent and work, at least there is a peace of mind knowing that Amazon Studios is offering a legitimate opportunity and not just a huck

Apocalypse ungewiss / Nach vorne ohne Kompromiss / Auch wenn die Zukunft ungewiss The future is uncertain but to get what you want, you have to take risks.  Rogelio Salinas did just that when he approached the band Die Krupps with an idea for a music video.  But what worked in Rogelio's favor is that he took a calculated risk.  Having been a fan of Die Krupps since the 90s, he understood the band's vision intimately and so had enough understanding of their style to be able to pitch a concept that connected with their music.  And so, Risikofaktor was born. GENRE: Music Video DIRECTOR: Rogelio Salinas III PRODUCERS: Rogelio Salinas III and Rachel Salinas BUDGET: $130 for props ($65 for the Light Table, $30 Gas Mask, $15 for M80 Canister, $10 Porcelain Doll, $6 for Machete, $4 for Chair) FINANCING FROM: Self-financing and partnership between the Director and Music Artist PRODUCTION DATES: 1/12/13 and 1/18/13 POST PRODUCTION DATES: 1/20/13 - 1/23/13 SHOOTING FORMAT: Red One

"You see, it is very, very essential that you know ahead of time something of the orchestration: in other words, image size. What I mean by orchestration is, take the close-up, well, that's like in music: the brass sounding brassy, loud sound before you need it. Sometimes you see films cut such that the close-up comes in early, and by the time you really need it, it has lost its effect because you've used it already. Now, I'll give you an example where a juxtaposition of the image size is also very important. For example, one of the biggest effects in PSYCHO was where the detective went up the stairs. THE PICTURE WAS DESIGNED TO CREATE FEAR IN AN AUDIENCE AND THEN GRADUALLY TRANSFER FROM THE SCREEN INTO THEIR MINDS. HENCE, THE VERY VIOLENT MURDER TO START WITH, ANOTHER ONE LESS VIOLENT -- AND MORE FRIGHTENING -- AND THEY'VE GOT THE THING IN THEIR MIND. Then, as the film goes on there is no more violence. But in the mind of the audience

A large part of a distributor's and filmmaker's day is spent considering how to extract that extra bit of attention from the audience to extract that extra dollar.  Hollywood and its counterparts have the time, desire and money to analyze and figure out ways to accomplish that feat (too bad that the efforts to market many times end up better and more creative than the actual film itself but that's another story).    And although many independent, specialty or art filmmakers can't invest the time or money that Hollywood does (many don't even want to), they still learn, adopt and modify what Hollywood does to effectively reach the audience.  That's why I found the new Google white paper, "Quantifying Movie Magic with Google Search" by Reggie Panaligan and Andrea Chen informative.  The paper is meant to sell the importance and value of using Google/Youtube as a search source and its intended target audience are the makers of studio-financed/distribu