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You demanded it... Hollywood and the Film Industry are like a giant wristwatch. It looks simple on the outside, but then you open it up and there's more complicated parts and gizmos inside that it boggles the mind to think that somebody could've put it together in the first place. Like the wristwatch, I'm not sure that anybody fully understands all the functions, but we all try to get together and try to figure it out. So who am I in all of this? I'm a one of the hundreds of thousands struggling up-and-coming filmmakers who lives in the delusion that one day they can make a movie that people care about. I've played film festivals, I've appeared in documentaries, I've had a lot of fun, and made a lot of mistakes. I've worked freelance, edited and re-edited many feature films that'll never see the light of day, worked as a consultant, pulled favors, given favors, and said the wrong things at the wrong times. I've worked for film festivals in programming, and on the technical side. For my "day job", I'm a producer's assistant at a production company - it's a wonderful environment that's encouraging and allowing me to get back into personal filmmaking on the side. I've lived in LA for almost 2 years now, and struggled to work "in the business" after finishing film school school in Austin, TX. I'm not here to promote myself/my workplace (I'd rather not give that stuff out), this info is just to give background on my experiences and give myself some credibility. So is LA the soul-crushing experience I imagine it to be? ...Is probably the biggest question I get right off the bat. And I must admit that, three or your years ago, I was asking the same question. When you don't live here, LA is such an intimidating idea, an intimidating force. The jungle. Eat or be eaten. Moving from the Land of the Lotus Eaters to LA was one of the scariest things I've done - I hardly knew anybody, I didn't have a job lined up, some money but not enough to last. So far I'm happy to report that LA has been a blast. It's a weird place (yes, I'm saying that coming from a place that "keeping it weird" is a mantra) and it takes a lot of getting used to - especially in regards to parking - but once you catch on and get into the groove, it's a lot of fun. You figure out what part of LA fits you and what you want and who you like to hang out with and work with that. On the business side, it's been incredibly educational. poo poo happens out here. Deals get made, paper gets signed, people get paid, movies get made, and it all happens right here. When you're in film school or trying to make your own projects outside the system, you know that there's a different way to do things, but you really have no idea what it could be. Both begin (usually) with somebody saying, "Hey, I've got a cool idea for a movie" and somebody else agreeing. On the school/outside part of the equation, you go and make the movie. On the more professional side you start market research alright - what similar films have been made like this, how well did they do, how much can we reasonably spend - all the external factors are considered well before the ball gets rolling. With larger amounts of money on the line, I can't really blame them. Making a film is a risky enough investment, going in without knowing as much as you can is almost irresponsible. So what is the deal with all the remakes/reimagining? … Would be the other question I get a lot. In the last few years DVD sales have plummeted and the box office figures are less and less. There's a million reasons for this, and some of it is the industry's fault and some of it are external factors such as piracy. So, when it's getting harder and harder to make money on risks, you go for the surest things and the surest things are projects with name recognition. In the past, this would be actors, and to some extent it still is. George Clooney is always going to bring you money. But, beyond a certain number of names, you don't really get the draw that you would like. I think Cillian Murphy is a great actor, but people don't beat down the doors to go see his movies. The majority of movie goers are not you and me. They aren't the kind of person who looks through the old stacks of DVDs in the store to find a great deal. They don't have a favorite gray market seller. They don't covet Criterions. The average moviegoer is a Mid-Westerner on a date. Movie fans tend to forget this, but the box office doesn't. The average moviegoer doesn't have a top 25 ranked list for ever year they've been alive. They don't save their stubs in a fetishistic manner - they're spending an evening out. If it goes well, maybe they'll get to make out afterwards. So when asking somebody on a date, it's easier to say, "Hey do you wanna go see Karate Kid?" as opposed to "Hey, do you wanna go see Dogtooth?". People will go to what's familiar. So when asked for Karate Kid - they know what they're getting into, there's nothing that's going to screw up the date, so they go. With Dogtooth, they don't know what it is and before they know it, they're left to discuss the implications of an incestuous lick-based economy on the first date. Not what they want. So yeah… If you've got questions, ask away, there's a few other working people around, one of us will hopefully try to answer it. However, this is the movie business - sometimes nobody knows the answer.
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Nov 15, 2010 23:33
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ClydeUmney posted:Are there any absolute trainwreck productions you've been involved with that you could talk about? My first gig out here was working for a Music Producer who found that his biggest paydays were when he'd write a song and it was used in a movie - so the obvious answer is to make a movie that's nearly wall-to-wall his music. He'd get his musicians together and they'd just kinda talk to the camera about stuff and he'd harass people and yell and stuff. I'd shoot for him on a DV cam and edit. It was always weird to hear him talk about the movies because he'd claim they had all these intricate plot lines that just weren't there. I don't know if he actually thought they were in the movie or if that was just his way of explaining it all. It was always miserable, he'd yell and just be awful, I'd get spit on and harassed, and I had to drive an hour outside of LA to get to his place where we'd work. The money was awesome, but he'd basically complain for an hour (off the clock) everytime I got a check about how much it was costing him and whatnot. He paid daily. He surrounded himself with a lot of kooky people, and they always had a bunch of drama going on that they kept trying to bring me into, which I definitely did not want. ClydeUmney posted:What's your (admittedly general) advice for anyone wanting to get into the business? Say, from a writer's point of view. It really depends on what you want to do. Which is actually the first thing - most people know they want to get into the business and not much beyond that. If you want to write, focus on that, if you want to be in camera, focus on that. People who want to do everything either stretch themselves too thin, or, in most cases, end up doing nothing. For writers, the biggest thing is to keep writing. It sounds so basic it's stupid, but I can't tell you how many "writers" I know who have written one script and just try to get that one peddled around. If you are a writer you should keep writing. Write ten scripts. I know you're not on the phone all day to the agencies, stop playing Call of Duty and write a new script! The other biggest thing is that you need to work with the other people involved with a project. There will be changes to your spec script if somebody gets involved. That's just the way it is - and odds are your script is not perfect! Some writers get a script in development and fight and fight and fight on every change. I'm not saying don't fight for what's important - like if they want to change a character from a neo-nazi to a black peace advocate, fight for that. But if it's like changing a location from an ice cream store to a donut store for logistical reasons (ie the Producer's bro runs a donut store they can use for free), or something like that, work with them. Be creative. Some things will have to change. Kill your babies. If you work positively and creatively, you will be all the better for it. I've seen people fight on the smallest projects - often it's just ego. And ego is a killer. A career killer. The other thing is, if you really want to do it, you should move to LA to see how the business works. I know you can write anywhere and x writer works in y location, etc. but it really helps to be out here. The best way I've heard it put is as such - you can write a country song anywhere, but if you want to sell it, it helps to be in Nashville. ClydeUmney posted:How long do you see the current 3D trend continuing? Until they find a way to pirate it.
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Nov 16, 2010 00:06
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A Futbol Injustice posted:How much, would you say, does the industry spend annually on kneepads and lubricant? The rule with knee pads is that if you buy a good pair they'll never wear out. Also the key is to wear them inside your pants, nobody wants to see that you're prepared for it. Never been involved in the casting couch, but one time I put out a casting call and I held auditions and this one actress couldn't make either of my call times because she was on a shoot. She keeps emailing me about how much she liked the script and whatnot and I felt bad for her, and hey if she's working anywhere then she must be somewhat decent, so I said I'd give her an audition if we could just figure out where to do it. She thanks me and invites me over to her house. Before I go over there, I look up the shoot she was on just to see what it was- and it was her credited as another name. I look up that name and turns out she's a porn star trying to turn to legitimate film. So at this point there's two impulses - one that this can only go really bad, the other being that porn star turned good could be a good way to get attention to the short. So I went to her house and her roommate answers the door. I ask for her name and it takes him a second to associate it with her. He lets me in and it's just this kinda messy house that it looks like three absolute slackers live in. Ashtrays everywhere, everything sectioned off, nothing community. It's like people's first college house inhabited by people who are wayyyy too old for college. I meet up with her and she never lets on that she does adult work, just describing her last shoot as "fun". She then starts talking to me about the script and she just does not get it at all. Like misreading her character and she just played it in this bizarre non-human way. I tried giving her directions but everything was just terrible. When we were done, she just looked at me with this look of excitement, like if you told a six-year-old girl that she can be both a movie star AND a princess. She was really excited and thought that she'd just nailed the role and that this was going to break her out of this life. There was no way that she'd ever get the role, but writing her to tell her no was still really hard to do. I'm still at the point where I hate to upset people/let people down, which has been a hassle and a problem. I think a lot of people out here, too, feel that way even though they don't try to show it. I think that's a big reason for the impersonality of the business - it's tougher when you know what a person goes through and what they want and you know how much it'll disappoint them. A Futbol Injustice posted:What's Lars von Trier like in person? Lars is deathly scared of airplanes so he'll never come to America. I think we would get along. TheBigBudgetSequel posted:Here's a question I've always wondered that you might know. Once you get to be a person with power, all the rules go out the window. Like, I'm sure one day Murch got offered a project he didn't want to do, made up a number that he thought they'd never pay and they paid it. Schoonmaker makes a decent amount because Scorsese tends to take care of his people. Her especially. From what I've heard (and this is all Hollywood jerk talk so who knows) but supposedly Scorsese can't cover a scene too well and Thelma keeps managing to bail him out of tough jams. morestuff posted:Do people in the business have any expectations that the more out-there distribution models, like road shows and ultra-early, ultra-expensive VOD will catch on? Are they just throwing ideas at the wall to see what sticks? In the indy world DIY distro is all the rage. Right now the independent film model is so broken on the distro side and so ever-expanding on the content side that everybody keeps saying "Something's gotta change! Something's gotta fix this!" and everybody waits for somebody else to fix it for them. The guy you linked, Todd Sklar, is a friend of mine, and he'll tell you - DIY distro, esp. with a road show model is possible, it can happen, you can make money from it - it's not worth it though. The time and effort sunk into a road show is enormous, not to mention the expenses, and the worst part is that this is time that you are not developing new movies, so the gap between projects is abnormally large and you don't have a lot of money to sustain yourself during that time. Right now it's just a lot of experimentation, and regrouping. Bob Berney keeps trying to make higher-level indy distro companies for traditional theatrical and keeps finding his backers are not prepared for the intensity that it takes. VOD is the buzzword of the past three years, but when it comes down to it, who do you know that has ever watched a movie over VOD? I do not know if the cable at my house has a VOD setup and this is me. Everybody loves Netflix streaming but the money involved is often nothing due to the Starz TV contract, or very little. At an estimated seven cents a stream minus expenses, minus cuts, minus agents and managers, it's going to take a lot of streams to make back even your $10K microbudget feature's money back. Let alone make a profit - which, at the end of the day, is what needs to happen. Only God knows how much Hulu/SnagFilms/etc pay. Which brings us to a problem - nobody knows how much you can make VOD/Streaming/Etc. - making it impossible to budget a movie for these outlets. So basically, you end up with a lot of people making content - both expensive and not and going through channels that don't pay anything. This leaves us with new models that are absolutely clogged with content, most of it not very good, that's making it harder for everybody to get attention. Look at Netflix instant - look at how many "18 Year-Old-Virgin"s are there - compare that to how many time somebody has told you, "Hey did you know [Movie you've been dying to see] is on instant?" - The platforms are muddeled and inefficient already and that hurts a lot. While some of the fat needs to be trimmed (Ok, a LOT of it), it's also pushing out the smaller filmmakers that should be making films, that can add a lot to this business. Everybody's waiting for lightning to strike and the rain to fall... but nobody's sure it's in the forecast. Supercar Gautier posted:Do you find that ideas like this start turning into blind mantras? IE, "We have to adapt an existing property, even if it has absolutely no following or cultural foothold, because EXISTING PROPERTY". Did Kane & Lynch not sell? I have no idea, I'm not big into games. Basically, producers, agents, etc. are as susceptible to hype as anyone else. Does it look like something is going to be huge that we can make money off of? Get it. Sometimes this sort of thing is, "Well, we don't have anything else, we can't afford new property, let's make what we have"
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Nov 16, 2010 00:52
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Honest Thief posted:How close to the truth are any of Robert Evan's stories from his book? I know, like he says "everyone remembers it diferently, and everyone is right" but did he really saved the Godfather from mediocrity? I'm sure they're exaggerated to some degree, everybody does that. As for the Godfather, looking at FFC's other output kinda seems to hint at that. Kull the Conqueror posted:Being an Austin guy, is Richard Linklater as kickass as his movies? Absolutely. He's one of those guys that has a sincere love of everything, from the sun, to the mechanics of a train, to the way light reflects in water. He's the kind of guy that he starts talking and you find yourself not paying attention because he's said something and you just want to think about it for a little bit. Trump posted:Can you give us an idea at what level of productions you are working as PA? PA = Production Assistant - the gofer of a film set. I'm the assistant to a producer, which is a different job. We do productions under $20M. Everybody's still worried about the film biz. DVD sales are just about gone, Piracy is killing us, and nothing is coming along to replace the missing income. 3D is doing nicely for exploitation - Step Up 3D and Jackass 3D, but they're worried that it's time is limited. 3D is mostly there to prevent piracy, and when somebody can download a film and watch it on their 3DTV then you'll see a dramatic drop in 3D movies overnight.
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Nov 16, 2010 01:01
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Rogetz posted:How long did you have to freelance before you got your current job (assuming it's not a freelance job as well)? First things first, freelancing didn't lead to me getting my job - some people never stop freelancing, nor do they want to, and for some jobs, it's pretty much how the job goes unless you land a job on a TV show or something. That said, I did freelance for about 9 months, but most of it was the music producer's gig. I still freelance here and there for money and if the job seems like it'd be fun or I owe a favor or something. As much as I love Texas/Austin, I've never thought about turning back. A lot of that has been because I've been working steady pretty much since I got here. I've known people who have gone back, and I know people who have thought about it. Homesickness/Desire to leave depends on you and your circumstances - if you're really close to your family or haven't been away then it's going to be harder than it is for a runaway. I've not done outside work, but I'm an exception. I got lucky. I worked my rear end off and went through hell, but I was lucky for the opportunity. I have friends who are working retail to survive while freelancing, and some... I don't know how they get by. $10,000 is how much I suggest. That's in case you don't get a job, that gives you a while to find your footing and try to survive cheaply for a while. Some people have needed more, some have needed less. I think it's just a good number to throw out. Can't say how it compares to NY, but in LA you don't need to buy heavy jackets and winter clothing. That's a plus for me! But seriously, it comes down to if you really want to make a go of it and are willing to give up a lot to try, then you gotta get out here. CloseFriend posted:Probably a stupid question, but... Is it possible to establish a decent career as a writer if you're not based in LA or New York? I've always been peripherally interested in screenwriting, but I actually like my day job and I'm not a "bet it all on black" kinda guy. Oh, it can happen. It has happened plenty of times, but it's rare for sure. It helps that it's a side-hobby. What I would say then is to just start cranking out scripts, make three or four a year. Some will be bad, some will be great. Then start trying to query agencies and screenplay contests and the like. Sadly, that whole side of things isn't one I know much about. I wouldn't say that my taste has changed - I definitely watch less movies - less time, they cost more, etc. I think now I appreciate the smaller films that don't feel small. Like only in one or two rooms but never make you feel claustrophobic. Stuff like that. Otherwise, I like the same stuff I think. FirstCongoWar posted:How do you think Drafthouse Films is going to do? I don't know. I've known the Drafthouse people forever and just cannot say enough good things about them. That said, I don't know if they're going to do a second film - this whole thing seemed like an experiment to see if it could possible. Like I mentioned above, indie film distribution is just lacking, and so Tim starting up a distro is kind of a natural reaction. He sees the same frustration that we all do - good films that get ignored. Four Lions is a great film, but it is somewhat of a third rail when it comes to getting Mid-Westerners on dates to go see it. Think of your parents - It's hard to convince them to go see a comedy where the protagonists are terrorists who kill innocent women and children. I'd love for Tim to succeed, I really would. But starting a distro is hard - every city acts a different way when it comes to what movies they like and what marketing works. It gets really complicated and expensive as the road trip guys have learned. That said, if there's anybody in this world who can beat all the odds by doing something badass - it's Tim League. Barometer posted:My question is more a request; What's the craziest thing you've seen happen on or around a movie? Feel free to leave names out, of course, but I just wonder what kind of insanity you've seen firsthand. I'll come back to this. It'll take way too long to write up right now... Spatula City posted:Have you ever had to endure viciousness or derision from a producer? I have a friend who used to work as the assistant to Scott Rudin, who supposedly Spacey is based off in that movie. I asked him about it and he said that they got the voice wrong. Take that as you will. Personally, I've had decent experiences all around. When people get tired and things aren't going right everybody gets a little mad and often the wrong person catches flack for it. There's a lot of emotional people in this business and sometimes it comes to a head. Most of the time it's isolated and apologies soon come out. shinymodem posted:Do Ari Gould's really exist, or are most people in the business friendly and easy to work with? Ari Gold is based on 4 real life agents including Ari Emanuel who is the brother of Rahm Emanuel. I've heard stories and such, but haven't dealt with any myself. I can see that happening more in the agency world, where it's a real high-pressure environment. It boils down to that this is a business like any other. There can be some jerks, and there can be some people who seem like jerks until you know them, but overall most people are just trying to get by and do what they need to and be nice about it. Problem is when people make a movie or tv show about the industry, people working together and getting along isn't very dramatic.
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Nov 16, 2010 08:28
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therattle posted:NE, I'm going to hop in, if you don't mind. Glad to have you.  therattle posted:Some agents and lawyers are real assholes, like one who screamed for about ten minutes; generally they are fairly pleasant on the surface but untrustworthy, grasping, rapacious assholes. ... Goddamn, I hate agents. He said it, not me  screenwritersblues posted:I'm curious about how much it cost to make an average indie film today. I've been writing for sometime now and know that most blockbusters cost well over $100 million to produce, so lets say that I wanted to go out and shoot my own film, how much out of pocket would I have to put up to make a decent film? There's no real rules or guidelines these days - on the festival circuit there's a lot of microbudget features that are getting attention - some are even good! Generally they're going for $10,000 - $40,000 but that's with nobody getting paid and very little production value. It's really, really, really hard to pull off.
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Nov 16, 2010 18:19
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penismightier posted:I'm shooting a microbudget movie now. Well, now I'm editing it. The only one I paid is the sound guy, basically all the other money I had aside is covering my rent so I can focus on the motherfucker for a few months. It's doable, but I'm absolutely sure filming was the cheap part, and my cost is going to explode when I try to take it to festivals and whathaveyou. Hire a publicist. Also, read the book at http://www.filmfestivalsecrets.com/ it'll help you a ton if you're not familiar with the circuit. Criminal Minded posted:What percentage of people in the industry - that actually work on films, i.e. not agents/lawyers/etc. - have film backgrounds? How feasible is it for somebody to jump in without a film degree or whatever? (With all the necessary caveats about hard work and networking and luck, et al.) A pretty broad, stupid, difficult to answer question but yeah. I can't imagine what the percentage. I never have any idea if somebody has a degree or not. The higher you get the less it is though. I can't imagine a DP not having a master's from AFI or something like that since it's such a tough position to get into. But like most crew members it's mostly about experience. If you start working in whatever department you can on shoots for free and busting your rear end you can potentially* make it. But not having a degree or anything doesn't matter if you have experience. If you have lofty ambitions, then you should look into it, mostly because it's giving you a dedication to the practice. * can't make any guarantees as much as I'd like to. The 19th Person posted:Is piracy as bad of a problem as most execs are making it out to be? Dr. Video Games 0055 posted:I'm actually curious about how the studios are responding to Netflix and Redbox kicking the crap out of the now-bankrupt Blockbuster. Is the changing video rental market causing panic to the executives or are they seeing this as a transitional period in the rental industry? Piracy is definitely a problem. There's no two ways about it. Case in point: Scott Pilgrim - It's catered to the audience that is the most likely to download a film and you know what happened? You developed a rabid fanbase on the internet that didn't pay a dime for the movie that complains that Hollywood doesn't make movies for them. The problem is the worst for the indies. We operate on small margins and when people pirates it, it really hurts. I have a producer friend who frequently meets people who tell him how much they love his film and even volunteer the fact that they downloaded it. It's kinda insulting. They tell him over twitter, too. I don't even understand that part of it. I understand @'ing people if you wanna suck up and all, but to tell them "hey I ripped off your product and I loved it!" is just kinda ridiculous. A ton of people on my feed were tweeting Kanye the same thing. I don't get it. Netflix/Streaming services are currently a hope to supplement income from the lack of DVD sales. The industry is doing a somewhat better of catching up to technological trends than it's historical pace. The demand to watch a movie at home hasn't changed, but the desire to own a DVD for a lot of people has. They take up a lot of space, they look tacky, somebody comes into your home and judges you on your taste, and most of the time you only watch it once. For $20 it's not worth it. The last DVD I bought was Medicine For Melancholy because I was so happy that it got a release. I don't even have a working DVD player anymore now that my drive in my MBP went out. A lot of people are the same way. Can't recall the last time they were thrilled to get a DVD, and the collateral is just too much. Look at Blu-Ray, it hasn't really caught on for many of the same reasons. So things have shifted. People still want movies. People even want HD content, but DVD/Blu-Ray isn't really cutting it. So Netflix and VOD are trying to fill the voids. It's shaky at best right now. Netflix operates with a ton of loopholes to where in many cases it's doubtful you'll see any money or it may be a part of your TV contract. But at least somebody is getting paid for people watching the movie. That's honestly a step up. My biggest problem is that Netflix Instant Watch with it's flat rate and things like Red Box are reducing the cost of a movie too much. When it costs nothing or a buck to watch Grown Ups at home versus paying $12 to go see Jack Goes Boating at the theater, it's going to affect people's decisions. While watching Grown Ups may be one of the worst decisions somebody could make, it's easier and cheaper than going out for a better movie. It's going to start cannibalizing income streams at some point. As for the returns, I can't really say. Margins on DVDs are a pretty closely held secret and there's a lot of factors that go into it - which company put it out, etc. Same with PPV/VOD/Streaming/Cable TV/Broadcast/etc. There's so many factors that it's impossible to put out a blanket statement that x form makes more than y. Nerd Of Prey posted:I have a confession followed by a question, for anybody who wants to take a stab at answering it. Lemme put it this way - there's an A-list director that I very much look up to, that this whole forum does, that is broke. I mean broke. You can be brilliant and beloved but still broke. How is the supply/demand situation? Director is the most sought-after position after Actor. Who doesn't want to do it? I'm trying to send my career that way - lemme tell you, it's really loving hard! It's not being about somebody's nephew, it's about being insanely talented. What you want to do is so scattershot, I can't tell what you actually want to do. Actually, from your post, is directing what you want to do? gently caress what you're good at, what do you want to do? Getting into this poo poo is a huge, huge decision - if this isn't what you really, really, really want, don't do it. There's no reason to go through the sacrifices and the struggle if this isn't what you can't live without. A lot of people get asked that and they just say "yeah, this is what I want" - NO - THINK ABOUT IT. THINK LONG AND HARD. So far you're not convincing me. You don't want to make an indie flick? What do you want? Do you think that self-financed indie films are vanity flicks? They're career investments, even when they don't sell. Getting into directing TV/Commercials is another beast. Commercials are how most directors stay afloat. David Lynch pays his bills this way. Errol Morris pays his bills this way. To get in to commercials, you're competing with these people. And again - THINK ABOUT IF THIS IS WHAT YOU WANT. Commercials are a way for film directors to make money; it's not a way for directors to get into making films. It's very rare. How did Marc Webb get (500) Days of Summer? By directing half of the commercials for the Super Bowl. Same for TV - TV is a radically different beast and seldom leads to directing films. Directing TV is a lot about hitting marks, keeping pace and such. The Office has brought in a slew of film directors to direct the show. Have you ever noticed a difference? Before you work out the logistics of a career you need to figure out what kind of career you are going to strive for. YOU WILL spend a lot of money trying to get it, YOU WILL struggle a lot, YOU WILL starve, YOU WILL call in every favor you can, YOU WILL beg, borrow, steal to get what you need, YOU WILL end up working day jobs to stay afloat, YOU WILL wonder why you ever started down this path in the first place - you'll save yourself a lot of heartache/time/money/spirit if you find that you have a much better time functioning in some other way. I'm not trying to be hard, I'm trying to be realistic.
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Nov 17, 2010 10:50
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AccountSupervisor posted:gently caress your social life that isnt networking, gently caress parties(well, weekly parties), gently caress relationships, gently caress everything that isnt film(well mostly, mental health is important) until you are where you want to be, because it takes that much work. Funny thing is that I've gotten a lot out of hitting up a house party or dating a girl, etc. It all just depends on who you do it with. In LA, since everybody in your social circle is at least tangentially film related, you can do pretty well. I've gotten better business connections at karaoke than some boring networking mixers. The other part is that you gotta have fun and live life, people who don't only make movies about movies and that poo poo is boring. AccountSupervisor posted:NeuroticErotica I always love your posts where you say poo poo like "Do you really want this?" because it always just makes my desire to be a film maker that much more firm. Your sort of...optimistic cynicism actually gets me excited. Glad to do it. I deal with a lot of people who are unsure and undecided because I'm one of the envoys from film school to LA at this point. I go back home for a festival or whatnot, I end up taking meetings, giving people career advice and end up with like five scripts to read. A lot of people are involved but you can tell they aren't in it. Heck, here we take meetings with people who are wishy washy and just in it for the wrong reasons. People'll tell you to not do it if you can't live without - and that's true for you, but the other side is that if you're doing it for the wrong reasons, you're wasting my time as well. Yoshifan823 posted:So what you are saying is that my desire to be an actor is going to result in going to cooking school being the best decision of my life? During the downtimes of my life, I wish I'd gone to cooking school. I survive on the food trucks, which are amazing, but I wish I could cook more. As it stands, this is me cooking Yoshifan823 posted:Exactly how much work is there still in California? I've heard so many things about everything moving to places like New Mexico and Vancouver, but I'm still planning on moving to California after I'm done with cooking school (because gently caress not having a back-up). That's still the right move, right? I think so. For an actor, LA is the place to be. The casting agents are out here, the classes, etc. By the way, take some loving classes. I don't care how good you are, you can be better - and that's what you want, right? I don't care if you're a natural, take some classes. You meet other actors, you keep acting, you explore poo poo, you make stock characters, you add talents. loving do it. So many actors don't want to do it and get lazy and before too long they're not actors, they're the IT solutions desk at some firm or something. Anyways, going to a hot spot for production like Vancouver or New Mexico or Iowa is always a risk. The tax incentive structure that makes certain states hotbeds could collapse at any minute and everybody kinda knows it. The dollar conversion rate that makes Canada appealing is always in flex. Last time the dollar went down and was equal to the Canadian dollar, Vancouver dried up. But going to production hot spots are only good for a couple things - if you want to crew and do lower level positions - G&E, PA, crafty, HMW, some sort of assistant, etc. You can do that and be fine. Maybe you can be a shooter on a lower budget thing, but generally your department heads come from LA. It's really good if you're a union guy who goes out there. I heard a story where a producer of Gran Torino was shooting in Michigan, and he hops in a car and asks his teamster driver, "Hey, where's a good place to eat around here?" - the driver didn't know, he was from LA! LA people coming in and poaching all the jobs of locals is a good reason the incentives are going to break down. But for you, an actor, I'd go to LA. Going to a hot spot is going to be good if you wanna live somewhere new for a while and get by doing scant extra work and maybe get a featured or smaller supporting role. I remember when Austin was hot, all the actors were excited for the opportunities. A number of $72 days later, they were finding it wasn't the opportunity they were looking for. Sure you can make like $600 if you speak a line, but that's rare. Go to LA, get in front of casting directors (Who are a combination of failed actors and amazing people who can often remember your audition like two years later and give you a call) and try to make it in the big leagues. You can always go down.
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Nov 18, 2010 20:00
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VoodooXT posted:This only applies if your name is neither Ridley Scott or James Cameron. I shy away from blanket statements like this. This is such a weird industry you can't stay one thing will or won't go for another.
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Nov 19, 2010 06:14
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Lemme say something right off - everybody's doggin' it, but I'm very happy with my film school education. Of course, I went until they couldn't teach me anymore. I learned all the departments and what goes into them, it's paid off pretty well. I can't do mograph worth a poo poo, but I can communicate to those who do. It's a total what-you-put-into-it-you-get-out-of-it situation. If you dog it there, you're not going to get a lot out of it from what I've seen. If you're lazy at AFI, you don't get much. If you kick rear end at AFI, you change the world.Mozzie posted:NeuroticErotica, I know you don't deal with the meat and potatoes types but how important do you think for G&E and Camera dept. people to be based in LA? I'm at the point that I'm looking at going the CSC assistance course and trying to get unionized in IATSE here in Toronto but I want to work in the Hollywood circuit and they just don't come up north as much as I like. Well don't put it that way. I am a man of the people. I love my grips, I love my PAs, I'm with 'em. Can't live without 'em. That said, you're right, I'm totally not the guy to ask for sure. But here's my take on it: There's always going to be hotspots for cheap production, whether it's NM or Prauge or wherever. They're always going to shoot movies in LA. It's easy for everybody involved, you don't have to pay for hotels and travel fees, etc. They might even bring you somewhere if you're essential and they're rolling fat. Mozzie posted:I also have a friend and I who are trying to do a far to ambitious short film that gets turned away from all our great internationally regarded Canadian public funding because it's not "Canadian enough" or "innovated in the medium" or whatever else lameduck mandate that the government has put on them. I wouldn't worry about that. My buddy just went through all that stuff and got his money. It's a highly political process that's completely tied up with pet projects and egos. So I guess it's actually good for learning about the Hollywood process. Mozzie posted:What could I tell to investors to convince them that giving us ten thousand dollars to shoot a short film on 35 that has swearing, an exploding car and black comedic humour that no one will ever see because it doesn't fit into any niche markets and shorts make zero money? Call it a spec commercial.
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Nov 19, 2010 07:39
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Soulwrangler posted:And more importantly, Haha. There's a good reason for it. He's an awesome guy. There's like three people I look to if on facebook I can't remember for the life of me who that person is - odds are they'll know Todd or one of the others. It never fails. CPL593H posted:I've got something that's been on my mind for a while. If you take a look at youtube, amongst all the trash you will occasionally find some gems. And I don't necessarily mean stuff that has a budget (the Onion, Funny or Die, etc). But there are a lot of young people on youtube who are genuinely talented that get together with friends and devote their time to making some entertaining and hilarious shorts with little to no money. Everybody starts small. Just now you won't have to deal with a tape trader to get the short films of your favorite director, they'll be out there. Now is YouTube a farm system? Far from it. Look what happens when the industry tries to capitalize on YouTube - you get Fred the movie. The system works the way it always has - if you want to get noticed, make shorts, make spec commercials, etc. get them into festivals, make bigger and bigger flicks. Show you can handle a budget, show you can handle a story. People are thinking that YouTube is a lot bigger than it is because right now it's kind of a dumping ground. A last stop. People search around and find this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR9q_pWOn-8 and think it's a great YouTube find. But that short played festival after festival and is made by an Oscar nominee. A lot of articles have been written and a lot of outsiders I talk to say things like "Oh man, the studios are all over YouTube". Not really. The big problem with YouTube is that there's no filter, so if you want to wade through it, go for it. There's more video on there already than you can watch in a lifetime, with 35 hours of content added every minute. The other problem is that everything that's made for YouTube hits really high on the spectacle meter, but rarely do they tell a story. They have plots that resolve, but rarely tell a story. Most of it is trying to be viral, which means that it's fun to watch, but can't expand to a feature, nor is it training anybody to make one.
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Nov 19, 2010 09:06
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Nerd Of Prey posted:Hey N.E. I remembered that you asked some questions based on my first post that were worth answering, so here: Most of the questions were for you, rather than to answer them in public. That said, interesting answers! Nerd Of Prey posted:It probably came out wrong, but what I was trying to get at is that personally, speaking for myself, I would not want to produce my own film. At least, it's not my first choice. I'm not a very good producer. I'm also not that interested in writing stuff all by myself. I'm good at the visual end of things; breaking scenes down into compelling shots, imagining the finished picture and connecting the dots. I feel like if I made a total DIY project, I'd get too caught up in the stuff I'm not so great at. So, a lot of times when I do consulting gigs, what makes me come off the best, and the advice that I give they'll actually LISTEN to, is pointing out the obvious. DON'T be a producer, DON'T be a writer. I'm not sure where you're livin', but this world is FILLED with Producers and Writers. Get out there and find them! Now, the one thing I do have a problem with the producing. Look, my goal is not to be a producer. We all know how life goes and I may end up being that and I ain't got no problem with that, but that's later. BUT, the producer skill set is the one that's going to last you a lifetime. If you can produce you can GET. poo poo. DONE. And this business is about GETTING. poo poo. DONE. If you can produce, you can survive. Part of producing? Find a producer that's better than you, find a writer that's better you, knock poo poo out, keep that writer on task (they're easily distractable, I know because I am one) and get a motha fuckin' movie made. Nerd Of Prey posted:I'm not trying to talk poo poo about indie filmmakers in general. A lot of DIY indie films are totally legendary and brilliant and I love them... but then a lot of them are these really dull slice of life things, or they're really flashy exercises in technique with no real point. Like you said, movies about movies. I don't want to be that guy. This is what I mean about vanity. Obviously I want to make the coolest poo poo possible, but I'm willing to be at the mercy of a producer if it means not having to come up with my own cash. Good. You know your place. A lot of people don't. Nerd Of Prey posted:I actually have noticed. The Office tends to be very well directed. Some TV shows just have no sense of style at all, but that isn't one of them. Some of their camerawork is really creative. But have you noticed when they bring on different directors? No. Every episode of the office looks like every other episode of the office. At AFF Jason Reitman talked about directing an epsiode and they basically gave him a chart of the set and had him layout where the cameras would go. He did so and then they said, "Hey, w'eve kinda been doing it for a while, you wanna see how we'd do it?" He agreed and they did it and he said, "That was perfect!". So him guest directing meant that he's say action and cut and that was it. Nerd Of Prey posted:I've never worked with a live 3-camera setup or anything like that, and I'm not sure I'd be into it. Maybe you should practice that style. Gotta keep your options open. Chewbacca posted:Hey everyone, just chiming in as another "Film school grad living in LA and trying to make a run at the entertainment industry." I'm currently out of work due to an automotive accident (here's my first tip, wanna-be Angelinos: Don't cross Wilshire on a pedestrian right of way crosswalk with no light because LA has the worst drivers and you will get run down) and am waiting to regain control of my arm before I plunge back into the biz. I've been doing a lot of freelance PA work, so I've got some knowledge on that. I've also worked a fair amount in development and am an aspiring writer, so if anyone has any questions about the business-y, not-on-a-set side of getting films made, I might be able to answer a question or two. Mostly, this is just an excuse to network with NeuroticErotica though. You never know where that next job will come from! Were you trying to get to the food trucks at lunch? Because I know in my desire for some India Jones that I've nearly been hit. As for networking for me: What can you do for me? Would you be willing to do it for food and before February? Haha - Welcome to the biz!
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Nov 19, 2010 11:00
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Nerd Of Prey posted:Ah, I see what you're saying. Like working within an established style. I've seen guest directors on some shows that really rock the boat stylistically, and it has pissed me off, so I hear ya. The best example ever of a director leaving an impression is Abel Ferrara working on the first couple episodes of Miami Vice. He established a style and grammar that established the series and revolutionized television for years to come. Much love to Abel Ferrara that's my boy. He made dope movies and was addicted to dope but got clean. Shouts out to Abel Ferrara! Nerd Of Prey posted:Haha that sounds like easy loving money if I ever heard it... sign me up! Now I'm picturing that scene in Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back where Gus Van Sant is in a corner counting a huge stack of money and going "shhhh..." Yeah, that's that poo poo... Now all you have to do is make one of the most radically successful independent films of all time and you're in. Also, for future reference.... The entire indie community has turned against Kevin Smith. Seriously. I've never seen anybody throw away their cred like he has. gently caress that guy. gently caress him. loving gently caress him. I loving hate him. Everything he puts out there makes me hate him more. Everything he puts out on twitter. I used to love the guy. Buy all the loving T-shirts and poo poo - now, I will admit, that's before I learned how to dress myself, but still. Look up to him. Now everything he says is by a guy in an echo chamber of sycophants who think that liking him will get them to be him. Look. Cop Out is garbage. Everybody knows it. Pretending to like it won't help you none. Nerd Of Prey posted:And hey, thanks again for the response. I'm taking notes here... Good. I usually charge for this poo poo and get ignored even. Haha.
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Nov 19, 2010 11:46
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Like everything Hollywood there's no flowchart - Some people were dicks when they were unknown and then became nice people when they were famous; some people were nice and then became dicks, some people were nice and are nice, some people were dicks and are dicks. That's just personalities and as much as we'd like to think there's a rhyme or a reason there isn't. Personality often isn't attached to success.
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Nov 21, 2010 13:36
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Kung Fu Jesus posted:Is everyone a pot head or coke fiend? I'm so cynical that I imagine all these clean-cut images we have of people are completely wrong and they are all actually like Lindsay Lohan, but we just don't hear about it. Not at all, there's all types. I'd say that alcoholism runs exceptionally high, esp in indie film, but I haven't seen that much coke use and the pot use is not unusual. Most of the time if people are using they're not out in the open about it. Peacebone posted:What do you suggest for someone who aspires to be an editor? I'm in New Orleans right now finishing up school and while Louisiana is getting a lot of films shot out here recently because of tax incentives, do you think it's wise to stick around here for a bit or move out to L.A. after college. I realize networking is key so I'm trying as much as I can to get involved in working on shoots here to gain more experience/meet more people. Being an editor is exceptionally hard right now because with FCP everybody thinks they can do it. It used to be once a week there'd be an Ask/Tell thread where somebody'd say "Y'know, I don't know too much about movies, but I sure think I could edit them!" and then I'd have to school them on how ridiculously complicated and difficult it is. That said, you've actually gone to school for it, you get it, I was just ranting. Here's the big question for you - are you able to get on these shoots IN THE DEPARTMENT YOU WANT? That's key. If you're PA'ing/Crafty/Etc. it's not going to be worth your time. Most places shoot to get tax incentives, but post back in LA - there's no incentive for you to post anywhere but here, and all of the post houses are back here. The biggest difficulty in being an editor is being a film editor - most editors these days are working reality, because of the sheer volume of footage they shoot and the manic nature of it, you can be a less-than-great editor and be fine on it. That's all non-union anyways. What's great about the editor's union is that they let you work non-union, AND, if you're active for 15 years, you get benefits for life. A friend of mine from school got onto Tree of Life with Malick in his editorial dept. She worked the job for like two years ingesting footage, etc. and moved her way up the ladder (His editorial, unsurprisingly gets tired of the job after some time) and she's a member of the union.... at 22. She's signed on to the next one and is already making more days. At this pace she'll probably be the most successful out of all of us barring a break out indie hit. My advice - get in somewhere, work your rear end off, know more than anybody. People think that being an editor is a lot of shot a vs shot b, but there's so much more to it. If you can be good at making HD Masters, dealing with edl files, making sure gamma levels don't change on output, Color flows, etc. The real nitty-gritty technical what-are-you-even-talking-about bullshit then you'll be valuable. Get a deliverables list - look at what it takes to deliver a film to Theatrical - both film and digital, to VOD, to Streaming, to iTunes, to Netflix and you'll be in a good place. Be the man that can get them to the money and you'll be eating. sursumdeorsum posted:People always speak about Michael Bay and James Cameron as if they are tyrannical, but no one can ever give any examples of their behavior. The only real gripe Ive heard was from Kate Winslet whom complained about the cold water during filming Titanic. For Cameron it's that he demands perfection and he demands it right away because he's done your job and he's done it better than you've ever done it. You know how you imagine a project in your head and when you realize it it look different? That doesn't happen for Cameron - what he sees in his head gets made. Period. That's difficult for everybody else to handle since they can't see in there. Cameron's a workaholic who demands the same. He doesn't get that end-of-the-day-I-Just-wanna-go-home-and-drink-a-beer feeling 12 hours in. It's not that he's an rear end in a top hat, it's that he's demanding and tough-but-fair. He's disciplined and doesn't retreat. You'll slip up, and he'll call you on it.
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Nov 22, 2010 00:23
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InfiniteZero posted:I have but only in a way that implies mentorship -- so it seems odd for somebody who probably wasn't even born back when he was doing stuff like writing for Miami Vice to refer to him as "my boy". I just had a big ol' post eaten up by the internet, but lemme get to this one... Go listen to an Abel Ferrara commentary. You can thank me later.
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Nov 22, 2010 19:05
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Doing this a second time because I lost my last one :/Schweinhund posted:Are there any directors today who just shoot in the Hitchcock style where everything is story-boarded and they only shoot the exact shots they need? Rather than shooting everything from 10 angles then choosing the best angles when editing (as I understand it's generally done but could be wrong). (Not sure how that fits into "business", but the "editing is easy" discussion made me wonder about it) Certainly. There's as many styles as there is people out there. It's mostly old-school guys and film shooters that storyboard things out, and younger digi filmmakers that shoot everything and edit later, which can be wasteful. M. Night Shyamalan has everything mapped out before he shoots, and shoots in sequence (Meaning that instead of shooting all the scenes in one location at a time, he shoots each scene in the order that it happens in the movie. It can be wasteful, but can really help performances). mojo1701a posted:Would knowing Avid put you a step above the "Hey, I can cut using Final Cut!" people? I've edited quite a bit on FCP, and I have access to Avid, and I was wondering if I should take the plunge. I had a very successful partnership with a friend who directed a student short that kept singing my praises because I edited his movie on a tight deadline (his original editor took off early and as a rough cut left him a low-res mp4 file that he was somehow expected to continue editing for him. Long story short: they were best friends, but since then they haven't even seen each other). I edited it on FCP because our school had (at the time) limited Avid computers so I didn't learn how to do it. I actually ended up editing TWO shorts while the other editors for the fourth-year projects were working on just one each while having at least two weeks to work. Lemme put it to you this way - if you own a ball club and you have the opportunity to hire a pitcher who has a curveball or one that has a curveball AND a slider, you're more likely to hire the guy who has more tools. I like Avid editors a lot and miss working with it - an editor who's trained on an Avid is much more precise and thoughtful - Avid doesn't let you just throw 100 clips into the timeline, poke 'em around and hope that you get a movie out of it. With Avid every edit is a decision. There's a reason why this shot leads to that shot at that time. There's not "Well this just happened this way", which is absolute bullshit and if you edit that way, can you please just stop? Also, while being fast is nice, your circumstances were not theres. Every project is different. mojo1701a posted:One more question: I'm putting together a demo reel so that I can get a job doing editing in Toronto (I have no money at all to move to the States right now, let alone L.A.), and I was wondering if, considering I have limited professional/serious work, how wrong would it be for me to mention that I do side-projects for fun like most of the ones on my Youtube channel here? I'm not including them in my reel (well, except for that lighting project, since that's a legitimate video that I also did lighting on), but I was wondering if it's sort of a scale, where smaller places will consider it, or if there's a whole "you don't own it, so don't use it" thing? I ask because as an editor, you have limited footage to work with, unlike a cinematographer that can shoot stuff for themselves. There's no "official" scale, but take a look at these things - are they that impressive? (This isn't me being condescending, this is me giving you the thought process) Is this something that people would say - hey, I gotta hire this guy? Also, real quick, why are you pointing out that you lit that project? Unless you're working at some small place that's going to have you be their bitch and do everything, editors don't need to light. So if that's your reason for putting it in (I didn't watch it, so it could be dope I don't know) then you need to reconsider. As for "nothing you don't own" - no DP has cleared the indie-rock song that they use on their reels, so I wouldn't worry about it. Worry about the quality of the work. And there's always something to edit. It may not be a stellar project, and it may not pay, but there's always somebody who needs something cut. Steadiman posted:I also work in the film industry, and have been in it for longer than I can remember, so maybe I could also contribute some answers from a crew perspective, if that's okay with the OP? C'mon in, I'm saving the politics and elitism for when I go into work (I'm kidding, I swear). Steadiman posted:I find that directors coming from an editing background are very good at shooting only what they need, since they tend to have an incredibly good idea about how it's all going to cut together even while you're still shooting. Funny, I've known a number who came from editorial who are more prone to overshoot because they want more options - like it's them making up for all the times they were given poo poo to work with. As always, everything's always different. Editing in your head is tough and very few can do it (compared to the number who THINK they can!) WebDog posted:Network Everybdoy I know who's gotten a job using social media (me included) has gotten it through facebook or twitter. Everybody has a LinkedIn, but they just approve connections and that's about it. I don't know anybody who uses it seriously. When we need somebody it's much easier to go to facebook or put out a query on twitter - why? Because, as does everybody, we'd like to either work with friends or have people volunteer for the job. Your milage may vary, of course. Barometer posted:Edit; Also I am patiently waiting for my gossip! Oh poo poo, forgot about that. The craziest thing I've ever seen - well, when I was working for the my old boss he had me pick him up at his house, which was an hour and a half outside of LA, drive him back into the city where we went to a goth book store where there was a girly magazine signing. I'd just kinda follow him around while he harassed the girls and talked to the camera and stuff, whatever. So he's there and he's kinda creepy and he starts hitting on this one girl... and she starts to respond to it. He was 70 at the time... she was 30. They hit it off and the rest of the day I'm driving all of us around while they're... canoodling. The day ended with me shooting them dancing in an empty apartment, she'd changed into a latex see-through dress and then they started dry humping on the floor and it was really gross and I just wanted to be out of there and the money really wasn't worth it. That was the worst Valentine's Day I've ever had. InfiniteZero posted:I feel much better now. I didn't think you'd mess with a man like Abel. Definitely not. I'm surprise that he's never punched Herzog for remaking Bad Lt. In need of tissue posted:What is the best way to get into the film industry? Work on sets and try and work your way up? How do you get in touch with the people to work on their set? Or get your own films moving and submit them to festivals etc.? This is so vague I can't even begin to answer it. First thing's first - What do you want to do? Now, DO YOU REALLY, REALLY WANT TO DO IT? Are you willing to be poor? Are you willing to be unable to see a doctor? Are you willing to sacrifice personal relationships for it? Are you willing to let it consume you completely? No, don't just loving blindly say yes to the questions without thinking - Look them over very carefully and think about them for a while. What do you want out of life? Do you want to get married? Do you want children? Do you want to own a house? There are few people who can pull these things off while in this business - more importantly if you compare yourself to those people you went to high school/college with, people with poo poo jobs and poo poo majors and are dumb as poo poo will have all of these things before you, while you seem like you're just spinning your wheels and engaging in some misguided wanderlust. Are you ok with this? No, don't just say yes. Think about it. Really, really think about it. If you're not willing to give everything up for this, you're not only wasting your time, but, more importantly, you're wasting mine and everybody around you's time. That isn't fair. As for getting in - there's a million ways. Getting in isn't the problem, it's staying in. That's tricky. Anybody can grab a paycheck or two when a shoot come to town, but surviving, that's tough. You can get in as an intern on set, working for free in the department of your choosing. You can get an office job at a studio or production company. You can join the teamsters. You can be rich and finance a film - I mean "invest". You can just start writing scripts and get them to agents. You can start acting in student projects and build up a reel to shot to casting directors. You can rescore your favorite movies and use them as example... Without knowing what you want to do I can't really help you out. As for getting a project off the ground - it depends on the level of production that you want to do. A run and gun thing can be done with you and your friends on a saturday afternoon. Other things you're going to need to bring on other gung-ho people who think that you have something to offer to the "filmic conversation" and want their own portfolios padded. You come together, get some money together and a couple weekends and hey, maybe you'll have something. I met most of my people through a number of ways - 1.) Film School - going through it, you know who's good and who isn't. Who is in it for the long haul and who wants to be famous for doing nothing. You find the good people, you be good yourself, and maybe things will work out. Not always, though. It kills me to see some of the best from my school absolutely stuck in life and in their careers, just going nowhere. They could have been great, but life gets in the way. If you want to make it, you have to be better than that. 2.) Film Festivals - I've spent a long, long, long time on the festival circuit. And it's amazing how I've changed over the years. I remember doing my first major one, I was walking down the street and I bumped into a friend of mine, he asked where I was going - I told him that there was a movie that was going to start in a half hour that I was curious about. He grabbed my arm and simply said, "The party is this way". He then taught me everything I know about networking. Thank God he did that. Festivals are where I've met my heroes (Ranging from Danny Boyle to Jim Jarmusch to RZA), where I met my current employer, where I met interesting filmmakers that I always look to see what they're doing, to where I've met the people producing my current project, where I've made friends-for-life, where I've done stories I just can't repeat here, where I've drank my body weight in Stella over the course of a night, where I've gotten into a physical fight, to so many things. It's been quite a ride and I'm still perfecting it. But how have things changed? My first year at SXSW I was there for the entire thing and saw 27 movies. This past year I was there for 8 days and saw 7. At a film festival you meet people who are active in doing things (usually) and eager to make some movies. It's where new and interesting films and ideas enter our marketplace, it's a place where people are looking for young (or new) talent with fresh takes on things. Be that person. Be creative, have good ideas, but be willing to fetch coffee, air up tires, clean up the parking lot, whatever else you can do to help out. The more positive you are, the more people will want to work with you. 3.) Movie screenings - movie people like to go see movies. And they like to go see them first and exclusively and in a clique. In Austin, the Alamo Drafthouse attracts the moviemaker set like nothing else. Same with the Cinefamily, New Bev, DGA, etc. in LA. Where's the cool place to see movies in your hometown? Go there. Hang out after the screenings, talk to strangers - you've both just seen a movie - you have something to talk about! Be upfront with what you want to do - you'll find somebody who's got something going on, and if you're willing to talk about what really gets you amped off the anthem for some sequence in some obscure Korean film, somebody's going to think you're valuable to have aboard. Rogetz posted:Tacking on to this, how do I set myself apart as a camera man when everyone and their mother owns a video camera and is competing for the same low-level jobs? I can't afford my own equipment beyond the basic stuff that I have, especially now that everyone's expecting you to be a one-man band. I've got feature credit but not on anything that anyone's heard of or going to hear of, how can I leverage that when I still don't know anyone? Camera department may be the most difficult place to break in. Not because so many people shoot on their HD Flips or whatever - it's because there's so few people that are actually good at it. If you're good you'll get work. I have a friend who flies all over the globe to shoot in places that I've never even heard of and makes insane money doing it. How did he get there? He shot his rear end off, he gripped on everything, he gaffed, etc. Work on everything camera dept./lighting you can. Be good at it. Also as a shooter, learn to light. A DP isn't the guy who operates the camera and exposes, it's the guy who figures out how we're going to light it, how we're going to make it look good, how it's going to fit the story/mood, etc. A lot of people want to be DPs until they learn that. Some DPs never touch the camera. So, get $50 worth of lights from home depot and learn how they work. How do they affect color? For me, I never understood how lighting worked until it just clicked and I "got it". Some people in the industry (Jason Reitman, for example) still don't understand it - but they employ people who do. How do you make a scene more contrasty? How do you make it dark while still being able to see and read the action? How do you make an actress look better than she does in person? Work on things like that. Put together a reel.
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Nov 23, 2010 03:27
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Mozzie posted:Edit: thankfully years later we all can laugh about how all those red owners are now struggling to peddle their piece of poo poo camera packages and with the deliverance of Alexa, the camera rental industry is recovering from all the undercutting. AccountSupervisor posted:Do you think the Scarlet or Epic are going to make you stop laughing? I hate camera lust. It's cart before the horse and people who get into it fight and fight and fight over nothing. That said... WebDog posted:Currently a trend is to shoot on DSLR cameras that film 1080p, the main advantage is a cheap camera that allows for interchangeable lens.** This is the worst trend. I'm not a fan of shooting on DSLRs, even though the stuff that I used them on came out ok. You really can't move the things without them freaking out, the moire everything, and having what looks to be Dad's old Minolta - no matter how many attachments you have to it - makes it look like it's not a real production - which is the worst aspect of them. I wonder how many people would be so gung-ho if it was a 3rd party hack that made these things shoot this way instead of it being the companies themselves hacking them and reverse engineering them for the job, instead of building it from the camera up. Screening post these things is the worst, I've seen so many serious features and shorts that end up looking like Based God videos. In need of tissue posted:It seems like festivals are a great place to network. The past two years I have done the 48hour festival. I am in the process of writing a short film that I to make and intend to submit to festivals. I am very interested in directing(along with everyone else) but I am also interested in the camera aspect too. Yeah, just pick your festivals carefully - the 48hour festival isn't really a festival, it's a contest. It's good for people learning how the form works and whatnot, but it's less than likely you'll meet people above your general skill level. As for East Hollywood - hot spots. They'll change. As for going back in time... would I write my response again? I guess. Didn't take that long. Live this whole life? It's been working out for me so far, but I can't tell you how many people I've seen crash and burn out of it and are now waiters far away from here. It's gotten ugly at times. But I've survived. Things look, well, as ok as they ever get. I've got some projects moving forward, we'll see... It's worked for me. But this is all I can do. I can't change your oil, you'd hate for me to bring you eggs in the morning, and programming a computer is out of the question. This is me, and there's nothing that I can do about it. Rogetz posted:This is all great information. Guess I'll have to start cranking out shorts. Thanks again for this thread and everyone contributing. Think 'em through, don't make 'em boring, and make them short. When you get to a place to where you think you couldn't possibly cut anything out of it you should probably cut 2-6 minutes out of it. Captain Geech posted:This has been a helpful and entertaining thread thus far, N.E., so thanks for that. Glad to... help? Am I helping? Good lord. The thread that I've been trying to establish with this whole thing, and maybe I'm not coming through on this, is that there is no linear, algebraic way into this whole game. I can't tell you to go to X place at Y time and meet Z person who will declare you a genius and the new Robert Towne and roll out the red carpet to walk you down to where you sign your 3-picture multimillion dollar deal. You can do everything right and still fail at this. That said 1.) Have a loving script or five when you get out here. I can't tell you how many "writers" have no scripts to their name, not a short. They're hoping to get commissioned to a project. Based on what, who knows. 2.) The scripts need to be amazing. Amazing. GOOD IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH lemme say that again, GOOD IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH - even if your project is ultra-low budget, you basically have to ask people to put years of their lives, time away from their loved ones, effort, energy and millions of dollars into your project. Is your script something worthy of that? And don't give me the ol' "well, Hollywood makes dozens of lousy pictures a year, so my script doesn't have to be much better" bullshit that bad and (worse) lazy writers spew. Their circumstances are not your circumstances. 3.) Give us a script that has some commercial potential. Now, I know this is me Mr. Gush-over-every-inaccessable-Sundance-film-ever-made, but I'm serious. Right now the films I love are getting slaughtered and aren't getting made anymore. It really sucks. Go for something that can get made. You can still put the themes and storylines you want, but just make it so that it has a somewhat ok chance of making it's money back. 4.) Don't make us pay for your therapy. I can't tell you how many scripts about Daddy issues that I see. They're all whiny and don't really go anywhere. I'm supposed to relate but, I'm cool with my Dad and the character is an unlikable version of the writer and it's all gunk. Not to poo poo over your artistic vision or anything, but there's ways of making art that people will still go to see at a multiplex on a date. I swear. So, life is hard for an unrepresented writer - why? Because so many of the scripts you see from people who do have representation are so awful that you simply must be worse. Try to get one. Yes, it's very difficult. Nothing is going to be easy in this process. In the mean time, there's a lot of organizations for writers - Quiet spaces for them (that you pay for), meetings, writer meet-ups, you're going to meet a lot of people who are enamored with the process of writing but don't actually do it. It's weird. A lot of writers are in love with the idea of being writers, but never take the baby steps off the ledge into actually acting upon it. Actually that describes a lot of people in a lot of fields out here. You're going to have to separate who you like to hang out with versus who is actually good at what they do and so on and so on. And of course, you want to meet people OTHER than writers so that you can get other places. Go to the film events, go to the meet ups and such. A whole loving lot of them are really loving lame and everybody there is a loser who will never do anything ever. Your time is going to be wasted a lot of times. But, you're learning what's good, what's working, what's not, where to go, where not, and getting an idea of the lay of the land and where you should be headed... hopefully. Meet people in all walks of life, be cool, keep in touch and maybe it'll work out. In the meantime, don't be that rear end in a top hat who doesn't enjoy themselves. LA is a fun town. Go out, party, meet girls, make bad decisions, drink until you black out and see who friends you on facebook in the morning, do drugs, be bad, miss home, throw up somewhere unusual, be secretive, find your way into the extremely sketchy afterhours downtown, freak out, have a blast, go somewhere that requires a password. That's what this town is for.
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Nov 24, 2010 06:08
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Fonzarelli posted:Hahah oh man, as somebody who's doing a digital multimedia degree right now, absolutely hoping to get into the entertainment industry, this thread is terrifying and disheartening. Welcome to my world.
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Nov 24, 2010 09:40
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AccountSupervisor posted:Oh and I want to point this out to everybody Yeah, it's kind of a bad deal, and more importantly, I doubt it'll go anywhere. First things first they've got NO idea how many scripts are going to pour in from the Mid-west that have basically NO idea how to put a movie together. A lot of "here's some cool poo poo that happens". Then some misguided actual screenwriters are going to send in... It's going to be a deluge. But here's the worst part - if you submit, you're giving up your script for 18 months and anybody can rewrite it. 18 months is a long loving time. It takes long enough to write a script, but once you do you have an asset that you can (possibly) make money with. To give that away for a year and a half with no money is loving insane... Look, I could write a big thing on it like I've written a big thing on everything else in this thread, but lemme just direct you to John August who's written extensively about it... http://johnaugust.com/archives/2010/on-the-amazon-film-thing http://johnaugust.com/archives/2010/the-amazon-film-thing-ctd http://johnaugust.com/archives/2010/amazon-studios-round-three On the last one he points out that they already have 1000 scripts. That's a lot to get buried under from the get go. Every time something like this starts up people say "Oh, the NEW way movies are getting made!" but extremely rarely do these things produce a movie and I'm not sure one has ever put out a good movie. The lesson: Hollywood is good at making movies, they know what they're doing. People on the outside usually have no idea how hard this poo poo is. ToastyPotato posted:This is what I was thinking. It sounds like a nice way for studios to get some cheap scripts by having someone else do a lot of the work, and then the original writers get nothing near what they would have gotten had they gone the normal route. I guess perhaps its not bad if you just throw scripts out there that you don't care about in the hopes of winning some cash though? If you don't care about a script why should anybody else?
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Nov 24, 2010 22:41
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Adrianics posted:This may sound like a slightly bizarre and out-there question, but do any of you guys have experience with child actors? I've actually got a ton of work with child actors. Every time I swear I'm not going to do it ever again and then I'm writing and there's some kids. It's a mixed bag. Some kids are smart, and ready to work. Some are ADD. Some don't want to be actors and it's all their parent's pushing them. That's kind of sad. But what's nice about that is that you can get the kid to do ANYTHING and the parents are cool with it. We improvised on set for one thing to where a 5-year-old girl would be testing cocaine. The parents loved it. I wasn't used to real show parents, just borrowing kids in the past so it was cool to not have to hide anything from them. I'll say this - usually working with a child actor is terrible. For the adults. They're tough to manage and I'm so glad I can give them back at the end of the day. the balloon hoax posted:e: Having said that, if you know any irate c-list directors looking for a gofer slave, I'll fly myself out. As long as I can steal some of the catering. I like this. I might hit you up when I get my shoot dates. Mozzie posted:I like my idea of my penis being used to paint highway lines but it ain't gonna happen nor is it anything like you'd imagine. You LIKE that idea? AccountSupervisor posted:Any screenwriter who is actually submitting work they REALLY care about to it is a loving moron anyways. And that's why they'll fail. If they're working with d-grade material that not even the writer cares about, then why should I care as a watcher? It's starting off on a bad foot already... AccountSupervisor posted:Its a new idea and there are problems(the rewriting thing is just RETARDED) but I dont think its initial idea of using the internet as a type of farm system is crazy or cant ever possibly work. Times change, Hollywood has failed before and the internet is a whole new beast that has great potential. Stop being so attached to the old ways and open your mind a bit. Yes, the old ways work, they have forever and they work for a reason. But the knee jerk reaction "this is threatening" industry professionals have to this poo poo really gets to me. I love the old ways, I want to be an industry professional and Im putting in the effort to do it how its usually done, but that doesnt mean Im not interested in new ideas like this. You can find people on the internet no doubt, but the internet is really bad at collaborating, focusing, keeping attention and follow through. AccountSupervisor posted:II agree mostly with what you are saying NE, but I think as somebody who says things like "movies I like arent getting made anymore and it sucks" would be open to new ideas like this. There are also a lot of industry people involved in this so I dont know where you are getting the idea that Hollywood has nothing to do with this. I'm open to new blood coming into the system and new systems coming into place, but you have to go into the right way. They did like everybody else - the put the press release out there about how they're going to change the face of film before they even opened their offices. It's a good idea, I think they have no idea how they're going to do it. AccountSupervisor posted:edit: Im reading further on it and the details are reaaaaaaaallllyyyyy stupid but I still stand by that the initial idea is cool The devil's in the details.
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Nov 25, 2010 01:55
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Popelmon posted:Hah, awesome thread. I have a few questions myself: The Red camera shoots a really, really detailed image, more than the digital cameras before it. It's ok. It's made by the guy who founded Oakley, so the hype thing translated over. I remember how ridiculous it was. "So a red image is 4x better than 35mm - to prove this we will put it side-by-side with a shot of 16mm." People were fanatical about the camera before it was even out... People getting sucked in by hype. People would get it and not get decent lenses and stuff... The first days of the Red were crazy. People were itching to shoot and didn't have any decent scripts. Red's come into it's own, Social Network was shot on it and looked really nice. I think the best shot-on-Red film is Antichrist, myself. Bottom line - it's ok. The workflow's nice, they've fixed most of the problems that the early ones had and they're going to put a new one out soon supposedly. The Red hype got to be ridiculous because a lot of people care too much about what kind of camera something's shot on. People forgot that the camera needs to fit the movie, not the other way around. Popelmon posted:2. Me beeing an european (german), I wonder if there is any overlap with "our" work and yours. maybe not only european but non-US in general. Do they use american editing/SFX/whatever compamies? Are they poaching for US actors for their productions? How are foreign actors "injected" into the system? It's kind the other way around. For VFX there's a lot of people outsourcing the work to Mexico and whatnot. It's kinda crazy. They work cheap though. As for overlap with European movies... sort of? American movie stars are pretty much THE movie stars. Few places have movie stars that still have star power outside of their own borders. I'm sure some back and forth goes on with post houses and whatnot, but I imagine most of that is in-country or at least in-continent. Popelmon posted:3. Are big award shows a big factor in getting jobs? Are peoplemplaying it safe and are only people they know when they know they might be considered for an award of some kind? Or to make it easier to answer, are there fluctuations in available jobs for (relative) newbies trough the year corresponding to awards/important festivals/etc? I'm not really sure what you're saying here... For newcomers Awards aren't even considered, really. If a production is trying to win an Oscar, they're not going to hire a rookie to direct it. Popelmon posted:4. I might do my masters degree/phd in LA, is there any way to get a small job somewhere near the set (not cattle prodding extras, I want to see what's going on at the set) just to see how everything works? I have zero intention to work in this industry, but I am a huge movie nerd and I want so see how they are done. But I also don't want to take possible chances from people who could use a job like that to advance their careers. Cattle prodding extras is generally the work of the 2nd 2nd AD, so you won't even be in the running for it. You can get a job as a PA, which means you're mostly a runner. It'd be hard to get on a huge shoot like Transformers 3 or whatever, but you could probably get on some indie if you kept trying at it or were willing to work for free.
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Nov 26, 2010 09:55
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Timby posted:Steadiman, are you at all familiar with the Red Epic? I only ask because apparently Peter Jackson will be shooting the two Hobbit movies on them, and has ordered thirty of them for the production. Is the Epic just a different kind of hardware on the same heavy rig? Ordering 30 tells me they are completely unreliable.
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Nov 29, 2010 00:26
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Steadiman posted:Edit: I'm sorry NE, I feel like this is slowly turning into another RED thread. Didn't mean to help derail this into a camera thread. It happens. Red is a curiosity, still, for a lot of people. It was bound to come up, esp. with the Peter Jackson connection. Steadiman posted:Edit edit: while I'm here, may as well ask a question myself. I'm trying to expand my market into the whole web 2.0 scene but I'm just not hip enough to fully use it all, I have a Twitter (though I haven't used it much lately), Facebook profile, several Steadicam and crew sites profiles, and a LinkedIn profile with several recommendations on it. Are there any other avenues I could be exploring to expand my network? Cause so far I haven't really had much return for the effort, which has led me to kind of give up on updating all that crap. Is it worth it? Twitter and Facebook have been great for me, but I stay on that poo poo. LinkedIn doesn't really work for me, I keep it somewhat up to date, but I don't know anybody who really goes on there looking for people - not in this field anyways. Magic Hate Ball posted:Weavers Rock I, uh, oh my... Xealot posted:If you're dealing in 100's of hours of footage, I feel like sending out 35mm to a lab or 4k to a processing bank doesn't make much practical difference. Am I wrong? Because I'm very curious about this. Post on a Red isn't that bad, and I definitely prefer it to the workflow of dealing with a HDSLR. Performance-wise Redcode is decent, although, I hear some things about it not rendering too well, but that I'm not too sure on. Either way, between Redcode or converting to Prores, a Red is definitely editable on a consumer Mac with FCS, I've done it on the mac I'm posting this on. NeuroticErotica fucked around with this message at 21:18 on Nov 29, 2010 |
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Nov 29, 2010 21:14
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Popelmon posted:Hahaha oh sit, sorry about this huge RED derail Nah, I'm good with the Red derail - it's what people want to know about. Informing people about the various pros/cons of the new cameras plus their ins/outs is fine. The page after page posting charts, false equivalencies, yelling, outrage over nothing gets just frustrating. Then it gets into film vs. video with people who will never shoot anything and it's just... ughhhhhhhhh.... The 5DmkII was used on the season finale of House last year... and not since. Which I think is telling. I think the HDSLR crowd is more annoying than the Red crowd. The Red crowd at least is pretty good with the ideas of resolution and whatnot... The HDSLR crowd is more of an outsider trying to come in and rearrange the world sort of thing... It doesn't quite work. I read an article a couple of months where I guy claimed "The Mass Exodus from from Final Cut Pro to Premiere 6 has begun" - why? FCP won't handle the AVCHD files that HDSLRs shoot to, so it must be useless! I think HDSLRs are fine for practice and shorts and stuff, learning, etc. I wouldn't shoot a feature on them. We were budgeting a project and somebody brought up using one as a cost saving measure. I drew a line in the sand. They're not ready for the main event, so to speak. I've shot on one and the moire problem is loving ridiculous. I think a lot of people would be remiss to use these things if it was a third party hack instead of the manufacturer hacking them to work this way. What do you mean the separation from indy/amatuer stuff to professional? In terms of equipment? First things first - a lot of indy people ARE professionals. This is how we make our livings. Indies have often been able to use the same equipment as big-budget studio crews, but with smaller crews or smaller actors or pulling a poo poo-ton of favors, etc. I can make a list of indie features shot on the Red - which was also used in Antichrist (Best red photography if you ask me) and The Social Network. Sometimes we get cranes and A-list actors, all sorts of stuff happens. But some indies have bigger budgets - technically Terminator: Salvation is the biggest indie film of all time. Indie kinda doesn't mean much as a word anymore. The biggest difference from 5 years ago is the barriers to entry. Red and HDSLRs and Mini-DV and the HVX, etc. have all been praised as "saviors of indie cinema" and creating the "digital revolution" and making it so anybody can make a film. The problem? Anybody can now make a film. So what happens - the opposite of the desired effect. The barriers to entry are higher than they've ever been. In 2009 there was an estimated 50,000 films made. I don't have newer numbers but in 2008 there were 9,293 films submitted to Sundance, 218 were screened at the festival, and seven were picked up for any sort of meaningful distribution. VOD is now making it so that more films get picked up, but currently the model is you spend $3M on a film and get $40,000 back on it. So, the harsh reality is that with technology being so ever present you get people like this attracted to the idea of movies and then harshly and unapologetically rejected. It's a cruel bait-and-switch going on. You're welcomed in, only to get kicked out. So I'd like to tell you there's hope on the horizon for the amateur filmmaker loving around on the weekends with a T2i who wants to cut together the 1/3 of shots of his that are actually in focus and make something, but I really can't. Who will survive in America? Who will survive in America? Who will survive in America? Who will survive in America?
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Nov 30, 2010 02:49
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Bozz posted:I guess my question would be, is it such a hotly contested field that you still do all of those things knowing full well that after years of struggling, spending all of your savings, and calling in all favors, you still may not get a project or even a check to cover rent? Are you that in love with the art that you're willing to sleep on couches and eat ramen for years? I know a lot of friends who are in healthy, loving relationships and are starting to have children. They have things that I don't even dream about, like a retirement fund and health insurance. I look at them and feel sorry for them. Look, this is all I can do. Period. It's like asking a junkie to relax with some camomile tea - it ain't gonna work for them. This is what I understand and what I know. This is where I fit. Look, as I have said time and time and time and time again - you have to properly asses yourself, your goals, your aspirations and evaluate them versus this career. A lot of the time trying to maintain a normal life is the main driving factor for people to get out of the business. Usually if a woman gets pregnant she's done. Like seriously, that's it, no matter what job she does. There's members of my family that I was close to that I haven't seen in years. Nothing against them. Just how it goes. However, what's important is I am not you and my feelings are not yours - I can't make judgement calls you, nor do I ask to. If I had to, I'd send you to go be a dental hygenist where you can make lots of money and be married to a very, very hot dentist. I can't tell you how many people I've said who have answered my questions that "yes, they definitely want to do this" only to quit the game. Some as quickly as 3-6 months. The year marker kills a lot of people. They can't wait for their lease to be up to get out. It's tough, it's difficult and it's not something I wish upon my enemies. As for me, I've never even considered giving up in the slightest. If you are having any doubts which you are, take some time out and really consider where you want to be in life 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50 years from now. What do you want to achieve? Knock off the loving EGOT dreams and be realistic. Would you be ok as a guy who pulls focus for a living? Would you be ok as a guy who loving has to fight tooth and nail despite having 20 features under his belt to get jobs pulling focus? Are you willing to NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER have steady work? Are you willing to work 18 hours a day for weeks? It's a rough industry. It's not for everybody - that's what they say. But they fail to mention how few it's actually for. G.Rainmaker posted:But in terms of making your own poo poo and making a living off it? It's in the same boat as a musician or a writer. The vast vast majority of anyone who works in the arts will not be able to sustain themselves. It is the lucky and extremely talented few that can, unless you keep your goals small. Personally, my pipe-dream is to have my own production company that specializes in low-budget DTV genre films. I would love to make the next Pulp Fiction but I'm realistic. I believe fully in myself that I can make the next Wrong Turn 2 Which is also a word of caution - Wrong Turn 2, et al is not Joe Lynch's primary form of income. Rogetz posted:Don't apologize. Seriously. Gets you nowhere in this business. I stopped apologizing for who I am a long time ago. Darko posted:So, who likes working on television more than film? (just as a perspective post to show the difference in practice between the two for aspiring film industry people). As somebody who has been in talks with several TV networks over the past six months.... Fuuuuuuuuuccccckkkkkk TV. gently caress it hard. It's even more political than the film biz. Arkane posted:I'd actually say that movies are so profitable that we have probably TOO MANY movies coming out - the sheer number of releases is why tent pole release dates are staked out months and years in advance (with good movies being sometimes crowded out of the marketplace, i.e. Scott Pilgrim). Yeah, that's a problem we face in the indies... Essentially we're the extras, the niches, the specialty products, trying to fit our stuff in with the rest... In a market that holds 400... but really holds 250... Arkane posted:On that note, responding to an earlier point, I don't think Scott Pilgrim underperforming had anything to do with 'the piracy demo' and had everything to do with release date, advertising, and the fact that everyone is Michael Cera'd out. The movie was amazing, and I am sure it'll go into the black for the producers within a couple of years. Hahahaha. Scott Pilgrim did worse overseas than it did here. The investors have a nice tax write-off and that's about it. I'm not going to touch on the "amazing" and "quality" issues here... but, suffice it to say... you're in the vocal minority on the film. Arkane posted:I actually don't think piracy has had much of an effect on the movie industry; if anything it makes movies more accessible and helps drive hype for sequels. It has led to distributors moving the foreign release dates up (in some rare cases, before the US release date), which is a great move with a similar boost in foreign sales. Contrasted with listening to an mp3, seeing a movie is a social event and piracy doesn't alter that. DVD sales are off because consumers have a constant barrage of new movies coming at them and fail to see the point of BUYING a DVD they'll watch once, if that. Let alone in a bad economy. Let alone when they can get it from Netflix or stream it. I have a crapload of DVDs and its basically expensive furniture. Hoo boy. I knew this was coming. The piracy debate. Let's just put this out here - Watching a movie, without paying for it, is wrong. It is. Yes, watching at a friend's house or whatever minor thing is fine, whatever. But if you're watching it on TV, somebody paid for it. Somebody paid the cable bill that paid for the network to buy the rights to show it, etc. So lemme break it down, piece by piece - One. Piracy is hurting the film industry. Period. There's no two ways about it. While we create quote-unquote "art", everything the film industry is a commercial product. Even Trash Humpers. Even The Cremaster Cycle. Every film has it's price and it has to meet it's price. If it doesn't, people lose their jobs, investors lose their money and less movies get made. The backers of Scott Pilgrim, despite a rabid online fanbase, are not likely to finance another feature film, especially that relates to that one. Two "[Piracy] makes movies more accessible" - which is not what we want. The ideal is that you make a movie and people pay to see it. Then you make your money back, enough to live, and enough to make another film. Then you make another movie. Making it more accessible removes the incentive for people to make money and makes it a hobby and not a job. If you want to see movies that are made as hobby go to YouTube. If you want to see what the professionals do, please allow them to be professionals. Three "[Piracy] helps drive hype for sequels" - which is a flawed argument to say the least - Hype doesn't drive sequels. If it did Snakes on a Plane would've spawned 18 sequels before it was even released. Hype goes one way - from the industry to the consumer. It doesn't matter how long the thread on Scott Pilgrim is, if the movie didn't make money, it doesn't get a sequel. There are rare, rare, rare, rare exceptions to this rule, but those are oddball one-in-a-billion-things. And odds are those sequels didn't make money either. Four "[Piracy] has led to distributors moving the foreign release dates up (in some rare cases, before the US release date), which is a great move with a similar boost in foreign sales" - Foreign distribution is a complex and complicated issue, but it basically boils down to most of the time, even if it says Universal in the US and Universal overseas... it's different companies handling the release. Foreign release dates are much like US release dates - it's a (somewhat educated) guess at when the movie would do the best. Like Fantasy Football, it's all about matchups - if I have an OK receiver against a weak secondary, I'll do fine. If I have an OK movie against lame films, I'll do alright. But if I have to start that same Ok receiver against the Jets secondary due to outside reasons, let's say I'm not going to be happy about it and my production will be down. Consumers are backing down from the DVD - they used to champion it as a collector's item, etc. but their values have changed. Even before the economy did. The industry is adapting to it, with streaming, VOD. But these things take time and the infrastructure is not there to say the least. If you don't want to buy a DVD - rent it. Stream it. Do the right thing. Pirating it helps nobody. You go on to cite the cases of Wolverine and Attack of the Clones. No leak was going to hurt Attack of the Clones, it was an event and nerds were going to gather in droves for it. Wolverine is a broad film with wide appeal, with a huge actor and big name recognition - it was going to do fine. Piracy in the film industry works in a way backwards to where you think it would - The bigger the name, the less it's affected. Download Avatar all you want, it's not going to be the same. However, if you want to download Cyrus, or Medicine For Melancholy, poo poo, that's going to be the same experience as going to the crappy theater that's all the way across town, that's not really clean, that your friend hates going to, that they play films you haven't heard of and who wants to go to that? Piracy hurts the smallest guys the most. Too often it's the justification "Well I really want to see it, but it didn't come near me for long enough, so I'll just download it" and that's that. And it's such a bullshit excuse. You are not entitled to watch anything you want when you want. It's not how it goes. A movie is something that most of the time, you consume the product once. You cite The Hurt Locker failing to garner any interest in the movie - attention is shortlived. If people had seen it way before it's release date, of course they wouldn't be interested in the movie - they've moved on. We're at a point where piracy is limited to a certain subsection of the population - the process of getting a torrent to work is still daunting to a number of people and the average person knows that it exists, but isn't quite sure how to do it. Which is good for now. But as it gets easier, we'll hurt. We'll hurt even more.
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Dec 1, 2010 12:54
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therattle posted:I want to copy and keep this to use against people who say that piracy is OK. it isn't. It is hurting independent distributors. I know this because we sell films to them. In some territories the market has collapsed because of piracy. Weaker distributors = lower prices paid for films = less money to make films. Tell them about Spain.
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Dec 1, 2010 18:07
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SexyGoofTroopGrl posted:So if piracy is a natural course of the technology's evolution and interaction, what's there to be done beyond the absurd witch hunt? If Facebook is any indication, then adults are finally catching on to downloading. There's no going back; what does going forward entail? This is the reason why everything is in 3D - you can't pirate it. Now some jackass went and made a 3D TV so the time span on that is closing in...
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Dec 1, 2010 18:22
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Mozzie posted:Would be a lot easier if self-righteous pricks on the internet just didn't break the law. Yeah. It's annoying that it happens, but it's worse when they try to argue that they're doing a morally just thing or helping us out in some bizarre backwards way. No... not really. Armyman25 posted:So, what's your opinion on buy or selling DVD's of old movies that haven't been historically released? I mean, getting copies of some of Sam Fuller's older work took a bit of doing. I'd much rather just order the stuff from Amazon, but if the only way I can get a non-released Bogart picture is to order from some guy in Michigan, what else am I supposed to do? I kinda love Grey market retailers - because they're at least honest about it. I have a copy of The Dion Brothers because it aired once on Stars Mystery at 3 AM and some guy had the foresight to tape record it onto a seventh generation VHS and then do some bizarre transfer using a home DVR recorder thing they don't even make anymore. Most grey market guys will sell a beat up copy because it beats no copy and when they get a complaint or the DVD comes out, they pull the product. They want to make lost things available, but they don't want it to just get completely out there or screw people out of their money. They just love the movies and are willing to work with copyright owners. I can respect that. It's also a lot easier way to get a copy of Park Row than I did - rent a print of the movie and tape it with a video camera. TheYellowFog posted:I remember someone posting about how the film industry is mostly remakes, sequels, reboots, reimaginings, adaptations etc. so the news feed on Rottentomatoes today made me laugh. You see when only remakes and sequels make money, then only remakes and sequels will get made. If was an investor, you better believe I'd want to put my money into something like the Buffy reboot instead of, say, the next Josh Safdie film. But as a viewer, I wanna watch the Safdie. It goes back to the Soderberg comment above. Want more interesting films? Go see the interesting films that are out there. In theaters. Support them, and not in a "I dl'd it, BUT THEN I POSTED ON THE SA FORUMS ABOUT IT, FREE PUBLICITY RIGHT THERE, GUYS!". Anyways, we've had enough piracy talk, nobody's going to change their minds.
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Dec 2, 2010 01:55
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Arkane posted:As a roundabout response...give me an example of a film that was financially hurt by piracy, and let's work back that way, because examples aren't springing to mind. I've been on the box office/awards end of the industry for a few years now. What do you mean "work back that way"? One of the big problems is that it's impossible to know what something would've done had x, y, and z factor not been involved. You can always argue "Oh, but the trailer to Scott Pilgrim wasn't that good" or "It had the wrong release date" or whatever. I don't really see this conversation going anywhere but a squabble fest. Popelmon posted:Also: stop loving the foreign market. Seriously, I love movies. I am more than willing to spend money on them. I own hundreds of DVDs/Blurays, and I am a poor student. But it is almost impossible to see non-maisteam movies in germany/france in their original language (usualy english). Sometimes some small cinema gets a copy and shows it...but I am only willing to spend a hundred+ bucks to see one movie ever so often. So yeah, deal with that. Oh, and we don't have netflix either. We have some extremly lovely VOD services, but they are horribly overpriced and/or have lovely quality and DRM stuff that is just not acceptable. Like I said - Foreign markets are handled by different companies. There's a number of companies that are familiar to you that buy films for the German and French markets and they deal with releasing and such. The movies are dubbed there because that's what's going to get money in those markets. I'm sure they've experimented with different methods, subtitles, etc. and this is what works for them. I have a friend living in France now, and he says the phenomenon of people being off-put when they have to read during a movie is not unique to America by a long shot. As for small cinemas getting the movies - they're the ones that want to take chances or feel that it's right for their consumers. Distributors can't just force every movie they want into every theater they want. It's a relationship. Give/Take. But can I point out that you're not just entitled to see whatever movie you want in whatever format/dubbing/etc. that you want in whatever theater you want at a price you pick. There are forces greater than you in the equation. It's a big complicated set of decisions, research and other factors that make things the way they are. Yes, if we do things your way, we'll get your ten dollars, but we may sacrifice a thousand to get it. It doesn't make fiscal sense. At the end of the day, movies are a product and they have to turn a profit at some point or they simply stop getting made.
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Dec 2, 2010 02:41
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Arkane posted:Once, Paranormal Activity, The Blair Witch Project, My Big Fat Greek Wedding (sort of)...the list goes on... Fox/Searchlight, Paramount, Artisan, HBO/IFC - none of these projects were DIY when it came to distribution. Arkane posted:This has what to do with piracy? Advertising + release date + overdose of Michael Cera was a recipe that doomed Scott Pilgrim. Like I said earlier - we can't pick a film and then say piracy is doomed this, etc because there's always reasons you can claim people did or did not see a movie. It's a debate that goes nowhere. Arkane posted:Once received a bare minimum of funding and MBFGW was a one-act stage play that Hanks + wife loved and turned into a movie. There are plenty of OTHER examples of self-funded movies that have led to success...many directors have their careers launched by them. Bottle Rocket, Pi, Following, Reservoir Dogs (again, 'sort of')...the list still goes on. It's ridiculous to say that a DIY/self-financed movie cannot be made or find success. We can name successful independently financed movies for hours. We can name the unsuccessful ones for days - and that's just the ones that most people have heard of. Popelmon posted:Oh, I'm well aware of all these facts. But the fact is, YOU as an industry have to deliver what the customer wants. If 70% wants dubs and 30% wants the original with subs...is it better to only give the 70% what they want or give everyone what they want (and if it is only by putting the normal american version on some VOD service)? That's a complex question - Once again - it's up to a distributor who handles the territory. It goes into a lot of risk management - putting out two versions costs twice the amount of money, twice the amount of advertising, etc. If the distributor feels that putting out a second version will make more money than it costs, most will gladly do so. But if they feel that it won't, then it's smarter to go with the majority. Sometimes sacrifices have to be made so that the companies that do these things stay afloat. lostleaf posted:Anyway a question for those that work in the business. Do you often work with expert consultants? I'm not even sure I'm using the right term for it. Basically if you have a cop movie, do you have cops behind the scenes demonstrating correcting procedures and terminology that the actors would use? If so, where and how do you find them? Do you pay them? It depends on the people doing the project. Where I work, we research, research and then research some more. Some people don't think it matters - and in some cases they're right. On CSI research doesn't matter. On The Wire, research is king. So it depends on what you're making, etc. When we research, it's usually somebody knows a somebody they went to high school, etc. We also like to get out of LA and CA to do it - for a couple of reasons. One, it's just nice to get away for a bit and this is a nice excuse to do so. Two, in LA if you're connected to a movie in any way people want money. Outside of CA, people just think it's cool to hang out with movie people and are excited by the possibility of getting on IMDB or something. If you pay then it's nowhere near as much as it would be to be LAPD or something. There are some people - retired cops, retired Army, etc. who make a whole career of showing actors how to hold their weapons and kick down doors and such. I imagine it's not a bad career. morestuff posted:This is more business-end and less production, so sorry if no one really knows the answer: I have no idea and I'd love to hear about this. I imagine at the bigger theaters that they almost have to be getting close by now. I heard that a 3D projector can cost upwards of over half a million dollars, but I have no idea if that's true or just a list price that nobody pays or whatever. That's a really interesting question. Mozzie posted:NeuroticErotica, I'd lock the thread, the entitled assholes are all over it now and It's likely never going to get back on track. Piracy is boring guys, let's talk about titties.
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Dec 2, 2010 06:23
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therattle posted:I've just used the "ignore user" function for the first time. That's so LA...
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Dec 2, 2010 12:14
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Cemetry Gator posted:To get this back on topic a few questions: 1. 3D is one D too many. 2. I've not personally, but I remember reading a thread where a dude was working on NAILED - the David O. Russell picture. Wonder who that guy was, I bet that's interesting to say the least. 3. Covered all ready. 4. A commentary track is basically people watching a TV in a studio. When I worked on one we just ran it and let the guys talk. There wasn't much to it. 5. After Last Season - and I've seen it seven times. What bugs me? Sound mixes bug the poo poo out of me. I'm really particular about them having done a few. What bothers me most is just sheer unoriginality. Can't stand the mix on a horror film, it's all the same. Sounds backwards, loud crashes, it's all just boring. In need of tissue posted:On a big budget film, how many editors are there? I would think there are a few that do rough cuts to give to the main editor or is there just one guy that does it all? There's a few. It's a department like any other - there's the head guy and then there's people below him and people below them. Assistant Editors are cutting and making scenes, etc. It's a collaboration. In need of tissue posted:Are the bigger actors/actresses arrogant? How would you describe them? They're human like you and me. Problem is they're under the microscope so when they gently caress up it's blown way out of proportion and there becomes this weird distorted fun house mirror version of them that becomes the norm. Like if you see your co-worker drunk once or twice, you think "ah they were just having some fun" - you see pictures of an actor out wasted once and you think "What an out of control lush". They're like anybody else. Some are cool, some aren't.
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Dec 2, 2010 21:22
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Honest Thief posted:How do American studios look at foreign market? I know you've spoken about this earlier but does any studio work with the sort of mentality "oh well make it back on overseas". That always get thrown around in threads once in a while. These days the studios make more than 50% of a movie's theatrical gross in foreign markets. Up until years ago that was not the case and not by quite a bit. It used to be an afterthought, but now the foreign markets are in their mind more. Especially with casting. If an actor has appeal overseas then you can hang a film on them more. So that's why there's been a bit of a decline in black leads recently (You'd think that black and other minority leads would appeal to people all over the world, but it's quite the opposite actually). Same with women, there's only a handful of women that foreign markets really care about. edit: Five Cent Deposit posted:Often when you see two editors sharing a head credit card (during the main title sequence,) that means the one with his name above the other was brought in after the first one was fired. e.g I wouldn't use this as a rule, really. There's all sorts of scenarios that could lead to the credits, so I wouldn't say definitively what happened based on credits. This is Hollywood, there's always all sorts of drama going on behind the scenes and the credit is always kind of hosed with so you never really know what happened based on credits. NeuroticErotica fucked around with this message at 23:20 on Dec 2, 2010 |
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Dec 2, 2010 23:17
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Holy poo poo what a weekend this was. Back to the thread, now.Schweinhund posted:How many people who try to get into the business have no business being there because of lack of talent & ability? Sometimes I read stories about struggling actors and how hard it is and you look at their picture and they look like someone who would only be cast as "awkward geek #3". I've read with the book industry, if you write a great book you will get it published, it's just that 99% of the books submitted to publishing houses are awful. Is it in any way similar with acting or writing or any other movie job? As somebody who reads spec scripts and screens for festival I have to say there's a poo poo-ton. Nowadays you can get a copy of Save the Cat and a word macro that does the formatting of a script for you (Oddly enough - one of the bigger things that scares people off. Formatting.) and you can be trying your hand at a broad comedy that you think will make roughly a "Ba-jillion" dollars. People see the stories of people coming out of nowhere and getting scripts made and think they can do that, too. Yes, Diablo Cody didn't have a screenwriting background and she got discovered - Juno wasn't her first screenplay and she was a professional writer before that! People eliminate parts of the story and just go for what they want. The digital revolution has made it so that anybody can make a film and sadly, they are. People think they don't need film school and, well, actually, they do. There's few naturals at this. What people forget to mention with film school is that it's a place where you can experiment and fail. Without this, people experiment and then send it to a film festival and I end up watching it and laughing at what a retard you are. There's no guarantee that if you're brilliant that you'll make it, but if you're brilliant, work hard and are persistent, your odds are pretty drat good. It may just take years. Most overnight successes are 14 years in the making. Teepkick Shakur posted:I've read a lot about this sort of thing in a lot of current feature films. Particularly in Will Smith movies, actually. How prevalent is this method producing a feature - making films by committee? Making a movie based on what the audience thinks they want to see. And what are your thoughts on it, NeuroticErotica? "X by committee" is usually a derogatory term, and I don't think it fits here. Filmmaking is a collaboration. Very seldomly do you see a film that's a singular vision, and usually it's pretty loving insane. There's a lot of moving parts and different factors and you need a lot of input to prepare for them all. If you're producing a feature that doesn't have a shot at making money, then you have a problem. So things have to be adjusted so they'll have a chance. A lot of auteur theorists and the like always want to say that "Oh the evil PRODUCER altered the ARTISTIC VISION and CHANGED it to a CORPORATE dream" or some garbage. A lot of the times these changes make things better! A lot of the time the trivia is out there as a "holy god, what were we thinking!" sort of way. I think working with a story and finding something that works for both the story and the money side is just fine. Eva Mendes does what she needed to in Hitch in both categories. I really don't see how one could complain. However, there's the opposite - when the whole thing as a story is designed to cash in on ideas that they think will make money. Film audiences are smart. When something is contrived or pandering, they pick up on it pretty fast and reject it. Besides, trying to catch a trend is really difficult given the long development cycle of a film.
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Dec 6, 2010 11:24
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lostleaf posted:How much involvement does the director or producer have in choosing their actors? I'm assuming for the main characters, you get to choose who you want. Do the executives ever force certain actors on you? Because of contracts or whatever? What about secondary characters that might only have a scene or two? Do you just leave it up to the casting director? Casting is a simple process that's made entirely way too complicated for anybody's good. You have agents, scheduling, money and a bazillion other factors that come into play and what seems like it should be easy - like dating a girl, becomes incredibly difficult - like dating a girl with issues. Five Cent Deposit posted:Lostleaf- it is entirely dependent on the director's established reputation and skill. Young, unproven directors are usually forced to work with actors they did not choose. That's not exactly true - like anything it's a collaboration and part of it is who is willing to collaborate with you. Rian Johnson was young and completely unproven, but he still managed to get Joe Levitt for his film. G.Rainmaker posted:I've heard from a lot of directors (through various means) that they are forced to put in a proven Hollywood "star" as their main actor/actress. One of my favorite examples is The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. The director wanted an all Asian cast since, you know, it takes place in Japan. But the studio wanted Whitey to be all up in that bitch. So Justin Lin casted a very bland "American" actor in a very bland staring role and made the much more interesting/intriguing role the side character, Han (played by Sung Kang). The big difference is that for Tokyo Drift - Lin was on the hook for something like 135 Million Dollars, for BLT he's on the hook for a substantially less amount of money. When less is on the line you can take more risks. I'm not sure how legit the story is, it's kinda one of those weird stories where a director is both omnipotent and anemic at the same time. That said, I can't blame the studio if that story is true - American audiences don't go to movies that are lead by Asian-Americans, neither do foreign audiences. With that much money, it'd be ridiculous to not go with a whitey. BESIDES THAT, starting with a white lead in the US connects it to the rest of the franchise besides the cameo at the end, AND, the first scene where they race through the construction site is hands down the best thing that Justin Lin has ever done. It's incredible. The rest of the film is pretty boring, but that scene, oh my god. Incredible. VoodooXT posted:Not to be a sperg, but BLT was not Justin Lin's first movie. A little film called "Shopping for Fangs" was, and it's pretty terrible. Ugh. Next thing you'll be telling us that precious wasn't Lee Daniels' first film. 
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Dec 7, 2010 09:46
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Five Cent Deposit posted:Small, 100% independent movie. The budget was like a half million dollars. Throw the rules out the window. Again - you're working on the false paradigm - Supposing Brick was set up at Warner Brothers, his casting decisions wouldn't be made "for" him. It's a collaborative process and it takes a lot of skill to navigate the process. At the time Levitt was an up and coming guy who was on a ton of indie short lists, especially after Mysterious Skin. Johnson managed to get through the agent, the manager, and Levitt's reservations about working with a guy with little-to-no experience. That's what I meant. The actor has to sign on, too. And at half a million, the paycheck is not that much. He could've gone elsewhere (though it was smart not to). And even on a small independent film the goal is essentially the same - make the best movie you can, and to try to make some sort of profit. On a $1M budget you have to cast somebody who's going to theoretically bring in $1M or close to it of business. Like it was said above making art is pointless if nobody will be exposed to it. Johnson wanted Levitt from the get-go and at that budget Levitt is a great choice because he can justify the returns. Producers aren't evil people who are looking to destroy a director's vision. Often they will have objections about actors and let them slide to support their directors. But they do have to protect the investors - you can't have a $250M film with William Fichtner as your lead - he just doesn't bring in the business to justify the decision. But at $5M, you certainly can. This protects the director as well - if a director makes a movie that loses money they are held accountable... usually. Wayne Kramer made the brilliant Running Scared in 2006. It didn't make money. He didn't get to make another movie for three years because of this, and when he did it was smaller.  has gotten to where he is because with the exception of Insomnia, which he took a time out for, his movies have made money.Voodoofly posted:I've got a question, probably for therattle or NE: It happens. It depends on how business savvy the person is or how delusional. Sadly most of the time the delusional are better about preparing a completely unrealistic business prospectus that uses the grosses of Paranormal Activity and Juno to prove that their romantic thriller that has no clear main character will make roughly $800M - Just in the US! This is a can't miss! What helps is when writers/directors come in with reasonable expectations - IE this is a teens-in-the-woods movie if we release it in October we can reasonably make $20M or something (made up figures don't write your prospectus based on that!). Something like that. A writer/director is not required to be able to make big risk management projections into the future - but it helps when they have an understanding of what kinds of movies are selling, what the recent BO figures are like, what distros are picking up films for these days and write to it - IE a film that you could make for as little as $5M instead of a movie that takes places on 4 continents. When Producers are involved, then it's much more business oriented. The biggest thing to remember is that investors are not you and me. They're not people who just love movies and can't get enough of them (well, some are). They're people who want exactly what their name says they do - an investment. Now, they think it's going to be really fun to see a real set and maybe meet Ryan Gosling or something and that part is fun. But, how much is that worth? You can come to Hollywood, take a tourist tour and if you go to the right bar you can bump into God-knows-who. So you have to be able to give them a good idea that someway, somehow, they're going to get their money back at the very least. They want information and a lot of it. edit: Voodoofly posted:??? He's not far off- I've seen NYU and AFI films that seemed like they were in that range.
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Dec 7, 2010 21:31
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MadDuck posted:Here's a kinda off-topic question: Depends on the program. If it's a three-camera studio sitcom, or Larry King or whatever then it's not really the same thing. But if it's a single-cam show that shoots on a EX-3 or whatever, then it's pretty close.
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Dec 9, 2010 00:45
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thekeeshman posted:For anyone who's worked with producers on the scheduling end of things, how are film schedules usually worked out, and do they use any kinds of software to help them? There's two - EP Scheduler which is pretty much industry standard and not too user friendly and Scenechronize which is more friendly and growing in popularity.
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Dec 9, 2010 23:36
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You guys still have the 10 hours no overtime thing? I remember reading that in Vachon's book and being shocked.
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Dec 10, 2010 12:02
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