Indiana Jones #5

Q: What does a third year law student in Dundee, Scotland with no money intent on being a film producer do?

A: With Indiana Jones fans worldwide waiting for No. 4 to make its appearance, he gets together with a Hollyood director and makes it himself.

....INDIANA JONES and the

TREASURE of the TEMPLARS

The feature length movie complete with action, adventure, international locations and CGI special effects is titled "Indiana Jones and the Treasure of the Templars".

For Kenneth Gawne, that was four years and three countries ago and an international cast and crew that, like the hero himself, were on a quest for cinematic glory.

American director Jonathan Lawrence has produced an epic that's painstakingly crafted at a level of quality to rival many of Hollywood's best with sophisticated stunts and digital effects that are pure dynamite.



READ MORE ABOUT THIS FANTASTIC UNDERTAKING>>

http://www.treasureofthetemplars.com/site/

This film is a fan film made for fun. It is Not associated with or endorsed by Lucasfilms or any entity involved in creating the character Indiana Jones.

The purpose and character of use of this film is limited to a non-commerical nature and is for non-profit and educational creative purposes only. It is intended to be a pardoy on the character Indiana Jones that is licensed and trademarked by Lucasfilms.

"The Final Day"

NO BUDGET! NO CREW! FOUR DAYS TOTAL: SCRIPT TO FINISH!

Director Paul Del Vecchio of Triple E Productions has created a real psychological thriller!

I am always amazed at how many independent low/no/micro budget filmmakers are making "horror" movies-more than any other genre. Most beginners splatter blood all over the place and seem to think that they will make a lot of money with larger and larger quantities of gore. It simply isn't true.

You can have some blood to tell the story and you can use gore for effect but you also need a story worth telling, credible acting, lighting, fine camera and editing work and good sound design. And artistic touches, like a simple flock of birds taking flight, also add to the montage and the production value. The director's artistic vision is always what pulls everything together and makes it work-and "The Final Day" works beautifully!

"The Final Day" was the "Diary of the Dead" DVD contest winner. The top 10 highest voted films, along with 10 additional hand-picked films by MySpace and The Weinstein Company, were screened by legendary filmmaker George A. Romero (director of the American classic, "Night of the Living Dead").

Mr. Romero then picked the best five films to be included on the DVD release of his new film, "Diary of the Dead."

"The Final Day" - Diary of the Dead DVD contest entry

The Great American PitchFest

If you're in the Burbank area, you can attend free classes from The Great American PitchFest with dozens of authors and producers including Dara Marks, author of Inside Story, Emmy Nominee & Co-Exec Producer Ellen Sandler of "Everybody Loves Raymond" fame, Dr Linda Seger, author of "Making Good Scripts Great" and about twenty others. Course start June 20th.

Tuition is $250, but they're waiving the fee for StoryLink users. Sounds like a good deal.

This Thing Called Love

I probably shouldn't be late night blogging, but then again who notices the redundancy of my redundant posts blogging late at night like I probably shouldn't be doing at the risk of getting redundant?

I was sitting in a brainstorm stupor this morning with a few plot twists wagging around my pen when it occurred to me that I'm already too old to cash in most of my juiciest stories, for the simple fact that life blogging has turned the entire world of relationship genres into a cage fight no one could possibly outnumber. Or so I pondered.

On one hand you have the cool velvet on satin finish of guitarist boy Arin Crumley meets artists girl Susan Buice in Four Eyed Monsters (their catchy name for all of their friends who paired off in relationships never to be seen or heard form again by the lonely singles) which is incredibly detailed and well done despite the fact that it's two starving artists and a few pocketfuls of shiny molten credit cards. They've been featured on Apple and were finally released to DVD which is a real plus for anyone who didn't get to see them curiously investigating their unexpected relationship with dual cam corders in theaters. They're in Borders now, which is pretty amazing considering those stack of credit cards have cooled into shiny swirls of goo a long time past.

On the other side you've got atomic little films like Opie Gets Laid (AKA SUNNYVALE) which granted, doesn't have the mesmerizing two years of constant method acting Aaron and Susan have been transforming themselves with, but gets a mention for Ricardo's sharp acting and for having whip smart dialog like "I wanted the curtains to match the carpet" as well as an artistic director who's comfortable with bed scenes that dare to break from Puritanical moralizing and dip below the neckline for at least a remote attempt at sincerity -- without being sleazy. You can tell the writing is more solid in a thirty second clip than most attempts in this genre manage in half an hour, which is a promising lead for Portugese-Norwegian writer-director James Ricardo. It's the follow up to HEY DJ his '03 film on the Miami-Ibiza club culture.

Then somewhere in the epileptic shade of the mini-bar at dance floor right you've got wickedly funny stage veterans out spanking the intern in the sort of subconscious desktop advertising Apple never dared dream possible in films like N0BEL S0N, which showed rattling the cage can work wonders with the right broken branch against the right fence post and the right pair of sneakers. Intimate knowledge of Mini Coopers and forensics a plus.

I mean really, what ground is left to cover? Gigolos? We've got Duce. Trannies? We've got the Hedwig (and whatever's left). And then it occurred to me what so many people in my generation find astounding and fresh. The mystery of why people like each other at all. I mean the whole thing. You meet someone. You fall in love. What's that about anyway? Years later, you still wake up next to them, and you still don't feel any different. In a world like this, how does it possibly work? And yet it does. The day a writer solves that mystery we'll press an Oscar in her hands so fast she just might have to drop the flag. (After the 2012 logo from Wolff Ollins, come London and our track runners, there's no way we will.)

MovieBytes Screenplay Contest Roladex

Technically the rolodex was a paperweight by the time I got to an office, but I hear they were something special for the busy type-A personalities who used to play putt-putt in oversized offices and choose which film got programmed into what festivals with the dart board. Back before they had interns.

Even so, MovieBytes keeps a great list of screenplay contests out on the web, and goes the step further with the report card feature to give would-be Tarantinoes and Kevin Smiths the megaphone to voice their experiences with dubious world of contest entry scams. From the slush pile hamburglers that make up the colorful run between spare change and a permanent penthouse in Beverly Hills, a little contest rummy never hurts to keep up your game in the mean time.

Now if someone would just explain teletype I might be able to have an enlightened conversation with someone responsible for DRM management in the latest version of our ebook software. I'd google it but I'm afraid Wikipedia can't pay the internet tax for bandwidth. Oh wait, that's the article about Net Neutrality for next week. I keep forgetting.

Does Open Source Journalism work for movie scripts as well as blog topics? Storylink users seem to think so. Writer/director/producer Mort Nathan covers the balance of writing strong characters in a feature interview.

Bizarre Hollywood terminology you'll need to clinch a movie deal

If you don't know your Bertolucci from your Brad Pitt you'll never get a job polishing Harvey Weinstein's golf shoes...

Movie insiders converse in their own "slanguage", a rich, and often very funny, collection of invented terms popularized by the industry magazine Variety during more than a century of reporting on the world of film. Some of these terms, such as "mogul" and "blighty", have been accepted into standard usage. Many others, like "preem" (premiere) and "moppet" (child actor) remain strictly within the world of filmmakers.

Variety has now put its "The Hollywood Dictionary" (a collection of some of the most popular slanguage terms) online for the first time.

zitcom: television comedy aimed at teenagers.

Whodunit: a mystery film (or show); "The director's next project will be a whodunit for Warner Bros."

Praisery: public relations firm; "The studio is retaining an outside praisery to augment its p.r. chores on the film."

Turnaround: no longer active; a project put into "turnaround" has been abandoned by one studio and may be shopped to another.

Sprocket opera: film festival; "The actor plans to attend the annual Sundance sprocket opera next year."

Whammo: a sensation; "Men in Black has done whammo biz internationally." (See also boffo)

Hoofer: dancer; "Mary Tyler Moore was a hoofer before she got into acting."

Tentpole: movie expected by a studio to be its biggest grossing blockbuster of the season, usually summer. Often the pic is the start of, or an installment in, a franchise; "Armageddon was a successful tentpole in 1998."

One-hander: a play or movie with one character; "One-hander Ferris Bueller's Day Off is one of the defining films for children of the 1980s." (See also two-hander)

Sudser: soap opera; "Sudser star Susan Lucci was nominated for an Emmy again this year."

Shingle: a small business, often set up by an actor or established player at a larger company; "Tom Green has launched production shingle Bob Green Films."

Boff: (also boffo, boffola) – outstanding (usually refers to box office performance); "My Best Friend's Wedding has been boffo at the B.O." (See also whammo)

Nix: reject, say no to; as in the famous Variety headline "Sticks Nix Hick Pix", meaning that audiences in rural areas were not interested in attending films about rural life.

Chopsocky: a martial arts film; "Chopsocky star Chuck Norris will make a guest appearance on Seinfeld this season."

Ankle: a classic (and enduring) Variety term meaning to quit or be dismissed from a job, without necessarily specifying which; instead, it suggests walking; "Alan Smithee has ankled his post as production prexy at U."

Sleeper: a film or TV show that lacks pre-release buzz or critical praise, but turns into a success after it is released, usually due to good word-of-mouth; "Sixth Sense was the surprise sleeper of the summer of 1999."

Warbler: singer; "Under its new policy, the nitery has booked a string of warblers."

Gotham: New York City; "Film production in Gotham has been on the rise for the past several years."

Payola: bribery or under-the-table payments; "The proliferation of payola rocked the music industry in the 1950s."

Unspool: to screen a film; "More than 30 films are set to unspool at the upcoming festival."

Moppet: child, especially child actor; "Elizabeth Taylor is one of the few moppets who made the transition to adult star."

Dramedy: a TV show that could be labeled both a comedy and a drama, usually an hour long. Also, a film or theatre show that could be labeled as either – or perhaps fails at both; "Fox Family Channel series State of Grace, a dramedy about two 12-year-old girls growing up in Sixties North Carolina, targets the female tweens demographic with hope of generating a tag-along parental audience."

READ MORE by Sophie Morris>>
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/variety-speak-the-bizarre-hollywood-terminology-youll-need-to-clinch-a-movie-deal-826075.html

©independent.co.uk

LEARN ABOUT HOLLYWOOD SLANGUAGE>>
http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=slanguage

© 2008, Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

How a 23-Year-Old Filmmaker With $7,000 Became a Hollywood Player

Up there with Roger Corman's "How I Made One Hundred Movies In Hollywood And Never Lost A Dime," is "Rebel without a Crew" by Robert Rodriguez. This is probably the most important and inspiring book about filmmaking that any future filmmaker can ever read.

A poor man's "North by Northwest," "El Mariachi" is a story wherein a mariachi looking for a job gets mistaken for a killer seeking revenge because they carry identical guitar cases. It's a funny, fast-paced and extremely well-plotted film, shot with one camera and without a crew. It works beautifully even though Rodriguez used a wheelchair for a dolly and a ladder for a crane.

In the book, Rodriguez recounts his adventures including how he raised money by submitting to medical experiments. He came a long way but after El Mariachi's success, R. R. was given money and a crew for all his subsequent projects. He managed to circumvented the "film schools" and the Hollywood "intern" system and then amazed the establishment by shooting as many as 70 camera set-ups on a single day!

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE>>

http://www.amazon.com/Rebel-without-Crew-23-Year-Old-Filmmaker/dp/0452271878/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b

Spielberg, Harrison Ford and Kate Allen Jump Into Video Blogging Social Network

After a free dinner and fascinating conversation courtesy of VinVin, the illustrious raccoon leader of Seemic and his merry troop of video discussion connoisseurs, I knew I'd enjoyed an unusual time perched between two Frenchmen and a pint of frothy ale.

The ricochet intersection of of the entertainment industry dispersion left me more buzzed than the gourmet asparagus by a long shot. Still, try as I might, I cannot stand to look at myself in video, to the point where I've actually moderated whole programs and never actually been able to watch them afterwards. It's sort of like being bad at sports. You go out there and you catch a few intercepts, but god forbid they make you watch the replay. You know you brick 'em.

I've managed one full video on Seesmic, and that was that, I decided, happy to watch everyone else as the drifting Hitchcock walking back and forth in the background from kitchen to bathroom (that was me in the white t-shirt and the red jacket in the snow,) while the major players online provided good blogging resource, in a hybrid between old radio shows and virtual tech stock market tickers.

As it turns out, we few extras to the scene aren't the only ones quietly listening on the sidelines.

Recognize this guy?

Everyone's favorite Indie girl, Karen Allen, was also on hand:

And last but not least, the Indie man himself throws his hat into the ring (and a very big hat it is.)

From the Guardian Article:

"The guys behind the project at the Picture Production Company are regular dabblers of geek tools, and it is very good profile for Seesmic to have such illustrious guests! Beneath the froth, though, there's a directness and energy about this that really works, though lord knows how much engineering (both technical and bureaucratic) must have gone into this."

As web heroine Jemimakiss puts it, "the best thing about it is that it bypasses the Hollywooid/Cannes schmaltz and gets straight into a conversation. Reverential, certainly, but these are early days."


What was all that whining and groaning about Sundance again? Sunwho?

Pack up, gypsies. It's time to roll with the season.

Sundance Sold to Cablevision

Independent has an article up about Sundance getting sold to Cablevision, and while they are right to be cautious about what sort of change this will bring about, it helps to put this in context. As a large supporter of Independent film, further corporatization at Sundance may not have that much change to the current agenda.

In the spirit of independent art, the idea is to remain light and quick. As a writer first and foremost I may be biased on the idea that a good script can take place in a meat locker and still be the most powerful thing in a movie theater. Still, on the heels of bare bones, fine acting films like Juno and Venus, which by itself took four Oscars away from the big boys in an easy sweep, it may be that the way we define independent films may be in need of a change.

Why are good actors hurling themselves like Lemmings from the cliffs to catch hold of the latest independent film scripts to land in their mail dumps?

Can you hear them squeee?

If a film set on high school track and a doctor's office can bring home gold with virtually no one (save Cut Chemist) in any of the teenage infighting scenes, and Peter O'Toole, Mr. Lawrence of Arabia himself doesn't get out of bed unless the writing's as good as Hanif Kureishi, the signs aren't all ominous. Unless of course, that gets you to a keyboard.

For a really terrific study in what to do with one night in a crappy no-tell double sleeper with a cheap camera and some really determined performers, consider picking up Tape with Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, or Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, again, it's all in dialog and a few actors laying on snow.

Can you see Robert Downey, Jr. and Kate Winslet digging through their mail bag deliveries each day like truffle pigs in mad pursuit? It's always a possibility. Downey was classic in last year's Charlie Bartlett, and Winslet had no problem grabbing ahold of Little Children. Feel free to view the scrolling list of awards here, including three Academy nominations.

In light of those slow and steady footholds into what used to be strictly high-concept territory, maybe it's more realistic to view the divide between independent and corporate film productions in terms of which side finds a good script first. The actors, who for better or worse typically run and hide them like prized possessions as quickly as they can, far away from the damage a big budget and death by focus group can levvy, or the pearly front gates of the old baron industry, where we see Malox gulping producers hungrily gnawing on the flash-pot cables in anticipation to fill any of those pregnant pauses in a film that might have actually given someone in the audience pause for thought.

The rise in gritty, scene-heavy award winners may even be a sign of a cyclical return to the style of filmmaking that made the seventies iconic decades after the polyester leisure suits spontaneously combusted in dad's attic.

The question then is not which kind of film to make, but what side of the creative process to approach first, and most importantly, how to write good dialog. It's officially a trend.

Tribeca Features: Chevolution

Chevolution, for all its discussion of the mysterious milk carton face we know today only as "Che" (if at all) is not just a biography of Che Guevara. It's a fascinating study of the power of graphic art as propaganda that weaves through Cuba, France, America and beyond to discover what could have made such a powerful image resonate so clearly with the idea of rebellion.



That a single photograph of Che entitled Guerrillero Heroico, discarded from use in newspapers at its initial offering, could become "the most famous photograph in the world" is an interesting study in group behavior that stuns even Alberto Korda, the photographer who shot the image and developed it in a bathtub with homemade developer chemicals at the time as newspaper photographer.

Widely regarded as an image in the public domain, many are surprised to note that ever since the image's original theft by a sharp-eyed poster producer, the image has moved on to epic status at the expense of its actual owner, who left the rights to his family to protect the image as they see fit.

A little known fact? Che started his career as a doctor before turning guerilla. After campaigning in more revolutions worldwide than any poster boy has a right, Che was finally captured in Bolivia at 39, allegedly telling his assassin "aim well, you're about to kill a man." Surely he deserves a few beer coasters and some sidewalk stencils for that.

Making Killer All Digital Action Movies on the Cheap

The DV Rebel's Guide:

This book was written by Stu Maschwitz, co-founder of the Orphanage (the legendary guerrilla visual effects studio responsible for amazing and award-winning effects in such movies as Sin City, The Day After Tomorrow, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire).

If any book is a must-have, this is it! It's wwritten for all those budding filmmakers and students who want to produce action movies with high quality visual effects but don't have access to Hollywood budgets.

This is a guide that details exactly how to craete your marterpiece. It satrts with planning and selecting the best cameras, software, and equipment. I encompasses creating specific special effects (including gunfire, Kung Fu fighting, car chases, dismemberment, and more) abd concludes with editing, mixing sound and recording music.

The premise is simple! The best low-budget action moviemakers must be able to visualize the end product first in order to reverse-engineer the least expensive way to get there.

Readers will learn how to integrate visual effects into almost every aspect of filmmaking--before filming, during filming, with "in camera" shots, and with digital pixel manipulation in postproduction.

Comparing El Mariachi, La Femme Nikita, Die Hard, and Terminator 2, the author uses popular action movies to make specific references to both low and high-budget films using detailed examples.

READ MORE >>

http://www.proactiveartist.com/post-production/2008/04/01/dv-rebels-guide-all-digital-approach-making-killer-action-movies-cheap

JJ's Star Trek not just a prequel

You might have seen JJ Abram's mention that his Star Trek flick is a prequel, but it's also "more than that," and wondered what the Tribble he was talking about.

TrekMovie.com has confirmed that Abrams' Star Trek will open in the post Nemesis timeframe, making it a Next Generation sequel also.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE>>

http://www.totalfilm.com/movie_news/news_star_trek_not_just_a_prequel
© Future Publishing Limited. Reg No. 2008885 England. 30 Monmouth Street, Bath, BA1 2BW.

New York LOVES Film 2008 Award Winner

Director Daniela Zanzotto has a history of using film to document intimate and personal struggles of every day people, so it's no surprise she is at the helm of of the award winning Tribeca film "Zoned In" about a boy who, at 16 and with two brothers already headed for the penal system, is about to embark on a long journey into an Ivy League university.

From the early film sequences, it's clear Daniel is one of the brightest 16 year olds anyone is ever going to meet, and his natural eloquence on camera makes it even more clear why he was chosen among half a dozen students for a completed documentary, if such a thing can truly exist.

Zanzotto keeps a focussed lens on Daniel, letting him tell his own story in a sequence of scenes where he grows from fresh and confident teen to a struggling stranger in a strange land, surrounded by shiny BMWs. He sees through these token status objects, which have been bestowed by old wealth family money only to be squandered by the students he must compete against in the university setting. He only shakes his head at what is given freely instead of earned.

His comments on the overabundance he sees around him ring true from lonely honesty and a piercing perspective all his own concerning the fallacy of the Ivy League American university as a genuine proving ground for the able. He hasn't the money to even attend the social gatherings that his posh classmates expect as an entry point to their social circles outside the classroom.

During class time he finds his real-life experience shunned and feared by a political and social agenda that is at odds with any sympathy toward his background. He reacts angrily by refusing to vote and receding into an inner sanctuary of family photographs and fear at letting down his young son. He is given every coercion to leave, yet he resolves to stay, no matter the cost to his confidence and the added viciousness of marginalization while being surrounded by such overabundant privilege.

Instead of giving in Daniel stays on campus and navigates the dual challenges of acclimating to his new life surrounded by wealth and its unsaid expectation of uniformity, while trying to maintain a connection to his roots, which he comes to realize have failed to prepare him as a scholar for the rigors of competitive university studies.

Like many students beginning college on their own merits, he finds the systems difficult to navigate and the assistance offered less than cursory, a growing problem in the American university system as a whole, but magnified here for a young man who could use the mentorship and real one-on-one camaraderie he found initially through a High School mentor. Where the struggle of every displaced student ends and the additional burden of being poor in a wealthy school system begins is difficult to place, but this ads all the more universality to Daniel's struggle to comprehend the planet on which he has landed, and the strange people with whom he must now interact for his grades and social acceptance.

His on-camera conversations with his older brother show two sophisticated and eloquent young men caught in a circumstance where one has an out with a scholarship to a prestigious university, while the other can see no solution except for activities that inevitably place him back in prison. The pride from his family magnifies Daniel's fears about being the prodigal son, and deepen his resolve to see himself through to become an educated dad to his own bright young son.

Daniel's story becomes much more than a tale of a poor child in a rich school, but is a bright and warm insider view of the modern son's search for community identity, while learning to question what is genuinely a part of one's culture versus what is supplanted and ultimately false. Coming from a community in Brooklyn which is saturated with re-enforcing, self-damaging behaviors that masquerade as culture and identity, Daniel struggles against and must eventually redefine how he views what is genuine community culture from what is superficial wealth and dangerously-sought pomp and status. He sees how hollow the same materialism rings when it is worn by his wealthy schoolmates as expected uniform, given no significance aside from identifying the haves from the have nots, giving him a different spin on life.

Nerves were still raw by the end of the film from watching an angry and disillusioned Daniel on the day of his graduation, finally breaking down to cry after so many difficult years struggling in virtual isolation amidst the privileged students who were nestled too deeply in their cocoons and echo chambers to really offer him the chance to interact within the system.

During the Q and A afterward, a heckler in the crowd grilled director Zanzotto, catching her off guard with his leading questions that put her on the stand as the representational specter to atone for the emotional punishment Daniel received at the hands of a predominantly white university institution. The follow-up question from the same man was even more telling. "Were you able to empathize?" became a well-annunciated suggestion that, as a white British woman, Zanzotto would be as incapable of empathizing with Daniel's plight as every white person who had not reached out to him during the documentary. The audience grew quiet, the moderator round-eyed, and it wasn't until a woman at the front of the auditorium rephrased the question in her own milder form that the moderator cut the question entirely, recognizing it as a repackaging of the first. Sadly, the second question was beautiful, but the initial heckler had not left room for any continued discussion on the topic.

Such are the adventures of a Tribeca talks moderator, but as a community discussion of downtown New Yorkers that otherwise would never have occurred, the film did much to incite a realization not just of the thick glass ceiling placed on the poor of this country, but also became a sounding board for the deep anger that still clogs the unity process, one that needs to be addressed in order to close the widening gap between rich and poor.

For his part, Daniel works hard to be true to himself, claiming to the end that he will never hate where he comes from, and maintaining his composure even in times of extreme isolation from his schoolmates. His early life experiences had already matured him in many ways beyond the level of mindless partying that his youthful peers exercised. Yet his spirit is not broken by the experience of swimming in their pond, and he grows to become a successful mentor to his own community, becoming a school teacher in inner-city Brooklyn where he himself began. Much like the sharp-witted Daniel of his initial taping at 16, the new Daniel that emerges by the end of the film is warm and confident, showing a sensitivity and insight to his students as a stand-in father figure to many that perhaps no other teacher could provide, all while taking care of his newborn daughter and growing young son at home.

Daniel is still searching to connect his family and his heritage by the end of the film, but unlike the timid boy in college, now he leads the attempt, knowing exactly what his students will face, pushing them through to excel and complete the new cycle of college graduates. If there's a better film to win the New York LOVES Film award, I challenge anyone to produce it.

Travis-Bettman Writer-Director Seminar

Gil Bettman and Mark Travis are two writers of interest, and not just because Bettman is responsible for the hilarity that was Knight Rider.

Their combo writing/directing seminars will be held in New York City June 7-8, 2008, and Santa Monica, CA June 14-15, 2008. I won’t make it but I’m sure it’s somebody’s bag. Worth mentioning.

Anatomy of a Short

Every Year Tribeca spends a good amount of focus on shorts, which usually end up being the best of the festival, considering a lot of brilliant people can make a lot more shorts for the same amount of money as a handful could make in feature-length productions. The big win this year definitely had to be the deadpan Isabella Rossellini making out with herself dressed in bug drag in Green Porno. I suppose if you're the first woman in history to get more irresistible to men the older you get, going solo on camera with a piñata is in fact just deserts on everyone. I for one needed the laugh, and so did the guy beside me, who kept looking around to find his date as if coming to the personal realization that all males, regardless of age, have the hots for Rossellini was just more distraction than he could handle.

Here's a sample segment about the 2008 Russian Animation Fesival from figlimigliproductions.com, the home base of one of the most talented animators at the festival, Alex Budovsky, the creator of the dazzling black-and-white kaleidescope, Bathtime at Clerkenwell: In any event I was settled in for high caliber entertainment from this year's shorts, and mostly all went well. Granted, there were a few so-so shorts, but when you realize some of these are first forays into film, they are pretty amazing peeks into the smash successes of the coming years. Despite one or two borderlines in the line-up (and how do you ever know what the line is before you cross it?) the vast majority of shorts this year, including Yellow Stickie Notes, Zombie Gets a Date, Oscar-winner Chernobyl Heart, Bathtime at Clerkenwell, Gren Porno, and a dozen others, showed great depth in film making as a fine art. These are true artists, not just people handing out 3D glasses chomping cigars.

The Sundance Channel already has gems like "Fly" and "Bee" and the ever-popular "Praying Mantis" up for grabs on their site. Granted, the fly porn isn't exactly high art, but there's something to be said for a good laugh as well.

Waiting for Hockney

The premise of this film may at first incite visions of geeky, maladjusted fourteen year olds who worship distant, plasticized versions of their idols in cryptic email signature files and anonymous fan pages.

It's hard to imagine when the film begins that the seemingly bright, normal-sounding protagonist is anything like the stereotype suggests, and this is the charm of the movie. Despite what you think about the cooks and creeps who haunt the red carpet dividers and obsess over their favored idol's natural hair color and taste in shoes, Maryland artist Billy Pappas is somehow none of these things all while displaying an even more extreme obsession that manifests itself almost hap-hazardly onto the belief that a meeting with a top artist will produce the fame and respect for his art that he fears will not materialize any other way.




Now for the explanation.

If you were ever one of those kids in art class (or any class actually) who could sit there for hours to fill up a page in a sketchbook with maddening intricacies and flourishes, and be damn happy doing it, even, if you like your pencils sharpened to a deadly point, then you understand the innate need for completion without compromise that forms the crux of Pappas' all-consuming drive to create the "best" work of fine drawing illustration a human being could possibly manage.

It's a double tragedy that Pappas is in fact so very good as an artist that he does not compromise, inventing arm slings and re-purposing industrial grade magnifying lenses to learn how to create at a level of such exquisite detail that the human eye will be unable to see the point where an image breaks down into its fibers and grains.

What he creates is actually a philosophical study in the nature of human perception, and by association, the value of reality itself. Pappas' writes intelligently of his understanding in what he is doing, and his fan letters are not rambling or sentimental, but are in fact eloquently engrossing, enough so that he does eventually gain an invitation to display his masterpiece to his idol.

For this reason it is ironic that he must work eight years to master the perfection of illustration beyond the limits of human sight only to be told by a paint splashing abstract pop culture that Pappas' discovery has no meaning or relevance in any of the popular art circles he envisions. That he himself has lost perspective in the art world as he has gained perspective as an artist.



The lesson is part study in the nature of obsessive compulsion in artistic genius, and partly a revealing reflection on the egotistical and ruthless nature of the modern art world, where hilarious and touching family quips between Pappas and his family form a warm contrast to the intimidation and duplicity he faces as he climbs through the ranks of pompous and belittling Hockney associates to meet his idol.

The film is wildly engrossing, the real live players meaningful and brimming with sub-plots, and the respect for the subject delicately and diplomatically handled.

If Pappas does eventually turn to acting, as he shines so brightly and openly on camera, he will already find he has many fans from his adventures in art studies.

FREE Screenwriting Phone Seminar Covering Creating, Pitching & Selling

CLICK HERE & enter your email address. You’ll be emailed back the date & time of the next Free Seminar. On the morning of the Creating, Pitching or Selling Seminars, click on the box of the seminar being given to register. For all seminars, you’ll be sent a phone number & a special code number in order to participate.

Live with Screenwriter/Pitchman Steve Kaire -- all seminars are given on Saturdays. At the start of the seminar, dial the phone number, enter the code, & you’ll be on a conference call with other screenwriters. You will be charged your regular weekend long distance phone charges per minute. (Cell phone rates are usually free during weekends.) You’ll then be notified of future seminars which you can register for in the same way.

STEVE KAIRE has been in the business almost 30 years. He’s sold or optioned 8 projects to the major studios.All were sold on spec without representation. The last project he sold, he’s Co-Producing. He holds a Masters in Dramatic Writing & has taught classes at the American Film Institute. He was voted a “Star Speaker” three times at “Screenwriters Expo,” the largest screenwriting conference in the country. He was also featured on the Tonight Show's “Pitching to America” with Jay Leno.
SCRIPT MAGAZINE reviewed his seminars & said, “Kaire’s seminars are invaluable. This guy’s the real deal.”

What separates you from the millions of others who want to be screenwriters? You can either wing it & hope to get lucky, or you can fast forward your career in a few weeks. Knowledge wing it & hope to get lucky, or you can fast forward your career in a few weeks. Knowledge leads to success. Benefit from my 3 decades of writing & pitching projects that sell.

57,000 Kilometers Between Us

Bless the little indie French filmmakers.

They're so strange and wonderful and they frankly don't care that you can get rabies from a dead rabbit, or that tortured French boys who role play online will be horrified at such a possibility as a public outing at a dinner party.

Mind you, the film is about none of these things, so much as it is a classic, unsentimental portrait of a teenage girl that just about everyone can identify with who's going to be at an indie film premiere at midnight on a Saturday. I'd say we have no lives, but even that would be a lie. The truth is we have multiple lives, all lived out in different spheres of privacy thanks to this weird quirk of the internet. It's to the point where personal time in a quiet theater is a downright nostalgic comfort.




As the debut film from Lyon-born photographer Delphine Kreuter, 57,000 Kilometers Between Us does a strong job of portraying the etherial sense of being a young teenager in a way that's completely accurate yet impossible to materialize. From the black-light bedroom scenes to the defiant smirk at the fridge door, Kreuter's strong cinematic sense serves her well, and the film casts a strange magic like a light source that doesn't seem to come from anywhere, but is there all at once all the same adding additional depth to the dull shine of underage coping strategies.

Nat is a teen adrift, living in her mother's video blogging fishbowl. We get a peek into why this is when we meet her grandmother, a spry, attention grabbing Vegas-style rockette who is totally disjointed from reality. Nate is the black sheep by way of normalcy in a house filled with approval-craving exhibitionists. Her timid and cautious forays into video cam dating seem fresh and real, and the experience for Adrien is doubly intense considering he is dying in a medical ward with only his computer and her company to give him any sense of stability in his own abandoned life.

The rabbit comes a little later, and it isn't white or fluffy, or suitable for a Cadbury commercial, but the sense of wonder and real joy is sweet enough in that moment to calm the waves that follow long before they hit the shore.

For an independent this is a strong showing of great instincts to transcend a budget that according to Kreuter mostly didn't materialize until well after the film was made. For a first film, the finished product is devastatingly good stuff.

War, Inc. Packs Crowds and Snowballs with Sharp Bits of True Lies

After a total lack of effect from multiple shots of Red Bull a full week into the Tribeca Festival, and in dire need of a yoga mat after squeezing my knees down into theater seats apparently meant for pygmy first graders, I rolled into War, Inc. today guided with one glowing notion. Joan Cusack would save me from my morose state after one too many gut-jangling documentaries. It's always good to program one or two films like that for last. The sure things.

As for Cusack, this woman is one of the funniest human beings on the planet. How people miss her, I don't know.

Oh, and then there's her brother. Some guy.

(Who knows.)

The film suffers a rumbled path for a few intermittent scenes due to unclear dialog, but then again this sly comedy doesn't mind a few half-hidden explosive remarks. In another theater that's not cranked up to 11 a lot of those remarks would come through much more clearly, but that's the trade-off for doing a political satire set in a war zone.

Even with the minor technical wobble with the sound, someone did get smart enough to throw in some subtitles so we'd get the fantastic Casablanca send up from the scenes with Lyubomir Neikov. The plot moves in strange directions that grants it a realness even while professional comedians pop off deadpan remarks like weapons specialists. The lines are all whip smart and laser targeted way deep in parody-land.

Be prepared. Veteran comedians, and I mean good ones, are just crawling out of the woodwork to get a piece of this film. All for good reason. It's a coven of them by the end. Things burn. We laugh too much. The ploy gets messy and complicated and satisfying. Then when they could have left it there, the thing just leaps completely off the rails, confident like a bumble bee that it can fly just because it thinks it can, aerodynamics be damned. Typical, and yet somehow acceptable behavior from this troop.

Ben Kingsley, known for his serious side lately, does a great job channeling Hannibal Lector as George C. Scott from Dr. Strangelove. John Cusack is suddenly hot or maybe I'm just not twelve watching his films anymore and he's finally playing a role where he drops a pair. He had to have some consolation for not being Joan, I guess. As writer and leading man, he works out being a middle-age John Bender from The Breakfast Club while sorting which bottle of Tabasco to down and accidentally-on-purpose sabotaging his chances to assassinate his target political official.

Hilary Duff is a great actress here as well as a capable collaborator. Usually when you hear there will be the token siren, it's meant as a warning of comparative brain damage when they're stood up against real actors. But to her credit Duff more than stands her own ground while having abs to die for in all of her scenes. She proves beyond whatever candy coating she's had applied to her in the past that she's going to stick. That's a small miracle in Hollywood formula all to itself.

Marisa Tomei nails her scenes and also entertaining portions of John Cusack hiding out in a Hummer, and while this isn't a romance it is one of the strongest politically motivated pieces of shrapnel to fly out of the film industry since Borat trooped in from Kazakhstan.

The whole thing pummels the unspoken truths about politics and war as a rare bit of film that's neither pretentious nor cliché. The characters are all freaked out respectively, and who wouldn't be? That's the magic of a good satire in that it keeps a perfect sense of real characters living in an unbelievably disjointed unreality.

The ending is pure John Hughes paint job, but forgivable for its less touching final moment of a usual Hughes film if only because it left such a core dump of endorphins throughout the mid half of the plot. After an incredibly fun ride, the story makes an unsteady landing back on the ground as a true war satire. But then how does one end a war satire? They don't end gladly. Even so this one manages to kick up the impact and the comedy to a high enough point that the truth can hurt a little bit. In fact, this may be the smartest, strangest war satire comedy since Kubrick cast James Earl Jones as a late-stage nuclear arms objector.

Worth a visit when it hits theaters on May 23.

Zombie Gets a Date for Tribeca

MyFilm.com caught up with “Zombie Gets a Date” filmmaker Leetal Platt this weekend for a QA on fine art filmmaking and feature animated films at this year’s festival.

Q. What’s your experience so far at the festival?

LP: The festival, as a lot of people can attest to, is kind of intense.

MC: Definitely. Tribeca is still young and taps into a lot of energy in the film community. Plus it's New York. That's just a double shot of creative voltage.

Q. In the middle of all that energy, what's your thought on how to make a successful animation that stands up against other forms of film?

LP: The great thing about animation is that it is entirely an artist's brain coming at you. Everything is thought through beforehand from a little streak of color in the background to the couple extra frames of movement at the end of the shot, so in the world of narrative film, animated pieces are actually the closest you can get to really seeing a director's vision.

MC: The animation shorts this year do seem to support a single auteur vision, yet still have a big impact. I think it's a relevant term of endearment for someone who downed a lot of coffee to spring something really original and roughed out from mind to paper. What do you think makes the animations stick with people?

LP: They're usually artistically gorgeous, fine art literally on the screen, while often live-action is more about documenting what's already there.

Q: A lot of the artistic design choices have a big impact on how an animation creates the right timing and emotion. What’s your take on the differences in viewing of a live action vs. animated film?

LP: People will be absolutely entranced by every frame of an animation while the pictures in a live-action might bore them. ... if it's a beautiful animation people will still love it to death. Having a great story in there only makes it better.

MC: Yah, but can there be a good animation of any kind without a good story?

LP: Making a good story isn't really related to the animation process; storytelling is the same no matter what format you make it in, but if you tell a good story with the art of animation, you're pretty much golden.

MC: Some animators tend to focus on the tech and miss the boat on story development, while "Zombie Gets a Date" is a very simple setup, but it's got lots of nuances. Best of all the reaction beats were perfect. It's the first short I've ever seen where you lose that sense that the date is a cartoon because she's having these very complex and comical body language reactions. It's nice to see that.

Q. How did it all come about in such a quick sketch?

LP: The original idea was this montage-like film that would document various characters trading goods, and it was supposed to get racy and ridiculous like, two men would trade wives... it was supposed to go for really black humor. Problem was it had no flow, I came up with all these ideas and even though I would mix them around or take them out or change things it still didn't feel complete or really tight, neat little package.

I finally gave up and tried to come up with a replacement as fast as I could, and in the ten minutes before the pitch I came up with "Zombie" and drew my first conceptual drawing of the date in about 30 seconds and wrote "Zombie Gets A Date" on it and tacked the picture up on the wall and said this is my new idea.

MC: I find a lot of great short animations coming out of youtube now that are better than what was widely available even a few years ago. I'm not saying the quality wasn't there, but it does seem to be gaining ground in public consciousness.

Q. Are animators getting more savvy about getting online to get seen?

LP: As the youtube revolution attests, short and awesome is the way to go. Get in and get out.

MC: Uh huh.

LP: And if you're going festival circuit people love quickies.

MC: Not touching that one. It is the film industry though. We all know there are a lot of lonely zombies out there making films. BTW, I have to ask…

Q. Is the zombie in your film a parody of modern dating in LA? Is he trapped between a lust for brains and a need to gain the status and approval of his peers with that all-convenient trophy snack?

LP: Naw Zombie's just Zombie, you could write a million "Zombie Gets A blank", that's the point, his character design is what wins everyone over. I dunno I guess the movie touches on such a general roleplay we all do that everyone has a different personal story to attribute to it, and that's why everyone gets it.

Q. Technical specs: what software did you use? What was your process?

LP: The movie is hand drawn with pencil on paper. Drawing table and flipping and such. Each shot was roughed out and tested and then refined and then cleaned up. Then drawings were scanned into a computer and colored in a program called Animo. I animated the film in about seven months and then had four people help me color for two. Then all elements went into Adobe After Effects where props, backgrounds, everything was all assembled.

Q. Is there a process you use to really make the tools work for the narrative instead of the other way around?

LP: It seems there aren't many animated shorts that really hold onto story at the top of the priority list. Lots of the best animation schools are more technical schools, where they learn the wizardry but not much of the heart.

I made the animated short at New York University, which was the reverse; the first thing they teach is how to make your story and then you figure out how to animate on your own.

Q: What is the most common mistake you see in animations lately?

LP: Early animators totally get wrapped up in the technology… I mean, it happens at all levels, even what we see in theaters.

Q: How do you get past the temptation to overuse all the bells and whistles?

LP: I just use my instincts on what's funny and what works. That's probably a reason it takes me so long to animate, I keep trying to do and redo and redo movements and shot lengths because there's a just right and I have to have it be just right.

Q. What are your impressions of the other animators featured in this year's Tribeca line-up?

LP: Jeff Sterns and I have become good friends, he animated "Yellow Sticky Notes" which is seriously the most innovative and touching short in his group of shorts, and probably that I've seen at the whole festival. A lot of the other shorts were sweet but only his actually hit the bulls eye.

MC: I think both of you have that sense of quality in the work and it comes off very polished and high impact. I just watched the screener again for YSN and was impressed with how polished all of his materials are, right down to the DVD. He had to make a film to tidy his scattered sticky-note habit, so we know he’s someone with a good sense of discipline.

It also seems that animators might have an advantage on the marketing front due to their familiarity with a lot of useful software. Maybe its just good inspiration from the rest of the community.

Q. Who are your biggest inspirations?

LP: Anyone who knows good movies will see Don Hertzfeldt in my stuff. He's just my favorite animator EVER. I pretty much want to hang myself every time I see one of his pieces because he's such a genius my life isn't worth living.

MC: Leave the oven off this week and order takeout. You’ve done a beautiful job with a short that really jumped out of this year’s lineup.

Q. Speaking of across the highway versus down the lane, what was the biggest production challenge you had?

LP: The time length. While I was doing “Zombie” I was a full-time student in my senior year in college. I was also prepping and shooting a live-action short, and in the middle of post on both projects I moved to Los Angeles, which was a big deal and I also had to get a job. Animation is totally freeing creatively, but my animator's Achilles heel is that I like working with people and I get cabin fever drawing stuff by myself for months on end.

Q. Anything else you want heard?

LP: I'm good.

MC: You’re exceptional. Look forward to seeing more from your studio, and good luck at the Zompire Film Festival next week. I’d say knock ‘em dead, but that would be too obvious, wouldn’t it?

New Media

"The era of mass media is giving way to one of personal and participatory media," says Andreas Kluth, "and this will profoundly change both the media industry and society as a whole."

Five-and-a-half centuries after Mr. Gutenberg invented movable type, printed his first bible and started the age of mass media, "Movable Type" was invented again in 2001. This time, it was created by Ben and Mena Trott, high-school sweethearts who became husband and wife. They had been laid off during the dotcom bust and found themselves in San Francisco with a lot of spare time.

Ms. Trott posted "blogs" to her online journal, Dollarshort—about “stupid little anecdotes from my childhood”. For reasons that even she cannot explain, Dollarshort became very popular, and the Trotts who discovered that they had populalized "blogging", decided to build a better "blogging tool” which they called Movable Type.

“Likening it to the printing press seemed like a natural thing because it was clearly revolutionary; it was not meant to be arrogant or grandiose,” Ms. Trott explained to the approving nod of an extremely shy Mr. Trott, who rarely speaks. Movable Type has now become the software of choice for most celebrity bloggers.

This second coming of Movable Type, however, also marks the beginning of a very gradual transition to a new era, which might be called the "Internet era" but this does not really do it justice.

It should be called the "Age of New Media" or the "Age of Digital Media" because new media is not just written; it is the convergence and emergence of all digital media including newspapers, magazines, radio, television and the encyclopedia. It could also be defined as the "Age of personal or participatory media" and this in turn, gives rise to all forms of User Generated Content (UGC).

It should be noted that this "Age of New Media" is not an era of enormous publishing so much as it is an era of social interaction and participation.

READ MORE>>
http://www.economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=6794156

© 2008, Stanley Lozowski. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2008. All rights reserved.

The Anti-Entourage

Lovelorn nerds from Queens, NY have won the hearts of the online world with "We Need Girlfriends."

Millions watch the videos. "We go to bars and we're standing in corners by ourselves... we're not moving and shaking," observed Steve Tsapelas.

Tsapelas, Amyot and Acevedo all attended filmmaking classes together at Hofstra University in Long Island. Their girlfriends all dumped the three endearing oddballs from Queens after graduation and the filmmakers then reacted to their pain turning it into something that was both comical and cathartic.

"We Need Girlfriends" revolves around the be-spectacled Henry; based on Steve Tsapelas and played by Seth Kirschner; the earnest Tom, modeled on Amyot and played by Patrick Cohen and the obtuse Rod, played by Evan Bass, who Acevedo says is more of an exaggeration of himself, since he's the quietest of the trio.

Henry is so shy he literally hides at the sight of a beautiful woman. He hangs around women long enough until one makes the first move. Rod, on the other hand, doesn't talk to females at all, preferring to woo them with sound effects. Only Tom has the courage to ask a woman out, but his approach doesn't always work.

"If you're ever lonely you can come knock on my door," he say to Lucy, the object of his affections.

"I think that's the most pathetic thing I've every heard," Lucy replies.

READ THE ENTIRE STORY by KEVIN SITES>>
http://potw.news.yahoo.com/s/potw/69945/the-anti-entourage

Copyright © 2008 Yahoo All rights reserved.

Be Good to Your Techs: NYC Entertainment Technician Training Seminar: July 15 - 17th

According to Stage Direction News, "PLSN University is providing a live training event including sessions on the theory and fundamentals of electricity, practical power distribution, networking and more."

Three sessions, scheduled, eight hours each, from 9 am to 5 pm, will make up the event, which is presented by ETCP-recognized trainer and PLSN editor Richard Cadena. Registration for the seminar is $675.

SCARLET

Saving up your money and thinking about buying a new digital camcorder?

NAB's bombshell was Scarlet.

Scarlet is a 3K masterpiece of an HD camera targeting an under $3K price point.

Scarlet will employ a 2/3" 3K sensor, a built in 8X T2.8 Zoom lens (that will maintain speed through the zoom), a 4.8" flip out attached LCD, a built in stereo mic, an internal removable battery, a dual CF card slot recording media, an all aluminum body and a few secret features that no one is talking about right now.

Scarlet is the one high definition digital video camera that every filmmaker and DP will want. Scarlet will change the industry. Unlike the debut of the 4000k RED camera, there will be no reservation system for Scarlet. The day it is introduced will be the day you can buy yours.

In case your thinking of buying a serious camera, that day is no too far away. Scarlet's planned introduction is early 2009.

Two of the two biggest concerns about Scarlet at NAB was audio and the other was lens performance and interchangeability. Scarlet will have a built in stereo mic and it will also have external inputs. We agree that balanced is the only way to go.

Looking at the experiences learned from RED, Scarlet should have a smoother introduction with professionals on the job.

LEARN MORE about RED and Scarlet>>
http://www.kappastudios.com/?page_id=10

The RED One camera from Red Digital Cinema is one of the most advanced pieces of equipment to appear on the production scene in decades. The camera's 4K resolution, detailed film-like imagery, the ability to use a variety of lenses, and an extraordinary performance to cost ratio are all pushing this new media technology into uncharted creative territory.

Independent producers and studio executives, artists and technicians alike are all seeing the potential for RED ONE to help them put better images on the screen.

MOTION CAPTURE

MOCAP as it is now called, is one of the great new frontiers in the world of digital movie making. Although it has had its resistance in the film community, it is becoming a crucial tool in complex digital effects and, as it turns out, it has become a completely different medium in which to capture entire feature films.

Robert Zemeckis is probably best known for pioneering this new technology. The three films he produced entirely using mocap were Polar Express, Beowulf and A Christmas Carol. Peter Jackson, Steven Spielberg, James Cameron and George Lucas have also experimented with and used this technology in their productions.

Early attempts at motion capture often yielded non-realistic plastic-looking facial movements and dead eyes. The technology was continually pushed forward and improved over the last decade. It is now opening the doors to this new and exciting future way of seeing and making films. Steve Perlman of San Francisco’s Mova (www.mova.com) refers to this as “Volumetric Cinematography.”

WHAT IS MOTION CAPTURE

MOCAP is a conversion of live-action movement into 3D data. This data is then used to drive 3D animated characters.

It's not that easy to describe how this is accomplished. It often pushes computer technology to the limit and spans the spectrum from single perspective pattern tracking interpolation, mechanical armature exoskeletons and radio frequency triangulation to the more commonly used multicamera optical marker-based triangulation systems. There are a couple of system out there employing the use gyro-based inertial sensors and sonic sensing using time of flight triangulation for positional information.

READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE>>
http://www.postmagazine.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=C715B81DD6674D62BD666D304D2E8D0B

Heath Firestone, a producer/director based in Denver, has a strong background in advanced 3D digital effects and compositing. Reach him at Heath@FirestoneStudios.com.

Copyright 2008 COP Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.