Author: leahstern

Due to a particularly heavy schedule at work, I haven’t posted in almost a month and a half. In the future I hope to add some writers to the staff here so that time between posts doesn’t stretch so long.

In the time since the last post, I’ve gotten involved in an local independent/student short film. Meeting several people from the area who are involved in low-to-no budget film making inspired me to take this blog in a new direction. I was reminded how important it is to leverage your network when making a film, particularly when on a shoestring budget. I was also reminded that most of the pleasure in working on films for me comes from working with other creative minds towards a common goal.

So, I will still be discussing my own projects here, but I will be opening up the this forum to other filmmakers, specifically in the DC area, to spread information about local events, casting calls, and crew openings for their own films. I will continue to write about technical issues and challenges facing bootstrap filmmakers and I hope to add some other local indie and student filmmakers to the writing staff as well.

Keep your RSS aggregators peeled (mixed metaphors anyone?) for articles following the new model. Hope you enjoy the show.

Having been recently inspired by the concept of a one-minute movie, I have an idea that I thought I would pose to you, the readers. It is an intersection of flash fiction and wikis. In an effort to gain some support and enthusiasm for a longer short film (is that a contradiction?), I would like to facilitate a very short film with a maximum of audience participation.

I see the structure breaking down as such:

I will create an open Google document and share it here. This will be the forum for creating a script for our one minute movie. (NB: One minute of screen time is approximately equal to one page of properly formatted script.) Readers may create, edit, and revert to their heart’s content. I will suggest that disputes be negotiated discussions be handled in a separate GoogleDoc, which I will also provide. I will come up with a mechanism for closing the script. Perhaps offering a poll to the readers on whether to accept a final copy or continue revisions. Once the script is closed, we will move on to the next step. (Note: I am suggesting GoogleDocs because they are simple. If you have experience setting up a wiki I would love to hear from you.)

I don’t know of a tool to collaborate on storyboards, although I’m sure one of you could suggest one. It basically has to allow for simple drawings to be shared between many users. If this is possible, then we could follow a similar process for the storyboards as for the script. When that is complete filming will begin. I will likely shoot all the footage over a weekend with a consumer miniDV camera. Others are obviously welcome to do the same, which would give some extra flexibility, but I will assume that others will not do their own shooting. People in the area could contact me to help out with my version of the shooting. I would then take the raw footage, encode in a codec suitable for distribution over the web, and make the footage available via torrent (if a tech savvy person can assist me in setting one up), server (if someone wants to donate the bandwidth), or Pando (if I’m on my own).

Once the footage is available, you are free to download and edit it together yourself, adding any effects you wish, in whatever program you wish. If there are any musical people who would like to contribute original music to the project, that would also be greatly appreciated. The resulting one-minute movies will be shared here, and possibly elsewhere as well.

In the interest of more diverse interpretations, in may be worth forgoing the storyboard process in favor of letting editors cut together the scenes in whatever way they wish. In terms of legal considerations, I would be in favor of releasing all material under some kind of open source license, perhaps GNU GPL or Creative Commons. If you have advice on or experience with this matter, I would love to hear from you. This is all I know about using the GPL so far.

If this is a project you would like to get involved with, particularly if you have any of the technical knowledge that I have referred to above, please send me an email (producer@grad.com) to let me know what you are willing to help with.

Help Requested:

1. Torrents set up
2. Server space
3. Wiki set up
4. Licensing knowledge

Opportunities for creative folks:

1. Writing
2. Shooting
3. Video Editing
4. Original Music

This is John‘s response to my first impression of his logline, “Washington, D.C. seems awfully small when this bartender finds out four of his ex-girlfriends are living there too. He seems to be falling in love all over again.”:

I like the sports bar setting for the guy in a RomCom only because I feel like the competition of sports makes for a good metaphor for life. There’s a lot you could do with the bartender / leading man. Yet, I do not know if I really envision it being a Comedy. A movie that’s romantic and about love does not necessarily have to be a comedy. (See the new movie, “Once” as an example.)

I would think a good portion of the movie would be told in flashback. These girls came from all over his life, they are a part of him and made him who he is today. Yet, I think there would have to be a new love interest. It would be too hard for the audience to understand why he would get back together with any of his previous loves after seeing the drama that happened in their relationships the first time. (Because there is drama in every relationship that makes it difficult for people to see them happening again from the outside.)

I find a problem with the “Jen” idea only that it makes love seem to simple. If you’re going to make a RomCom don’t make it simple. That’s what makes it corny. The brilliance of a good romantic comedy comes out in the subtlety.

In fact, I think making it a drama, makes for the best story of all. The logline makes the movie sound like a romantic comedy. But originally it was actually conceived as a television show, with this opening scene:

PILOT SCRIPT:

Scene 1: Alex and Katie are sitting on a couch awkwardly after what appears to have been a long conversation. They’re in the middle of a nice downtown D.C. apartment, which is actually Katie’s. It’s well furnished and has a variety of little knickknacks around the room.

A (trying to look sorry, but not doing very well): I’m sorry, but things aren’t just the same anymore. Really I’m just not interested in our relationship. Something has changed.

K (obviously frustrated and having done this before): You ass. What is that supposed to mean? Why do you say this every time?

A: I don’t know. I just don’t think this is working. We don’t love each other anymore. We act so differently. It’s just stupid to keep doing this.

K: WE act differently? I’m pretty sure the only one who is been acting differently lately is you. What happened? What did I do wrong?

A: You didn’t do anything wrong, you’re wonderful. I just think that I have to do move on…. I’m sorry.

K: Don’t say you’re sorry. You’re not sorry. (Starts to cry) Just leave. I don’t want to talk to you or see you anymore.

A (bewildered): Oh, ok… I guess I’ll be going then… (opens door and leaves apartment building)

Scene 2: Alex is walking along the street, it’s a bright sunny summer day, Katie obviously lived in one of the nicer neighborhoods downtown. Alex pulls out his cell phone and calls someone. Karpo picks up, he’s at work at the gym. He’s helping out a rather attractive blond haired woman. Split screen of the conversation.

A: Well that’s over.

K: Wait… what’s over? What did you do now?

A: Katie and I broke up. I told her it was over. I told her that I wasn’t interested anymore.

K: Hey, you know you can’t use the same excuse three times in a row. The girls sort of catch on.

A: Is it my fault that my girlfriends bore me?

K: Well, not to be an ass… but yes…

A (cutting off Karpo before he can continue): Oh well, I hope we can still be friends. That would be cool. Although she seemed really upset when I left.

K (supporting the woman who is excercising w/ his free hand): Really? Maybe that’s because you just broke up with her again. And I can’t believe how you talk to every girl you’ve dated. That’s not a good idea man. Some day its going to get you into big trouble.

A: How can being friends get you into trouble?

K: Trust me. It can. I know.

A: Well, I like being friends. I mean Katie was a nice girl. Just not for me.

K: Right… she was so not for you that you dated all through college. Man I can’t believe this is over.

A: First of all, it wasn’t all through college, we broke up twice, and… we didn’t start dating until sophomore year.

K: Oh, my bad. You dated for 3 year, plus another couple months out of school. Yeah, a drop in the bucket for the dating wizard. Man, are you ever going to not date someone?

A: How about right now? I’ve got plans.

K: Well I think tonight’s should be a celebratory drink. I’ll catch you at “NEED NAME FOR BAR” tonight.

A: Ok. Sounds good.

K (lowers client down after she’s done excercising[sic]): See ya tonight.

It’s much more of an HBO Drama in it’s current conception than an Indie Film. But that’s what I see. I see Alex rising through the drama of the relationship and the drama of seeing and possibly being forced to interact with some of his former girlfriends. It shows how small the world is, tries to figure out how long love lives on, and what changes when you move on. I know I just went a ton of high concept again without getting into an actual plot details. That’s what I think though when I think about this film.

I like this different take on the idea, and I love getting script bits, even fragments. Thanks to John for letting me post this.

Sometimes, like today, I will get ahead of myself and start looking at the latest and greatest technology for filmmaking. As I look at more and more reviews and gadgets, the process inevitably leads to a conversation like this:

ME: holy crap, you can get the XH-A1 with an underwater housing for under 6k!
INSIDER (laughing): Why would you need underwater housing?
ME: I don’t know! But how sweet is that?

Eventually, after filling up a B&H shopping cart with all manner of cameras, DTE HDDs, boom poles, shotgun mikes, auxiliary lenses, XLR cables and the like, I will get to a point where the cost of that equipment brings me to my senses. Then I remember that I’m producing a film, not stocking an equipment rental house and I start to refocus on the aspects outside the technology. Like the story.

The story is a good place to start. And a good place to end. Really, it’s all about the story. John August has a post on his blog about success in which he distills the basic truths of 6 major lessons for getting into film. Number 2 is “It’s About The Story.” This is important for me to remember; filmmakers are storytellers first and foremost. And particularly as an independent film team, we don’t have the liberty of trading special effects for plot and character development. Our production will be lower quality than Hollywood by necessity, so we should remember that what we are doing is telling a story. The story can be compelling even if the production quality is not.

I recently saw Once at a local independent theater and it was an excellent example of this kind of substance over style. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the film was shot for $130,000 over 17 days with camcorders. Wikipedia says it was $150,000 and a skeleton crew. Either way, that’s a pretty cheap film and not a whole lot spent on production.

And yet it has been very well received: 8.6 on IMDB (Consulting the IMDB movie-rating decoder ring that puts it in the top 2% of all movies ever) and 97% fresh on RottenTomatoes. It’s even grossed almost $5 million worldwide(Box Office Mojo). That’s over a 3000% return on investment… Those are some pretty shiny numbers for any film. I’m still not entirely sure what I loved about the film so much, (the story and the music certainly had something to do with it) but I know it wasn’t the production quality. I was willing to overlook the grainy film and extras looking directly at the camera and get involved with the story. I hope to make our film follow this emphasis as well… but that won’t stop me from looking at some gadgets in my spare time.

Check these oddities out:
Black robe for boom operators
Micro-Cat wind cover for lav mics
Aforementioned Underwater camera package

OK, OK, I’m going to go work on some stories now…

Some of you may have noticed that it has been a week since our last post. I have been out of town and we don’t yet have enough writers to keep up the posts during an absence. In the future hopefully such absences will not affect the blog quite as much. New posts coming soon!

Here’s another try at fleshing out an idea. This logline comes from John (of “College Grad “Real” World” fame. Seriously, it’s a cool blog, check it out.) via the comment system. Remember, you can submit ideas via comments or email (let us know if you wish to remain anonymous) at producer@grad.com.

Here we go:
“Washington, D.C. seems awfully small when this bartender finds out four of his ex-girlfriends are living there too. He seems to be falling in love all over again.”

I have trouble seeing this as anything but a romantic comedy, although it would be interesting to try and force-fit it into another genre. It might work as film noir. I can see the bartender wearing a dark trench coat as he strides through sheets of rain in the seedy neighborhoods of southeast DC. His four ex’s run the gamut from the dependable, caring woman to the duplicitous femme fatale.

I’ll leave that for another writer to work on. Getting back to the romantic comedy: I see the protagonist, our leading man, as a gruff sort of character who works at, and maybe runs a bar, either a biker bar or sports bar, or some other kind of testosterone filled joint. Underneath the hard exterior, he is a hopeless romantic, and perhaps, over time, we see the events that caused him to harden his emotions.

I’m not quite sure what to do with 4 love interests, so maybe none of them actually turns out to be the love interest…

Our hero, Jack, meets each girlfriend in DC and subsequently falls for her again, and after going to lengths to prove that he can be sensitive (to the ridicule of his bar mates) remembers why they broke up the first time.

There are two ways I see this story going, and it’s possible that they are the same story with different characters. The way I see it, either the 4th girlfriend, or a new character, is the last person. Let’s call her Jen. Jack doesn’t fall in love with Jen. He takes her for granted; maybe she’s been around during all of his efforts to win back his previous relationships. She is constantly correcting him, and being a pain in his neck by ‘explaining’ to him why he’s an idiot. H e naturally doesn’t think of her in a romantic way, but somewhere between showing his sensitive side (getting laughed at by the tough guys in the bar, and slowly winning Jen’s admiration) and being himself, they realize that the basis of a true relationship isn’t any of the superficial things that he had with his other girlfriends; It’s trust and challenging each other to grow and learn.

Reading back over that, it sounds almost too sappy, but I think it could be worked with. The set up would have to be good, and hopefully subtle, otherwise it will come across as a sermon, which lessens the appeal of the movie as well as the impact of the message. I’m not sure I like the way this idea came together as much as the last one I looked at. I would love to see another take on this logline. If you feel like adding your $0.02 or taking it in a totally different direction feel free to post in the comments or send me an email. I’d be happy to post someone else’s ideas.