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...

Things I’ve Learned: Paul Haggis

By Paul Haggis on June 18, 2014 MovieMaker Magazine

Today, on Wisdom Wednesday, Academy Award-winning writer/director Paul Haggis stopped by to share a whopping 55 critical moviemaking lessons he’s learned (our most ever!).

Inspired by the works of Hitchcock and Godard, London, Ontario native Paul Haggis immersed himself early on in art, fashion photography, and eventually film studies at Fanshawe College. After graduating, he relocated to Los Angeles, where he began a successful career as a television writer of such hit shows as The Love Boat, Diff’rent Strokes, and The Facts of Life. And even created series like Walker, Texas Ranger, Family Law, and Due South.
As a moviemaker, it was his adaptation of F.X. Toole’s Rope Burns: Stories from the Corner that solidified his status as a big Hollywood contender. The result was Million Dollar Baby, directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, and Hilary Swank. The film took home the Oscar for Best Picture (2004) and earned him a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. Then, as an encore, his gripping tale of racial and social tension in Crash (2005) would send him back to the red carpet for more. Not only did he receive the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, but he became the first individual to write back-to-back Oscar Best Picture winners. MORE...

 

Horror Stories: Examining the Business of Genre Filmmaking

By David Grove on November 4, 2014 MovieMaker Magazine

A decade ago, the primary focus of independent horror moviemakers was making a good horror movie, knowing that if they did their job well, they were virtually guaranteed to find an audience and make their money back (and then some). Horror was the Teflon genre—or so it seemed.

“In the last decade it’s gotten cheaper to make movies, and harder to make money off of them,” says J.T. Petty, writer-director of horror features The Burrowers (2008) and Hellbenders (2012). “The ‘guarantee’ most people took for granted was the DVD market, and that’s all but gone.” Today, the business of independent horror moviemaking has changed dramatically, and while making a good movie is still paramount, the moviemaker of 2014 must wear other hats just as well in order to survive: branding expert, distributor, producer, publicist, sales agent. “And,” as Eduardo Sanchez, director of 1999’s game-changing The Blair Witch Project and the upcoming Exists, says, “most of us didn’t get into this to become distributors.” MORE...

Make Your Smartphone Smarter: What Goes in Your iPhone Filmmaking Kit?

By Ricky Fosheim on December 2, 2014 MovieMaker Magazine

 “Shot on a smartphone” rarely means just a smartphone. So what goes in your kit? Director Ricky Fosheim, of the entirely iPhone-shot feature And Uneasy Lies the Mind, walks us through his favorite hardware and software for efficient, low-budget smartphone filmmaking.

Two years ago a group of friends asked me to direct an indie feature they had written called And Uneasy Lies the Mind. Their David Lynch-inspired script called for a very unconventional aesthetic. After research and testing, I fell in love with the look and feel of the iPhone 5 images when attached to a 35mm lens adapter, shooting through 35mm lenses. It was grainy, textured, heavily vignetted and saturated, with high contrast.
An iPhone’s unique characteristics are its size, ease of use, high-contrast image, and adaptability to all sorts of aftermarket lenses. Sure, you’re not going to shoot Lawrence of Arabia with your smartphone, but in the right context, it can make for powerful, cutting-edge cinema. And the recently released iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, with their 240-fps-capable cameras, have just opened up a wealth of new possibilities. Make the most of your phone’s versatility with the following tools, many of which I used on my own set. MORE...