Coffee and Celluloid

I Shoot in Three Days. Don’t Panic.

Posted July 28th, 2008 at 8:51 pm by C47

I shoot my thesis in three days. I’ve been going with my “everything works out” attitude, and I know it will, but I won’t lie. I’m starting to panic.

I just need a few simple things, such as a cast and locations. Locations look a little more promising than casting. They at least can’t leave Tallahassee for the summer. I should just cast with Legos.

My film is a mix of Mean Girls meets Psycho meets Weeds (new favorite show, but I swear I started watching it after I wrote my script). Whenever someone asks what the film is about I describe it with genre or reference films, such as “a high school dark comedy.”

Unlike my last film (”guy sells his soul for the corner office”), there are two distinct parts to the story which I haven’t figured out how to squeeze into one sentence¹.

It’s about a girl, Amy Dupree, who’s stuck in suburbia. To earn money for college, she takes the SATs for rich students for a couple grand. Later, a scholarship comes up that would solve a lot of her problems, but it goes to Jenny Hicks, the Rachel McAdams equivalent. To sabotage her, Amy fucks up her SAT test which she was just hired to take.

This was all a flashback, told in a constantly moving Gossip Girl-esque style (yes, I watch GG, among other sexuality questioning material). Start up the next act, Amy’s walking down the street when she’s abducted by Bunny, Jenny’s mom. The film turns into a torture scene and showdown in a suburban home.

So I haven’t quite figured out how to put those two very different halves in one sentence. The best I have is slightly vague. “It’s about a girl who will do anything to escape suburbia.”

Location scouting and auditions today. It’ll all work out, right?

Update: I wrote this earlier today and just finished location scouting and auditions. Things are working out. More TK.

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I think any pitch longer than a sentence and you’ve lost them ↩

Posted in Casting, Directing, Location Scouting, Preparation, Thesis Films | No Comments

Contests, Permits, Lego Vault, et al [Coffee Break]

Posted July 2nd, 2008 at 8:42 am by C47

Contests

Cinema Prosprite - $35,000 in Prizes Awarded to Top Videos Profiling Entrepreneurs

Riding on the waves of micro-loans, this short doc contest is for films profiling an entrepreneur (they don’t explicitly say, but it seems they want entrepreneurs that live in a poor society, not the next .com start-up). Films only need to be 2-5 minutes for YouTube posting for a shot at the grand prize of $20k.

Digital Filmmaking Blog - Various Competitions

Collection of three competitions, including a UK contest, screenwriting contest, and 24 short contest.

Coffee Break

The High-Wire Act of Getting Photo Permits by Scott Kelby

Good primer on photo permits, which has a lot of similarities to video/film. Hand held is generally fine but things get more complicated when you start putting stuff on the ground. Scott’s post also covers what’s fair game to film from public property, which goes for both stills and moving images. Especially with documentary work, it’s good to keep up on the rules when some rent-a-cop tries to kick you off a sidewalk.

25 Beautiful Fantasy Photoshop Tutorials

Even if you don’t like the final image, Photoshop tutorials are good for picking up techniques. This selection covers a lot of different styles, so the odds of finding something useful is in your favor.

Film of the Month Club

Film of the Month

Kind of like a book club, but with movies! Each week someone picks a film and then the other members post their reactions. Cool idea.

iPresentee Keynote Objects

Nice collection of free icons. They advertise it as being for iWork and iLife products, but it’s just a collection of PNG images, so you can use them anywhere.

[Lifehacker]

Cinemacuteo Film School on Vimeo

DoF Demystified from Videopia on Vimeo.

This is a Film School group on Vimeo that offers a lot of video tutorials covering filmmaking, lighting, special effects, etc.

Entertainment Weekly’s The New Classics: Tech

EW offers their take on the 25 gadgets and innovations that have had the biggest effect on pop culture since 1983. At the top is the DVD Player, Napster, and TiVo.

Game Boy is 20, below Avid and Body Motion Capture. Shouldn’t that be higher? Doesn’t every kid have a hand held video game? Last I checked they weren’t walking around in green spandex surrounded by 20 cameras, cutting their film non-linearly.

[Editblog]

Lego Secret Vault: Contains All Sets In History [video]

I’d need two of these - one to build and one to store. I’d also need a crash mat because I’d have fainted.

Can You Guess the 20 Soundtracks?

It helps if you’ve seen the shows/movies.

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Strobist and World Press Photo - Photography Coffee-Break

Posted June 20th, 2008 at 9:40 pm by C47

Here’s a collection of links I’ve been hording relating to still photography. Some things to gain from photography: mastering composition, lighting, quick shooting, and using what’s available. Enjoy!

Strobist Preliminaries - Gear and Jargon Basics [Pduncan]

This video finally made all the off camera lighting options click and lead to my purchase of the Nikon SB-800 flash. Scott Kelby’s Lighting Gear Week was also a great resource and motivation to open my wallet.

World Press Photo - The Award Interviews [A Photo Editor]

This is an amazingly designed site featuring photographers talking about their award winning images. Most importantly, as you can see above, the photo takes center frame.

Indy Returns - Annie Leibovitz Photo Shoot

So the movie didn’t live up to my hopes, but Annie Leibovitz always does. Short little video covering the shooting of the Vanity Fair photos (though not the epic one above. Nor these Leibovitz photos).

The day before… [PhotoWalkPro]

Very clever photo campaign illustrating how the world can change in a day, so catch your in-depth news. I wonder how truthful those dates are.

Movie Directors and the Means of Production

Nice little collection of 100 photos of famous filmmakers on set in the golden age, back when HD was the start of ‘How Do You Do?’

79 80 Years of Best Picture Winner Posters

They showed them briefly during the Academy Awards. Enjoy to your content all 80 posters of the (mostly) greatest films from the past 80 years.

Indiana Jones in Lego

Klocki has been having a cool Indian Jones conest to illustrate memorable scenes. These are some of the best. I think these are the rest.

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