FIRST YOU WILL COMNE MOVIE BORAT

YOU COMNE ENJOY

Kazakh land is now very cheap, you can now buy a land size of a small country ( Like Uzbekistan) for less than 50 animals of your choice.

NOW IS TIME, COME TO KAZAKHSTAN!
From hot desert to eternal snow storm, we can offer little bit of all weather.Join us on nice tour through glorious nation of kazakhstan. With us you will visit historic site that have been hiddens from the civilized worlds until recent year of 2005, is nice! you come enjoy

CHOSE YOURS ATTRACTION
Visit Almaty, Kazakhstan. Trek in Tien-Shan Mts. for 5 days and then go a motor tour of the ancient citiys of the Great Silk Road. See the Beautiful Lake Issyk-Kul and Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan and many more places of great interestes!

WE ARE PROGRESSIVE COUNTRY!
Kazakhs are very hospitable. When' greeting guest, host gives him/her both hands as if showing that he/shes is unarmed. Wh en addressing a guest , a Kazakh may address him/his woman with a shortened form of the guest's or elder's name For example,
Abkahan may be called Abeke.

Formal dress is often required visiting the theatres, or attending dinners. Sunbath Shorts should not be worn except in the sports ground or beach.

This is a great new take on the TV Reality Show done up as a feature film comedy. DOES ANYONE DOUBT that this movie will be a big hit??? Just download and watch the scenes posted all over the Internet. The film is aimed directly at the largest segment of theatergoers: the young! The publicity and advance press has already been supplied by an unbeatable combination of Internet monsters: YouTube and MySpace! As sure as there is a tomorrow, there will be a dozen imitators following in the footsteps. - Editor

LEARN MORE & SEE THE TRAILER...
http://www.boratmovie.com/
(c) 2006, FOX and its related entities. All Rights Reserved.
MOVIE FILM MAKE RELEASE IN THEATERS USA NOVEMBER 3RD

Insomnia Film Festival

Write, cast, shoot, edit, score, sleep. In that order.

At 5:00 p.m. on November 10, the clock starts ticking on the Insomnia Film Festival. Once the film requirements are posted at www.apple.com/education/insomnia your team will have 24 hours to bring your movie from script to screen. Then you and your friends can vote for your favorite film online. Winning team members will each receive Final Cut Studio, Shake, and a video iPod to showcase their work. The biggest all-nighter of your career begins Friday, November 10.

The first ever Insomnia Film Festival challenges you and your team to write, shoot, and edit a short film in just one day.

On Friday, November 10 at 5 p.m. Eastern (2 p.m. Pacific), we will post a list of three elements that you will need to incorporate into your story. From that time, you will have 24 hours to finish and submit your completed short film.

After the entries are posted to our web gallery, we will make them available for the public to view and rate. The top 25 highest rated films through December 3 will then be judged by our panel of experts.

We will designate winners in two categories: the audience choice and the judges’ choice. Winning team members will each receive a copy of Final Cut Studio, a copy of Shake, and an 80GB video iPod for their portable portfolio (*Terms and conditions apply).

LEARN MORE...TERMS AND CONDITIONS...
http://www.apple.com/education/insomnia/ts_and_cs.html

WGA REGISTRATION vs. COPYRIGHT REGISTRATION

For screenwriters who use the latest version of Final Draft® to help write their screenplays, one nifty feature is the ability to register the script with the WGA-West Intellectual Property Online Registry with the touch of a button. Many (if not most) screenwriters register all of their scripts with the WGA Registry, and, believing that they have done all that is necessary to protect their script, they neglect to register the script with the Copyright Office.

Imagine their surprise when someone steals their screenplay and they learn for the first time that, other than establishing a date of creation, the WGA registration gives them almost no benefits at all. In fact, relying solely on the WGA registration can prove extremely costly for the following reasons.

First, although copyright protection exists at the moment of creation, registration with the Copyright Office is required before a lawsuit can be brought. Because it can take up to six months from the time the application is mailed to the Copyright Office until the application is processed and returned, if the writer needs to immediately file a lawsuit (i.e., in order to enjoin the movie’s distribution), he must apply for an expedited registration, for which the Copyright Office charges an additional $580.

Second, if the writer registers the script with the Copyright Office only after the infringement has taken place, he will be barred from recovering attorneys fees or statutory damages in the lawsuit.

Third, if the script is registered prior to or within five years of its publication, the registration acts as prima facie proof of ownership of the script, in the event of a trial. There is no such benefit form the WGA registration.

The only real advantage of the WGA registration is that, in the event of a lawsuit or a credit arbitration, the WGA will have an employee appear and testify concerning the date of the registration. But I have found that this is rarely an issue during litigation.

Therefore, if you are a screenwriter wondering whether to register with the WGA or the Copyright Office, the answer should be clear – Always register your script with the Copyright Office, and, if you have the extra $10 or $20, register with the WGA as well. And if you have scripts in your drawer that you registered in the past with the WGA, but never bothered to register with the Copyright Office, now is the time to do so. Before the work is infringed.

LEARN MORE...
http://www.zernerlaw.com/reports/zernerlaw_report2.htm#WGA

The Wednesday Night Save-the-World Society

They got together every Wednesday night to save the world, but they and ended up saving themselves.

The world is going straight to Hell. What's a successful, single, 39-year-old woman to do? If you're DEE BARNES, you organize a discussion group in hopes somebody has an answer...or at least is man enough to marry you and father your children.

Seven disaffected people gather at Dee's house "to discuss the problems of the day, build a sense of community and stop being angry and frustrated." Nice idea, but each participant has his own selfish agenda.

A comedy for grown-ups, THE WEDNESDAY NIGHT SAVE-THE-WORLD SOCIETY is about the people in a "salon," a discussion group.

At first we envisioned each of the characters carrying equal weight, and each character having a particular story, but eventually we gave the film a hero--the most mature of the characters, but also the most detached. By doing so, the piece became strongly about alienation, loneliness and isolation.

The tension between what the characters wanted for themselves and their ideals for the planet became the central conflict in the movie, and the source for most of the comedy. This freed us from being too topical, something we wanted to avoid since we had no idea how far into the future the film would be seen.

By the time we finished the script, technology had caught up with what we had in mind. A number of films proved you could make a world-class film with consumer-grade materials. And by then we'd been personally involved with one miniDV feature, a comedy, MONKEY LOVE.

"...a beautiful, well-crafted film, a sublimely thoughtful ensemble piece with real emotional depth and no easy answers...showcases what an indie filmmaker can do when the craft is at its best..." Ron Leming, "Hacker"s Source"

SEE THE PREVIEW...
http://www.smartindiefilms.com/

Designing A Movie For Sound

The biggest myth about composing and sound designing is that they are about creating great sounds. Not true, or at least not true enough.

What is Sound Design?
You may assume that it’s about fabricating neat sound effects. But that doesn’t describe very accurately what Ben Burtt and Walter Murch, who invented the term, did on "Star Wars" and "Apocalypse Now" respectively. On those films they found themselves working with Directors who were not just looking for powerful sound effects to attach to a structure that was already in place. By experimenting with sound, playing with sound (and not just sound effects, but music and dialog as well) all through production and post production what Francis Coppola, Walter Murch, George Lucas, and Ben Burtt found is that sound began to shape the picture sometimes as much as the picture shaped the sound. The result was very different from anything we had heard before. The films are legends, and their soundtracks changed forever the way we think about film sound.

What passes for "great sound" in films today is too often merely loud sound. High fidelity recordings of gunshots and explosions, and well fabricated alien creature vocalizations do not constitute great sound design. A well-orchestrated and recorded piece of musical score has minimal value if it hasn’t been integrated into the film as a whole. Giving the actors plenty of things to say in every scene isn’t necessarily doing them, their characters, or the movie a favor. Sound, musical and otherwise, has value when it is part of a continuum, when it changes over time, has dynamics, and resonates with other sound and with other sensory experiences.

What I propose is that the way for a filmmaker to take advantage of sound is not simply to make it possible to record good sound on the set, or simply to hire a talented sound designer/composer to fabricate sounds, but rather to design the film with sound in mind, to allow sound’s contributions to influence creative decisions in the other crafts. Films as different from "Star Wars" as "Citizen Kane," "Raging Bull," "Eraserhead," "The Elephant Man," "Never Cry Wolf" and "Once Upon A Time In The West" were thoroughly "sound designed," though no sound designer was credited on most of them.

Does every film want, or need, to be like Star Wars or Apocalypse Now? Absolutely not. But lots of films could benefit from those models. Sidney Lumet said recently in an interview that he had been amazed at what Francis Coppola and Walter Murch had been able to accomplish in the mix of "Apocalypse Now." Well, what was great about that mix began long before anybody got near a dubbing stage. In fact, it began with the script, and with Coppola’s inclination to give the characters in "Apocalypse" the opportunity to listen to the world around them.

Many directors who like to think they appreciate sound still have a pretty narrow idea of the potential for sound in storytelling. The generally accepted view is that it’s useful to have "good" sound in order to enhance the visuals and root the images in a kind of temporal reality. But that isn’t collaboration, it’s slavery. And the product it yields is bound to be less complex and interesting than it would be if sound could somehow be set free to be an active player in the process. Only when each craft influences every other craft does the movie begin to take on a life of it’s own.

READ MORE...(c) by Randy Thom 1999
http://www.filmsound.org/articles/designing_for_sound.htm

CLASSIC HORROR FILMS Part 1

It was in the early 1930s that American film producers, particularly Universal Pictures Co. Inc., popularized the horror film, bringing to the screen a series of successful Gothic features including Dracula (1931), and The Mummy (1932), some of which blended science fiction films with Gothic horror, such as James Whale's Frankenstein (1931) and The Invisible Man (1933). These films, while designed to thrill, also incorporated more serious elements, and were influenced by the German expressionist films of the 1920s. Some actors began to build entire careers in such films, most notably Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi.

Other studios of the day had less spectacular success, but Rouben Mamoulian's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Paramount, 1931) and Michael Curtiz's Mystery of the Wax Museum (Warner Brothers, 1933) were both important horror films.

Universal's horror films continued into the 1940s with The Wolf Man 1941, not the first werewolf film, but certainly the most influential. Throughout the decade Universal also continued to produce more sequels in the Frankenstein series, as well as a number of films teaming up several of their monsters. Also in that decade, Val Lewton would produce a series of influential and atmospheric B-pictures for RKO Pictures, including Cat People (1942), I Walked with a Zombie (1943) and The Body Snatcher (1945).

With technology that occurred in the 1950s, the tone of horror films shifted away from the gothic and further toward science fiction.

A seemingly endless parade of low-budget productions featured humanity overcoming threats from "outside": alien invasions and deadly mutations to people, plants, and insects. These films provided ample opportunity for audience exploitation, with gimmicks such as 3-D and "Percepto" (producer William Castle's pseudo-electric-shock technique used for 1959's The Tingler) drawing audiences in week after week for bigger and better scares. The classier horror films of this period, including The Thing from Another World (1951; attributed on screen to Christian Nyby but widely considered to be the work of Howard Hawks) and Don Siegel's Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) managed to channel the paranoia of the Cold War into atmospheric creepiness without resorting to direct exploitation of the events of the day. Filmmakers would continue to merge elements of science fiction and horror well into the future. [5]

The late 1950s and early 1960s saw the rise of studios centered around horror, including the British company Hammer Film Productions. Hammer enjoyed huge international success from bloody technicolor films involving classic horror characters, often starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, such as The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Dracula (1958), and The Mummy (1959) and many sequels. Hammer, and director Terence Fisher, are widely acknowledged as pioneers of the modern horror movie.

American International Pictures (AIP) also made a series of Edgar Allan Poe–themed films produced by Roger Corman and starring Vincent Price. These sometimes controversial productions paved the way for more explicit violence in both horror and mainstream films.

LEARN MORE...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horror_films

CLASSIC HORROR FILMS Part 2

Since it's time for Halloween, I thought a cool topic would be the subject of horror movies (Edited by Sean McKnight)...

Personally, I think a lot of the horror movies now are more about how over the top gory they can get without much story or character development (much like how the Friday the 13th series became).

The horror movies that have the most impact on me are the ones that seem like they could really happen. I also like some cheesy horror movies and zombie movies...

Some of my favorites include:

The Exorcist (classic, I love watching that one by myself in a dark room)
Prince of Darkness
Dawn of the Dead (especially the remake)
Shaun of the Dead
28 Days Later
The Toxic Avenger (gotta love Troma)
Cry Wolf
Suspiria (Dario Argento is one of the scariest directors on the planet)
The Evil Dead
Hellraiser I and II
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (the original - creepy as hell)

I agree. There is far too much gore nowadays. Ironically, the movie which spawned the whole Friday the 13th trend, Halloween, isn't a gore fest either (I love the first Halloween - so add that to my list too). That said, I do think the first Nightmare on Elm Street, a gorier movie from that era, was pretty ground breaking. It really took on the whole trend of pop-psychoanalysis and turned it on its head (therapy can't save the kids!). It was also fairly innovate in terms of blending dream time and real time to create its scares. The other ones lost the plot - but I think the first one has a lot more going for it than it is often given credit for.

I'm beating Gary to the punch on some of these (posted by Loki).

The Last Man on Earth
Carnival of Souls
The Body Snatchers
Fall of the House of Usher (Corman version)
Cat People (both versions)
I Walked With a Zombie
The Hitcher (not really a horror monster movie - but it horrifies me nonetheless!)
Call of the Cthulhu
Castle Freak
The Tingler
Humanoids from the Deep
Alien

I have to chime in on this one (posted by Gary Gustin)....

I think the best horror films are mythic with gothic atmosphere and dark hallways.
The Body Snatchers (with Karloff and Lugosi)
The Others (Nicole Kidman in a modern classic)
The Haunting (with Julie Harris)
Burnt Offerings (with Bette Davis)
Trilogy of Terror (with Karen Black) This is the one that the little voodoo doll chases her.
The Sentinel (even Burgess Meredith was scary)
Carnival of Souls (my earliest memory of being scared was this film.....very creepy)
The Shining

While I love watching the Corman films or anything with Vincent Price, I didn't find them scary at all. They were so lavish in set and costumes and had that titillating blend of flesh and fantasy, that they were perfect date movies or for hard up teenage guys at home (not me personally..of course).

Favorites include:
Cry of the Banshee
Masque of the Red Death (especially the end scene with the hooded guys walking thru the woods)
House of Wax
Theater of Blood (mostly because Diana Rigg was in it)

PLUTO'S PLIGHT

Pluto's Plight
Script By Artie Knapp

{Note: The following script is NOT in industry standard screenplay format. This is because the screenwriter is also the director. When you write, produce and direct your own screenplay, you can write it however you want. If you are a budding screenwriter looking to sell your work, it would behoove you to use industry standard format.}

This science fiction-comedy feature film stars former boxing champ Buster Douglas. Douglas portrays Agent Leis of the FBI. The plot of the movie centers on a young girl who has visions of life on Pluto.

Meanwhile, actual aliens have left their Solar System, because their star is going to Supernova. The aliens want to make Earth their new home, but crash land on Pluto before they can reach their destination.

Eventually the aliens make it to Earth and under the guise of offering helpful information about Earth's Ozone Layer, they try to con their way into taking over the planet.

READ THE SCRIPT... http://www.scifiscripts.com/scripts/plutos_plight.html
WATCH THE MOVIE... http://www.3btv.com/playerclip.asp?clip=plutosplight

WINTER ORANGES

Ryuki lives on Sagi, a small island off the coast of Hiroshima. His ancestors have always grown oranges and scallions in fields sloping sharply upward from the sea. But Ryuki is tired of all that.

Although his wife Kaori is expecting their first child, Ryuki dreams about going to Tokyo to work in the theatre. He wanders the island distracted but inspired by Basho, a wandering Japanese poet from the 17th Century.

But with modern instant communication what does travel mean? Can we really get away from anything any longer? And now Ryuki meets temptation in the person of a visiting Tokyo journalist and her friend, come to Sagi to view the mythical "Winter Orange" festival.

Moody as a Basho Haiku, the film is about Ryuki's decision. Should he stay with what he has always known or venture into the world to take his chances? In the end the unanswered question is asked in each viewer's heart.

"Nilsson's films are beautiful, exciting, well done, imaginative, unfamiliar- and outside of that, very good." -John Cassavetes

LEARN MORE...
http://www.robnilsson.com/wo.html

BACK WATERS

Andy (Nicholas Irons) is driving his pretty wife, TV soap-star Lili (Tamzin Outhwaite) home from a party at her brother Jason’s house, (Jason Flemyng). They have a serious car crash - Andy miraculously escapes unhurt but Lili is left wheelchair bound. Her career is ruined - she drinks to ease the pain.

Six months later, their marriage in trouble, they fly to Southern India, where Lili hopes to benefit from the renowned Ayurvedic healing treatments found in the beautiful backwaters of Kerala. Private massages are arranged on their houseboat and after long daily sessions, a bitter and angry Lili, still blaming Andy for the accident, starts to show a slight but significant improvement.

Andy’s writing career is going through a bad patch. Looking for inspiration, he takes long walks along the backwaters while Lili is occupied with her treatment. During one such stroll, he meets a stunningly beautiful local Indian girl. Inevitably, a lovers’ tryst begins and they start meeting in the afternoons.

Returning to his houseboat from one such idyllic rendezvous, Andy discovers that his bad-tempered wife has disappeared. After a frantic search, the police find Lili’s lifeless body caught in a local fisherman’s net. Despite their differences, Andy is devastated by Lili’s gruesome fate. As nothing has been stolen from the houseboat he is immediately a prime suspect.

The Police quickly hear about the couple’s continuous alcohol-fuelled bickering and that Andy is to be the beneficiary of Lili’s enormous life insurance policy.

With his innocence now seriously in question, Andy is relying on his lover to simply confirm that they were together all afternoon, providing him with his critical alibi. When she refuses, he starts to realise that something weird is going on.

The Inspector, reluctantly, has no choice but to charge him. Is he being framed? Who would do this to him? Andy does not understand. He must try to find out who really killed Lili.

SEE THE TRAILER...
http://www.backwatersthefilm.com/gallery.html

The Donut Hole

depravity, noun

de·prav·i·ty

Corruption: moral perversion; impairment of virtue and moral principles; "the luxury and corruption among the upper classes.

A corrupt or depraved or degenerate act or practice; "the various turpitudes of modern society.

The Donut Hole was written by Cleveland filmmaker Eric Swinderman. Originally written as a short film in 1999, the script received so much buzz, that Swinderman adapted it to a feature length script.

The Donut Hole is a dark look into the depths of the human psyche. It is a window into the depraved minds of seemingly ordinary every day people.

Three men struggle with their demons as they become obsessed with a 16 year-old waitress they meet one night in a 24-hour diner.

The Donut Hole is a twisted tale of the thoughts that lurk inside man's head, waiting for the moment they can escape.

The Donut Hole is being executive produced by CINEMA president, Gilberto Rivera, but has not been awarded a grant by CINEMA.

Eric Swinderman is the founder of 1031 Films. The writer, director, producer has a BA in film from Cleveland State University.

1031 Films is currently in pre-production on The Donut Hole, a feature film based on a short he wrote by the same title. Swinderman has written several feature length screenplays and countless scripts for TV. He has performed stand-up comedy and was a member of the legendary Second City Theater.

By replacing big budgets and big names, with big ideas and big hearts, our films focus on the one thing all great movies posess, a great story.

1031 Films wants to utilize the talent and passion located in Cleveland, in front of and behind the camera. Special consideration is given to local talent, as we believe Cleveland is a viable and relevant creative community.

SEE THE TRAILER and LEARN MORE...

http://www.1031films.com/

What Comes After YouTube

Meet the startups making deals with Big Media for online video's next step

With all the hubbub around Google Inc.'s (GOOG) purchase of YouTube Inc., it's easy to raelize that three-minute, streaming clips mark the culmination of the online video revolution. But what Google paid $1.65 billion for is more like the king of what works today.

Right now, a crowd of startups is hard at work developing Web technologies that will radically change how TV, movies, and other video are distributed, packaged, and experienced in the future. "We're just at the beginning stages of what will be a long evolution," says Joe Laszlo, an analyst at JupiterResearch.

The next few months will see the unveiling of a slew of innovative approaches to dishing up video. They range from the much anticipated launch of something called the Venice Project, by the founders of Skype Ltd., the Internet phone service, to the rebirth of BitTorrent, the video piracy software of choice as a legitimate business.

Unlike Napster or even YouTube, both of which rose to popularity on the back of illegally posted content, these would-be video giants are teaming up with established media companies, in part to aid them in their battle against piracy. Indeed, one of the most startling developments over the past year is how Hollywood has loosened up, taking a more experimental approach toward online video distribution.

There's plenty of work still to be done before video blossoms into its full potential. "What's the advertising model? How does search work? What's the syndication model? It's the same questions asked with the Web in 1995 that startups helped answer," says Josh Bernoff, an analyst at Forrester Research (FORR ).

Take something as basic as how you track down specific clips. Getting video search right is critical because it is expected to provide the backbone for the sort of targeted advertising that will prop up video sites. But the technology is still primitive.

Google dropped the ball by relying on text descriptions, rather than audio or video identification, in its video search. That created an opening for upstarts Blinkx and TVEyes, which look for actual images and spoken words.

LEARN MORE...
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_44/b4007052.htm

AN EYE FOR A TOOTH

A modern Noir about a man who must pay the price for doing good. This is the (Class version) for my film class. A 30 minute version is in pre- production right now and will be shot in almost all of the locations Brian Shelburne's character talks about in this student version. PLease note ALL DIALOGE is 100% "A.D.R." or "LOOPED" if you will. ...

This is a short 10 minute film that was done in true guerilla fashion. The lighting was purchased from home depot--500 and 1000 watt halogen work lamps. The shadow effect on the wall was made with black cloth and a trellis purchased from home depot.

The dolly used for the shots was made out of skateboard wheels and used PVC pipe for tracks. The tracks were velcroed to the carpet to creat the semicircle around the
actors. I am currently in pre-production for a 30 minute version of this movie that will include the flash back scenes that Colin describes in the 10 minute version.

Most of those scenes will be shot in San Francisco at Lori's Diner and an alley next to Lori's.I would enjoy sharing my experiences with shooting on a low budget.

The plan for the 30 minute version is to run the festival circuit, gather some recognition for myself and crew, and hopefully get in contact with someone who will fund us for a feature.

SEE THE FILM...AN EYE FOR A TOOTH
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpBmiISlOHk

Direct Action Cinema

Direct Action Cinema is a practice created to allow actors and technicians high freedom and deep responsibility to create memorable cinema. It is a dynamic jazz ensemble of actors, camera, sound, directors, and editors that creates and interprets together, seeking the unexpected, the extraordinary, the miracles only a well-prepared combo can play.

Create a situation, define and develop a character. Combine the two and watch them collide, attract, and repel. Build drama from this dynamic, closer to the way life happens to us and we happen back.

Grow a narrative with the story spine hidden, accreting like a coral reef from within and according to its own inner energies.

Reject the 'film as short story' dictum promoted by Hollywood and the film schools. Smash the iron ball and chain of excessive plot. Create a poetic cinema based not on writing but on observing. Mistrust your ideas and trust your experiences. Discover, don't prescribe.

Build a cinema not of auteurs but of interpreters. Film is not a director's medium. The magicians who bottle the genie are the actors. The magician who lets the genie out of the bottle is the editor.

In acting - situations, rich discords, conflict, laughter, human dilemma, emotion.

In editing - a scavenger hunt for the miraculous.

LEARN MORE...
http://www.robnilsson.com/dac.html

WHEN SHADOWS DIE

This indy shot on 16mm for less than $500,000.00 runs 93 minutes.

Five women convicts are paroled to a work release program rebuilding an historic ghost town, only to find a secret buried deep in its past ... a secret waiting for them to discover the true meaning of When Shadows Die.

VIEW THE TRAILER...
http://www.whenshadowsdie.com/

THE TALKING COMPUTER: Text to Speech Synthesis

Sitting in a movie theater in the 1960s watching 2001 A Space Odyssey about two astronauts and a computer, the audience encountered a computer that could speak. The computer, named HAL, not only spoke, he was friendly and understanding.

HAL (H+1+A+1+L+1=IBM) was definitely ahead of its time.

For most of the people in the audience a computer was something out of science fiction. Its typical embodiment was an array of tall cases containing spinning tapes, a large box for the computer's memory and CPU (central processing unit), and machines that printed out pages and pages of wide sheets filled with numbers and obscure symbols.

A few of these viewers just might have been familiar with punched computer cards for bills. In all likelihood, this was the extent of their real-life experiences with computers. Even those who used one in the sixties interacted with machines in an extremely cumbersome way, using decks of punched cards to submit information and receiving large printouts in return.

The way we interact with computers today -- by typing on a keyboard to input information and receiving responses on a video screen -- was just being designed. Spoken communication with a computer was a luxury that existed only in science-fiction books and the movies, but how times have changed!

LEARN MORE...by Joseph P. Olive
http://mitpress.mit.edu/e-books/Hal/chap6/six1.html

Apple's iPod Looks Great at Five-Years-Old

Apple's iPod Looks Great at Five-Years-Old

The iPod is the big news on iPod's fifth birthday!!! Buzz surrounds Apple's slick line of hand-held media players as talk of the long awaited iPhone — an iPod that also doubles as a cell phone — and a video iPod with a bigger screen and touch screen controls persist.

With 70 percent of the market in their hands and over 65 million iPods in consumers' hands, there seems to be nothing even close to threatening the players' dominance — even with major players like Microsoft trying desperately to pump up the hype on their own upcoming player and download store, Zune.

"Apple simply has a tremendous ability to refresh their product line and continue to win the hearts and minds of consumers," explained Michael Gartenberg, vice president and research director for Jupiter Research. "It's not going to be a simple thing for Microsoft to come in and challenge Apple in the short term."

Every time it seems as though Apple's great white hope might be unseated, the company reinvents it by adding new features like a color display, more storage space or bright and expressive colors.

When the iPod was released in 2001, CEO Steve Jobs said that "With iPod, listening to music will never be the same again."

Boy, he wasn't kidding.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE NEW TECHNOLOGY...
By JONATHAN SILVERSTEIN for abc News
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=2600145&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

How Will Amateurs Make Money from Online Videos in 2007?

Right now there are only two ways for an amateur to make money on short online videos, but this will soon change.

1.) Provide a website or network exclusive rights and get a one-time payment. We've seen certain amateur content creators already stop producing content for YouTube because they've been presumably approached by "content scouts." Remember MadV? He said good-bye and I would expect to see him appear somewhere else. I've seen celebrity YouTube stars also vanish with ambiguous plans about entering into a different arrangement.
I've been contacted by such content scouts, but the financial transparency isn't clear so I haven't done anything.

2.) Serve videos through a revenue-sharing site (usually non-exclusive that allows for ongoing income based on view volume). Eepy Bird's $15K plus income on their Coke/Mentos is a good example of this. They opted to run their videos through Revver and opted to post them exclusively even though Revver doens't require that.
As 2006 continues, we're going to see some new models emerge, providing more options to amateur artists. These will require some serious trade-offs for content owners because we'll have to weigh options without knowing exactly which will be most profitable.

For instance, some online video sites are developing "exclusive revenue-sharing models" whereby you'd turn over exclusive rights to your video for ongoing revenue based on views. This only makes sense if you expect to get dramatically more views in exchange for giving up your video forever.

But if you apply proven media models to the online space, it makes sense that this will be an option. A website can't sell its content upstream (to cell phone providers, for instance) if most of their content is non exclusive and violating copyrights. So the future for a value-added intermediary depends on garnering traffic, getting good content, and then distributing that more broadly.

In any event, there are three things that are critical. 1) Good content (defined as funny, sexy, short and viral). 2) Traffic (there's no advertising revenue without traffic), and 3) Distribution and promotion (someone has to market the videos…

Posted by nalts in Uncategorized, Online Video, Video Sites, Blogs on Video, Video Business, Making Videos, Video Advertising.

The Increasing Popularity of Online Video Content and WHY WEBISODES DON'T WORK (YET)

Webisodes. A nice concept that’s ahead of its time. The idea is that we tell a longer story in “chunks,” and each short video clip (not to exceed 3-5 minutes) has the story progressing.

Many experiments have failed. Eventually Webisodes will bridge the chasm between “lean back” television viewing and “lean forward” Internet viewing.

But not yet. Why?

Right now the online video appetite is for short isolated moments of humor and stupidity. Here’s a new example- two guys racing through a library in box cars. People haven’t yet developed a habit for finding, consuming and returning to a threaded storyline online.

There isn’t yet a proven distribution channel for webisodes. Eventually Yahoo, AOL, Google or other online media players will syndicate webisodes and give them a few primary channels. Just like iTunes paved a path for podcasts, someone will develop an audience interested in stories told in short-form series. Recent deals between studios and online properties will accelerate this. But right now each webisode has to find its own audience. That’s tough.

We still have some legal issues. Studios maintain they’re promotional tools and don’t pay residuals to talent. The Writers Guild of America begs to differ. For more check out this Newsweek articleabout how NBC Universal is canning the 10 Battlestar Galactica webisodes it had “in the can.”
So what’s a short term approach?

Use webisodes to promote the television show, and pay writers and actors accordingly. The Office got “word of mouth” buzz before season three by introducing a short plot line through web episodes. I’m not linking to it, because the promoters never sent me the Dwight Bobblehead they promised in exchange for my ads on CubeBreak.

Networks need to partner with online properties to set a platform for these. None of us will remember to visit unique URLs, but if Yahoo syndicated a series of webisodes we’d probably make it part of our morning/evening routine.
The networks need to publicize webisodes as part of their programming. Shows could conclude with a “call to action” that sends viewers to see out takes or alternative endings. Synergy, baby.

Find content creators that are already adept at short-form content and give them a new vehicle. Start with humorous Vloggers. ZeFrank and MediaMoGirlare good examples. They’ll eventually land syndication deals with online media players, and can cut good deals because their costs are extremely low relative to offline media players with huge overhead.

Some film makers have debuted films via web by “chunking” the storyline into webisodes. Example: Sam Has Seven Friends. I maintain that this will eventually be viable. But the trick is to start with the 3-5 minute framework and tell the story accordingly. It’s very difficult to retroactively adapt long-form content and break it into webisodes that compel the viewer to return for the next one.

Posted by nalts in mediamogirl.

MY CHRISTMAS SOLDIER

A small Georgia town struggles with the rationing and sacrifices of America at war.
Christmas is no exception as 11-year-old Gordy and his sister Priscilla sense a fear
in the train station where they await their father’s homecoming. Propaganda
posters and tense adult talk drive home the evil of the enemy.

When a train loaded with German prisoners arrives in the station, Gordy’s curiosity
is stronger than his fear. He dares to approach the prison train and makes contact
with a young German soldier named Hans. Through the courage to trust and the
song Silent Night, friends and foes learn the true meaning of Peace on Earth,
Goodwill Towards Men, and hearts are forever changed.

Narrated by Grammy Winner Mac Powell of THIRD DAY.
The movie had its first festival screening last night and sure enough the biggest question was "what on earth was that shot on?!"

One thing I did a bit differently for this film was a complete note by note original score. In the past I've started out with Acid loops and heavily modified them, adding custom melody lines etc. I've pretty much worn out those libraries and want more control, so I purchased a copy of Garritan Personal Orchestra and set to work on creating an original soundtrack.

Many of the cues I wrote for the movie are inspired by (and contain bits and pieces of) well-known Christmas carols. This served as a great foundation for the score. I've always thought of Christmas as a holiday that comes with its own soundtrack, so what better source of inspiration?

The song "Silent Night" plays a key role in the story and you will hear a tiny bit of that hinted at in the opening piece. It's not enough to give it away, but if you listen for it you should pick up on it pretty easily.

SEE THE TRAILER...
http://www.mychristmassoldier.com/bts.php

Owen Smith has written unique scores for a variety of nationally available films including the award-winning "Sugar Creek Gang" series, the WWII short "Battaglia," and the new release "My Christmas Soldier."

How to Book Your Films

If you're not over the leading edge yet, or haven't seen the writing on the wall, this is where it's going: Niche Market Film Distribution.

Too much to explain right now, but a picture's worth a thousand words and I've been advised that a motion pictures is worth millions.

Most of you probably don't know that in addition to being a filmmaker and an international recording artist, I am also a computer systems design engineerr [what they used to call me was an electrical engineer, still am].

"What has that got to do with film?"

Well, for starters, I worked with J. Presper Eckert & John Mauchly, those two professor guys from the Univeristy of Pennsylvania right here in Philadelphia that invented this Internet because they invented the computer right here in Philly!

In 1978, while working for Pres and John, I wrote a seemingly innocuous paper about telecommunications becoming the dominant industry in the future and the computer being the core of that industry. Now, that paper has become a reality. The old industry is dead and dying; Paramount's doors are closed, Tower Records doors are closed, and Live Spaces, YouTube, and MySpace are in a race to become the new major distribution channels for both film and music.

We, both artists and programmers, deal in intellectual property known as "software." The union of entertainment & electronics therefore is a natural one. The birth of the new medium, IV, to replace "tv", whether it be InternetVision, IntraVision, InterpersonalVision, or any IV definition, took place right here in Philadelphia.

Therefore, who better than to lead this revolution than Philadelphians? It's importance ranks right up there with 1776. We made both happen.

I have coined these numerous terms and acronyms for this 21st century pheonomenon. I even had a hand in the MCP which you may have seen in a movie or two; it was real, the Master Control Program, it still is! I was responsible for making both the computer hardware and software work on the original 64-bit computer. The B7800/B7900/MODIII World's Largest & Fastest Commercial Computer System designed and manufactured right here in our burbs in Tredyffrin Township, Paoli, Pennsylvnia, the original "Silicon Valley" East.

I have worked very hard for this advent, the change of complete control from the few suits to the original authors and artists. We now stand before an open door to complete artistic freedom and the ability of every filmmaker and artist to earn a living from their creations and works. You have a choice: walk through the door, or take the blue pill and go on living in the 20th century in the incubator and cacophonic life provided by the old machines, or, take the red pill which is on the other side of that door and enter Neo's 21st century and join the human race. Make the IV feed the machine, not you. Pull the tv tube out of your arm and walk away from the old medication that is zombyizing you, and put the IV tube in the machine and turn the tables on it.

As both an artist and an engineer, as a persona and as Microsoft Partner & Developer, and a partner and developer of many more such companies, I am an advisor to people like Derek Sivers of CDBaby.com, Stephen Jobs' people, and Bill Gates' people. We are moving the entire film, movie, and all of Entertainment & Electronics to the new Internet Entertainment & Electronics [IEE] medium and out of the old Hollywood system. Now it is become a universally accessible distribution system worldwide. The Niche Market and IV.

The Internet is the Medium.

TERRY JAMES...
http://www.myspace.com/diamondclubfilms

THE ANTI HERO

Do we have to like the protagonist or merely empathize?

How do you write an Anti-Hero?

In literature and film, an anti-hero is a fictional character that has some characteristics of a villian or outsider, but is nevertheless portrayed somewhat sympathetically. In particular, an anti-hero may have eneough heroic qualities and intentions to align them with the heroes in the readers minds.

Anti-heroes can be awkward, anti-social, alienated, obnoxious, passive, pitiful or just ordinary; but they are always, in some fundamental way, flawed, unqualified or failed heroes. When an anti-hero is a central character in a work of fiction the work will frequently deal with the effect of their flawed character on the other people they meet. Additionally, the work may depict how their characters alter over time, either leading to punishment ,un-heroic success or redemption.

Types of anti-hero:
. The vigilante
. The developing hero
. The drifter
. The failure
. The flawed everyman
. The villian
. The noble criminal
. The monster
(also mentioned) . The Byronic hero

History

Many modern anti -heroes possess, or even encapsulate , the rejection of traditional values symptomatic of Modernist literature in general, as well as the disillusion felt after World War II and the Nuclear Age.

Previous booms in flawed heroes include: pulp fiction and noir detective stories of the mid 20th century; the darker themed Victorian literature of the late 19th century; and the Elizabethean tragedies of Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare.

One archetypal character, the assassin or spy, has changed literature and popular culture during the course of the 20th century from a villian to the subject of the sub-genre of spy fiction. Some spies and assassins are still villians, while others are heroic. Some few fall in the middle as one of the established archetypes of the anti-hero.

Wikipedia gives excellent examples of the anti-hero. The complete article includes specific examples of different anti- hero archetypes, as well as examples of characters in film, and other links to articles in literature and film on the anti-hero.

Edited by David Negrin From Wikipedia, the free encycolpedia

CROSS THE LINE

Independent cinema lives.



















SEE THE TRAILER...and learn more

www.crossthelinemovie.com

ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS

A couple of new tutorials are going up (probably Monday), but I have one that's been in development since '05. Too much has changed in the application, and support apps, so it has to be retooled. And now Luxology has produced IMAGE SYNTH! (check out more on www.CREATIVEMAC.COM)

Check out all of the PSD tutorials that lead up to this and Dave Nagel's Photoshop threads too. Here:
DMN Photoshop Forum - LEARN MORE...
http://www.dmnforums.com/cgi-bin/displaywwugpost.fcgi?forum=adobe_after-effects&post=060902005443.htm

http://www.IFP.org

FILMMAKING ORGANIZATIONS

IFP.org - I'm a member, I seriously look forward to getting their newsletter each week. Here's what's great about IFP:

Membership in today's IFP is the key to an indie filmmaker's career and the smart move for industry execs looking to stay on top of new developments. For networking, exposure, project tracking, talent discovery, and invaluable financing and production information, IFP is the foremost link between the creative and business communities. All IFP chapters offer similar benefits:

- Built-in Networking Opportunities at all events (so many great events)
- Multiple Funding and Grant Programs
- Hundreds of Preview and Premeire Screenings
- Career Advancement Seminars and Workshops
- Significant Production Discounts and Savings
- Complimentarty Subscription to FILMMAKER Magazine

http://www.IFP.org

HD Cinematography on Showtime's Dexter

D.P. Romeo Tirone's Blood Work for a Morally Ambiguous Serial Killer

We caught up with cinematographer Romeo Tirone last week, as he was heading into the home stretch of his work on Showtime's Dexter, a new series about the exploits of a vigilante serial killer working on the inside of the Miami Police Department. Cable vet Michael C. Hall (HBO's Six Feet Under) gives the killer a human face, but it's Tirone's camerawork that sets the mood for the story. Working mainly in HD, but using film for high-speed cinematography that has to intercut with the HD footage, Tirone strives to give key sequences a look all their own, distinguishing the show's killing scenes, for instance, with a wash of color that varies from episode to episode.

Dexter is Tirone's first episodic work after years of working in music videos, commercials and features. His resume includes the features L.I.E. and Twelve and Holding, helmed by Dexter director Michael Cuesta; commercial work with Giraldi, Hungryman, Red Tree and Radical Media; and music videos for artists such as Public Enemy, Faith No More, and Red Hot Chili Peppers. We asked him about finding exactly the right look for a very tricky show.
READ MORE... By Bryant Frazer
http://www.studiodaily.com/filmandvideo/currentissue/7234.html

ME, TOMMY AND THE BROTHERS

Leave human creatures to their fractious fate; They have to fight and fend, as best they can; From boyhood up, and so complete the man; The point is, how shall he recuperate.

A drama told from a narrative point of view by the main character, Frank. The story revolves around Frank’s interactions with his friends and their struggles to let go of their college ways and settle into manhood. It deals with several of today’s more serious issues which young adults face, like marriage, abortion, drugs and suicide; and how these affect and bring about drastic changes to Frank’s life forcing him to a low point where he must challenge and confront his faith in order to survive.
SEE THE TRAILER...
http://WWW.archangelpicturesinc.com
Written and Directed by: Michael J Carnevale

I AM DIGITAL

I AM DIGITAL is a mini-movie made with mobile phones, final cut pro, a power book and after effects only.

This three minute film was declared the winner of BAFTA "Present Your Vision: Film in the Digital Future".

Richard Jobson (the director) was the former front man of the well known Scottish Punk band ‘THE SKIDS’.

Since then, he has written and produced a number of television shows, films and books including ‘MICKY ROURKE FOR A DAY’, ’16 YEARS OF ALCOHOL’ and ‘A WOMAN IN WINTER’

SEE I AM DIGITAL...

http://www.ithentic.com/watchIt.php?channelId=14

NEXT DOOR

In the wake of being abandoned by his girlfriend, John befriends the two women living in the cluttered labyrinth of an apartment next door.

That neighborly friendship quickly dissolves when one of them seduces him, spurring him on with a blow to the jaw that dredges up deeply disturbing memories. Could it be the end of John’s sanity, or is it just the thing to knock loose an understanding of what’s been happening to him?

"One of the very best films about sexual obsession, violence and paranoia ever made." - Twitch Film

"A cinematic experience...surreal, eerie...engaging." - HorrorReview.com

"Wonderful! If you’re a fan of Alfred Hitchcock and David Lynch you’re definitely going to enjoy the complexities and bizarre twists and turns in this film." - JoeHorror.com

"One of the great DVD finds of 2006!" - Joe Bowman, Reassurance

LEARN MORE...
http://www.tlareleasing.com/details/product_details.cfm?id=229445
© 2006 TLA Entertainment Group | 234 Market Street, 5th Floor | Philadelphia, PA 19106 | 215.733.0608

20 CENTIMETERS

Hope everyone is enjoying the Fall movie season so far.

We are opening a new film in New York on October 27 at the Quad Cinemas. The name of the film is titled 20 CENTIMETERS, a candy-colored Spanish musical about a arcoleptic transsexual who dreams in musical numbers.

The director cites influences from Madonna to Dusty Springfield to Bollywood musicals. The film starts Monica Cervera, Rossy de Palma (of earlier Almodovar films) and Lola Duenas (who will be seen in Almovdovar's latest film Volver)

Check out the official website: www.20centimeters.com and if you are a myspace member, join us at http://www.myspace.com/20centimeters

Thank you for your time and support international and independent film!

With an “Almodovarian” twist and the flamboyance of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert , director Ramón Salazar’s 20 Centimetres tells the story of Marieta (Mónica Cervera) a narcoleptic, transsexual who longs to get rid of 8 inches of equipment that separates her from being the glamorous woman she dreams to be. When she accidentally falls asleep in the most inopportune times, Marieta’s dreams become lavish and colorful musical numbers, where as a real woman she can sing in Spanish, French & English. So cue up the lights, powder that face and slip on that sexy gown because Marieta’s dreams are about to come true...

Mónica Cervera made her North American debut in Álex de la Iglesia’s Perfect Crime which had a theatrical release in 2005. Cervera’s unique look and her ability to sing in various musical styles including the rock of Queen (“I Want to Break Free”) and the frothy pop of Madonna (“True Blue”) adds additional pizzazz to this already comic and frothy Spanish import.

LEARN MORE...
http://www.myspace.com/20centimeters

Spoon Test Factory

Spoon Test Factory (2006) is a short film about Marie, played by Beth Gillin, and Geoff, played by Brian Egendorf (MainFragger), who work in a factory where spoons are tested.

The idea behind the film was to shoot something that was visual and not dialogue-driven. I also wanted to write a script but not actually give the actors a copy of the screenplay. So while significant events in the film are structured, much of what happens on the screen was worked out in rehearsal through solutions the actors arrived at by improvisation. The script was written in Celtx.

The final point that bears mentioning is that Tim and I met Beth, Brian, and Andrew Salerno, the film’s director of photography, at the Philadelphia Filmmakers, Actors, & Screenwriters Syndicate, which is held at Katseye Studio in Philadelphia, PA.

SEE the SHORT FILM...
http://www.protozoic.com/video/SpoonFactory.mov

CHASING GHOSTS

Evoking the grit of 1940s noir, director Kyle Dean Jackson makes astonishingly good use of a low budget in this puzzle of a murder mystery.

At the center is Detective Kevin Harrison (Michael Madsen, SIN CITY), a weathered cop on his way out; he is training his replacement when a string of brutal murders takes over his attention.

At first, the crimes seem random, but Polaroids found at the crime scenes link them together and also connect somehow to the skeletons in Harrison's closet. Shannyn Sossamon (THE ORDER) co-stars as the daughter of a cop whose death is also tied to the current spate of murders.

Michael Madsen stars as Kevin Harrison, a veteran of the force who finds himself saddled with new partner Cole Davies (played by Corey Large) while in the midst of a complicated murder investigation. Kevin is riddled with guilt over the death of fellow cop Mark Spencer (Michael Rooker), which he could've prevented had he not been in the pocket of a notorious gangster named Marcos Alfiri (Gary Busey). Mark's daughter, Taylor (Shannyn Sossamon), now looks at Kevin as a father figure, little imagining that he had something to do with Mark's death.

SEE THE TRAILER...
http://www.chasingghostsmovie.com/trailerlarge.html

The economics of self-distribution.

Many content distribution sites, such as iTunes, allow site visitors to download content to view on iPods or other portable media players.

The Internet is rapidly evolving from a text infrastructure to a video infrastructure. For the past decade, since the Web became a mass medium, we have only been fooling around with video and audio. Even first-generation broadband only hinted at the possibility of video over the Web, and while only 25 percent of broadband users may have next-generation, super-fast connections over the next three years, that demographic (early adopters) is the audience most likely to take advantage of IPTV and high-bandwidth entertainment. Your audience.

Right now, the average download speed in the United States for a DSL or cable broadband connection is a paltry 1Mbps to 3Mbps (this is what you actually get, not what your provider claims). This is why movies on the Web are the size of a business card. Arguably, this unimpressive video experience was the sharp point that burst the online entertainment bubble back in 2000. (For more on the second coming of the Internet revolution, see p. 66.) Six years later, telcos and cable companies are rolling out much faster broadband service, providing the opportunity for you to fulfill your destiny — as head of a network. Isn't it about time you greenlit and distributed your own movies, cartoons, short subjects, and news and information programs?

If you want to jump into the fray, what follows is a short introduction to some of the economics of video self-distribution.

On demand
In broadcasting, an antenna atop a tall building can transmit programming from 1,000 to 100,000 viewers, and the cost is approximately the same. Streaming video over the Internet uses a very different economic model — you pay for the quantity of data sent to each customer. So it's closer to making a telephone call — the larger the audience, the higher the costs.

So you want to stream movies from your site and charge per-view admission, a subscription, or some other revenue strategy? If you expect to do this on a grand scale, you will need a hosting service such as Akamai or VitalStream. These and other hosting companies have the bandwidth and infrastructure to handle enormous traffic. They have optimized their networks for video and audio; even with super broadband, you are dependent on the efficiency of servers and hosting infrastructure. There are also smaller hosting companies that service clients expecting only a few thousand, or even a few hundred, viewers a month.

To self-distribute as a business, or even just to cover your costs, you have four concerns: encoding, hosting costs, audience relations, and advertising/marketing.

LEARN MORE...
http://digitalcontentproducer.com/videoencodvd/revfeat/inetwork/

Top 108 Screenwriting Books

Since I've been asked by several members, I've decided to post them here (the ones I remember anyway). Some of the books are on the biz, some on writing in general, but I think the top 25 are essential reading.
(Edited by David Negrin)
1 Story - Robert McKee
2 Adventures in the Screen Trade - William Goldman
3 Which Lie Did I Tell - William Goldman
4 Stein on Writing - Sol Stein
5 Save the Cat - Blake Snyder
6 Screenwriting: The Art, Craft and Business - Richard Walter
7 Screenwriting Tricks of the Trade - William Froug
8 The First Five Pages - Noah Lukeman
9 The Whole Picture - Richard Walter
10 Art of Dramatic Writing - Lajos Egri
11 On Writing Well - William Zinsser
12 Art of Creative Writing - Lajos Egri
13 Lew Hunter's Screenwriting 434 - Lew Hunter
14 When the Shooting Stops, the Cuttting Begins - Ralph Rosenblum
15 How to Grow a Novel - Sol Stein
16 The Art of Fiction - John Gardner
17 How Not to Write a Screenplay - Denny Flinn
18 Solutions for Novelists - Sol Stein
19 The Secrets of Action Screenwriting - William Martell
20 500 Ways to Beat the Hollywood Script Reader - Jennifer Lerch
21 Screenplay - Syd Field
22 Crafty Screeenwriting - Alex Epstein
23 The Screenwriter's Bible - David Trottier
24 The Forest for the Trees - Betsey Lerner
25 Bird by Bird - Anne Lamott
26 Writing Down the Bones - Natalie Goldberg
27 The Screenwriter's Problem Solver - Syd Field
28 Elements of Style - Strunk and White
29 Aristotle's Poetics - Francis Fergusson
30 The Weekend Novelist - Robert Ray
31 The Writer's Journey - Christopher Volger
32 Master Class in Fiction Writing - Adam Sexton
33 The First Time I Got Paid for it - William Goldman
34 The Power of the Actor - Ivana Chubbuck
35 Line by Line - Claire Cook
36 What Are You Laughing At - Brad Schreiber
37 The Craft of the Screenwriter - John Brady
38 Making a Good Script Great - Linda Seeger
39 Advanced Screenwriting - Linda Seger
40 How to Build a Great Screenplay - David Howard
41 Creating Characters; Let them Whisper Their Secrets - Marisa D'Vrai
42 Breakfast with Sharks - Michael Lent
43 Making a Good Writer Great - Linda Seger
44 The Screenwriter's Survival Guide - Max Adams
45 How to Write a Selling Screenplay - Christopher Keane
46 The Screenwriter's Workbook - Syd Field
47 On Writing - Stephen King
48 I Liked It, Didn't Love It - Rona Edwards
49 Creating Unforgettable Characters - Linda Seger
50 Zen and the Art of Screenwriting - William Froug
51 Selling a Screenplay - Syd Field
52 Top Secrets: Screenwriting - Jurgen Wolff
53 The Plot Thickens - Noah Lukeman
54 The Literary Life and Other Curiosities - Robert Hendrickson
55 Writing Mysteries - Mystery Writers of America
56 Understanding Comics - Scott McCloud
57 Hot Property - Chris Keane
58 Hollywood 101: The Film Industry - Frederick Levy
59 The Screenwriter Looks at the Screenwriter - William Froug
60 Rebel Without a Crew - Robert Rodriguez
61 Writing Dialogue - Tom chiarella
62 Secrets of Screenplay Structure - Linda Cowgill
63 The 101 Habits of Highly Successful Screenwriters - Karl Iglesias
64 The Mailroom - David Rensin
65 Screenplay: Writing the Picture - Robin Russin
66 The New Screenwriter Looks at the New Screenwriter - William Froug
67 The War of Art - Steven Pressfield
68 So You Want to be a Screenwriter - Sara Caldwell
69 Writing a Great Movie - Jeff Kitchen
70 The Script Selling Game - Kathie Yoneda
71 The Hollywood Rules - anonnymous
72 Woody Allen on Woody Allen - Stig Bjorkman
73 Making Movies - Sidney Lumet
74 Hollywood Animal - Joe Eszterhas
75 Cinematic Storytelling - Jennifer Sijill
76 Writer's Guide to Selling Your Screenplay - Cynthia Whitcomb
77 Psychology for Screenwriters - William Indick
78 Dangerous Company - Peter Bart
79 The Visual Story - Bruce Block
80 You'll Never Eat Lunch in this Town Again - Julia Phillips
81 Film Directing Shot by Shot - Steven Katz
82 How to be Funny - Jon Macks
83 The Big Picture - William Goldman
84 5001 Nights at the Movies - Paulilne Kael
85 They Can Kill You But They Can't Eat You - Dawn Steel
86 The 5 C's of Cinematography - Joseph Mascelli
87 How to Write a Movie in 21 Days - Viki King
88 What Just Happened - Art Linson
89 The Devil's Candy: The Bonfire of the Vanities - Julie Salomon
90 The Screenwriter Within - D. B. Gilles
91 Screenwriting from the Soul - Richard Krevolin
92 The Movie Book Business - Jason Squire
93 The Comic Toolbox - John Vorhaus
94 What Makes Sammy Run - Budd Schulberg
95 Screenwriting: The Sequence Approach - Paul Gulino
96 Power Screenwriting - Michael Chase Walker
97 Hit and Run - Nancy Griffin
98 Down and Dirty: Miramax, Sundance - Peter Biskind
99 Setting Up Your Shots - Jeremy Vineyard
100 Shoot Out - Peter Guber, Peter Bart
101 Blockbuster Plots - Martha Alderson
102 20 Master Plots - Ronald Tobias
103 The Studio - John Dunne
104 Blue Pages - Eleanor Perry
105 The Season - William Goldman
106 Comedy Writing Secrets - Helitzer
107 Afterglow: Last Conversation with Pauline Kael - Francis Davis
108 Writing the Comedy Film - Stuart Voytilla
ALSO:
-Writing the Screenplay - TV and Film by Alan A. Armer
-Writing Treatments That Sell by Kenneth Atchity & Chi-Li Wong
-Developing Characters for Script Writing by Rib Davis
-Writing Short Films, Structure & Content for Screenwriters
by Linda Cowgill

"Soup of the Day"

"Soup of the Day" is a loosely-scripted improvisational comedy that follows the outrageously bawdy adventures of Brandon Craig, a 28-year freelance photographer who is in three simultaneous, monogamous relationships with three very different amazing women.

Brandon is not a player, five months ago, over the course of one strangely enchanted night he met and got the phone numbers of all three. Each relationship blossomed independently and Brandon found himself falling in love… times three.

Now Brandon finds himself having to balance his romantic life VERY carefully. He can’t decide which of the women is the true love of his life, and he can’t seem to let go of any of them. He also recognizes the very real danger of breaking up, or being discovered to be unfaithful by any of them. Severe consequences will follow.

LEARN MORE...
http://www.zabberbox.com/#soupmovie_anchor

DEATH'S SICKLE

This is where it starts to get interesting.

With all the potential energy Hannigan has in his repertoire, he approches his largest film project to date - a story of two children oppressed under their abusive legal guardian, older brother Charlie, who treats them like unwanted slaves.

Young preteen Carra is boiling over with pain and frustration, as she and her little brother are constantly abused.

Luckily for them, Death is about to do their vengeful dirty-work.
No longer content to the confines of video-game exsistence, one particular Death character decides to escape its enslaved world.

Perhaps its the will of Satan himself - perhaps its that combined with the white-hot hatred in the children's bowels - that brought him to this address, under the will of this handheld controller...

Carra's not concerned why. She just knows Charlie's gonna pay. Oh yeah....he's gonna pay.

Hannigan even went so far as to recreate some Nintendo graphics for this movie - and judging from the script (which he graciously allowed HoH to read) - seeing the interaction between 80's video game world and a bloody horror battle for righteousness sounds awesome and is something I'm anticipating seeing.

LEARN MORE...
http://www.rjhannigan.com/

AN INTRODUCTION TO MOVIES & VISUAL MEDIA IN THE DIGITAL AGE

What is Digital Cinema..? And will the movies ever be the same?

The world of twenty-first century is a world awash with movies. This multimedia maelstrom in which we float, gazing wide-eyed at screens of all sizes, from handheld devices to multi-story Megaplex's, is screened not just from a massive projector somewhere in Hollywood, but from thousands of sources across the world. From India's thriving Bollywood, to the burgeoning local film industries of South America and Iran, stories of all kinds (good, bad, ugly) are being told with vigour at twenty-four frames per second. Why should Australia be any different? After all, we were responsible for the worlds' first feature length film, 'The Story of the Kelly Gang', made in 1906 and a whopping 80 minutes in length.

Seventy per cent of Australians go to the movies at least once a year, collectively leaving eight hundred and twelve million dollars at the box office in doing so. Four hundred and sixty three thousand of us can sit down simultaneously in front of one thousand, eight hundred and fifty five cinema screens scattered throughout the country . Add to this eighty eight per cent of homes have a VCR with more than ninety nine per cent possessing at least one television and you start to get the perspective of movies as an extremely powerful medium.

However, despite this full immersion in moving images, there has been long standing line etched in the sand that held the passive, recipient audience on one side, overwhelmingly outnumbering the handful of privileged, proactive media-makers on the other. But, all this changing…

LEARN MORE...
http://www.luciferjones.org/viewfindersample.htm

BOY EATS GIRL

A boy declares his love for his girlfriend, only to die the same night. He is brought back to life by his mother as a flesh-craving zombie, who sires more teen undead while trying to control his, er, appetite for his beloved.

LEARN MORE ABOUT NEW HORROR FILMS...
http://www.upcominghorrormovies.com/movies/boyeatsgirl.php

How to make an animated movie

How to produce an animated short without a concept.

Sven Hauth and Holger Schönmann were itching to create an animated short film but just weren't able to come up with a fitting script. Their cries for help in the various forums didn't help, either.

Their solution: Create a film based on the fact that no idea existed for a film. Their story revolves around a character who simply can't think of a storyline for his animated short. Within just a few days Sven and Holger had written a script and started drawing the storyboard and designing the character and set.

Finding someone to synchronize the script turned out to be more difficult than expected. Due to budget restraints, they first tried to find the right speaker among their English-speaking friends but soon realized that this was indeed a job only a professional speaker could master. In the end, the Cologne-based professional speaker Frank Becker was hired for the job.

Thanks to CINEMA 4D's ease of use, modeling and animation was a breeze. Pretty much every available CINEMA 4D module was used, from MoGraph to Sketch and Toon to HAIR, proving once again that MAXON products offer high-level performance coupled with an optimized workflow. It would otherwise not have been possible for a 2-person crew to produce this excellent animated short within such a short time.

"Since we are experienced CINEMA 4D users we didn't expect any notable problems in creating this project. Nevertheless, each time a project is completed we are taken by the fact that we never have to worry about stability, performance or other critical issues when working with MAXON software", says Holger Schönmann.

LEARN MORE...
http://www.maxon.net/pages/dyn_files/dyn_htx/htx/1761/01761_01762.html
http://www.pixeldoggy.com/

This Pen-and-Tablet is a Good Value

My friend Julie has a Tablet PC. It's cool. I've drooled on her computer on several occasions.. But when I went shopping for a new notebook computer, I couldn't justify the extra cost for the Tablet functions. It wasn't clear that I needed such a thing. If I had that functionality available, would I even use it?

On the other hand: how do I know I wouldn't use such a thing, unless I tried?

As a result, I was happy to get my hands on the ACECAD Enhanced Pen Tablet, marketed by CompAmerica. The 5"x3.75" tablet and its pen cost under $50, making this the sort of tool you can buy for yourself on a whim. And since it delivers what it promises, you'll probably keep using the pen -- for more than drawing in graphics applications.

The USB tablet attaches to either a Windows or Macintosh computer, and you stuff the pen full of batteries (which are supplied). The software driver adds a Tablet application, which lets you control how the buttons on the pen operate (just like changing the functions for mouse clicks), how sensitive the.tablet should be to your arm-waving, and so on. You're more likely to leave the defaults as-is on Windows (where it's set up to right-click with the first button) than on the Mac (which has oddly useless defaults). In any case, getting it set up is as easy as pouring water downhill.
Using the tablet and mouse, however, definitely takes some getting used to. (Fortunately, your mouse continues to work normally, so you can still get work done if you're temporarily frustrated. Not that I would ever admit being frustrated, but it might happen to somebody.) The adjustment period is not specific to the ACECAD, particularly, but to the fact that you're holding a pen instead of moving around a mouse.

You're used to leaning your hand on the mouse, maybe shoving it over and clicking -- not picking up a pen and waving it around. After all these years, it's second nature for me to click on a field on a web form and start typing; but with the pen interface, I had to set the pen down somewhere before I put my fingers back on the Home Row.
LEARN MORE...By Esther Schindler
http://gadgets.consumerelectronicsnet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=58307

Battlestar is Back

Tricia Helfer as Number Six and James Callis as Baltar from Sci-Fi's "Battlestar Galactica" - Photo: Frank Ockenfels

Learn why "Battlestar Galactica" is winning over fans who would normally click past sci-fi shows.

For years, the words "sci-fi" and "cool" were rarely uttered in the same breath. "Battlestar Galactica" has helped change the genre's geeky reputation with super cool characters and a sweeping story.

Searches on "Battlestar" are up 74% this month as it enters its pivotal third season. While both a critical and Search success, the show remains something of a cult phenomenon. Overall, it falls into our top 3,000 searches—respectable but nowhere near Buzz juggernauts "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost."

READ MORE... By Mike Krumboltz
http://buzz.yahoo.com/buzzlog/42115/battlestar-is-back

The world ended with no warning, and all that was left … was hope.

The Cylons were created by the people of the Twelve Colonies. Intelligent robots, they were used as slaves and soldiers to fight humanity's wars. But the Cylons became sentient and they rebelled. Man and machine fought to a bloody stalemate, then the Cylons withdrew to a remote region of space.

A truce between the Twelve Colonies and the Cylons lasted for 40 tense and silent years. Each year, on the anniversary of the treaty-signing, humanity sent an envoy to the neutral ground of Armistice Station to meet with a Cylon envoy. For 39 years, no Cylon envoy came.

Then, on the 40th anniversary, a stunning blonde — a Cylon in human form — met the human envoy … moments before the Cylons vaporized the station and launched a genocidal attack on the Twelve Colonies.

In one devastating day, billions of human lives were consumed by nuclear fires. Only those souls fortunate enough to be aboard starships were able to band together and escape and flee into deep space, led by the sole surviving Colonial warship, the battlestar Galactica.

The Galactica and its crew seemed to be unlikely saviors for humanity's fewer than 50,000 desperate survivors. The ship was old and had been about to be decommissioned and turned into a museum when the Cylon attack occurred. In the aftermath its commanding officer, William Adama, found himself responsible for safeguarding the last remnants of the human race.

Meanwhile, the annihilation of the Colonial government on Caprica resulted in the succession of Laura Roslin, the Secretary of Education, to the presidency. Driven by prophetic visions and political necessity, she set the fleet upon a quest that will take it into the farthest reaches of unexplored space … in search of the mythical, lost "13th colony" — Earth.
LEARN MORE...
http://www.battlestargalactica.com/index.htm

Five Minutes With Werner Herzog

How Stories Find Him, What He's Seen Lately, and His New Rescue Dawn

FILM&VIDEO: The Vision award you’re about to receive from the Filmmakers Alliance is a great honor – what does it mean to you?

HERZOG: I have no idea what it is. You’ll have to ask those – I am trying to investigate who are these people. I know very little. I was not able to return to the U.S. until just a few minutes ago when I was admitted back to the States.

I know we are going to see some short films tonight and you’ve made shorts in your career. What can you say about what makes the short film a unique genre?

It’s like a short story, a very short story in literature. It has its reasons sometimes and its place. At the time I started making films, there was a culture of short films. You would go to see a feature film, and theatres would show featurettes that were somehow qualified or had some sort of awards. So that created a culture of short films. Many people at that time started off with short films, like Polanski and Scorsese and me and many others.

The genre still lives ....

Yes, but at that time, it had a very specific place in the culture of movie theatres.

Tell me a little about Rescue Dawn, which is coming out…

I don’t know when it is coming out, but we are probably showing it at the Toronto International Film Festival.

I’ve read on IMDb, which is notorious for incorrect information, that Rescue Dawn is a remake of Little Dieter Wants to Fly.

What is IMDB?

The Internet Movie Database.

Uh-huh. I have no idea what that is. No, no, it is not a remake of Little Dieter. It is a similar story — it’s just two stories about basically the same person.

What drew you to this story — what draws you to your material?

I have no idea. I know what’s a good story.

So you come across stories in different ways ....

They come across me. I don’t come across them. They stumble into me.

What do you think of some of the new media distribution platforms popping up?

What is this?

Like entertainment on mobile phones.

I have no mobile phone. I don’t know what they do, apart of making phone calls. What do you do with them?

There’s a lot of entertainment now that’s being produced for distribution on mobile phones ....

If it is entertaining, so be it.

Do you use digital cameras?

No, I am still working with celluloid because celluloid is so much superior in quality.

Are you interested at all in testing out the new high-resolution digital cameras?

If they become better than celluloid, then yes.

LEARN MORE...By Debra Kaufman for FILM & VIDEO
http://www.studiodaily.com/filmandvideo/currentissue/7037.html

FOR THY LOVE

After five years of sexual frustration Belinda Warner decides that a little infidelity would be a much better fit to her relationship....

SEE THE PREVIEW...
http://video.earwaxrecords.com/video/96277161-4db2-4df0-ae73-f01dbe39e7c1.htm
http://www.ThePeoplesFilmCompany.com 11212

Is Web Video the New Frontier for Fine Art?

As technology develops, fine art is invariably close on its heels.

Over the past forty years, aesethetic innovators have had to work hard to keep this truism alive. From video art to digital art to house music to live video mixing, the possibilities afforded by new media have expanded at an astounding rate.

So it comes as little surprise that the youTube generation has already begun spawning new forms of creative expression.

Alex Itin is one such innovator. His Web site, IT IN place (http://www.futureofthebook.org/itinplace/), features artwork that combines text, images (both original and appropriated), music and streaming video, which he uploads and pastes with Vimeo. Itin's not the first artist -- and certainly not last -- to employ a video sharing service into his work, but he's definitely worth checking out.

TO THEWEBSITE... by Matthew Ross
http://www.thedailyreel.com/news-opinion/news/web-video-the-new-frontier-for-fine-art

NEWS JUNKIE

See this short film about a young woman who has developed an unhealthy obsession with 24-hour cable news networks.
Tenacity Entertainment is an Independent Executive Production house dedicated to providing oustanding entertainment to its world-wide audiences.

SEE NEWS JUNKIE...
http://www.tenacityent.com/ScreenRoom.htm

Do you need a Producer's Rep?

I worked for a Producer's Rep as a sales director for about 8 or 9 months a while back. It was an eye-opening experience and I have decided to write about it here so that any of you considering signing with a producer's rep will know of the potential pitfalls.

1. The producer's rep that I worked for was a lawyer, as many producer's reps are. The upside: it gives them the power to handle all negotiations and contracts. The downside: they're greedy lawyers who will utilize every loophole in the book, and take advantage of the "legally ignorant" artists they represent, at every opportunity.

2. The producer's rep that I worked for usually tried to get a "retainer fee" out of clients up front before he would sign them. As a lawyer, this is perfectly normal. As a rep, it was usually robbery. From the rep's point of view, he's covering his ass because the odds of getting a distribution deal for an indy film are slim, and therefore the odds of him seeing a profit down the line are also slim. He doesn't want to work for nothing, so he needs to at least get some money up front to make it worth his while.

I saw many filmmakers get taken advantage of with this "retainer fee." We would screen a film, say to ourselves "no way this gets sold" and he'd tell us to try to get a retainer fee out of them anyway, knowing full well he'd never be able to sell the film, short of a miracle. It's just a way for him to grab an extra three or four grand that month. Half the time the overexcited producers with stars in their eyes would fork over the cash, thrilled that anyone was even paying attention to them. The answer to this is that if he REALLY wants your film and REALLY thinks it will sell, you will be able to either negotiate this fee down or even bypass it altogether. If he won't budge, pass.

3. Once we had a film: This rep had about 40 films on his shelves at any given time. That is an INSANE amount of films to be juggling for an office with only TWO salesmen. Basically, only 5-10 films were really getting actively promoted while the other sat on the shelves until their producers called up and demanded a progress report. When that happened, we'd get on the phone with all of the distribution companies, who had probably been sent the film 6 months ago and completely forgotten about it. If a film hasn't sold within the first year, it's pretty much shoved to the back burner until the contract expires. For this reason I don't recommend signing any contract that goes beyond 18 months. If they haven't sold it by then, it isn't happening and it's time for you to try something else.

In addition, the massive amount of films meant we weren't very selective, which means we had a pretty terrible reputation with most of the bigger distributors because we were always sending them total crap. Some distributors wouldn't even look at our films anymore. Is that what you want from your rep?

One solution to this issue is to be the squeaky wheel. Be the producer who calls your rep's office twice a week to see how things are going. Your contract with them will probably have a schedule for receiving progress reports listing who they've sent the film to and what the response has been. Make them stick to this schedule.

4. Some distributors are either shady or bottom rung, and the filmmakers usually don't know the difference. These distributors would "buy up" six of our films in one giant group, with no money up front and everything deferred. It was usually a backroom deal where we'd sell them a film they *really* wanted but they had to "buy" a few others as part of the deal. We would then turn around and try to convince the producers/filmmakers of these other films that it was a good deal and that they should take it. Of course, most of those films would never see daylight, but it got them off of our backs.

5. Upfront money: You probably already know that a deal that offers nothing up front and everything deferred is almost certainly never going to pay you anything. A "no money upfront" deal should send up the same red flags as a rep demanding a retainer fee. If the distribution company really thinks they can make money off of your film, they'll pay you something upfront.

6. Deferred payment: Why deferred payment deals will rarely pay you any money.-- you know this, but it's because of that great clause that says you get your percentage of profits after the distribution company recoups all marketing and other costs. A lot of distributors will lie through their teeth about their costs to keep from paying you. If the film makes $100,000, they'll tell you they spent $100,001 on the packaging and marketing. Then you have to audit them and it's a mess. Do you think your lawyer is going to help? Well, you're fighting to get a few dollars out of your distributor, and your rep only gets 10-15% of that. Worth his time? Probably not.

7. Your producer's rep is not always on your side. Consider that he's known you for a few weeks, and you're a one-shot deal. He's known the distribution companies for YEARS, and has sold to them before and will continue selling to them. Whose relationship do you think he values most? He will sell you out to maintain his relationships with them EVERY TIME.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

I don't like to point out problems without offering solutions, so here's my advice:

1. Not all producer's reps are evil, and even the evil ones will do something good occasionally. If they were nothing but scam artists they wouldn't be in business because distribution companies would never accept their submissions.

2. If a producer's rep calls you up and asks for a screener, it means one of his assistants probably found your name on a list of films accepted to festivals and is simply feeling things out. Before you send them anything, ask them how many films they represent. If it's more than 20, or if they won't give you an answer, they probably aren't going to give your film much attention. They just want your money.

3. If they ask for a retainer, tell them you're already fielding calls from other reps, you have a buddy who's got an "in" at a mid-level distributor, and you'll have to get back to them. Let a week pass and then call them up saying you can't justify paying a fee right now, and see if they counter. They know you're a poor indy filmmaker with no money, so if all else fails and you can't negotiate their fee down, play the "I have no money card" and tell them how much you can pay if you scrape together some favors. Odds are they'll go for it. If they don't budge, you'd be wasting your money anyway because they obviously don't think the film is worth their risk. If they won't risk anything, why should you?

4. Do your homework. Find out which distributors are good and which ones are crap, so that when you're rep comes to you with a deal at one of the crap ones, you can tell him you want to wait for something better (he can't force you to sign a deal). If you sign with a crap company, you're basically putting your film on ice for at least 3 years. If you think selling it now is hard, just wait until it's 3 years out of date.

5. Finally, it's possible that your film just isn't marketable. It was a lot of fun to make, you learned a lot, and most of the time that's all it is. If you're relying on a producer's rep you've never heard of to sell your film, chances are distribution was more of an afterthought for you anyway. Take the money you would have wasted on hiring a rep and put it into the budget on your NEXT movie.

Sorry if some of this is common knowledge -- just wanted to cover all of the bases. Best of luck to you guys. As a filmmaker myself, I couldn't stomach working at that place and got out of there as soon as another opportunity came around.

Experience by MikeD_193803
mike@tenacityent.com

MOVIE REVIEWS

10 Best Movie Review Sites

Film Reviews! Movie Critics! Film Critiques! Movie Previews! These are the BEST!!!

Independent Film Reviews - http://www.RottenTomatoes.com
Roger Ebert Film Reviews - http://www.Suntimes.com/Ebert
Independent Movie Reviews - http://www.AintItCoolNews.com
Film Theater Reviews - http://www.BoxOff.com
NY Times Film Reviews - http://www.NYTimes.com/pages/movies

Entertainment Weekly - Reviews - http://www.ew.com/ew
Hollywood Movie Reviews - http://www.Hollywood.com
Movie Review Directory - http://www.MRQE.com
Weekly Movie Reviews - http://www.Movies.go.com
Showtimes & Movie Reviews - http://www.TVguide.com

Sam & Jim Go To Hollywood

The comedy and tragedy of writing in Hollywood

http://samandjimgotohollywood.com/

We're two writers trying to find our next break. Our show is about writing, Hollywood and our experiences on the way to...we wish we knew what.

A great podcast/blog about the industry from two guys who moved from Minnesota and became screenwriters in Hollywood. Must listen, especially for you Comedy writers.

LISTEN UP...
http://archive-a02.libsyn.com/podcasts/a025f42931133492f877a903788c7052/45212ea5/samandjimgotohollywood/SamandJimShow27.mp3

Everyone in LA is supposed to have a screenplay

Steal this Column
Screenwriting by Terry Rossio

This really happened.
I met a guy in one of the AOL chat rooms. He works in town as a stunt man, which I thought was cool, and he thought it was cool that I work as a screenwriter. Turned out that just as everyone in Los Angeles is supposed to have a screenplay, he had his, and he wanted me to read it.
The concept sounded decent, worth reading, worth taking the time to fight cross-town traffic and meet in a dim, crowded bar. I'd asked him to send the script in the mail, but he didn't want to. "After all," he said over the phone, "I don't really know who you are. We met by chance on the computer. How do I know if you're trustworthy?"

So, hey, cool, we met for lunch, partly for him to get to know me, but mainly for me to pick up his script to read. After the usual chit-chat, he handed the script over. I asked if he intended it as a writing sample or a spec script. He looked confused.

I explained that some writers used their work as writing samples to target writing assignments, while others are more focused on trying for the big bidding-war-type spec-script sale.
"Oh," he said. "I don't really want to be a screenwriter, I figure it's just a good way for me to break into the business."
That's red flag number one, for those of you keeping score at home.

READ THE WHOLE STORY...
http://www.wordplayer.com/columns/wp04.Steal.this.Column.html

True Stories of the U.S. National Guard, on HD and 35mm

Director/D.P. Klaus Obermeyer Is a 'Filmmaking Navy SEAL'

Based in offices located on the tarmac at Santa Monica airport, American Rogue has a Lear Jet at its disposal that flies film crews to hot spots in North and South America at a couple of hours’ notice. That helps make producer Lance O’Connor and his team the go-to guys when you need something gone to yesterday — no wonder the U.S. military has a long-standing working relationship with them. The company’s most recent project, helmed by director/cinematographer Klaus Obermeyer, is a two-minute, multiformat documentary-in-miniature commissioned by the National Guard as a sort of PR initiative.

Asked whether his work could be considered propaganda, O'Connor shrugs off the question. "No matter what it is, someone's going to spin it for you," he says. "There are people out there doing this job, and my goal is to document it and show how courageous, brave and amazing these human beings are, for what they do on weekends and to help other citizens whenever floods happen, and whenever rescues need to happen.

That’s why it’s called Citizen Soldier. And these are things that have never been documented before. This is the first time they’ve done it. It was a great morale booster at a very difficult time for the Guard people, and it helped them to feel really good about what they do here in the United States."

Watch the video, below, then read a Q&A with Obermeyer about interviewing real National Guard soldiers, using the patented “Klaus Cam” to get impossible shots, and working without a script.

LEARN MORE...By Bryant Frazer for Film & Video
http://www.studiodaily.com/filmandvideo/currentissue/7033.html

Glasses-Free 3D Screens Are Here

Now Where Do We Put Them?

Philips Touts "3D Intelligent Display" Technology

Recent 3D Imax releases including Monster House and Superman Returns have proved there is, for the moment, a market for 3D content in movie theaters. But what about at home, or in retail spaces? Philips held a series of press briefings in New York last week to tout the 3D displays that it hopes will have an impact on digital signage, content creation, and video games.

The two displays Philips showed were a 42-inch widescreen LCD display and its decidedly smaller brother, a 20-inch 4x3 computer-sized version. The larger screen is optimized for a viewing distance of about 3 meters, although a spectator has considerable latitude to move forward, back, and sideways without losing the 3D effect completely.
Philips claims the screen has better than a 100-degree viewing angle. Interestingly, some effects were even more striking on the smaller screen — a rippling flag on the computer monitor looked like something you should be able to reach out and touch.

2D Plus Depth
Here's how they work. None of the image processing takes place beforehand; it happens inside the display, which accepts a DVI input carrying a 2D image plus a "depth map" — in this case, an 8-bit (256-level) representation of depth within that image. (Philips calls this the "2D-plus-depth" format.) The display uses that depth map to create different "views" of the 2D image corresponding to the parallax that would be perceived by human eyes. In all, nine different images are displayed simultaneously. The screen is covered by a series of very thin lenses that diffract the light so that the eyes of an observer will see two different images that create the perception of 3D.

LEARN MORE...By Bryant Frazer for Film & Video