Comedian Flobo Boyce at D4B

The Dress 4 Breasts grassroots fundraiser was a huge success! Thank you everyone who donated and supported us! Check out Comedian Flobo Boyce doing his thing!

Dress 4 Breasts Grassroots Fundraiser 2015

If you can't make it, please make a donation. Thank you!

http://do.eifoundation.org/goto/dress4breasts2015

Dress 4 Breasts 2015

“I Don’t Feel Like I Gave Birth to Jesus”: Wes Craven on A Nightmare on Elm Street

by Jim Hemphill 

in Directors,Interviews on Aug 31, 2015

Wes Craven, one of the greatest horror directors of all time, a man who directed classics in almost every decade of his professional life,passed away yesterday, August 30, of brain cancer in Los Angeles. Last October, Craven spoke toFilmmaker‘s Jim Hemphill about perhaps his most celebrated creation, A Nightmare on Elm Street. As a way of remembering Craven, we are reposting it today.

On November 9, 1984, Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Streetopened in American theaters and changed the movie industry forever. Serving as a bridge between the primal ferocity of Craven’s earlier work (Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes) and the visually expressive professionalism of his later films (The Serpent and the Rainbow, The People Under the Stairs, Red Eye), Elm Street also introduced one of the most iconic horror movie villains of all time and put New Line Cinema on the map. A make-or-break production for New Line and its founder, Bob Shaye, A Nightmare on Elm Street established a new franchise for the company and enabled an expansion that would lead to decades of important films – it’s entirely possible that without Craven’s classic there would be no Boogie Nights, no My Own Private Idaho, and of course no Lord of the Rings trilogy. The film also breathed new life into the stagnant teen horror genre, fusing the art house surrealism of Ingmar Bergman’s Hour of the Wolfand Bunuel’s dream films with the conventions of 80s body count movies to set the standard for years to come – until Craven himself reinvented the genre with Scream. On the eve of the picture’s 30th anniversary, Craven reflects on the creation of a horror masterpiece. MORE...

10 Lessons on Filmmaking from Roger Corman

by Scott Macaulay 

in Directing,Filmmaking,Production on Aug 10, 2015

The legendary Roger Corman is America’s proto-independent filmmaker, having produced literally hundreds of films and directed dozens more, most of them genre films made under a “fast, cheap and profitable” model that still offers guidance for new filmmakers everywhere. And while Corman is best known for films made during an earlier independent era, one in which regional distribution circuits and drive-ins offered screens for movies made far away from Hollywood, Corman is still innovating — and monetizing. Corman’s Drive In is his VOD YouTube channel, where, for $3.99 a month, you can dip into his vast library and sample films like Rock and Roll High School, Swamp Woman and Strip Teaser.

Aside from the still prolific nature of his filmmaking — hisSharktopus vs. Werewolf premiered last month on the SyFy Channel — Corman is known for discovering talent. Early directors of Corman pictures included Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard and Francis Ford Coppola, all of whom took something away from the Corman School of Cinema.

On August, 22, Corman will be appearing at the Anthology Film Archives in New York to screen his 1959 horror comedy, A Bucket of Blood. In the below interview, conducted in 2013 but appearing here for the first time, Corman distills his various experiences and insights into ten lessons for producers and directors making films of all kinds. MORE...

"On The Rocks" Post Production

"On The Rocks" Post Production

The Seven Arts of Working in Film: A Necessary Guide to On-Set Protocol

The Seven Arts of Working in Film: A Necessary Guide to On-Set Protocol 
by Brandon Tonner-Connolly with Alicia van Couvering
in Filmmaking, Issues, Line Items, Production
on Apr 14, 2015

Welcome to your first day on a film set.
Perhaps you’ve gotten a new job as a production assistant. Perhaps you’re still in school and have been given an opportunity as an intern, or you’ve recently been asked to help out with a friend’s production. You probably have some questions.
I’m writing this because I’d like to try to answer some of those questions in advance, and because I have hope.
Hope that maybe the next time I ask someone to sweep up some glass that just broke, I won’t have to explain where to get a broom, how to use a dustpan and what to do with the glass once it’s in the dustpan.
Hope that the next time I’m having a time-sensitive conversation with another department head at the monitor, I won’t have to turn and repeat the entire conversation to someone who, rather than listening, was staring at their phone.
Hope that no one on a film set will ever again ask me where to get a ladder. (The answer is the Grip Department. The answer is always the Grip Department).
MORE...
 

Behind The Scenes...

Behind the scenes "On The Rocks" short film shoot, which is in Post Production now.

MAKING YOUR CINEMATIC DREAM COME TRUE FOR $200K

Glen Golightly / Film Independent BloggerFebruary 24, 2015Film Independent

Many directors and I probably share the same idle daydream: A studio exec calls and says, “You simply must direct our $200 million screen epic. You’re the only one on our list.”

Then I wake up and realize I’m more likely to catch the measles or be hit by lightning.

Let’s keep dreaming, but at the same time, devote our waking hours to taking action—like veteran assistant director and production manager Tom Seidman has. Seidman’s resume includes working for directors Clint Eastwood on Honkytonk Man, Peter Weir on Dead Poets Society and Robert Redford on Ordinary People. He shared his experiences with low-budget indie productions at a recent Film Independent education event.

“About 12 years ago, I got tired of waiting for someone to tap me on the shoulder and say ‘here’s your big chance,’” he said. Seidman raised $750,000 to produce The Hazing, a horror film. Despite distribution and premium channel airings, the film lost $500,000. “That’s the sad reality of independent filmmaking. Even if you make a film you sell, it’s tough to get the money back to cover your budget,” Seidman said.

He then realized a $200,000 film would have a fighting chance of making its money back and maybe earn a profit. Since then, Seidman has produced, written and/or directed three $200k-budgeted films: The Christmas Bunny, Golden Winter and the upcoming Survive. MORE...

Big Bang Theory: Screenwriter Anthony McCarten

Big Bang Theory: Screenwriter Anthony McCarten Proves that Perseverance Pays Off with The Theory of Everything
By Mark Sells on February 19, 2015
MovieMaker Magazine

According to screenwriter Anthony McCarten, there’s one proven theory about working in the creative arts: You need to have a whole lot of persistence to get things through. Such was the case with Academy Award Best Picture nominee The Theory of Everything, which took no less than a decade to get off the ground.

Since the initial reading of Stephen Hawking’s book, A Brief History of Time, and Jane Hawking’s autobiography, Traveling to Infinity, the eight-year journey to build trust, secure Jane and Stephen’s permission, and produce the film itself under the masterful talents of director James Marsh and actors Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones, The Theory of Everything was the kind of labor of love that Richard Linklater might appreciate. MORE...

“I Like Violence” – Shane Black

An in-depth interview with action genre pioneer Shane Black. By Eric Bauer. 

Shane Black is a Pittsburgh native whose solo screen-play credits include Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, and The Long Kiss Goodnight. In addition to these original scripts, Black co-wrote The Monster Squad and The Last Action Hero. Black enjoyed spectacular success in the ’90s spec-screenplay market, earning $1.75 million for his screenplay The Last Boy Scout and $4 million for The Long Kiss Goodnight. Originally drawn to acting, he studied theater for four years at UCLA and went on to appear in such films as Predator, Robocop 3, and the television drama Dark Justice.
You first studied theater. What interested you in screenwriting?
It was sort of default, in a way. I’ve read books ever since I was very young. I’m a voracious reader. I’ve escaped from a lot of my life by spiriting myself away and reading books in my room, reading books at school on my lunch hour. So, I had more of a sense of storytelling than anything else. I wanted to translate that to acting, but I wasn’t a very good actor and was very intimidated by the cattle call auditions where fifty guys looked just like me and I recognized one of them from a soap opera. You have to feel you’ve got something special to bring to the party. I didn’t have that feeling with acting. I felt like I was fighting to catch up.
Screenwriting seemed to tap more naturally into what I had known and loved all my life–basic storytelling. I had a friend, director Fred Dekker, who had gotten a few deals and was a buddy from college before any of us knew what we wanted to do. His scripts were really interesting. I read them and thought, “this looks like something I could do.” He was good enough, at one point, to show a piece of my work to his agent, who got me some meetings.  MORE...

At Sundance Producers Brunch...

...Mark and Jay DuplassOffer Ten Pieces of Advice for Making Movies Today
by Scott Macaulay in Filmmaking, Production, Sundance, Sundance Features
on Jan 25, 2015

Keynote speakers at today’s Producers Brunch at the Sundance Film Festival, independent powerhouses Jay and Mark Duplass issued a passionate and witty call to all the producers in the jam-packed house: keep making small movies. At an event that saw their own producing partner, Stephanie Langhoff, receive the Sundance Institute Red Crown Producers Award, they told producers to learn from their own decision to stay invested in the independent sector after receiving a measure of larger Hollywood success.
Along with Sundance Dramatic Competition entry The Bronze, which Langhoff produced, the Duplass Brothers have, as executive producers,two other productions at the festival: Sean Baker’s Tangerine and Patrick Brice’s The Overnight.
Savvy writers, directors, producers and actors, Jay and Mark Duplass know how punch through the crowded media landscape to build audiences for their work. Accordingly, rather than give a pseudo-heartfelt biographical speech at the Producers Brunch, they indulged listeners with an edifying internet-friendly listicle — ten pieces of advice for independent filmmakers today. That list, quoted and paraphrased, appears below.

1. “The phrase you can never go home is not true when it comes to Sundance,” said Jay. He remarked that the two of them have spent time in Hollywood, and that “wonderful things” had come out of that experience. “But some of it does not smell so good.” The world of independent film, he said, is “its own ecosystem. Don’t view [your Sundance picture] as a stepping stone.”  MORE...

The Indie-Friendly Business List 2014: 25 Companies You Should Know

By Carley Johnson with Jonathan Chen and May Zhang on November 24, 2014. MovieMaker Magazine

Asking these 25 affordable, supportive companies for help doesn’t require bending your knees.
The very definition of independent moviemaker means you have to fend for yourself in an often rocky, always-evolving landscape. It’s definitely a jungle out there, but you don’t need to blaze every trail alone. A thriving community exists which believes in the vitality of artistic independence; a support network is available if you know where to look, and in that community your calls will get returned and respect will be afforded to your project whether or not you can afford rate card prices.
Each year, MovieMaker forges a list of 25 of the most independent-friendly businesses in the industry. We scoured everything from rental houses to production studios to smartphone application companies in pursuit of technical excellence, outstanding customer service, real-world affordability, and most importantly, a solidly pro-indie business ethic. What we found was a treasure trove of companies that are eager to help turn your creative vision into reality. MORE...