Film Strategy

Don't Look Now | Nicolas Roeg | 1973 | UK, Italy | Format: 35mm | 110 min  Released in the US 40 years ago today on December 9, 1973.   When British director Nicolas Roeg’s perverse thriller Don’t Look Now hit American theaters, not everyone was happy. In the New York Times review, Vincent Canby claimed that when this “fragile soap bubble of a horror film” ends, “you may feel, as I did, that you've been had.” Adapted from a Daphne Du Maurier short story, Don’t Look Now previewed many of the director’s upcoming themes—chaotic, realistic sex; disjunctive narrative montages; storylines that collapse the psychological and the supernatural. Here a young couple (Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland), traumatized by the recent drowning of their young daughter, comes to Venice for a working holiday and possible relief from their grief. What they find instead is a mystery lost in the maze of Venice’s back streets and canals and shrouded in the city’s famous fog

Master director / master decision-maker: Stanley Kubrick Decisions on acting, cinematography and editing are the main provinces of the director. And rightly so, because those decisions, good or bad, many or few, are what distinguishes the kind of film we see from one director to the next. Still, as important as those decisions are, the director has no decision to make without a script.   Of course, no one needs to be convinced of the importance of the script since that is where it all begins.  The screenwriter writes, rewrites, polishes and submits the script to the producer and director or produces and directs it herself.  As soon as the actual production of it is imminent , practical considerations like budgets, schedules, rehearsals, set and prop designs, etc. come to the fore which affect the kind of film the script will become. But more important than even those, I think, are the considerations of aesthetics and visualizations that the director undertakes before and while

Created by script reader and Reddit user profound_whatever WRITING: What are 38 reasons why your screenplay isn't getting recommended by the script reader? PRODUCING: Ok, Mr./Ms. Producer, here's a challenge: What creative work would you make with this ? FINANCING: Even if you're a no-budget filmmaker right now, one day you will have to know the ABCs of International Pre-Sales .  Why not start learning today? DIRECTING: What can lessons on editing, directing actors and choosing shots from Bruno Dumont teach you about filmmaking? SHOOTING: When should you use RAW and when should you avoid it? LIGHTING: What are 5 tips to improve your green screen shooting skills ? SOUND: What are some things to learn from a quick primer on music licensing ? STUNTS & VFX: Ever consider that maybe the best set for your movie is your living room ? (h/t to @ JasonFararooei ) EDITING: What should you know about advanced storage for your files ? MARKETING:  Why is eng

www.hollywoodreporter.com It seems like common sense that the best way to market a film with minority characters is to emphasize the presence of those minority characters and draw in minority audiences in large numbers.  End of Watch is a good example of this;  "The film stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena as two cops assigned to South Central L.A. Pena's character is of Mexican descent and from East L.A.... When End of Watch debuted over the Sept. 21-23 weekend, 32 percent of the audience was Hispanic, both Spanish- and English-speaking (separate breakouts by language aren't available). The film, distributed by Open Road Films on behalf of Exclusive Media, won the frame, grossing $13.2 million (a solid number for an indie)..." But studios and distributors walk a fine line between promoting the film's minority appeal to get minority audiences and downplaying it's strong minority presence to avoid alienating white audiences.  As a 2011 study

Today, I'd like to try something a little different... and that's use video to answer every question today.  So thank you YouTube!  I still wish I had created you, but alas... thank you for being you.  Today's theme will be NO- to MICRO- to LOW-BUDGET FILMMAKING.  P.S. Don't forget to visit the Filmmaker's Toolkit for all the forms, templates and information you need to make your films at every phase of production from Development to Distribution. WRITING: Why do most people fail at screenwriting ? PRODUCING: How do you pre-plan a no-budget movie ? FINANCING: Why do you need money to make money when it comes to making a film? DIRECTING: What are the top 5 tips for new directors or how you can become a better director? SHOOTING: How do you make a dolly track ? LIGHTING: Building a lighting kit, what are the professional film lights you should stock your kit with (at a minimum)? SOUND: How do you record high quality audio on a

Today in November 20... 1907 – Henri-Georges Clouzot , the legendary French film director of films like Les Diaboliques , Wages of Fear , La Vérité and The Mystery of Picasso was born today. A stylish filmmaker known for making movies about betrayal deception and violent deaths whose negative persona and outlook on life was refelected in his work.  Nonetheless his skill made the master of suspense, Hitchcock nervous, as Senses of Cinema reveals and " although not as prolific, Clouzot’s is undoubtedly a comparable talent, and Wages Of Fear (1953) and Les Diaboliques (1955) regularly make it into lists of the greatest thrillers ever made." To get a glimpse of how Clouzot made films watch the documentary, Inferno . 2006 – Robert Altman , the legendary American film director of films like MASH , Nashville , McCabe and Mrs. Miller and Gosford Park   passed away today. A maverick filmmaker who thrived during the 1970s and preferred large casts in his movies had a

Last week was an off-week for The Film Strategist so my apologies but had to focus on some important work. Now I'm back so stay tuned for some interesting upcoming posts including your Monday and Midweek mixers. On November 18, 1928 – The animated short Steamboat Willie was released.  This was the first fully synchronized sound cartoon , directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks and featured the third appearances of cartoon characters Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse . This is also considered by the Disney corporation to be Mickey's birthday.  The short was such a success that it propelled Disney to international stardom. Now, what I want to know is when will Steamboat Willie and other works of that era finally fall in the public domain?  Because it should've happened a while ago already. But as Timothy B. Lee makes clear , "15 years ago [on October 25], President Clinton signed the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, which retroactively extended copyright