Category Archives: Coming Soon

The new 10 commandments of low budget filmmaking

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Elliot Grove and the Raindance Film Festival have issued ten new commandments of low (no) budget filmmaking.

They are:

  1. Thou shalt have a fantastic screenplay.
  2. Thou shalt understand keywords and SEO tools.
  3. Thou shalt secure some development finance.
  4. Thou shalt spend proper time in pre-production.
  5. Thou shalt understand the shoot and exploit it to maximum advantage.
  6. Thou shalt not fix it in Post-Production.
  7. Thou shalt clear all music in your film.
  8. Thou shalt prepare professional publicity and marketing materials.
  9. Thou shalt use film festivals to launch your film.
  10. Thou shalt create a distribution strategy.

See the annotated version.

My take: I can get behind all of these except number nine. Seems to me that’s really part of number 10. Not having much, if any success, at film festivals, I’m not convinced. I guess what I really need is a paid-for-performance film festival agent. Any suggestions?

CineVic presents SOULstice

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If you’re in Victoria and looking for something to do on Saturday night, come on down to the Victoria Event Centre on Broad Street for CineVic’s SOULstice.

The first half of the evening is the Film Festivus: Silent Night screening.

“The challenge: Filmmakers make an under-6 minute film in 5 weeks in the spirit of the holidays. This year the screening will be called Film Festivus: Silent Night, and you guessed it—we’re challenging you to make a silent film. No dialogue, no sound effects, no foley. Just your winter story and an instrumental soundtrack. You can go for the classic black & white look or dazzle us with full-on technicolour. Title cards are permitted for traditionalists. The theme for the films is: ‘The Longest Night of the Year.'”

Music and dancing to the The Garden City Soul Club rounds out the evening.

My take: the films are usually top-notch. I made one a couple of years ago; see Sad Santa, Glad Santa.

Disclaimer: I sit on the board of CineVic.

Microsoft’s Xbox Entertainment Studios orders first unscripted series

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Microsoft is getting into Reality TV. Sort of.

The huge computer company has greenlit its first unscripted series for its Xbox platform, called Every Street Reunited, from Mandalay Sports Media, the US indie set up by Rain Man producer and La Dodgers owner Peter Guber, Smallville co-creator Mike Tollin and talent agency CAA.

“The show will focus on street soccer, with each half-hour episode shot in a different country — the U.S., Spain, Holland, France, Argentina, Brazil, Ghana, South Korea — featuring local, undiscovered soccer players across the globe.”

It is expected that the series will feature some type of global interactive component.

My take: the line between the TV and the console continues to blur as the boundary between passive content and live experience continues to shift.

A brave new world envisioned by — Disney

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The Washington Post reports that Disney is working on a touchscreen that lets you feel textures.

“The technology is called ‘tactile rendering of 3D features,’ and an early version of a rendering algorithm has already been developed by engineers at Disney Research in Pittsburgh. The process behind it is, predictably, both technical and confusing, but the basic premise is that small, electronic pulses can trick your fingers into perceiving bumps and texture, even if the surface is actually flat.”

The right amount of voltage makes you feel ridges, edges, protrusions or bumps!

Check out the video.

My take: This reminds me of the feelies in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Science fact catches up to science fiction!

Saul Bass: posters and title sequences

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Saul Bass is one name I remember noticing when I first got into films.

Probably because he did cool titles and his name was usually right in those titles.

Check out the first 10 and a half minutes in this documentary to see some of Saul Bass’s famous title sequences.

Saul Bass was also a graphic designer and made some very iconic posters.

He was also an Academy-awarded filmmaker. See his 1968 winning short film.

My take: when it comes to opening and closing credits, Saul Bass was a trailblazer. Have you seen any great title sequences lately?

Kickstarter comes to Canada!

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Leading crowd-funding platform Kickstarter is coming to Canada.

They say new projects will go live on September 9, 2013.

It’s taken three years but it looks like Canadian filmmakers and other creative folk have no more excuses. It used to be that you needed a bank account and address in the States to list on Kickstarter. Now Canada joins the US and the UK.

Need help with your campaign? See Kickstarter and crowd-funding advice from someone who work(s/ed) for one of their competitors.

My take: sure you can raise funds on Kickstarter but more valuable is the audience you’re building. In a sense, you’re pre-selling your film to hundreds, maybe thousands, of viewers. Just remember to budget enough time!

DIY DCP

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If, after reading last week’s post about exhibition formats, you really want a DCP but lack the budget to get one professionally made, you’re in luck.

Danny Lacey has created a tutorial for OpenDCP, open software to create Digital Cinema Packages.

Danny says,

I’ll tell you what, this is going to open a lot of doors for Indie film makers too, I believe it’s going to be incredibly helpful for those going down the self distribution route. It’s quite simply chopping down the prices and expense of delivering your movie.

The 27-minute video has all the details but in a nutshell:

  1. Export your film as a 16-bit TIFF sequence.
  2. Use free, open source DCP software to convert the TIFF sequence into JPEG 2000
  3. The DCP software then wraps the video (JPEG2000) and audio (WAV) in to MXF files.
  4. The final stage is creating the DCP which generates 6 files that will be recognised by a DCP server.

My take: well worth the watch!

Sacha Baron Cohen leaves Freddie Mercury biopic

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I have a soft spot for Sacha Baron Cohen.

I think he’s brilliant; especially in his mockumentary work, like ‘Ali G Indahouse’, ‘Borat’ and ‘Bruno’. ‘The Dictator’ was so-so. But his acting in ‘Talladega Nights’ and ‘Hugo’ hint at his dramatic range.

So I was quite happy to hear he was cast as Queen frontman Freddie Mercury.

Now comes sad news that Cohen has dropped out. Apparently, the band wants a ‘family-friendly’ film, whereas he wanted ‘a gritty R-rated tell-all’.

I’m with Sacha Baron Cohen on this one.

Why not shoot two films at the same time? One could be the public-facing, successful singer story with lots of music. The other could be the private man, his sexuality and his decline with AIDS. One PG, the other R-rated. And Sacha Baron Cohen can star in both!

My take: I’m available to write and direct. I still remember when ‘Killer Queen’ came out on the radio and how electric and different it sounded; I think it might have been the first time I heard flanging.