Film Strategy

Three friends get ready for a hot halloween night out, until destiny changes their lives forever.  Even though we've all heard about the type of film made for less than $100 that then goes on to reap success beyond the value of its budget, it's still surprising to come across films like that.  Halowin is that kind of film; made for about $50, and shot and acted with intense provocative grit.  It all started in August 2012, when Danish director  Lars von Trier  posed a challenge to aspiring filmmakers of the world: Reinterpret one or more of six classic works selected by von Trier into a film, video, still, piece of music or soundpiece for a project entitled "Gesamt - Disaster 501: What Happened to Man." The Gesamt project will take 400-plus submissions and work them into one exhibition at the Charlottenborg Palace in Copenhagen, Denmark, to run October 12 through December 30, 2013.    The Irish short film "Halowin" directed by the Spanish-D

Diary | Tim Hetherington | 2010 | UK | Format: various | 20 min   One of the main reasons I felt a section on filmmaker's journals or diaries would be useful on this site is that there are times when it helps all of us to understand the filmmaking process from the subjective view of the filmmaker.  As beginning and even experienced filmmakers hope to make it in the industry, it's always good to see how the filmmakers you admired overcame their obstacles or planned their vision.  Without a doubt, it can inspire and teach you.  But there is also a voyeuristic insight to be gained from peering into a filmmaker's diary and it's not as clear cut as a motivation or a lesson would be.  Maybe the insight we gain from the filmmaker's diary benefits us as artists and fans to understand a filmmaker's work better from an aesthetic, historical and academic perspective.  Or maybe it just satisfies our desire for gossip because it's our human nature to be nosy an

Reading this article by Lacey Rose, was an eyeopener (almost as much as this one ).  The broadcast networks are truly trying to come up with ways to deal with their loss of ratings and audience viewership and one of the ways is by offering original summer programming.  The time when they could take summer off and leave show development for the fall might be over for good now that cable has exploited that window to great success with year-round original programming.  Although the 4 major networks are aware of the dilemma, the networks are going into summer with different strategies based on trying to answer the following question: How to offer originals in a way that's economically feasible at a time of year when viewership and ad money are down? Each of the networks are answering the question in different ways (see below). In turn, the answers made me think of  what that could mean for TV producers and production companies developing future projects and which of the current/

The importance of the editor in film and video can not be overstated. For many, what makes film a unique artform from all others IS the editing. Furthermore,  many famous directors “made their bones” as editors and credit that experience as the reason why they can direct.  And while many top directors switch DPs and crews for each production, they consistenly trust their work with one editor . That’s why as a producer-director it’s important to hone and heighten that professional relationship with your editor to serve your film well.  This is the case even if you’re editing a film you directed yourself since you have to change hats when you step off the set and into the editing room to look at your footage with fresh eyes.  So, what are some things the producer and director can do to make the editor’s life easier, and by default, lead to a better finished film?  To find that out, I spoke with professional film and video editor, Liette Pedraza , who had the following thi

Duel | Steven Spielberg | 1971 | USA | Format: 35mm | 90 min / 74 min (original) "For Duel, the entire movie was storyboarded.  I had the art director sketch the picture on a mural that arced around the motel room.  It was an aerial view that showed all the scenes and the dead ends and the chases and all the exciting moments.  I think when you make an action film, especially a road picture, it's the best way to work,  because it's very hard to pick up a script and sift through five hundred words of prose and then commit them to memory.  The movie was more of a concept than a page-by-page description of what had to be shot, so I felt that breaking the picture up and mapping it out would be easier for me." ~~ Steven Spielberg In the video below, a young Spielberg, goes further on to explain why he sketches even if he can't draw, how much time he invests in storyboarding and how he still goes beyond the storyboards during a shoot. Spielberg discus

The journey to produce your project, whether long or short, is filled with so many steps along the way that many filmmakers overlook important details in their quest to write, shoot and edit it right.  Ensuring you have the best script, shots and cuts truly are vital since without them you don't have a good production. But without taking care of all the other details you won't be able to avoid legal and financial issues along the way, let alone sell your film. A habit that should become essential for every filmmaker is to have a proper "chain of title" collected neatly in an accordion folder or large binder.  The chain of title is your collection of legal, production and financial documents that you collected (or should have) throughout the filmmaking process.  These documents are just as important as your script, critic reviews, film, and press kit. Having a chain of title is a must to secure any type of distribution agreement because it is what assures the d

In this video, Terry Gilliam discusses how storyboarding helps him visualize, refine and even change the script for his movies.  Lots of good insight into his thought process and filmmaking workflow. Regarding this video and it's usefulness to filmmakers, David Kendricken at Nofilmschool wrote: "Gilliam says something interesting immediately, and that is his use of drawing sometimes during the writing phase. Storyboards in a strict sense are traditionally done once a script has reached a certain plateau of finality — meaning it may not be locked outright, but only relatively minor alterations will be made in subsequent drafts. Gilliam here describes his storyboarding process sometimes affecting the script as new visual ideas come out, which is an interesting inversion of convention as I see it. He highlights the benefit of using storyboards as the skeletal basis of a scene’s structure, allowing out-of-sequence shooting to work just as well as shooting in-