Author Archives: Michael Korican

About Michael Korican

A long-time media artist, Michael’s filmmaking stretches back to 1978. Michael graduated from York University film school with Special Honours, winning the Famous Players Scholarship in his final year. The Rolling Stone Book of Rock Video called Michael's first feature 'Recorded: Live!' "the first film about rock video". Michael served on the board of L.I.F.T. when he lived in Toronto during the eighties and managed the Bloor Cinema for Tom and Jerry. He has been prolific over his past eight years in Victoria, having made over thirty-five shorts, won numerous awards, produced two works for BravoFACT! and received development funding for 'Begbie’s Ghost' through the CIFVF and BC Film.

Proof that movie trailers are getting faster

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Whether or not movie trailers give away too much, or that they’re too long, it does seem that they’re getting faster.

Wired.com has plotted the number of cuts per minute in over 150 trailers and the upward trend is undeniable, from  slightly more than 10 in the Fifties to almost 40 cuts per minute today. In other words, shot length has fallen from 5 seconds to approximately 1.5 seconds.

They suggest technology is to blame. Or decreased attention spans. Or both.

And yet the trailer for 1963’s Dr. Strangelove has 136 cuts per minute, or an average shot length of under half a second.

See the chart with links to each trailer.

My take: I think, when it comes to trailers, the shorter, the better. I despise trailers that contain spoilers and cheat audiences out of satisfying plot points or even endings.

Bonus: 15 Overused Movie Poster Themes

Lucas and Spielberg predict the future is on the Internet

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At a recent panel at the University of Southern California’s Interactive Media Department, George Lucas (Star Wars) and Steven Spielberg (Indiana Jones) said they believe “Internet-based services may become the dominant medium when movie-going as we know it crashes and burns.”

They cite two main reasons: viewers’s lack of time and the vast number of entertainment choices they face.

Lucas sees opportunity in today’s market: “All you need is a million people, which in the aggregate of the world is not very many people. And you can actually make a living at this. Where before you couldn’t.”

Spielberg believes the multiplex will change: “There’s going to be a price variance. You’re going to have to pay $25 to see the next Iron Man. And you’re probably only going to have to pay $7 to see Lincoln.”

Lucas thinks the mediascape is changing:

“Now is the best time we can possibly have. It’s a mess. It’s total chaos. But out of that chaos will come some really amazing things. And right now there are amazing opportunities for young people coming into the industry to say, ‘Hey, I think I’m going to do this and there’s nobody to stop me.’ It’s because all the gatekeepers have been killed!”

See more coverage on The Verge.

My take: I realized awhile ago that movie theatres were destined to become the ‘Opera’ of our era. As an alternative to your devices and your home theatre, going out to the movies might even be seen as an ‘elitist’ activity one day.

‘Additional Funding Guide for Documentary Film’ released

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The Canada Media Fund has released the second edition of the 170-page Additional Funding Guide for Documentary Film.

“…a practical tool enabling Canadian and European producers and filmmakers to identify the different resources available for their own productions or co-productions: private funds dedicated to audiovisual content, including broadcaster funds, awards, grants, financial guidance and calls for projects by festivals, independent production cooperatives, provincial arts councils, crowd-funding platforms, help with distribution, marketing and audience development….”

Download the free PDF.

My take: If you make docs, get this! You can’t argue with the price. Just don’t take all the info as gospel; I found numerous errors glancing through.

Harold Greenberg supports features with calling card shorts

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Astral’s Harold Greenberg Fund has got the right idea.

Their Shorts-to-Features program will fund three short films for $30K AND chip in another $10K to take the feature script to the next draft.

In other words, they’re condensing the “shorts are a stepping stone to features” journey into ONE project. Brilliant!

“An initiative of Astral’s Harold Greenberg Fund in association with Movie Central, and The Movie Network, the Shorts-to-Features program is designed to greenlight and finance the production of short films, in the amount of $30,000 each, from emerging Canadian filmmakers to use as a calling card for a feature film currently in development.”

The deadline is Wednesday, June 5, 2013 at midnight.

My take: If you have a feature script ready to go, for sure, apply!

Money for music videos

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Public Records and Telus are doling out an unspecified number of grants to BC and Alberta filmmakers to produce music videos of local artists for Optik TV.

“We’re giving away music video grants to artists in BC and Alberta. Each grant is worth up to $5,000. To be eligible for a grant you must be either a musician or a filmmaker. Grants will be awarded to collaborations between a musician (artist or band) and a filmmaker (individual or crew). Winners will receive funding to produce a music video.”

Optik Local supports Community Access Programming in the areas which it serves in BC and Alberta: Metro Vancouver (including Whistler), Victoria, Nanaimo, Prince George, Kelowna, Vernon, Calgary, Edmonton, Red Deer, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, Fort McMurray, Grande Prairie, Penticton and Kamloops.

Grant applications open on May 31st and close on June 14th. The winners will be announced on June 21st and final music videos must be submitted by August 7th. See the full rules.

My take: music videos are fun! I’ll be collaborating with my favourite musician and renting gear from CineVic in Victoria.

Hope for a sustainable filmmaking future

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Ted Hope has 16 Recommendations For Filmmakers To Discover Best Practices For A Sustainable Creative Life….

I highly recommend a close reading. In the meantime, here are the bullets:

  1. Focus on developing Entrepreneurial Skills as well as the creative.
  2. The great challenge is no longer how to get your film made or funded, but how to get people to watch it.
  3. Aggregate audience.
  4. Start figuring out how your audience uses your work.
  5. Transition your passive audience to an active engaged participatory community.
  6. Platforms are for the many.
  7. Be more prolific and ubiquitous.
  8. You need others to be authentically incentivized to share and promote your work.
  9. Shift our focus from a single product business to one of an ongoing relationship.
  10. The film biz lacks a way for the passionate fan to demonstrate their appreciation of a work.
  11. [With] the end of feature film dominance… we can create an infinite variety of storyworld extensions, discovery nodes, and engagement forums.
  12. Learn to strategize, schedule, budget, and predict revenues for the entire life cycle of your film.
  13. Embrace rapid prototyping with multiple iterations.
  14. Fail twice as much. Experiment.
  15. Gather & share data.  Embrace transparency and an “Open Source” attitude to all you do.
  16. The work you create moves us closer to the world you aspire to.

This is deep stuff and makes the filmmaker’s job so much harder. Making a movie is hard enough with pre-production, production and post-production but now consider all the other aspects Ted mentions. Choose your projects wisely, as they now demand much more from you!

My take: I can’t help but think of Franchises and how well they do on Ted’s paradigm. See what I mean at The Numbers.

Ted Hope on Independent Film and Culture

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Ted Hope keeps the provocative ideas coming!!!

First he lists 17 Things About The Film Biz That Should Significantly Influence Your Behavior; his insider view of the state of show business.

Then he follows that up with 19 Things Regarding Our Current Culture That Should Completely Alter Your Creative & Entrepreneurial Practice; his insight into the zeitgeist.

Stay tuned for his conclusion next week!

My take: ever since 2004, when video first became widely available on the Internet, I’ve held that we’re witnessing the walls tumbling down, one brick at a time. The old economic model is crumbling and it remains to be seen if a new one will replace it.

Get ready for 8K!

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On the heels of the massive 4K consumer television released by Sony, the Japanese have done it again.

NHK, Japan’s public broadcaster, will screen the first 8K film in Cannes later this month.

“8K Super Hi-Vision was developed by NHK and delivers a resolution of 7,680 by 4,320 pixels – four times the resolution of 4K and 16 times that of HD – as well as featuring 22.2 multichannel sound.”

Film theatres are just finishing their transition to digital projectors capable of 4K.

My take: I think technology is about to surpass biology; going to see a film in a movie theatre might one day be a sharper and clearer experience than anything you could see in real life. We may never go outside again!

Telefilm feature film development opens May 7, 2013

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Telefilm has announced that they will start accepting applications for feature film development beginning on May 7, 2013.

But don’t contact them directly.

Instead get your query letters ready and start contacting successful Canadian producers who have a track record.

If you can convince them, they will ‘mentor’ you and pocket a $25,000 fee.

By the way, Telefilm lawyers (but not executives apparently) insist that projects be squeaky clean. Projects may “not contain any element that is an offence under the Criminal Code, is libellous or in any other way unlawful.” This is much more broadly restrictive language than in the past.

My take: if you’ve got a feature script ready to go, start contacting the production companies. Which companies, you say? How about this easily searchable list?

The Future of Digital Cameras, According to Filmmaker Magazine

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David Leitner of Filmmaker Magazine has published the future of digital cameras, as he sees it.

“A motion picture camera used to be a light-sealed box with a strip of film running through it…. Today’s cameras are exponentially more complex. They are literal bundles of separate technologies, each lurching forward at a different rate. To understand today’s cameras, you must understand the parts to understand the whole.”

He looks at:

  • Pixel Count (4K is here)
  • Sensors (Super 35 with incredible ISO ratings)
  • Lenses (18-200mm with zoom servos)
  • Media (Solid state)
  • Frame Rates (120 to 240 to 480 to 960 for slow motion)
  • Compression and Latitude (H.265 and RAW)
  • Camera Design and Control (bonded cellular, anyone?)
  • Workflow and Post (64-bit and the free DaVinci Resolve Lite)
  • New Cameras in 2013 (including the For-A FT-ONE with 4K capture at 900 fps)

Well worth the long read.

My take: film is dead!