Minds of Terror - mini review

MINDS OF TERROR
Starring Randy Allen, Mark Adams and Nicole Crawford. With Joe Estevez and Conrad Brooks. Written and directed by Mark Adams.

A little BLAIR WITCH, a little SESSION 9, this meandering, cerebral and budgetless horror movie is smarter than most budgetless horror movies. Great locations enhance the unease and claustrophobia that the film makers are at least trying for. The stuff with Conrad Brooks makes no sense at all, and the gore scenes are clumsy and infrequent. Forget that, though. The focus here is an attempt at building and sustaining atmosphere, and that is laudable, even if it is not quite up to the task. Worth your time.

Ron Ford

DVD Film School

DVD Film School
By Peter John Ross (www.sonnyboo.com)

What a world we live in today, originating with the laserdisc, supplemental material with a movie has become a standard as DVD's made their way into virtually every home. Filmmakers have benefited greatly from this, especially for the astute observers. Not a lot of us can afford film school, but I can help you make a curriculum from your own DVD collection and from discs available from the public library for free. A lot can be learned from DVDs in the form of commentary tracks, documentaries, as well as the obvious just viewing the movie for it's own value.

You can create your own "curriculum" from many of your favorite movies on DVD. If there are commentary tracks and extras, they usually contain a lot of valued information on how something was done. Not everything has techie, scary guys on how they did the special FX.

Commentary tracks have some of the best lessons to learn from. For example, Rob Reiner & Cameron Crowe commentaries are almost exclusively on performance and nothing on camera, and others are too much about camera tricks; they neglect to say anything about actors in the movie. And there's an all-new category of commentary tracks for people, like Tim Burton, who don't talk for 20 minutes at a time and teach us nothing.


My Best DVD commentary Tracks (for filmmakers)


ROAD TO PERDITION with director Sam Mendes. This isn't even one of my favorite movies, but it's, by far, my number 1 commentary track. Sam Mendes understands and has the perfect balance between actor's performance & directing the camera. A lot of commentaries are too skewed towards one & not the other.

STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN with director and uncredited writer Nicholas Meyer. It features the essence of storytelling from a formerly young up & coming director looking back after years of experience.

TRUE ROMANCE with Quentin Tarantino writer's commentary track.
A great story of how the kid from a video store worked several angles to become the "Quentin" that we know as a pop culture icon. More sedate than usual, and at his most endearing, Tarantino's storytelling is at its best with the commentary. Also an explanation of why he does his stories non-linearly is priceless.

THE USUAL SUSPECTS from Bryan Singer director, & writer Christopher McQuarrie discuss the beginnings of the story and again, the balance between story and acting plus the great cinematography of this movie.

SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (Criterion collection edition) from director Jonathan Demme, Jodie Foster, and Anthony Hopkins. Not available on the "special edition" disc widely available, the commentary track has many insights into the actor's process and the director anecdotes and trivia make for interesting examination of a landmark film.

SLACKER (Criterion collection DVD) - the "crew" commentary with Rick Linklater & Lee Daniel has many cost-saving tips and other seeds that can grow in the minds of many young filmmakers.

CHASING AMY (Criterion collection DVD/Laserdisc) - Although it's the usual comedy & antics of a large group of buddies, in between the jibes mocking Ben Affleck's movie Phantoms, there are some insights into the creative process of Kevin Smith. A few, and it's selective but the few nuggets of info are worth the banter.

LORD OF THE RINGS (all 3 movies from the 4 disc special edition DVD sets) - all 4 commentaries on all 3 movies can mine many great ideas and information on filmmaking in general. That's over 40 hours of viewing/listening right there.

FIREFLY: THE COMPLETE TV SERIES - disc four, the last episode commentary by Joss Whedon. By his own admission, creator/writer/director/producer Joss Whedon does a somewhat less trivial commentary and tries to describe the origin of the concepts behind the ideas for an episode of phenomenal television. Getting philosophical and still maintaining his wit and humor, Joss' revelations and gratitude to everyone around him make this commentary special.

EL MARIACHI (all DVD versions & originated on Laserdisc) when the opening words of the commentary tell you it's more like "how to make a movie for $7,000 or less", how bad can it be? It has a lot of great information delivered as you watch the inexpensive action movie.

The BMW Films series "THE HIRE" has all 8 films made for the web, plus their commentary tracks. Hearing insights from directors John Frankenheimer, War Kong Wai, Ang Lee, Tony Scott, Joe Carnahan, Guy Ritchie, and more make this a riveting and educational tool on telling stories in the short form. Not many will have $1million per 6 minute short, but the style and motives are priceless if you can learn to adapt the knowledge to match your budget.

THIS IS SPINAL TAP (Criterion version DVD and Laserdisc long out of print) - the commentary track by the three lead actors Harry Shearer, Michael McKean, and Christopher Guest is very very different than the one on the commonly available "Special Edition DVD". On the Special Edition, they do a commentary as the characters. On the hard to find Criterion version, they do a commentary as actors, writers, and filmmakers. Lesson learned? It really boggled my mind to learn they never set foot out of Los Angeles County to make the movie. The power of suggestion of putting a title that says "Atlanta, Georgia" whilst showing a hotel can really effect perception in the viewer's mind.


Honorable mentions -
RUSHMORE (Criterion collection DVD) for Wes Anderson on his second movie features many great cinematic advice.

GOOD WILL HUNTING with Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and Gus Van Zandt carry on about the experience working on this Academy Award-winning "indie" film.

GLADIATOR with Ridley Scott lets go a lot of epic filmmaking nuggets

MADE with the "action commentary" by Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn and Peter Billingsley aka Ralphy from "A Christmas Story" where they use the same technology from football games to literally point out things on screen. MADE was an indie film shot in New York and features a lot of Soprano's cameos but also has some indie film techniques.

YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN/BLAZING SADDLES DVD’s with commentary track from Mel Brooks let loose some comedy genius and methods of old from a guy who's been funnier longer than most indie filmmaker's grandparents have been fornicating.

SEVEN SAMURAI, Criterion Collection DVD, whose commentary has the sole distinction of being done by a film critic as opposed to a filmmaker, one of the cinema’s greatest films ever made teaches a lot about the genius of Kurasawa from a unique, outsiders perspective.

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My Favorite DVD EXTRA's
Documentaries & Extras offer up a lot of fluff and sometimes some of the best reality of the film business. Here are the most educational in my humble opinion…


EL MARIACHI DVD (all editions)
TEN-MINUTE FILM SCHOOL from Robert Rodriguez is one of the most common denominators between new filmmakers in this, funnily enough 13 minute DVD extra. It's not as obvious why this is inspirational. After you've made several DV movies, and done 200 hours of editing, you can start to understand how genius Robert's shooting & editorial style was and what he's really demonstrating.

JAWS 25th anniversary DVD (actually the 20th anniversary Laserdisc set transferred to DVD) in the documentary "On Location" features one segment where Steven Spielberg describes how he wanted to do the Kinter boys death scene on the beach, he wanted to do it in one shot, and it wasn't possible with 180 degrees. Spielberg's solution is genius and every filmmaker should see why he is a master filmmaker at age 29.

ENGLISH PATIENT (Miramax Collector's Edition) - MASTER CLASSES EDITING with Anthony Minghella. A lot of DVD’s have deleted scenes, so rarely are they accompanied with such a great explanation as to why & how they get left on the cutting room floor. Sadly, the great Walter Murch, Academy Award-winning editor of English Patient, gets missed in this session.

PULP FICTION (Miramax Collector's Edition & Criterion laserdisc) EXTRA, Quentin Tarantino on the Charlie Rose show. At the zenith of the Quentin era, his history, perspectives, and ideals get put through the passionate mouth of Quentin unfiltered.

FROM DUSK TILL DAWN (Miramax Collector's Edition), there are two extra's worthy of note... the entire feature film documentary "FULL TILT BOOGIE" on an extra disc, and one snippet from the "Hollywood Goes to Hell" featurette where Quentin's mom describes his beginnings, and Robert Rodriguez' family recounting his early years.

CLERKS X: TENTH ANNIVERSARY - The "SNOWBALL EFFECT" documentary is a fine example, and an exhilarating story on how a schmoe not unlike us gets catapulted to stardom & a career in film. It's a great manual on the selling of an independent film.

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (original DVD release) - On the documentary "Into the Breach", Spielberg's father recounts, with additional stories from the man himself, several stories (including priceless clips) of his first super 8 and 16mm forays into war movies. Lesson Learned? At age 13, Spielberg was a better director & innovative filmmaker than 99% of the DV camcorder jockey's out there. Some people just have filmmaking in their blood and can be Mozart at birth; others have to work at it.

DIE HARD (2 disc edition) - On disc two there is a great supplemental on EDITING 2 scenes from the raw footage and also a cool 3 minute clip on "to letterbox or not to letterbox" which should be required viewing for anyone who needs to convince the idiots who think they get "less" picture with the black bars

AMERICAN MOVIE - The movie itself needs to be viewed by anyone who thinks his or her idea for a movie is so good it needs to be made. Mark Borchardt is a tragic hero. This is the guy we're all terrified to be. Lesson Learned? Whether we want to admit it or not, every filmmaker of any genre could very easily be perceived as wacked as him, but not all of us are as passionate.

THE GODFATHER COLLECTION (disc 4, the BONUS MATERIAL), the HBO documentary "A Look Inside the Godfather Family" is the antithesis of AMERICAN MOVIE. It's the same type of story except of a successful filmmaker with tons o' vision & talent. I don't think too many people can think that Francis Ford Coppola is not passionate. Unlike Mark Borchardt, though it's pretty clear he can get his vision on a movie screen and it exceeds expectations... whenever he doesn't cast Sofia Coppola in a leading role. Also the value of rehearsals and quality of script differ from Mark Borchardt. Lessons learned? Rehearsals and passion and teamwork and emotion and Al Pacino combined can make a good movie or two. Seriously, it's about how someone's passion & vision utilized in a collaborative environment can synergize a masterpiece. Tack on the business end of things & it's too rich to be passed up. For most filmmakers, we want to land somewhere in between Francis Ford Coppola and Mark Borchardt.

Walt Disney's FANTASIA, uncut version from boxed set DVD. The documentary and the commentary track, pieced together from archived radio & television interviews, demonstrate a lot of creativity and the innovative thoughts behind one of the 20th centuries greatest cinematic genius', long before it got raped by Michael Eisner for a few bucks at a theme park. How he conceived and executed so many radical ideas from nothing staggers the mind.

THE SHINING (from Kubrick Collection) - The documentary, on set material from Vivian Kubrick, shows a very real, not pretty at all look at Stanley Kubrick & his really evil directorial style. For all of us who hailed Kubrick as a genius needs to see what he could be like on set. Lesson Learned? I think you can get a good movie without resorting to this kind of anger and violence. In many ways this is great to see because unless your last name is "Kubrick", you will probably never get to treat people like this and ever make a movie again.

STAR WARS EPISODE I THE PHANTOM MENACE - On the topic of deleted scenes, the documentary preceding the deleted scenes section features Walter Murch, Francis Ford Coppola, and Phillip Kaufman explaining how & why scenes get deleted. The priceless story of Walter Murch excising a moment from film "Julia" and the director saying that the scene being cut from the film was the very scene that got him to do the project to begin with. Lesson Learned? Say what you like about the movie, all of the documentaries and behind the scenes on this DVD draw a pretty clear blueprint on how to tackle an epic in the new world of CGI, blue/green screen, and special effects.

THX1138 (2 disc version) - 2nd Disc the "Legacy of Filmmakers" doc on the early foundations of American Zoetrope is relevant to filmmaking not only for it's historical significance as it is the warning of being frivolous with money & opportunities as Francis Ford Coppola was, compared to the frugal nature of George Lucas. Then seeing the original short film "Electric Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB" has many redeeming qualities.

HIDDEN FORTRESS Criterion edition DVD - George Lucas' interview on the disc is indicative of ALL the 1970's filmmaking rebels and the influence Akira Kurasawa had on them.

BRAM STOKER's DRACULA (special edition laserdisc) the Featurette showcases the lengthy rehearsal process. Everyone was there from Anthony Hopkins to Keanu to Gary Oldman and how everyone worked long before cameras rolled. Again, the vision of the cast & crew living at the Coppola house & having dinner together makes me seek that sense of surrogate family (IE teamwork) that at least makes the work feel less like work & more like fun. Lesson learned? Rehearsals are important as is bonding between cast & crew.

LORD OF THE RINGS: FELLOWSHIP OF THE RINGS Special Edition, on disc four of this impressive set, the recounting of many stories of the fun of shooting the movie made this seem like the ultimate love fest of respect and antics. Lesson learned? Have fun and create an environment where people want to be there by allowing participation in the creative process and also mutual respect for every aspect of making a film.

SUPERMAN (special edition) - One word... "Verisimilitude". Watch the documentary on the disc & you'll understand. I refuse to say more.

ALIEN QUADRILOGY (as well as original Laserdisc sets) - the interview with Ridley Scott on why he deleted the "cocoon" scene in the original Alien, and James Cameron's idea to make an army of Aliens editorial by re-using the same alien suits make this another great catch for people making do with what they got and making the tough choices for reasons of "pacing".

1941 (collector's edition DVD and laserdisc set). The documentary features a very extensive history of the writing of the screenplay by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, and their involvement with John Milius. Lesson learned? Being a USC film school grad used to be quite an "in" to Hollywood via alumni. Read between the lines - When you get famous, never forget to help someone out who needs it. Francis Ford Coppola took in John Milius who took in Robert Zemeckis who took in Peter Jackson.


Some of the movies listed are big budget Hollywood movies, so learn to adapt some of the information to your own style & even budget. A lot of the information is creative in nature, or even business related and can benefit the savvy filmmaker that can infer relevant info for them.

If your favorite movies have extras or commentary tracks, listen and learn. Take something from the creation of the movies you love. Knowing a bit about how a movie was made possible gets you closer to figuring out how to make your own visions. Deductive reasoning is the key. Adapt & overcome any obstacle.

Hey, you behind the camera…

Submitted by by Conrad Angel Corral

We’re people too

The other day, I received two good audition calls: One stated they wanted to cast me directly for a small role, and the other from an advanced Film School director. Both had the personal touch, so it made the calls all the more interesting.

However, all hell soon broke loose:

After several phone messages and emails, the “direct book” became a call for an audition. When I received the script, the character name I was to audition for was nowhere to be found. Between trying to set up an audition, and trying to find an answer to the character questions, I finally took it upon myself to choose which character was mine and after several calls/emails an audition time was tentatively set.

Moving from “direct book” to an audition, inability to speak with someone about the character and the unorganized feeling associated with this production was quickly dropped my interest in this project. Besides, I had friends come from out of town the weekend of their shoot. When the tentative audition date came and went, with a call later stating the casting person was going out of town and I should call with another time for the following week, I decided to walk away from the project. However, the following week I got a call stating the actor/director would call me to set up an audition directly. So, I continued.

When we finally did meet, it ended up being the night and exact time Presidential Candidate John Kerry was going to speak at the convention. I don’t know about you, but I want Bush out and Kerry in, so driving around town to some audition where the crew couldn’t get their stuff together was not high on my priority list. But, I’m and actor and it took it as a test in keeping my skills strong in the face of diversity! When I arrived at the apartment of the director, I grew more concerned. As I sat in this half-apartment facing a makeshift small stove, frig and sink and two dogs scratching at the back bedroom door, I couldn’t help but wonder how could this person afford a good final product? When I did audition, my limited seven lines (it was a small role to start with) were cut to five for auditioning purposes. After a couple of quick reads, I was out the door scratching my head why?

As for my audition with the Film School director, that too took a sudden turn for the worse:
When the director initially called, a lot of time was spent not only talking about his film and my role, but about how hard it is to work 9-5 and make a film and how we all need to make our own products to move a head. In the brief time we spent on the phone, I felt a nice bond with this person.

The evening of the audition, which was actually prior to the experience I mentioned above, I found myself running behind so I called and left a message. When I arrived (only minutes late), I came face to face with two other actors who had a look in their eyes like they had been there for quite sometime. After signing in and obtaining my sides, I went to sit down and look over the script only to be informed I should go in. When I mentioned I had just arrived and hadn’t had a chance to look over the sides, and suggested the other actors could go ahead of me, everyone looked at me like I was some kind of nut job. The director, now standing in front of me and the other actors, insisted 6:40pm was my time and we better getting in because my time was quickly passing.

As we approached the audition room, I took one more opportunity to inform the director I hadn’t had a chance to look over the script. However, he was to have nothing to do with it. Once in the room, he sat behind a desk with several other guys and started telling me about the role. Somewhere in the middle of his speech, he cut himself short saying we were running out of time and he began deciding which of his partners would read with me. As I was introduce to those I would be reading with, I quickly scanned the script for my dialogue and character intention, all the while a cameraperson began film me with a large camera that was literally about a foot from my face. Within a moment, I was informed we were running out of time, the first of two scenes would be dropped, and I had three minutes to possibly read the second piece twice. And, we started.

While my first read was reserved and a bit confusing (the behind the scenes folks couldn’t decide who was reading with me), it went pretty well. As adjustments were discussed for the second read, and I learned who I was suppose to be mad at and who I was allies with, I scanned the script for more info on my character and I decided my second read would include some Improv. Within moments, we began and I was up and out of my seat. I moved around the small room, I walked over to and talked at and with the other readers while delivering lines, all the while the camera followed closely. I don’t really remember what took place this second time around, but at the end there were smiles all around. As quickly as I was in, I was out the door. As I passed the guys still waiting in the lobby, I wished them good luck, only to have mean stares cut through my person.

As I proceeded to my next audition, and later rushed home to catch the final night of the Democratic Presidential speeches, all I could think of was “Hey, you behind the camera, us actors are people too”. We have lives that are just as busy as yours. We have hopes and desire to make it in this thing called acting, just like you. How can we (actors) be expected to give you (directors) our best work when the world you welcome us into is hell? If your project isn’t ready for auditions or you’re rushed to get folks in and out, why not just back off a little until all you ducks are in a row and/or you have more time? And, if you want a decent read, why rush an actor who isn’t ready? I hear so much about the folks behind the scenes wanting the folks in front of the camera to do well, however, the two cases I just described were far from that fairytale description.

When the whole evening was over, I found myself very humbled. I have a nice car, a 9-5 job that pays well and let’s me come and go to auditions and filming. I have a nice house that I can afford, a spouse that supports me when I’m down and out, and I have two films I made last year should be coming out in the coming weeks with guaranteed strong production value. Who am I to complain!

Maybe I’ll get callbacks, maybe I won’t. And, if I should get a callback what will I do? Hell, I’ll call them back, inquire more about the project and hope they offer me the role. Why? Because, I’M AN ACTOR AND I WANT TO WORK! If I don’t get a callback (which I didn’t to this point), I’ll chalk the experience up to yet another day in the life of this actor!

Ghosts of Saint Helens

Submitted by Wayne Spitzer

I don’t know about other filmmakers, but for me, stories can take months, years, even decades to complete. Sometimes, obviously, they never get completed, and for a good reason: they weren’t ready. Other times -- like the clever little antigens they are -- they mutate, becoming something utterly unrecognizable from that which you had originally envisioned. Still other times – as is often the case with my own work – they get cannibalized, like all those battleship models at ILM, the minutia of which have provided high-relief detail to so many star destroyers.
And sometimes – sometimes they get co-opted. Taken over. Now, this may not be a hostile takeover (indeed, if it involves, say, a fellow filmmaker or writer, it rarely is), but a takeover is a takeover, be it invasion or seduction. Often times this takeover begins when something you have said about a personal work-in-progress inspires or otherwise lights a fire in the eyes of a creative compatriot: it may be a certain narrative premise, a singular but striking image, a compelling sub-text, anything – but it lights up their eyes, and you just know that you’re onto something. Because you just saw the evidence.

The takeover matures when, “inspired” by your idea, this creative brother-in-arms suggests changes -- experience has taught me that it is here, at the skin, at the body’s first line of defense, where one must exercise caution: most likely, the friend is just doing what friends do; that is, they are captivated by your idea and want to help you focus it, they want to offer insights on how this or that might be amplified, or this or that might be condensed, or some other might be enlarged upon. You know, shop talk.

But this might also be the start of the takeover, hombre, and you better mind your borders. You’ll know right away if said friend begins making wacky suggestions like, “why not, and this would be just nutty, if instead of a two-eyed creature pursuing her, it’s – a 50-eyed creature! How ‘bout that? Or none? A none-eyed creature! Wouldn’t that be better? Wouldn’t that be more – well, more something?”

“More eyes,” you might concede.

You’ll want to pay very close attention to what they say and do next. Phase Two of the invasion will usually commence with your friend expressing a sudden disinterest, more often by finding some fatal flaw by which your project must surely fail. This will usually sound something like, “I watched Sasquatch the other night and it had a cave-painting hominid, too. It also had a crashed plane, which was instrumental to the plot. And this thing about a ‘rogue male’ bigfoot? Hmmph.
Sounds like a line of clothing.”

There’s an old saying, “God sees the truth, but waits.”

Well, some filmmaking companions are like God: they see the truth -- and wait.

Having thus contributed to your own invasion -- and, if you’re like me, you are your own Benedict Arnold, every time – you may be tempted (again, if you are like me) to put aside your stacks of notepads, your sketches and your overdue library books, your newspaper clippings, your storyboards, your bloody friend you have been carrying about in your head for perhaps the last 12 years -- Your Project, and just say: “Fuck it. Nobody wants to see a sasquatch movie, anyway. Certainly not one that isn’t so much about sasquatch as it is about being human, about being lonely, about feeling as though you’ve lost family, friends, lovers, your youth -- your whimsy and your hope and your trust -- your faith -- along the way. One that’s about finding some of those things again, or ghosts of them – including a species of Northwest hominid, all but one of whom may have been wiped out by the eruption of Mount Saint Helens in 1980. Nobody wants to see your ode to 1970s America and creepy documentaries narrated by Peter Graves (The Mysterious Monsters). Nobody wants to see a fucking horror movie in the tradition of Bill Forsyth (Local Hero). Go get drunk or something. Forgetaboutit.”

And so you do. Forget about it, that is. If you’re a bonehead like me you’ll even announce it, perhaps to Said Friend: “I … (just imagine John Cleese in all his clipped, English glory) have decided not to pursue Ghosts of Saint Helens at this time. Thank you.”

Months go by. The leaves fly from the calendar. Perhaps you tinker with an adaptation of a story you found during your research.

Then one day it comes: Said Friend has a great idea. He is on fire; he has never been surer of anything in his life. This thing is going to be huge. Said Friend is going to bust down the walls of Hollywood. He, the Alpha Male, is going to break the back of the opposition, leading us -- the timid and the unsure -- to victory. Said Friend is rabid. A storm is coming; Said Friend’s storm.
Said Friend wants to make a sasquatch movie.

Now, I want to be perfectly clear about this: One cannot expect to copyright, patent, trademark or otherwise own a mere idea. Same goes for titles, and – though I may be going out on a limb here -- giant hominids who’s existence remains un-proven. And yes, though I'd expended a considerable amount of research toward my movie -- one shouldn't even consider it until they've read all the literature; the John Greene catalog, Peter Byrne, Doris Lessing's "The Thoughts of a Near Human", Scott Sander's Bad Man Ballad, Robert Michael Pyle's Where Bigfoot Walks (which, at one point, touchingly describes sasquatch trackers as "men who don't so much want to find bigfoot, as be bigfoot.") -- one still cannot hope for any exclusive right to the material, much less expect it.

But one can, and should, expect friends to respect their borders, their privacy -- their sovereignty over their own brainchildren. No one else has to; it’s a free country, er, sort of. But your friends, if they be true, must.

Because they know what you’ve been working on, whether you’re working on it right now or not. They know that you’ve been daydreaming – and night-dreaming too – this thing into shape, that you’ve been combining this inspiration with that aspiration; and that personal experience with this fabled lore – and overall trying to organize chaos into something which, hopefully, not only entertains but works for you on some personal level. Something which may, if you keep revising and polishing and working it over, and if you’re lucky – gulp -- touch the universal.

They know this. Said Friend knows this. But he’s going to sell a sasquatch movie, by god. And you need to just let go of your ego and “go along for the ride.” You don’t ask Said Friend: “Er, if it’s not about ego, why don’t we just produce my Ghosts of Saint Helens? I’ve only been developing it off and on for over a decade.” You don’t say: “Ah, now come on, bud, you know that’s not cool.” You don’t say what you really need to say, because you value Said Friend’s friendship, and you admire his determination, and your fate really does seem to be tied up with his more often than not, and you just don’t know how to tell him that that’s your girlfriend and you’re not interested in a threesome.

And here, if you are like me, is your darkest hour. Here is your night in Gethsemane. For, if Said Friend, who is more motivated than you, who is a better salesman than you, who works faster than you and who will stop at nothing to get that big budget unlike you (a budget you just might want to be a part of, considering that it was, er, your project once?) is going to make Said Sasquatch Movie, well, you’ve got just one option left.

Collaboration.

I mean, really, that’s your option. This is microcinema, gang, not the big leagues. Whatever project is being made by whomever, the whole gang’s going to be in on it, and nobody wants to do the same thing twice. Now, you can let Said Friend make his movie and still do yours at a much later date, but, sheesh, what the hell is the point in that? So Said Friend can give you one of his patented smirks when some 15-year-old Internet critic accuses you of being un-original?

Is filmmaking tough on friendships? I dunno. It doesn’t have to be. But collaborations can be hell, that’s for sure. Especially if you feel – rightly or wrongly – that you’ve been forced into it.

Here is where we end up selling the farm. We, the Rogue Male, as opposed to the Alpha. See, I had envisioned my sasquatch as what the late professor and part-time cryptozoologist Grover Krantz called a “rogue male”. That is, a solitary bigfoot (Krantz believed the monster to be a species of Gigantopithecus blacki, which roamed southeast Asia some 400,000 years ago and may have crossed the Bering Land Bridge into North America) who is the last of his kind and is searching for a clan of like-animals; a clan, unfortunately, he will never find. I envisioned him as a wanderer and a moon-gazer, a sentient creature burdened with the ultimate loneliness. A creature that, after terrifying the hell out of an RV full of searchers, ends up revealing himself to be more evolved than anyone had ever imagined. A creature who’s learned fire, and who’s cave is adorned with primitive frescos.

In short, a creature that feels a lot like the protagonist, and yes, a little like the author … at the time. It wasn’t going to be some grand statement; I wasn’t trying to express myself. If your sole goal is to express yourself, start a diary, and leave filmmaking to people who want to tell great stories (filmmaking is tough; poets need not apply). I only knew that I felt comfortable with those characters (including a big Indian guy who was about as svelte as Rush Limbaugh and played against every stereotype imaginable) and the situations I’d put them in, and that eventually they’d start to walk and talk on their own. And I felt comfortable with my lone sasquatch, Atatilla – after an Indian legend. I envisioned him as something not so different from Rick Baker’s King Kong (yes, a lot smaller) -- badass yet bedroom-eyed.

But the thing with collaboration is that your unique vision goes in one end, intact, but comes out the other – transformed. Your rogue male becomes an alpha. And that’s a whole different animal. Said Friend’s animal. And what you end up with is two very different primates occupying the same clan (though usually the rogue is invading the alpha's territory, not the other way around). What you end up with is two very different philosophies butting heads. And there’s bound to be some blood.

How do you tell Said Friend, for example, that -- in your opinion – part of his current approach is trite at best and offensive at worst? How do you tell him that parts of it risk squandering all the mystery -- all the terror -- inherent in the sasquatch phenomenon? How do you tell him that Dog Soldiers and Sasquatch have already been made, and that little will be gained by combining them; i.e., swapping monsters?

Above all, how the hell do you tell him that, while you are charmed by his devotion to your evolved bigfoot, Ewoks were not what you had in mind?

Your friend just might take issue and lob what he thinks are subtle barbs at you on a filmmaking website.

Because they’re assuming that you think like they do, and that you’re as driven by ego as they are.

It’s a conundrum, and it leads to a kind of paralysis. It’s the age old question of choosing between two goods: Do I tough it out myself, knowing that without Said Friend’s near pathological drive nothing may ever come of it? Or do I take the plunge, knowing I’ve lost my girl right there because Said Friend’s ego and temper will make a true collaboration impossible?
Ah, hell. If you’re like me, you’re so beaten down by life anyway that you’ll take the plunge. I mean, you’ll really take the plunge: you’ll congratulate Said Friend on his panache and bluster, you’ll assure him that it’s about time someone made a rip-roarin’ sasquatch movie, you’ll offer your support, your 12 years of research and development, your texts and subtexts, your dramatic defining moments, your title – hell, you’ll insist on the title. In short, you’ll do and say all those things Said Friend maybe should have said so many years ago, during so many endless conversations, when you talked and talked your vision away, and he believed in it even if you did not.

You want to make movies, by god, and Said Friend does have a knack for making things happen. And now you’re in the back seat of a “SAID FRIEND and you” production. Now your razed temple has been rebuilt, but in someone else's image.

Now your sasquatch is an Alpha Male, which really is a fucking line of clothing.

And you’ve only got yourself to blame.

Look, I’ve gone on and on elsewhere about how much I admire and respect Said Friend. Nothing has changed since then. I may have introduced him to this filmmaking thing, and I’ve taught him a good deal over the years (as he has taught me, for sure), and I know I’ve inspired and influenced him, but at the end of the day -- Said Friend stands or falls by his own wits. His determination, his adaptability, and his talent have carried him far. They will carry him further. Believe me: one does not underestimate Said Friend. Because he'll prove you wrong -- er -- almost every time.

It should also be noted that I truly love Said Friend, though not, of course, in a Biblical sense. And I believe this feeling to be reciprocated. Moreover, as irritating as Said Friend can be in certain categories -- he’s been one helluvu a true friend in others. And there's more: If Said Friend wasn’t an Alpha, for example, there may never have been a completed Shadows in the Garden, and it sure as hell wouldn’t be in Monstersdotcom.

Finally, I think much of Said Friend’s treatment of what we are now both calling Ghosts of Saint Helens is excellent (though it may owe a bit much to Frankenheimer's Prophecy, a favorite, admittedly, to both of us). We’ll play it by ear. See how it goes. I’m damn sure going to have some input, I’ll tell you that.

That said, I’ve a few things to say about we rogues. I’ve got a few answers for Said Friend and anyone else who thinks they are always right, all the time. These are just non-specific responses to various comments, quips, barbs, and accusations leveled at me over time by Said Friend and others.

You’ll pardon me if this all seems a bit scatter shot.

My trigger finger’s been itching for a long while.

Ego.

People, mostly alpha males, who over-use this word are usually just projecting. They’re projecting onto others what is already in their hearts. In fact, they are the ones in a state of competition, in what Hobbes called a state of “every man against every other man for limited resources.” Oftentimes their ambition involves an active suppression or censorship of other's ideas and accomplishments.

Why? Because those just might make a shadow big enough for them to get lost in. And that pisses alpha males off. It’s all about them, baby.

Listen: You can be great without having to be greater than someone else.

Vision.

“Vision” sounds so pretentious and vainglorious, but all vision is is what you see, either with your own two eyes or your mind’s eye or your fifty fucking eyes. That’s all. And we all see things differently. Half the fun of watching a great director’s work is seeing the world through their eyes for awhile. It's not about one seeing better than the other, it's about seeing things differently. It's about a singular, unified vision which can take you to the strangest new world of all, another human soul’s perception.

Self-Doubt.

Hey, when it comes to being an artist, self-doubt is part and parcel to the territory. Sauce for the Goose. I don’t think you can be an artist without having self-doubt. I don’t think you should be an artist without having self-doubt. And you sure as hell will never be a great artist without having some measure of it; that’s what propels an artist to greatness. It’s what makes you try harder – not some demonic, fated obsession which came to you in a fevered dream, like Hitler, that you’ve just got to be better than everyone else.

Self-doubt lies at the very core of who we are – as artists and as human beings. An artist who never doubts himself is no artist at all. He’s a motivational speaker.

Cynicism.

We rogue males may rail at the world for its indifference, and we may seem cynical, but in fact it's a false cynicism, and it stems from the same source as all cynicism. Like poor Ivan Karamazov, we’re just mad as hell about the unfairness of things and furious that things can’t be better. Old Ivan is really just a bleeding humanist. In the end, false cynicism stems from an eternal hope and optimism – we know it is all useless and yet fight anyway!

True cynics -- whose ranks do not include Said Friend -- don’t care either way. They live, they make some flicks (usually bad ones), and they die. They never question the meaning of their, er, product, no more than they question the meaning of Life (there is none, by the way, but at least I ask). Isn’t that the ultimate cynicism?

Futility. With Grace.

What makes an artist sympathetic is the same thing that makes his or her characters sympathetic. Empathy. Our hours of doubt. It's about rolling that rock up a hill like Sisyphus even though you know it's just gonna roll back down again. It's about doing your best in the face of utter futility.

It isn’t about delusion.

It isn’t about chanting a mantra until it becomes true.

Optimism.

Said Friend would probably say that he stands for optimism while I stand for cynicism. Yet Shadows in the Garden ends on an optimistic note in which the story has gone somewhere, something irreversible has happened, has been accomplished, that can never happen again. Something has been transcended.

By contrast, Said Friend’s short (which is excellent by anyone's standard and probably better than mine), one version of it anyway, ends on a note of complete and total futility. Everything is lost, nothing gained.

Significant? I doubt it. But it’s something to think about, you!

Delay.

Said Friend’s spiel: “So, are you going to wait until you're sixty-years-old to do it?”

Hey, I’m doing it now. I’m thinking it and working it and envisioning it now. All the time. Am I going to wait until I’m sixty to film it?

Yep. If that’s what it takes.

Education.

Sometimes Said Friend and others make fun of my long education. But education means realizing your Big Idea maybe ain’t that big, and has probably been done a thousand times before. Education means knowing that while “So what am I really trying to say here?” is, technically, a rhetorical question, it’s the stupidest one ever uttered.

Collaboration.

Collaboration is, indeed, the sine qua non of filmmaking. But if you’re going to collaborate, and expect others to be thick-skinned, you better fucking grow one, too.

Friendship.

Friends listen and encourage; they don’t plunder. They aren’t carpetbaggers. You are always at liberty to indulge your fancy with friends. Like being able to talk about your work freely, and have it remain your work. Then again, if a friend is inspired by something you said or wrote, and yes, even wants to expand upon it – maybe you should just feel bloody flattered and encourage him (hey, I’m agonizing over these things -- I’m the self doubt guy, remember?).

I think the main thing is when you’re at this point is to remember that you are, first and foremost, friends. The friendship goes on; the work goes on. One way -- or the other.

I placed a phone call to Said Friend before allowing this piece to go forward. It was a nice conversation, and yes, I felt guilty as hell for the things I'd written. And while I was irked a little at his occasional minimizing of my contributions to his -- yes, pretty much his now, it seemed, though I may have read him all wrong -- I was also startled by how many things he'd forgotten, things I'd told him about my ongoing sasquatch project, things he truly believed were his own invention. Hell, I was startled by how much I'd forgotten. Those things in the cave, for example (Indian artifacts in Said Friend's version) -- weren't those the shiny trinkets that, in yours, would connect the protagonist to his past? And this idea of the creature's facial expressions, of his ancient, ancient eyes -- wasn't that how you'd described (and written) Atatilla, when he'd rescued your hero from the chasm? When, staring at him through the rain, your hero finally learns just how wrong he's been about, well, everything?

And it made me wonder about how wrong I might be, fancying Said Friend, even in jest, a bandit. (Said Friend will surely pardon my metaphorizing him with bigfoot, commonly considered an animal. But don't you see, S.F.? That's precisely my point about the Indian/smallpox thing. Sure, it could be powerful. But I suggested it without realizing how offensive it could be!)

And yes, it made me wonder about how many of the things I've been ranting about here were ever on-purpose in Said Friend's mind -- or ever real outside my own.

Hypothetical Reader, I don't know. He is my friend, as I've made abundantly clear. Yet if he is genuinely unaware of what I've perceived over the years as a sort of carpet bagging; or if I am unaware of some delusory condition of my own -- that can only lead to a downer of a conclusion.

Which is that maybe one shouldn't discuss their works-in-progress with friends. Maybe that renders a disservice to you both.

And man, that sucks. For in my friend's own words: If you can't talk to a fellow filmmakers about filmmaking -- whom the hell can you talk to?

Ultimately, it boils down to people having different perceptions and different approaches to the creative process. I'm a private kind of person and my writing technique reflects that. I don't usually see the conception and/or the writing of something as collaborative; such collaborations usually result in a discombobulated mess. I like to save collaboration for where it is always needed most: Production.

In contrast, Said Friend sees everything as collaboration, and always has. I am not making fun of him for this; indeed, it is this very spirit which can make things happen, and often has. It's just that, again, we've got unique approaches.

Above all, once in collaboration, always try to recognize the value of the other's contribution. Equally important, you must try to make him see the value of your own. If you feel, for example (as I do regarding Ghosts of Saint Helens), that the monster needs remain mysterious for as long as possible, say so. If you feel that the aim of the middle act should be to terrify the viewer more than anything else (for we only fear what we do not understand, and understanding needs wait for Act Three, when the mask, so to speak, is torn off -- and we realize things aren't so unfathomable after all), say so. And if you ardently believe that, while the subtext is vital to the overall hegemony of the piece, its denouement must wait until the very end, like a cherry placed atop a summit of cream -- dude, you better say so.

The edit bay will be too late.

I reckon that, in the future, I'll just be more assertive about what's acceptable regarding collaborations and what's not. I reckon I'll be more succinct about which projects I'm willing to donate to the cause, and which ones I want bloody left alone (whether I ever complete them or not). And yes, I'll be extremely careful in what I say.

Again, it isn't about being petty and thwarting someone else. It's about securing a future for your own vision by pre-empting a take-over today.

It's about preventing your vision from becoming a ghost: lost, like mighty Atatilla, in time.

Post Script.

Said friend does not exist. He is a literary device I cooked up in order to unify my thesis. He is not based in whole or in part on any real person, living or dead.

The Art of Negotiating Nudity

Submitted by Brad Paulson

This is not so much an article on how to get nudity for your low-budget movie as it is an article on how to completely fail on getting nudity for your low-budget movie.

As an example, I’ll go over all the mistakes I made on our last flick. If you do the opposite of everything I did, your chances of getting those luscious undergarments to hit the floor will increase significantly.

Before the casting began, my partners and I got together and formulated a tightly scripted verbal argument on how our nudity would only be for the sake of art, essential for the character and completely non-gratuitous. Of course, this was all bullshit. Using nudity was never intended to increase the artistic value of our movie. It was intended to get people to watch our movie. No one wants to admit that they just simply enjoy looking at cans. But let‘s face it, nudity and horror movies go together like peanut butter and chocolate. And it’s a hell of a lot better bang for your buck than any of those pricey computer generated shots that flood the movies nowadays. Besides, like some famous director once said and many others less famous have taken credit for, “a woman’s breasts are the best and cheapest special effect.”

Sorry about that. Got a little sidetracked there. Back to the article.

Our plan of attempting to negotiate for nudity failed miserably. All we got is a vague promise of partial nudity through a see through nightie. We were way too wishy-washy. If we just explained that the part required nudity up front, we would have been much better off. Lloyd Kaufman executes this technique perfectly in his Troma flicks. But no, we had to try and be all politically correct and look where that got us. Don’t even bother using the lame argument of how your subjects will be getting naked for the sake of art. This may have worked on a short film for your performance experiment class during those drunken days in college, but once everyone sobers up, it’s an entirely different story. Just be upfront about it. Embrace your sleaze.
I suppose it didn’t help that we cast at the local Starbucks either. This went over about as well as a greasy fart in church. Along with making us look completely unprofessional, we also revealed our true low-budget natures by casting at a place that only required a dollar ninety-nine cup of coffee as a deposit. People are much more likely to follow your lead if they think you have money. The trick is to never reveal how low-budget you are right away. If you‘re as low-budget as I am (and that‘s pretty low, I‘m telling you), do it the Hollywood way. Rent an expensive car, see if you can find a friend in the business, and ask them if they’re really getting treated fairly as the peons they are. After they agree to take the risk of getting fired, work out a deal to shoot at their glamorous locale when their bosses are out to lunch. Then, roll up in style to greet the ladies in your hip and trendy, yet very temporary vehicle. In other words, lie, lie, lie.
It’s a damn sad truth, but as far as getting what you want goes when you’re super low-budget, you’ll more often than not get cornholed for telling the truth. Let everyone slowly realize how broke you really are. Hopefully, they won’t piece everything together until the end of the shoot. By then, it’ll be too late. Heh-heh (insert your own evil laughter here).

When things came around to shooting the nudity, I fucked that up too. Things started off great. Everyone was drinking and having a good time. Our actress was damn near ready to give us full exposure. Then, what happened? We were all tired and rushed the scene. Fatigue took precedence over skin! If everyone would have kept partying who knows what would have happened? But, I had to go and wussy out. As a result, the scene turned out to be the exact kind I always protest in movies, the ones with the clothes on. We could have easily avoided this error by simply allowing enough time to shoot the scene. This would have let us milk the production value for all it’s worth (for the lack of a more tasteful term). But no, like dumb-asses we scheduled the scene as the very last one in the shoot. And on an independent movie this works out to be right around five thirty in the morning. Not a good idea. When you’re going for nudity, it must be treated with as much care and precision as an elaborate action sequence. Take the whole fraggin’ day if you have to. Hell, take a whole fraggin’ week! That’s what all those horny teens will be renting the movie for anyway.

Don’t hesitate to convey to your potential nude subject how much easier it will be to sell the movie once they’ve gotten naked. If they protest and call you a sleaze, ask if they’ll accept any money. If that changes their mind, ask them if it‘s a moral or a financial issue. If they say it‘s a financial one, ask them why they responded to an ad that said “no pay, copy and credit, meals provided?” Damn, I wish I would have thought of that argument when we were casting.

Okay, kiddies, let’s sum up all the mistakes I made.

Attempting to negotiate for nudity.

Not embracing my own sleaze (see above mistake).

Casting at Starbucks.

Telling the truth about my financial situation.

Not partying long enough.

Making sleep a priority over smut.

Okay, there it is. Your best bet at achieving nudity without a budget is to do exactly the opposite of what I did. Best of luck and may your casting couches feel the warmth of bare flesh, and hopefully not just yours.

The Ins and Outs of Short Ends

Submitted by Scott Spears

So you’ve scraped together a few extra dollars to shoot film, but you’re still a bit tight on cash and somebody says, “Buy short ends!” Now, you’ve heard about them but aren’t sure you want to buy somebody else’s leftovers. Well, here’s the scoop on short ends. It’s film that was bought by a production that never got used, and to make some money it is being sold. It comes in four types; short ends, long ends, re-cans, and buy-backs.

Before we get into the details on these different categories you should first know where to buy short ends. My recommendation is to buy from a reputable dealer that deals in short ends and new film. There are many companies that sell short ends like; Dr. Rawstock, Media Distributors, and Short Endz, to name a few. Please note, I do not work for these companies, but have had good dealings with them. The advantage to going with an established company is they test the film they sell before it goes out the door. If you buy from somebody you don’t know, or from somebody on eBay, you don’t know if the film has been tested. For all your know it could have spent two long summer months baking in the trunk of some production assistant’s car who now wants to make some beer money by selling leftover film. Now, I’m not saying that all the film on eBay is bad film, but by going with a company that does this everyday and that lives by their long term reputation, you’ll most likely get good film stock.

Short Ends

Here’s where you save the big bucks, but there are always drawbacks to going the cheap route. Short ends are usually 250 feet and under. They are the cheapest derivative because they plentiful, but there’s less to them. On 16mm that’s about seven minutes of film which isn’t that bad, but on 35mm that’s three minutes which after a color chart, head slate, and regular slate isn’t a lot of film. If you go with a lot of short ends on 35mm, you better have a couple loaders ready to load magazines constantly. Short ends can be had for under twenty cents a foot. I once picked up some for six cents a foot.

I should add this, 16mm short ends are hard to come by because 16mm is the staple of independent filmmakers who tend to not buy more film than they need and use every inch of their film. 35mm is much more plentiful because studios and medium sized companies dump a lot of film on the market after principal photography has wrapped.

Long Ends

Long ends aren’t all that different than short ends except they are usually over 300 feet and in 35mm can be up to 980 feet. They are more expensive because they are rarer and have a longer running time, thus saving time by having less magazine changes. I like them, especially when shooting 35mm. These long loads are usually film that had been loaded and had a color chart and head slate shot on it, but never made it on set. They can run twenty-five cents a foot and up.
Re-cans

Re-cans are one of my favorites because they are usually full loads that were put in the camera, but were never exposed except maybe a foot or so for threading up. It’s almost like buying new film. They typically cost twenty cents a foot and up.

Buy-backs

These babies are rare and aren’t discounted a lot, but can save you a few pennies here and there. Buy-backs are film that was bought and never got out of the can. Often it’s the last batch of film ordered for a big picture or sometimes somebody gets excited and buys a batch of film, but then never gets anymore money to make the movie, so they are forced to call Kodak or Fuji saying they need to return the film. Usually the manufacturers say tough luck, but sometimes if it’s less than forty-eight hours or a long time client, they buy it back for a few dollars less than it was sold for in the first place. I shot a large part of feature with buy-backs with good results. Expect to pay ten to twenty percent off standard rates.

Under buy-backs, I also put just barely out of date film. Again, this is rare because the manufacturers don’t usually let film expire, but it does happen. When you start your search for film, you could call Kodak or Fuji directly and see of they have out of date film laying around.
An advantage of buy-backs is they will most likely come from the same emulsion batch which will make your cinematographer happy because they’ll be less variation in the stock. I should say, this isn’t that much of a problem today because the film manufacturing process is very consistent.

Closing Points

If you decide to try for short ends you should start buying them as soon as possible because assembling enough film, especially for a feature, will take some time. You never want to run out of film or be forced to pay through the nose for film at the last minute. If you need to though, Kodak does offer a last minute film ordering service, but you better be ready to break out the Visa gold card.

I’ve shot two features on 35mm with lots of short ends and one short on 16mm with primarily short ends, all with good results. On each of the features we did have one incident on each shoot even when dealing with reputable dealers. One time we had one roll that turned out to be two rolls that had been badly masking taped together in the middle. My guess is some tired loader was spooling up some film and didn’t even notice that he had one roll attach to another. The other incident was a mislabeled can and this is where having a good, heads up assistant camera person on crew can save you. My first AC noticed that a bit of film that was hanging out of a film magazine wasn’t the right color. Yes, unexposed film stocks of different ASA ratings have different colors. Some are lighter in color and others are darker. My AC caught this, told me, and I saw the problem. We put that roll aside.

If you do find a problem, contact the company that sold it to you as soon as possible and let them know. Most of the time they’ll replace the film immediately. Heck, sometimes if you gripe enough, you might get an extra roll or two.

The big thing to remember is short ends are a great way to save a few bucks, but if there are any questions about the film you’re using, don’t cheap out because for most occasions it will be far more costly to assemble all of the crew, cast, locations, and gear than the few dollars you saved with questionable short ends. Saying that, I’ve used short ends with great results and have helped the production values on some movies by upping the shooting ratio or getting a name actor in the cast with the savings. Final words of advice, do your research, have good a assistant cameraperson, and start buying film early.

Screenwriting Books

Submitted by Richard Hogg

Looking up at my bookshelves recently I noticed how many books on screenwriting I had. A dozen at least. Cursing not only my stupidity at wasting over £100 (that’s a good four or five nights out after all) I ended up with a few sobering thoughts.

How much of the thousands of pages I had read had I actually digested and more importantly been able to use in my writing. Act structure. Climax. Peaks and troughs. Pacing. Tone. Characters versus Characterization. This is not a rant denouncing help books. I don’t believe they’re all useless. The usual suspects, i.e. Story and Screenwriters Bible are and were most useful when going back over those early drafts when I had, quite frankly, written novels in a script format.

The main point I came away with is actually the central message of this whole piece. Just write. Yes I know you’ve read it before and even if you haven’t, of course you’ve got to write. How bloody obvious can you get. But it isn’t. Recently I found myself looking back over the last week. I had been to screenwriting class on the Thursday night and had been given a assignment and I had several rough ideas for a short story or short script. What did I do? Turn on my PlayStation and play a few hours of football (soccer to our American friends, though really our sport came first). Why? I have come to realize that I work in fits and starts. Other writers seem to churn out work on a regular basis with a routine at the heart of it. One hour on a morning or between half nine and ten at night, but gradually it all builds up. Instead I find myself writing ten to twenty pages of script a day for a few weeks then nothing for a month. I’m not blocked. It’s just lethargy. Have I tired myself out? I doubt it. I just suddenly seemed to prioritize watching those West Wing episodes I taped.

Anyway back to the point. Do write regularly. It’s been said before and will be said countless times again but I can’t reinforce it enough. If you really want to do it, sitting down and thinking about the rewards at the end won’t do anything. It has to be practiced.

My second point is to read a lot. Not just scripts. Writing is writing. I know there’s a whole different craft when comparing prose and scripts but at the heart is story. You do have to think visually. You can’t have a inner monologue to reveal character but you still have to have a feel for that character. They must be real to you. You must be able to make the reader care for them, empathize with them. The plot must excite. It must be something that you would want to read or watch.

Stephen King in his book on writing says he’s a slow reader but gets through about eighty books a year. Do you read more than one a week? And no, large print or children’s books don’t count. I read fifty, maybe sixty. And I thought I read a lot. But why is it so important? It’s all to do with that little thing that all the books bang on about, your subconscious. That part of you brain that is supposedly ticking away, filing away ideas, which it decides to let you in on whenever you don’t have a pen and paper handy. I’m wasn’t sure about the whole notion but as I read more I began coming up with ideas that had a hint of a character from one novel, a plot strand from a film, along with ideas from other sources mixed in.

On top of all this, King is right when he says if you want to be a writer so you have to study writing. He’s renowned as being able to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. How does he do it? How much does he show? Is it because we like the character and don’t want anything bad to happen to them? Is it the language? The pacing? The only way you’ll ever know is to read. And make it varied. Harry Potter one week followed by a history book on the down fall of Berlin the next, followed the week after by a Booker Prize winner.

Stick to what you’re interested in sure, I tried to improve my scientific knowledge with a few popular books on black holes. It took me four weeks to get through a hundred pages. I actually found myself volunteering to do the house work rather than read this monster.

Looking back over this I’ve ranted on a bit (nothing new there) but back to the original premise. All the time I’ve spent reading how-to books, playing games, and watching reruns could have been better spent. I want to write for film and TV so I will watch film and TV, obviously. But the other activities I find myself engaging in, let’s face it, they’re not that important. If I want to be a writer, I have to read a lot and write a lot. Even if the vast majority of what I write is crap.
If it’s what you really want to do, then don’t put it off or come up with a list of excuses like I used to. Do it. A few years down the line the benefits will be obvious.

Should You Edit Your Own Movies?

Submitted by Peter John Ross

Very rarely in the film industry does the filmmaker get to edit their own pieces. There are exceptions. The obvious ones are Robert Rodriguez and the Coen Brothers, who use the pseudonym Roderick Jaynes. But then there are the director’s who co-edit their movies with another editor, like Kevin Smith and his producer Scott Mosier, or James Cameron who always edits alongside other editors.

On the micro-budget level, where the funding for the DV short is in the tens of dollars, there is the mythology that you should edit your own movie. Hell anyone with a ten dollar firewire card and a home computer five years out of date can now edit, so obviously all you need to do is learn what button to push. And this is why most DV shorts suffer, especially in the editing.

I guess for newbies, which we all were at some point, it’s hard to hand over such a crucial part of the moviemaking process to someone else. And since the technology is so readily available, the newbie often does not. Now, some people have a natural knack for editing and this is not always bad. Then there are those who cannot separate the objectivity of the big picture and the minutiae of the script when it comes time to do the editing.

If you are one of those directors that can look at the raw footage, or even edit a scene together, look at it in the context of the movie and make a decision to cut out one of the best moments the actor gave because you realize that the scene is erroneous, then skip this article. Or if you have what you thought was one of the funniest jokes on paper, and even if it’s not a one-hundred percent great delivery, but you choose to use it anyway because it might be good, then please read on.

There exists a misconception that you just hand the movie over to the editor and then you sit and wait to see if they made it the way you want. The editor’s job is to work with the director and producer to shape the movie with the NLE chisel. An editor brings objectivity and a fresh perspective to the table that isn’t there with a one-man show.

Since this article is geared more towards the extremely low budget movie, the first concern is money. An option for us no-budget moviemakers is to help each other out. Find another no-budget filmmaker and edit each other’s movies, rather than taking it all on by yourself. Give each other that new opinion or fresh idea that might enhance the movie. Creating movies in a vacuum can hamper the outcome for the best possible movie.

Much like working with an actor to help shape a character, collaborating with an editor can help make a better movie. It may not be what you, the director, exactly intended, but movies are a team effort. It’s less about the director’s singular vision, and more about the story and the finished movie. Much like a character, the movie can take on a life of it’s own. I say let it breathe and give it some freedom, rather than choke on the ego of one individual.

Objectivity is difficult for a director when they go to edit. The director was on the set. He knows the actors and he remembers what happened on those days. This jades the viewing of the raw footage. An editor will look at the raw material and try to build something and not see it as the shoot, but rather the pieces of the puzzle that need to fit just right. Another, more basic concept is the job of the editor to orient the viewer. A director may not realize that the edit they did does not reveal the location or the positions of the characters, because the director was there. Whereas the editor was not there and will more easily recognize that you need an establishing shot or a wide angle to give the audience a sense of spatial relations.

Now some people learn through time and effort that they can be objective. Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier are two of the most brutal editors of their own work. They will chop scenes out that do not stand up in the editing room. James Cameron also attacks his movies with fervor. To bring a movie down to its essence, he will cut out whole subplots in the editing room, even ones that cost several million dollars to produce. Just take a look at The Abyss: Special Edition, if you don’t believe me. Please take note though, that on the big movies, even though a director supervises the edit, if there is a fight between the editor and director, the producer is the boss that has to settle the dispute.

Everyone should at least attempt to work with a separate editor once. You can find that a different approach or a new idea will only serve to enhance the story, which is all a movie is supposed to do, tell a story.