Network Live: A New Era in Streaming Entertainment?

Live8 producer Kevin Wall is heading up a joint venture between AOL, concert promoter AEG LIVE, and XM Satellite Radio dubbed Network Live. On September 19, Bon Jovi will perform the network’s debut show at the Nokia Theatre Times Square, marking the kickoff of one of the first entertainment companies to rely solely on online distribution.
Network Live hopes to prove that streaming media has distinct advantages over traditional media distribution and that these advantages can be translated into a successful business model. READ MORE...

Casting & Directing Commercial Spots Changed Our Lives

The Staying Alive AIDS Awareness Program “We had to cast 14 spots in three weeks,” says Abesera, a feat that would be daunting under normal circumstances. Throw in the added pressure of finding real people with AIDS between the ages of 15 and 24 from 14 different countries who were willing to share their stories about everything intimate from sex to AIDS to prostitution, and the challenge might begin to look impossible. READ MORE...

HOLODECKS and REALITY

Did you ever wish you could experience the "holodeck," the 3-D virtual environment aboard the Starship Enterprise?

There's a company that believes it's come close, letting video game players play with huge, theater-size high-definition screens that envelop the user.

READ MORE...

HORROR SELLS

THE CAVE
A rescue team is sent down into the world's largest cave system to try to find the spelunkers who first explored its depths. But when the group's escape route is cut off, they are hunted by the monstrous creatures who dwell down below.

SEE THE PREVIEW...

Exorcism of Emily Rose

Horror films are back!
In an extremely rare decision, the Catholic Church officially recognized the demonic possession of a 19 year-old college freshman. Told in flashbacks, 'The Exorcism of Emily Rose' (inspired by the true story of a girl believed to have been possessed) chronicles the haunting trial of the priest accused of negligence resulting in the death of the young girl believed to be possessed and the laywer who takes on the task of defending him.
SEE THE PREVIEW...

CRY WOLF

CHECK OUT THE WAY THIS LOW-BUDGET HORROR FILM IS ADVERTISED AND PROMOTED!

In the new teen thriller CRY WOLF, eight unsuspecting high school students play a game of lies and come face-to-face with their worst nightmare. It's easy to see that nobody believes a liar---not even when he's telling the truth.

CRY WOLF...

DOOM

See Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson in the exclusive trailer for 'Doom,' the long-awaited adaptation of the classic video game.

SEE THE PREVIEW...

THUMBSUCKER

THUMBSUCKER
Justin Cobb still sucks his thumb at 17 but wants to stop. He knows that his thumbsucking is disrupting his family, his love life and his identity. The only thing that changes his behavior is hypnosis therapy administered by his "guru" orthodontist. But while Justin felt this would solve all his problems and he would finally be "normal," his troubles were really just beginning.

SEE THE PREVIEW...

Rare look at a Giant Ape

Univerasl Pictures recreated Manhattan in 1933 and while filming on location at the mysterious Skull Island (near Sumatra) a group of NY filmmakers discover a giant gorilla named Kong.

In theaters this December is Peter Jackson's KING KONG.

SEE THE TRAILER...

Life will never be the same...

LITTLE MANHATTAN is an exquisite and charming story about first love as seen through the eyes of an eleven year old.

SEE THE PREVIEW...

Charlie and Inside the Factory

Exploring one sequence in detail
Bringing the Oompas to life was a primary task awarded to MPC. When 5 to 20 Oompa loompas appeared in a scene, the actor Deep Roy would play them all. Shot in separate takes, and from different positions, he would act out each part in multiple motion capture passes. "I think of it as doing nineteen second takes," offered Roy, whose extensive training for the roles included daily Pilates sessions and dance classes. "It was a lot of rehearsing". All images Copyright, Warners 2005, All rights reserved. READ MORE...

Scream Queen: Stephanie Beaton

Those of us who watch horror films enjoy them of course, but what about the folks who make them? One of the newest of the group of horror actresses who's a horror film fan as well, works in today’s B-horror genre films and has earned the sobriquet of "Scream Queen."
Stephanie Beaton has carved out an interesting career in action and horror-packed cinematic thrills.

READ MORE...

7 Best Endings You Never Saw Coming

The ending of your script is the last thing the audience will remember before leaving the theater, so it better crackle. The tricky part is giving the crowd what they want without letting them see it coming.

READ MORE...

ANTI-HEROES: The Seven Best Examples

Anti-heroes aren't all Clint Eastwood. These six types (yeah, we cheated a little to make this a seven best) show the breadth and depth of just how anti a hero can be -- and how far an anti-hero can rise, given the opportunity.

READ MORE...

Dennis Berardi on 'Four Brothers'

Mr. X president and visual effects supervisor Dennis Berardi chat about how his studio created the climactic car chase sequence for "Four Brothers".
While production was happening, we knew we had to build some photoreal cars in CG. We got into R&D mode and went to the manufacturer's specifications to make two cars, an Oldsmobile and an El Camino.
READ MORE...

CAN-CAN ON THE COUNTERTOP

No one's called me up at 2 a.m. saying "Your screenplay is about to be shot." But I'm dancing in the spotlight, savoring the notion that I'm on the brink of a satisfying career.

Forty-two producers have requested HAPPY, NORMAL including Indies making their first feature up to a guy in LA whose last picture had a budget of fifty million dollars. I'm still getting requests over two months after my win. Plus, I've found an agent.
READ MORE...

Finding a STORY

So you want to make a movie, but even before you have the equipment, you need to have something to light your fire, some idea that resonates from within, a story that needs to be told. The question for some is...where do ideas, specifically low budget ideas, come from? How do you get an idea that is so strong, so compelling, that it pushes you into making a movie?

You don’t go looking for it. It’ll come on its own, just keep an open mind and start absorbing everything around you. And I mean everything. Music. Songs. The news. What people are talking about. Read novels. Watch other movies.
READ MORE...

Pitching to Investors

Anyone starting out without a lot of finished film or expensive equipment needs a good package. Some investors will be satisfied with a well-packaged press-kit with eye catching art, a breakdown of your budget and a brief explanation of your idea and how you are going to make your movie.

The more you can show about your movie before you shoot the film the better off you will be. Once, an investor remarked, "if you can do all of this without any money, I wonder what you could with money."
READ MORE...

Independent Film Make-up FX: Blood

FAKE "FILM" BLOOD
Because this blood is made entirely out of food products, it won't burn sensitive skin like some factory-made imitation blood does, and it can always by used orally. It also washes out of clothing easier (although it could take a few washings).
LEARN HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN FAKE "FILM" BLOOD

DVD Format Groups Cross Swords

Although the groups behind the different DVD formats want to avoid the market confusion and consternation that came with dueling beta and VHS video cassette formats, both sides also seem willing to take their chances on competing formats.

The two different Blu-ray and HD-DVD camps behind two different next-generation DVD formats are at it again. READ MORE...

Is PASSION Alive and Living in HOLLYWOOD?

In the seemingly cold-hearted and increasingly monopolistic corridors of Hollywood, it’s sometimes hard to find signs of the soft accomodating side of show business and easy to believe that it’s becoming harder to get in!

What happened to those who were always ready to discover tomorrow’s unlikely next star or hot property. It can often appear that most, if not all artistic decisions are increasingly based on power player prerogatives and corporate indulgences.

A senior agent lamented about missing the “old days” when agents made decisions from their instincts and would nurse nascent projects along side of the blue chip priorities. He noted that many of the newer agents of today are too busy “stealing clients,” and otherwise, seeking name-brand product. READ MORE...

Are DVDs Archival?

I always meant to convert, once and for all, my crowded shelves of Beta, U-Matic, Hi-8 and VHS samples of my work I’ve accumulated through the years to a stable, archival digital video medium, namely DVD.

After all, shelf space in Manhattan is precious real estate. A trim, compact row of DVDs would do wonders for my overflowing studio apartment, but is my work safe on DVDs?

READ MORE...

BLOG SIGGRAPH

Just like being there.
Catch up with our SIGGRAPH BLOG, sponsored by Intel, for information on what went down at Siggraph, including unique video from the show floor in Los Angeles. Experience the inside track through the eyes of Milimeter and Video Systems editors and special guest bloggers.
READ MORE...

Getting Critical about Today’s Display Technologies

Today’s display technologies have been around long enough for us to analyze their performance.
The advances in display technology over the past 10 years have been incredible and have opened up a whole range of new applications, especially in allowing large electronic images to be integrated into different environments. Now, we can start being critical of their performance and concentrate on contrast, image sizing, and cost of ownership. READ MORE...

Strings

Take the best portions of Hamlet, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and Team America and then have stringed puppets act it all out. The result is an epic tale set in a mythical kingdom where the strings that bind play an important role in the life and death of the characters.
READ MORE...

Animated Spokespersons

What do Wilma Flintstone, Spider-Man and the Pink Panther have in common?

These classic characters have all been recruited to promote popular products. Janet Hetherington looks into why animated celebs have become the spokespersons of choice.

The ladies of Hanna-Barbera get an extreme tone makeover courtesy of Dove. Images courtesy of Unilever Canada. © Turner Broadcasting. READ MORE...

What is OpenHD?

Learn why industry leaders Adobe, HP, Intel, Microsoft, and Dell have assembled and certified a line of open, scalable, desktop HDV and HD solutions, called OpenHD Certified Solutions. These solutions benefit from the wide variety of industry standard choices available for Windows-based computing, allowing customers to get the best price/performance and reliability possible.

Learn more about these OpenHD Certified Solutions: CLICK HERE...

TIME PASSES

The early directors "inventing" the language of film photographed movies in straight progression just like a stage play. Everything happened in orderly sequence. The "lap-dissolve" or "montage" was first used to indicate the passage of time.
Royalty free HD TV (a great name---but nothing is really free---is it?) offers many stock shots that you can peruse and view online. Check out and view their library of transition shots including the shots that indicate the passing of time (usually where light changes over an object). Some scenes are very poetic and they might just give you a new slant to use in your cinematic endeavors. SEE THE TIME PASSAGES...

PBS tries to stay relevant in a 500-channel world

Is PBS as much a dinosaur as Barney?
PBS, was birthed in a three-network world but has hit middle age amid hundreds of cable channels, including more than a few that could be considered competitors.
Between undying battles with Congress and a highly public conflict with its parent company, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, PBS has experienced a tumultuous 12 months. READ MORE...

Not to be Missed: OVER THERE

OVER THERE is about a dramatic show sergeant and his platoon stationed in Iraq and how their lives and the lives of their families are affected at home. While the show is enjoying success because of its reality, many Iraqi veterans point out its inaccuracies.

Mark-Paul Gosselaar Plays a War Reporter SEE THE CLIP...

Photoreality and Faux Reality

Will rendering’s next frontier revolutionize filmmaking?
Twelve experts offer their opinion as to what the future holds.
Many of this year's movies are brimming with hairy CG creatures, from realistic-looking digital Wookiees in Star Wars to the jungle critters of Madagascar. PDI/DreamWorks' Hendrickson points to what he calls “the sheer volume and complexity of rendering today.”
READ MORE...

HDTV Veterans Offer Insight

Even though the television world’s transition toward an all-HD acquisition paradigm is far from finished, it is complete enough for a small group of HDTV production veterans to have emerged.
These vets are experts at all levels—from network programming suites to various production jobs on sets—in transitioning shows, budgets, pipelines, crews, and workflows into the HD universe. READ MORE...

Foreign Undead: Top 10 Vampire Movies

After seeing a lot of vampire movies and reading a lot of vampire books while preparing to write my own vampire manuscript 'Liquid Diet', I researched so my undead opus wouldn't be like other vampire books and movies. After I started writing my script, I ended up satirising and doing parodies of all the vampire books and movies anyway... READ MORE...

Top 10 Vampire Movies

Christopher Lee made a memorable hissing monster in several Hammer horrors, Frank Langella made a great handsome matinee idol variant on both stage and screen, while Coppola arguably portrayed Dracula's life and times in the most lavish style, regarding the Count's romantic tragedy. But vampire movies set in the modern age tend to differ, often radically, from those of their costume-drama cousins in period settings - nowadays, the ungrateful undead are more than just a pain in the neck.
So, lock your doors, and bar the windows. In chronological order, here are some children of the night you'd better watch out for... READ MORE...

Laying Naked on the Page!

"If you really want to do it: never give up, never give up, never, ever give up." -Winston Churchill

Writing a screenplay is easy, writing a good one is harder, but selling one is a major league bitch. I’m been up to my pits trying to turn my 120-page opus into a million-dollar check. While trying to crack the system, I talked to agents, producers, directors, studio execs, and development people. And what I learned is this: Hollywood is under siege. There are so many scripts coming at them from every direction that it’s like trying to hold back the ocean with a spoon.

READ MORE...

INTERVIEW: MONICA BELLUCCI (THE BROTHERS GRIMM)

Monica Bellucci is an absolutely stunning woman and it made every male reporter (and maybe even some of the ladies) go a bit gaga just being close to her.

Q: To take someone as stunningly beautiful as you are and then turn you into a shriveled prune... what was that like?
READ MORE...

Please Hold For Mr. Spielberg

Right now, I’m staring down both barrels of a potential million-dollar jackpot. It’s an eerie feeling because it could happen for real. I’m just not so sure I know why?

About a year ago, I signed with a well-respected literary agent in Hollywood who handles some top writers and directors. He liked my screenplay called Whispering Pines. He felt that it was one of the best scripts he had read in months and I quote, "treasured every moment and thought the writing was phenomenal." Or something like that. I wanted to direct and he sent it out to a bunch of places. We sat back and waited. And waited. And waited. READ MORE...

ZOMBIE HONEYMOON

“In sickness and in health; till death do us part.”

So vowed the two honeymooners before taking off for an idyllic retreat on the Jersey shore. A major independent horror film, "ZOMBIE HONEYMOON" will soon be released theatrically and will then be shown on Showtime and available on DVD in early 2006.

SEE THE TRAILER...

Take the MOVIE QUOTE QUIZ

Take the MOVIE QUOTE QUIZ and see how good you are. Archived quiz questions really challenge and test your knowledge of movie trivia.

TAKE THE QUIZ...

Voices of THE SIMPSONS

Listen and watch this famous clip from INSIDE THE ACTOR'S STUDIO. And learn more about this fascinating interview show.

Hear them...

don't miss!!! FIVE MEN Voice Over (created by Aspect Ratio)

FIVE MEN Voice Over (created by Aspect Ratio) is a thrilling James Bond ride with five "simple men in a complicated world".

In one short limo ride, meet the Five Golden Voices we know so well.

SEE ALL FIVE MEN...

MAKING Three Samurai on Horseback

I loved how the old black and white comedies like ‘The Three Stooges' had a humor that was universally understood. I wanted to portray that same kind of humor through the simple shapes and silhouettes of the three samurai. Fat samurai are funny, since we think of samurais as being athletic and fit, rather than being out-of-shape and overweight. The Three Samurai on Horseback mixes samurai martial arts with The Three Stooges.
READ MORE...

Last Call to Enter eDward 2005

The Visual Effects Society has issued a last call for entries for the eDward, the 6th eDIT Film Award. The event is an international newcomer competition, intended to give young filmmakers a stage for their talent and to open up career opportunities.
The competition is worldwide and is open to young creatives under 30. The theme for eDward VI is Artificial Humans. Entries should be not longer than 30 seconds and must be submitted by Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2005. ENTER NOW...

Trailers Abound In The Theatrical Release Database

COMING SOON!
For your clip cravings, you can view new trailers for SAW 2, OLIVER TWIST, AEON FLUX, JARHEAD, DOOM and BARNYARD. Films with a switch in release date include ZU WARRIORS, THE OMEN 666, UNDERDOG and GARFIELD 2. As for new pages, we have GENBOT, WESTWORLD and SPLINTER CELL. Listing 338 projects in production, with release dates. READ MORE...

Mobile Gaming Doubles Again

TRENDS IN ELECTRONIC GAMING
Ziff Davis Media's annual "Digital Gaming in America" survey of more than 1,500 randomly selected U.S. households, indicates that cell phone gaming continued its meteoric rise in 2005.
The number of households engaged in cell phone gaming nearly doubled again, jumping from 16.3 million last year to 27.9 million this year. READ MORE...

10 Things You Need to Know about Writing Screenplays

The myth about screenwriting is just that! It's the only profession that truly matters to our generation.
For the past dozen years or so, I've pounded the streets, the keyboard and my head against the wall searching for the skeleton key to unlock the great American screenplay. I found that writing a script is easy, but writing a good one is much harder. What follows is a short list of precious but unpolished nuggets that I've managed to unearth. What you do with them will be of more than passing interest to us all. READ MORE...

Promoting Your Short Film

How many moviemakers out there have started a project and not finished it?
Okay, now how many of you out there have finished your movie? Of you, how many submitted to film festivals? Then what? What happened to your movie? Is it sitting on a shelf collecting dust, or languishing without any views on a website? What can you do to promote it?
Getting your movies seen is good. It increases the likelihood that people will know about the films you made and also realize how good your moviemaking skills are.
READ MORE...

The Top 100 MOVIE QUOTES

"Great movie quotes become part of our cultural vocabulary. When you consider that any phrase from American film is eligible, you realize this is our most subjective topic to date. We expect nothing less than a war of words as we reignite interest in classic American movies." READ THEM...

Valiant Takes Off

Christopher Harz interviewed Vanguard Animation’s John Williams asking what it took to make the studio’s first 3D CG feature, Valiant, fly.
Williams (who also produced Shrek and Shrek 2) produced the tale of a brave-but-undersized pigeon named Valiant (voiced by Ewan McGregor), who realizes his dream of joining the elite Royal Homing Pigeon Service (RHPS) in Great Britain during World War II. READ MORE...

NEW CANON OPTURA CAMCORDER OFFER BEST OF BOTH WORLDS

Lightweight, Low Cost Hi Resolution with one LARGE chip
Customers can double their pleasure with the newest two Canon Optura Mini-DV camcorders which offer stunning digital video and still performance in stylish form factors that beg to be held. Estimated prices $799-1099.

With the new Canon Optura 600 camcorder users get high-quality 4.3-megapixel image reproduction for crisp video and photos in a sleek but elegant design. The Optura 600 and Optura S1 models are the smallest* 4.3 megapixel and 2.2 megapixel camcorders, respectively, on the market. READ MORE...

9/11 dramas head for big, small screens

Four years have passed without dramatizing the tragedy but now studios and networks will re-create the Sept. 11 attacks in two movies and three television projects.

Although movies and TV documentaries have dealt with Sept. 11 (including a National Geographic documentary this Sunday), these will be the first major projects that re-create the events of the day. READ MORE...

Developing characters who don’t age

Emotional reality turns up in the most unlikely places. It exists on primetime TV, where a handful of animated series are delivering surprisingly sophisticated characters who not only entertain, but stand up emotionally, year in and year out, with admirable consistency.

Cartoon characters that do not grow older and therefore shift naturally into new story territory cannot easily add on or change major components like a marriage, a new baby or a career shift. READ MORE...

Comic-Con International 2005 Report

The 2005 San Diego Comic-Con International event drew a record 96,300 attendees and 7,700 exhibitors for a grand total of 104,000 individual people. Attendees included not only fans of comics, sci-fi, fantasy and animation, but many entertainment industry types and press.

The studios were out in full force, previewing movies, games, and animation amongst the comic publishers and collectors, as well as creative development execs looking for their next hit. No big deals were announced during or immediately after but undoubtedly many were spawned for future consumption. READ MORE...

Hollywood's New Backlot? The U.S.

For nearly three decades Danny Retz has been a Hollywood film editor. His 50 features include "RoboCop," "Cutthroat Island" and "Collateral Damage." For the last several years, though, steady work has proven very elusive. He longed for a place where work was plentiful and life was affordable.

A few days before he boarded a plane for Louisiana, where he was born 57 years ago Retz said, "I was bleeding money." He wasn't returning to New Orleans just to be close to good food and extended family. He was chasing Hollywood.
READ MORE...

What’s the job of the casting director?

The job of the casting director is not actually to cast a show. The person who really casts the show is the director, and the production team. The casting process starts off with their ideas, what they’re looking for… their interpretation of the various roles.

And the job of the casting director is to choose which people will audition for a show, and run the auditions. We book the space, hire readers if needed, do the breakdown for the agents, make sure everything is running smoothly throughout the process. Sometimes we do the initial screening of actors before the director sees them.

READ MORE...

Actors: Do You need a website?

How effective is developing a web site for actors? I created one and the comments I am getting are very good, but in the biz is it a thing you need now or is it something for the future?

Can this electronic calling card / marketing tool be useful considering the time it takes a casting director to do his or her job on any given project? If nothing else I find it a great way to keep track of what I have been doing and to distribute my demo reel. What say you?

READ MORE...

Kung Fu Hustle

Probably one of the best kung-fu movies ever made, Kung Fu Hustle follows the adventures of Sing (Stephen Chow, creator and star of Shaolin Soccer) amid the gang warfare of Shanghai in the 1940s.

Sing once believed that he could attain kung fu mastery by following the instructions in a booklet he was handed by a beggar in the street, but he's quickly disillusioned when he's beaten up by a gang of kids. What follows is the stuff that dreams are made of...

READ MORE...

Filmmaking: Film Flams and Scams

I’ve dealt with all kinds of delusions, lies, and cheats: I don’t know where to begin.
One of the most common stories in Indie Filmmaking, especially in the feature length genre is that of the “Promise of funding that turns out to be a dead end” scenario. How many of us have been approached by someone that claims to have access to investors and capital that will fund a movie, and after months of working, for free I might add, it turns out to not be true?

READ MORE...

The BEST MOVIES in the world

What makes a film good?
"A lot of people I talked to, think that movie history started with Star Wars"(Roger Ebert, film critic)

Films can be much more than just mainstream action and Hollywood melodrama. Don't miss the many old films just beacuse they are in black and white and sparse on computer generated special effects.
What follows is a list of great and recommendable movies selected by Jacob Crawfurd. Artistic masterpieces, film historic milestones or films that are simply refreshingly different, daring or challenging - in my opinion. SEE THE LIST...

Die Zweiter Heimat

The 26 hour film is something really special. The 13 chapter film portrays a group of young students in München during the 60's. "Die Zweiter Heimat" is a giant landmark film production by German director Edgar Reitz.
According to the book about the production it had: a script of 2,143 pages written over a six years period. 372 kilometer film was recorded during the 557 shooting days.
READ MORE...

New footage drives sales of reality TV DVDs

After many years of snubbing reality TV, DVD suppliers are taking a closer look at the category with a flurry of bonus-packed releases.

"We used to always use the phrase, 'The genie's already out of the bottle,"' CBS Consumer Products vp and general manager Ken Ross said vocalizing the prevailing concept that reality TV would be a hard sell on DVD because the outcome was already known. READ MORE...

Gimme that Star Trek Religion!

It is Gene Roddenbury Star Trek's vision of our "scientificly" destined future utopia that religion is irrelevant. Mankind has "outgrown" the need for gods of any kind, as Kirk so expounds to an alien who wants to assume the role.

Of course, other, more "backward" races still have gods. Quaint little dears. The warlike Klingons worship. The Bejorans have innumerable spats about their "prophets", but their somewhat mysterious god always remains in the background.

Fascinatingly, STAR TREK mirrors the attitude of modern liberals towards race and religion.
READ MORE...

Four Brothers Beat All

Crime drama Four Brothers has entered the North American box office chart at number one!
A great action story in which FOUR BROTHERS (SEE PREVIEW) four adopted siblings return home to find the murderer of their mother. The premise is simple and makes for a memorable film ride loaded with action and chase.

READ MORE...

A MAN WHO BECAME POPE

It doesn't have the impact of ''Schindler's List" or ''The Pianist" -- but how many portrayals of the Nazi era reach such Academy Award-winning heights?

Nevertheless, the Hallmark Channel's must-see presentation on Pope John Paul II's life carries a special double whammy all its own. Poland's young pontiff-to-be and his colleagues are liberated from the unspeakable terror of Nazism only to be subjected to the mirthless tyranny of communism.

READ MORE...

Google hits text copyright wall

Google Puts Book Copying on Hold

Google Inc. announced Friday that it had suspended its high-profile effort to scan copyrighted books from libraries into its searchable index.

Some TV executives have objected to a project in which Google records programs off the air as it tries to do for TV what it's doing for books.

READ MORE...

Anima Mundi 2005: The Carioca Custom

The Brazilian Anima Mundi is the largest annual animation festival in South America. It’s so large that it happens in two shifts — 10 days in coastal Rio de Janeiro, and then it moves inland to São Paulo for another week.

The festival is well established and well regarded throughout the region, with most screenings sold out in advance. It’s said that some 94,000 people attended this year!

>READ MORE...

Know your (Copy)rights

Copyright is a form of protection provided by the United States to the authors of "original works of authorship" including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic and certain other intellectual works.

This protection is available to both published and unpublished works. This gives the owner of the copyright the exclusive right to do and to authorize others to do certain things...

READ MORE...

EDITING 24P

Digital Alliteration: Panasonic, Progressive, Pulldown and "Pretty Darn Cool"

The Panasonic AG-DVX100 camera is the first consumer camera that images at 24 progressive frames per second that does not use film or High Definition. The fact that it is recording this 24P to NTSC or PAL interlaced DV means that many poor but ambitious filmmakers now have access to the particular look that 24 fps offers without the massive cost of film processing and transfer or rental of HD camera and posting tools.

READ MORE...

A cheesy movie: How many DVDs can you sell?

It really depends.

I believe at one point, on one of the Seduction cinema titles, Mike Raso said the first print was around 4000. Most Sub Rosa titles get only a short run of about 1000 copies, but I've heard rumors that Scooter McCree's SHATTER DEAD sold in excess of 10K, although i've never asked Scooter for a confirmation.

Some guys on the boards have mentioned that by gaining a BBV deal, that they've moved between 5k and 10k copies.

READ MORE...

Getting Started in Film Production

An inspirational piece: I assume you’re either a fan or an artist. And with the word artist, I mean someone who aspires to be a writer or a moviemaker. You may be working on something now or just thinking about it.

If you’re an indie moviemaker working in digital video, you probably don’t have a lot of money behind you to realize your dream of completing a feature-length movie. Once you rack your credit cards up to their limits with video cameras, computer systems, and other hardware, you’ll find yourself wondering where the budget for your movie is going to come from.

Let me answer your question: you don’t need a budget...

READ MORE...

Blu-ray Disc Association adopts harsh anti-piracy measures

Blu-ray's three way content protection strategy - AACS, BD+ Renewable content and ROM Mark has tipped way over the line in control of the device and the content.

AACS - Advanced Access Control System, also adopted in part by the HD DVD forum - requires a controversial permanent, always-on connection to the Internet, so content "calls home" for every playback to ensure that playback, at that time, on that device is authorized.

Discs that fail a security check trigger a notification process and enable the provider to send the player a sort of "self destruct code" that would render the player useless until taken to a shop for repair. This won't just stop you playing that disc, but the player will not function at all until repaired.

READ MORE...

The Anatomy of a Short

Ten years ago two witty gents from Colorado, made a riotous animated short film titled The Spirit of Christmas (aka Jesus vs. Santa). The film was originally commissioned by Fox executive Brian Graden as a personal holiday greeting card but was ultimately turned down due to its explicit content.

It did not hit a single festival or win any awards, but it did form the prototype for a television phenomenon, thus launching the careers of the duo now affectionately known as The South Park Guys.

READ MORE...

JUNK SQUAD

INDEPENDENT FILM: JUNK SQUAD: A group of friends all live in the same house and work at KBVR. One night, a magical voice comes to them and charges them with a quest to save KBVR from a group of pantsuited thespians bent of destroying the TV station and stealing its audience! The Four Misfits make a witty, stylish squad.

Not only that, but the group learns that they will develop superpowers based on their real-life personalities to aid them in their mission. They soon discover their powers and band together to become the amazing superhero team known as.... Junk Squad!

READ MORE... or Watch the Preview

GODS of Los Angeles

Independent filmmaker Garrett Gilchrist

I've directed seven features and thirty shorts. I began doing all comedy, but moved into drama and fantasy, and animation.

If you're on a fast connection or have some time to kill, this is a trailer for my last feature, a romantic drama called Gods of Los Angeles.

SEE THE PREVIEW...

In the Realms of the Unreal

From 1997 Documentary Oscar® winner Jessica Yu (Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O'Brien) comes "In the Realms of the Unreal," the astounding tale of Henry Darger. An orphaned recluse who lived out his life of menial labor in a one-room downtown Chicago apartment, Darger was a social non-entity.

So little remarked was he in life that only three photographs of him are known to exist. The amazing secret at the center of Darger's existence only emerged when ill health forced him to abandon his one-room apartment of 40 years a few months before his death in 1973. What the landlord found launched an "outsider art" sensation that has fascinated and inspired millions.

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AFGHANISTAN UNVEILED

Doc Emmy Nominations

In November and December of 2002, 14 young women, trained as video journalists and camera operators, traveled to rural regions of Afghanistan to interview their countrywomen. In the span of two months, they met and spoke with women eking out an existence in caves, women risking punishment by daring to appear on film and women whose lives and families had been destroyed by years of bombing and oppression.

Created as the culmination of this unique training program, AFGHANISTAN UNVEILED contrasts the harsh lives of the rural women of Afghanistan with those of the film’s young camerawomen, who are experiencing newfound freedom and opportunity while attempting to use their work to change the condition of women in their country.

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The Day My God Died

Doc Emmy Nominations

Every day 2,500 women and children around the world are sold into sexual slavery. Entering the brothels of Bombay with hidden cameras, THE DAY MY GOD DIED documents yhe tragedy of teh child sex trade, exposing human rights violations and profiling the courageous abolitionists who are working towards change.

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Lost Boys of Sudan

Doc Emmy Nominations

"Lost Boys of Sudan" tells an astonishing tale of two young men out of the thousands of young Dinka boys and girls who were orphaned and made refugees by Sudan's brutal 20-year civil war. For Peter Nyarol Dut and Santino Majok Chuor, having their villages destroyed and families killed, and being forced to flee into an unforgiving desert, marks the beginning of another incredible journey.

Their journey to America is one of good fortune but one also of cultural, spiritual and even physical vertigo. The distances traveled by the "lost boys" encompass a world of rapid movement and jarring contrasts, and reveal both great social divisions and remarkable human links in the 21st century global village.

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The Shock of the Unexpected

One of the big rewards of animation fandom is to be taken suddenly by surprise, hit full in the face and wowed for days by a piece of work that resonates to the very roots of your love for the art. It might be short, but you cannot forget it. It might be an entire film, or even a snippet seen within the context of that larger piece. The effect, however, is the same: Awe, delight, and the uncanny sense that everything in the piece is right, that this is what animation is supposed to do!

Only later, do you reflect upon the technical details or the specifics involved in production. When you do, you realize that this piece is a highlight for a class on animation appreciation. Not to analyze said details and specifics, as instructive as that may be, but simply because it exemplifies the way animation truly works.

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REMEMBERING GENE RODDENBERRY

The first time I worked with Gene Roddenberry was during the Big Writers Guild Strike of the mid-'70s (not to be confused with the Big Writers Guild Strike of the '80s).

Asked by a friend if I wanted to write an episode of STAR TREK, I wasn't stupid. I knew that the show had been cancelled some years ago, and I pointed this out to her. After she finished laughing, she told me, "STAR TREK is back! Gene's got twelve half-hours on NBC! The show's animated!

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Memoirs of a Geisha

This special report looks at filming of the long awaited adaptation of the best-seller - "Memoirs of a Geisha" which Rob "Chicago" Marshall is directing.

A massive set of the Gion district of 1920s Kyoto was constructed an hour outside of Los Angeles on a private farm in the Thousand Oaks area. The set includes a running river, two brides, authentic period buildings, and real cobblestone streets. A great deal of smoke and dry ice is used to give the set a foggy, hazy look.

The production designer, John Myhre, has invested an astounding level of detail into the sets and props from the period-specific furniture to the old adverts on the buildings to the old-fashioned light bulbs inside the buildings to the moss on the river.

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Superman Returns

The best and most solid film-related panel of the whole San Diego Comic Con convention this year was the "Superman Returns" panel.

Bryan Singer was flown in the day before hand from Sydney. He proved one of the best panelists at the San Diego Comicon - surprisingly strong audience questions lead to interesting answers, some fun jovial moments, and an apparent refreshing sense of humility which seems to have grown in recent years despite the success he's had of late.

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Indy Films: FIGHTING WORDS

FIGHTING WORDS: JAKE THOMPSON, an angry coffeehouse poet, meets MARNI ELLIOT, an attractive, conservative publisher, who is interested in his work. She wants him to enter the Los Angeles Poetron, a contest where poetry is read competitively. Jake rejects the idea because he believes poetry is an art and not a competition.

But the beautiful Marni sways Jake—it’s love at first sight. When they tumble into bed together, however, Marni tells him that she is HIV positive. Jake shuns the relationship but they are drawn together by the need to get his poetry published. As they prepare for the poetry slam where he will compete against her former lover, Jake realizes his feelings for Marni and her condition have helped him transcend his anger.

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Indy Films: ZOOEY

“Zooey” is an urban love story between a prostitute and her husband - two social outcasts that are not much different than ourselves. They love, live and dream of better things.

On the streets since she was a teenager, Zooey battles a drug addiction. She says she “just doesn’t want to survive she wants to live.” While “on the stroll” or at work, she literally runs into Angel, a small time drug dealer and they fall in love. They share a dream of leaving their life on the street and moving to Churchill, “where the snow is pure and white.”

Zooey’s pimp, Louie, controls her life. She says that he saved her and allowed her to marry Angel. But when he dies, she is forced to work for herself. Angel buys a car and protects her on the stroll. They begin to change their lives when they both get other jobs, deal with their addiction and take custody of a young child. But is it too late as their past catches up to them.

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Protecting Your Stories: Borrowed Elements or Stolen Ideas?

When writers submit their work, they become vulnerable to theft.

Usually writers complaining about the theft of their work are novices without representation who have submitted a script to an established production company. The company may return the script with a polite note passing on it, or the company may not bother to acknowledge receiving the material. Months or years go by and one day the writer stumbles upon a movie which closely resembles his story. The movie was made by a recipient of the writer’s script. The writer becomes convinced that his work has been stolen.
Copyright 2005, Mark Litwak

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Screenplay Writers

D: Before writing word one, you need a good story. What in your opinion comprises a good story?

CK: Something that captures your imagination. Something that taps into what’s happening in real life and NEEDS to be expressed in some way…that’s usually a great measuring stick. Something we need to know about or are upset with, or are curious about. Sometimes when you tap into something like this and it happens at the right time, great things can happen.

D: What are some of the ways writers prepare before plunging in?

JK: The first thing writer’s need to do is get very clear on their story. Great story telling comes down to some essential and universal truth that lies at the base of whatever the particular plot is, that touches and reaches people. It can be something very simple or something deeply complex and existential.

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Lady Death

Set in 15th Century Sweden, Hope, the beautiful daughter of Matthias—believed to be a skilled mercenary, but who in actuality is Lucifer, the Lord of Lies—is accused of being the devil’s consort following a hellish incident witnessed by local villagers.

Hope is sentenced by the town priest to be burned at the stake. Writhing in pain and unable to think clearly, she accepts Lucifer’s offer of life in Hell—presented by the malevolent Pagan—over a hideously painful death. Lucifer’s grand plan to corrupt a soul of pure innocence meets unanticipated resistance, as Hope rejects Lucifer's scheme and eventually, transformed into the powerful warrior LADY DEATH, challenges the Lord of Lies for control of Hell itself.

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International Manga & Anime Festival

Animators around the world are invited to get started on their entries forIMAF's competition to identify the best in kanga and Anime talent.

You have until Sept. 30, 2005, to submit your work for a chance to win a share of the $75,000 prize fund, which will be split amongst new, original and talented animators, both professional and amateur.

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Indy Films: HACKS

A hysterical mockumentary

The Diamond and Hutz Talent Agency is sending deluded stand-up comics to work all over New Jersey: bar-mitzvahs, baby showers, corporate team building days...er...farms. Fortunately for us, journalists from one of the nations leading papers were assigned to document the Diamond and Hutz world of stand-up comedy in its natural habitat.

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Literary Agent Answers Questions

HSC: Do you need to live in Hollywood to break into the business?
Jim: I think so. Unless you have daily access to the industry, it’s real hard to break in.

HSC: What I tell people, is that when you’re just writing spec scripts you can do it from anywhere. It’s when you score and are in demand and that you have to be out there to network and be available for pitch meetings...
Jim: If you’re just writing spec scripts and you haven’t broken into the industry you can work outside of Hollywood. Once you’ve sold a spec script and you’re on the map and you have an agent, you have to live in LA, because your agent has to be able to set up appointments for you, and those appointments can be plentiful. They don’t always have time to wait for you to fly in.

HSC: And those appointments are about what exactly?
Jim: Writing assignments, prospective rewriting jobs.

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The Cat With Hands

A dark animated story about a cat who, the legend has it, wants to become human.

ZeD is a launch pad for independent creative expression using TV and the Web to seek out and broadcast the best new short films, videos, animation, visual art, performance and music in Canada and around the world.

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Trusting the magic!

An extensive interview involved memories and anecdotes from a show I did many years ago and as with screenplay development, the first thing I did was to make a list of possible elements (in this case anecdotes and the like).

I did not think about this “material” for quite some time, so my recollections came to me in a disjointed and sketchy fashion. I was careful not to demand more from myself and felt satisfied just being in the ballpark. Once the list was initially compiled, I triggered some magical but familiar lever in my soul asking it to produce more information about what I had experienced back then--additional memories, and a sharpening and focusing of things. I then TRUSTED THIS PROCESS, stayed alert and waited for the onslaught.

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"Hustle & Flow" of Independent Film, Writer/Director Craig Brewer

For more than three years, Craig Brewer, the writer and director of "Hustle & Flow," couldn't get his film financed because, FOR ONE SIMPLE REASON, unlike the majority of his cast, he's white.

"There were a couple of places that were very interested in 'Hustle & Flow,' until they found out I was white, and that was a problem," explained Brewer during a post-screening discussion with producer Stephanie Allain at the MGM screening room in New York last month.

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Seen & Heard

Gus Van Sant's Last Days and Craig Brewer's Hustle & Flow examine the journeys of two very different musicians.

Last Days, is a fictionalized accounting of rocker Kurt Cobain’s final hours and it is being acclaimed in some quarters as a masterwork.

A lot more music in Hustle & Flow puts a Memphis pimp in the center of a Mickey-and-Judy, let’s-put-on-a-show story.

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Working Cheap

When it comes to animation programs, price does not always correspond with properties or power.

Every so often “hobbyware” graphics and animation programs like Vue 5 and Poser become so successful that even high-end users stop to take notice. Poser has been around for a while, and it's easy now to take Vue seriously, with its powerful new version from E-on Software.

Landscape-creation program Vue 5 Esprit has new features, such as Global Illumination and Global Radiosity and procedural terrains and textures, that will make the program attractive to many professional users—not just hobbyists.

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the Future of Content Delivery Networks

There’s little wiggle room when it comes to trying to turn a profit in a low-margin business. As such, companies looking to thrive in a commodity type market must continuously look for new ways of driving efficiency, both in their technology as well as their business practices.

Bandwidth is about as commoditized as it can be; it can’t support a large sales and marketing overhead. The best way to make a profit is to automate the least efficient part of the business process: the selling of bandwidth.

Invisible Hand’s Merkato technology enables real-time pricing and allocation of bandwidth through the use of automated agents. To learn more about how this technology works and what its benefits are, please refer to the StreamingMedia.com article Merkato Enables Dynamic, Real-Time Bandwidth Marketplace.

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Adaptations as Screenplays

Many writers have a lot of difficulty structuring their material, deciding what to include and exclude, knowing how to cinematically dramatize the big themes, feelings, nuances and subtext they long to communicate.

Many people avoid seeing film adaptations of their favorite books. They fear that Hollywood will destroy the written word---a true work of art. Translating a novel to a screenplay is an ominous task that is more often than not a vey complex process of compressing hundreds of pages of deeply moving and textured content into pure dialogue in three acts.

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3D Films

3-D Films have been around for some time and the most recent theatrical films released were "Ghosts of the Abyss" and "Spy Kids 3-D". These two films use two very different systems to film and project. "Ghosts of the Abyss" used the polarized system.

Chris Condon and Victoria Silliphant have had a company involved in 3-D for over 30 years. The majority of films they have supplied camera and projection lenses for use the full-color polarized system.

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Cult Film Comments

There are websites that deal with cult films in great depth. If you want to read lengthy discussions on “Blow Up” or “The Conversation” they are available.

In an early sci-fi 1951 cult film classic, “The Day The Earth Stood Still”, Gort, the robot turns all the electricity off in the entire world for one hour. There are scenes of different parts of the world stalled without power.

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CLASSIC FILMS: Portrait of Jennie

"Portrait of Jennie" made in 1948 is a special Dream film of 1930's New York and a fantasy about love. It stars Joseph Cotton, Jennifer Jones, Ethel Barrymore, (Drew's grandmother) and Lillian Gish.

The storyline begins when a starving artist Eben Adams meets a young girl (Jennie) playing in Central Park in 1934. She talks about events that happened twenty years ago. She goes off fading into the mist leaving a scarf wrapped in a magazine from twenty years before.

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INSIGHT in WRITING

What is the difference between good and great material? SOUL. When a screenwriter's vision is razor sharp and deeply, exactingly rendered, it can have such impact that you the reader feel changed because of it.

WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW or write about what truly fascinates you. Recognize and take advantage of those areas of experience and expertise for which you are the sole proprietor (It doesn't have to be based on 100% of the truth. It's enough that the truth is your inspiration).

CHARACTER HEAT. There are many "techniques" for creating and developing characters some of which are effective. However, the single most important thing you can do is to have a strong emotional connection with your character.

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HD Stock Rising

Film Companies Scour the World to Add HD Footage

Veteran director/cinematographer Craig Walters spent much of late 2004 and early 2005 taking four separate trips to the far corners of the world (11 countries in Central and South America, East Africa, the South Pacific, India, and parts of Asia) to acquire HD stock footage for a dozen new collections in the royalty-free Artbeats Digital Film Library.

“I'm normally only concerned with getting visuals to tell a specific story, and I rarely get enough time for B-roll. This job for Artbeats was, in essence, 100 percent B-roll. My job was solely to concentrate on finding interesting and pretty pictures for their library.”

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Less Is Always More

We’ve warned against plotless, storyless, material and all the hazards involved in writing a two hour movie around that three second scene you've just got to write. We are against hanging truckloads of characters off of a series of random events that have no narrative spine. But what’s often even worse are scripts in which the scriptwriter has stuffed a dozen screenplays worth of plot into one "lowly" script.

It’s the old "everything thrown in the pot including the kitchen sink" syndrome. A wonderful heart-warming story about a woman’s fight against cancer, while her boyfriend outsmarts the mob and his secret lover discovers alien visitors.

Just as it is essential to be sure your script "has body" (i.e. a solid, viable, central story) it is also necessary to make sure you haven’t turned your movie into a story smorgasbord in which everything happens for no apparent reason!

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FILM LEGEND: Buster Keaton

By the end of his life, Keaton had advanced the art of filmmaking through his superb writing and direction, had developed technical camera innovations unsurpassed even today, and was universally acclaimed as a genius.

What kind of man could achieve what he did? Who was this Buster Keaton, this jack of all theatrical trades, this genius in disguise?

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Motion Capturing Cartoons

Motion Capture is a process for capturing motion from live models. We now describe a new process, called Cartoon Capture. Cartoon capture tracks the motion of a traditionally animated cartoon and retargets it into other characters and other media.

The motion in cartoons is highly expressive—especially those created by master animators—because they use traditional animation principles and cartoon physics. We believe that by using traditional animation as the source of the motion capture, the resulting animations are more compelling and expressive than those of regular motion capture.

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India Succeeds in Animation Offshoring

India is hoping to cash in on the success of films such as "The Lion King" and "Finding Nemo" by building its own animation industry, a report in The Business news magazine said.

Hollywood companies are increasingly outsourcing cartoon characters and special effects to India because of lower costs and an English-speaking workforce that understands Western humour. Other companies are getting animation for commercials and computer games created in India.

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AM I READY TO WRITE?

Most professional writers spend most of their time planning their scripts, A lot less time is spent writing them. For the majority of writers, preparation and strategy is the name of the game. In fact, in Hollywood, if you pitch a project (in movies or TV), you don’t actually get to write the script until you’ve written the STORY in many times as a narrative and have had it studied and looked at by numerous hyper vigilant development people.

There is a tried and proven quick method for determining if and when you’re ready to write your script.

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Screen Door Jesus: Now you see him, now you don't!

Guess Who's Coming to Texas? When Jesus appears on Old Mother Harper's screen door, it's time to take sides...

Screen Door Jesus tells the story of that summer in Bethlehem, TX (pop. 2,378) when people thought they saw none other than Jesus himself on Old Mother Harper's screen door.

We asked Janet Smith, a lifelong resident of Bethlehem, to let us in on what it's all about. "Well, sugar, do I just talk or you need me to stop ever now and again and let you write it down? Just talk? Alrightie. I like your bow tie. That is just darlin'."

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FAMILY ENTERTAINMENT AND COPYRIGHT ACT OF 2005

The Family Movie Act of 2005

Congress' recent amendments to the Federal Copyright Act results in three significant changes: 1.) authorizing the "sanitization" of movies for private viewing;
2.) making the camcording of movies in theatres a federal crime; and
3.) allowing certain works vulnerable to copyright infringement special "pre-registration" rights and thus access to previously unavailable statutory remedies.

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DREAMWORKS PREVAILS IN "ANTZ" INFRINGEMENT CASE

ENTERTAINMENT LAW RESOURCES

The two requirements that must be met to show copyright infringement are 1.) access by the alleged infringer to the original work; and 2.) a substantial similarity between the works.

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The Game of Their Lives

The Game of Their Lives, has been optioned and re-optioned for years as a motion picture project, but it never got made. As it turns out, this story has a very happy ending!

The author was one of the lucky ones and, we who strive to succeed against great odds, need to hear these kinds of gratifying stories once in a while. The Game of Their Lives is the story of an improbable victory, an almost miraculous victory in fact, of eleven young American immigrant men, truck drivers, grave diggers, postal workers--Haitians, Yugoslavians, Italians, and Irish, (about half the team was based in St Louis) who were thrown together in 1950 to form the U.S. World Cup soccer team who then went down to Brazil and beat England in the World Cup which, at the time and maybe still today, was the most extraordinary upset in the history of American sports.

A true story of overcoming the impossible.

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