Submitted by Peter John Ross
Two years ago, the word on the street said that all the undiscovered talent was on the internet. Sites like ifilm.com and atomfilms.com were getting unknown talents onto A-list movies. Lately, we aren't hearing anything like that. Is the internet dead for distribution? Hardly. Broadband and other faster internet connections are making it even more viable to get your movie seen. Everyday more people get faster internet connections which means you can put higher quality movies on the net and generate an audience.
Movies like 405 The Movie, Troops, and George Lucas In Love, showed that the internet can elevate unknown filmmakers into the stratosphere. All of those filmmakers landed feature movie deals. And the bmwfilm.com lot starring Madonna, Clive Owen, and Mickey Rourke showed that Hollywood bigwigs, like directors Ang Lee, John Frankenheimer, (R.I.P.), and Guy Ritchie are willing to do short films for the internet in style.
Is the internet good for feature films? Not yet. There are already some sites such as movieflix.com and cinemanow.com streaming feature length films, but the quality is dreadful. Both sites do buy the distribution rights to independent films, but the price is so low it's not going to reimburse your craft services bill.
The internet is ripe for short films, even movies shot on digital video. Since they are shorter, you can make a manageable, easy-to-download size file that even people with a 56K modem (you know, the Amish) can download. Virtually every single editing software package now includes some kind of output for the web feature.
Why put movies on the internet?
No, you won't get rich, at least that isn't likely. People are leery of the pay sites, unless it's a porn site. If there is a site offering you money for your movie, that's cool, but it won't be much. Most offer a "revenue sharing" program which means with each paid viewing, you get a percentage. That means you have to share that five dollars a month with that company and their overhead. Don't lose any sleep waiting for the check.
So where is the power you ask? The power is in getting exposure. You need to be visible to be discovered. If you have that magical talent that Hollywood is looking for, you need to be somewhere they can see you. Even if they don't see your work online in horrible real video quality, there is a validation that someone, somewhere liked your work enough to host it on the internet for you.
It's not the same when you host all your own movies on your own web page. Any moron can do that. To get "selected" to have your movie played makes a movie executive or an investor think, "someone else liked their movie too," and that means they are more likely to consider your work.
Will putting the movie on the internet instantly make you a star? Hell no. Getting your movie on the internet is only the half-way mark. Getting people to know it's there is the other half.
At the very least, you will get unadulterated feedback. It's funny how the internet can empower people. Some little weasel of a guy in Iowa who's never been assertive in his life will make up a screen name like "BUBBA_BAD_MUTHA" and rip apart your movie because he can safely hide behind anonymity. Get used to bad reviews. Not everyone will love your movie. But you might learn something from these relentlessly honest viewers.
There is also a benefit of ownership. If some other site, other than your own, hosts your movie and someone else rips off the idea, or steals elements, you have an unbiased third party that can prove when you had your movie online. It establishes your idea and date and time.
What are the pitfalls?
Some sites, like ifilm.com, want to get you to buy your exhibition package. It's only $150 for three months of hosting. What a scam. Since several other short film sites went under, and they had exclusive rights on 405 The Movie, they started charging everyone to host their movies. You are a filmmaker, and you should never pay someone else to host your movie.
The other thing to be careful of are the web sites with exclusive contracts. Be sure and read all contracts carefully. Some of them want all rights to your movie (like atomfilms.com, who wants DVD rights, television rights, theatrical rights, everything). If you are willing to give these up because it was something simple you did in the backyard with a camcorder, then go for it, but be aware of the consequence. You just gave away all rights to a movie you wrote and directed. Read the contracts on their web sites carefully before signing. Each site is different with different needs and wants.
Why wouldn't you want to get your movies online?
You increase your exposure, you get honest reviews, and have an excuse to let the media know you have a movie, and virtually every site lets you submit your film for free.
List of Sites
http://sho.com/alt - Showtime's Alternative Media Festival.
http://atomfilms.shockwave.com/af/home - Atom Films.
http://www.bijouflix.com - Bijou Flix , also does a "Best Of" DVD.
http://www.thebitscreen.com - The Bit Screen.
http://craptv.com/co_info/submissions.html - Crap TV.
http://www.ifilm.com - The big baddy of short film sites, ifilm.com boasts the most shorts and the best success ratio of filmmakers going from rags to riches. You can see their "success stories" articles on the site. It's also the most annoying with horrendous pop up screens.
http://www.inetfilm.com - Internet Film Community.
http://www.movieflix.com - Movieflix is one of the coolest new sites and has a broad range of titles of royalty free old movies and new independent short films.
http://www.neokino.com - NeoKino.
http://www.pepper-view.com/en - A French run web site.
http://www.reelscreen.com - The British web site run by the magazine Total Movie and Total Film. Several submissions wind up on their monthly DVD that goes out with the magazine.
http://www.rewindvideo.com/artman/publish/index.shtml - Rewind Video Magazine reviews and links to movies online.
http://www.robofilms.com - Robofilms is silly but fun. Check out the "robo-manifesto."
http://www.shorttv.com - Short TV out of New York also has a TV show counterpart in New York City.
http://studiocities.net - Studiocities has a ton of movies and a great layout.
http://indie.hollywood.com/submitfilm.asp - Indie Film from Hollywood.com, anyone who's been in an AMC theater in the last eighteen months will recognize the name, Hollywood.com, which has theater listings and showtimes. They bought a small formerly Cincinnati based short film site called "alwasyi.com" and converted it to their own.
http://www.undergroundfilm.com - Saving the best for last, Underground Film was recently purchased and will soon be run by the University of Southern California. Underground Film is one of the best independent film sites in the world.
Tuesday, July 30, 2002
Tuesday, July 16, 2002
Cinedictum: Self-Interview
Submitted by Shavkat Karimov
What in the hell is Cinedictum?
Cinedictum is a witty child, conceived in love by philosophy and art. From philosophy it has a manner to ask, and from art, a manner to answer.
Cinedictum is a new word in cinema. It's a short dictum stated in a figurative style by the film medium.
In other words, Cinedictum is a film-aphorism. It's a very short film (usually, no more than three minutes) whose concise narrative holds both entertainment and moral value, while addressing universal themes.
So what?
Cinedictum, like aphorism in literature, has very strong attraction. This occurs because ideas are expressed in bright form with precision. Some aphorisms are fundamentally wrong and unjust. Nevertheless, as a result of their ability to influence, they are often used as arguments in disputes.
Cinedicta are violence-free movies. We are opposed to scenes with violence, sex, drugs, use of weapons, cruel fighting, and the promotion of extreme ideologies such as terrorism and fascism. We can entertain and impress without showing violence on the screen.
Humor is our main power and it makes us live longer. Most of our films are comedies. And comedy is the world's most popular genre.
Cinedicta have wide audience. Kids, teenagers, young professionals, parents, and senior citizens will all find something for themselves in these movies. Any social group will accept them, as very common themes are explored in Cinedicta. We have also concentrated on making the movies silent in order to make it possible for anyone in the world understand them. We made them universal.
These films will never get old. They will stay forever young because they are made in classic style.
Cinedicta are great, precisely because they are so short. Their strength lies in their weakness. As William Shakespeare said, "Brevity is the soul of wit." So, we keep them short.
In this new millennium the tempo of our lives is continually accelerating. We don't have extra time, and sometimes people just don't want to spend two hours watching a feature, even if they love movies. We are short of leisure time, a trend that works to the advantage of cinedictum. You need only a few minutes to watch a cinedictum. And if you have twenty minutes of free time, you can stimulate your mind and enjoy watching ten cinedicta all at once.
Okay, how can I use it?
Cinedicta can be aired on television either in addition to other programming (lead-ins, infomercials, promos, visuals, fillers before and after programs) or independently, as a compilation of cinedicta made available to air together. Also, cinedictum can be used to fill in the gaps between programs. When the program ends a few minutes early, the television networks need something to help bring them to the top of the hour.
Cinedicta can also be used as in-flight programming or be shown in waiting areas at airports, hotels, supermarkets, and sports stadiums. For more ideas where cinedictum can be shown check out the list available at www.cinedictum.com/films/use.phtml
Despite language barriers cinedicta can be shown in numerous countries because their sense, and especially their humor is visual rather than verbal. Often there are no words at all in the films which gives them a timeless quality.
That's interesting. What do you propose?
We have thoroughly studied the best of the planet's short stories, world and ethnic literature, and national epics. We have explored the entire experience of humanity and used it in cinedictum. Today, we have fifteen-hundred screenplays selected for cinedicta in our database. However, we continue to replenish our list by adding more stories to our database daily.
The first batch consists of ten cinedicta and because of the considerable public interest in these brand new movies, we plan to create many more cinedicta in the future.
We invite everyone to take part.
Our films are absolutely independent. No one tells us what kind of cinedicta to create, or how to do it. We are an independent company and we are proud of it.
Cinedictum has a distinctive excellence. Viewers will always watch until the end.
I believe that Cinedictum will soon find its niche in the world of cinema.
Where can I find out more?
You're always welcome to visit the cinedictum home page at www.cinedictum.com.
What in the hell is Cinedictum?
Cinedictum is a witty child, conceived in love by philosophy and art. From philosophy it has a manner to ask, and from art, a manner to answer.
Cinedictum is a new word in cinema. It's a short dictum stated in a figurative style by the film medium.
In other words, Cinedictum is a film-aphorism. It's a very short film (usually, no more than three minutes) whose concise narrative holds both entertainment and moral value, while addressing universal themes.
So what?
Cinedictum, like aphorism in literature, has very strong attraction. This occurs because ideas are expressed in bright form with precision. Some aphorisms are fundamentally wrong and unjust. Nevertheless, as a result of their ability to influence, they are often used as arguments in disputes.
Cinedicta are violence-free movies. We are opposed to scenes with violence, sex, drugs, use of weapons, cruel fighting, and the promotion of extreme ideologies such as terrorism and fascism. We can entertain and impress without showing violence on the screen.
Humor is our main power and it makes us live longer. Most of our films are comedies. And comedy is the world's most popular genre.
Cinedicta have wide audience. Kids, teenagers, young professionals, parents, and senior citizens will all find something for themselves in these movies. Any social group will accept them, as very common themes are explored in Cinedicta. We have also concentrated on making the movies silent in order to make it possible for anyone in the world understand them. We made them universal.
These films will never get old. They will stay forever young because they are made in classic style.
Cinedicta are great, precisely because they are so short. Their strength lies in their weakness. As William Shakespeare said, "Brevity is the soul of wit." So, we keep them short.
In this new millennium the tempo of our lives is continually accelerating. We don't have extra time, and sometimes people just don't want to spend two hours watching a feature, even if they love movies. We are short of leisure time, a trend that works to the advantage of cinedictum. You need only a few minutes to watch a cinedictum. And if you have twenty minutes of free time, you can stimulate your mind and enjoy watching ten cinedicta all at once.
Okay, how can I use it?
Cinedicta can be aired on television either in addition to other programming (lead-ins, infomercials, promos, visuals, fillers before and after programs) or independently, as a compilation of cinedicta made available to air together. Also, cinedictum can be used to fill in the gaps between programs. When the program ends a few minutes early, the television networks need something to help bring them to the top of the hour.
Cinedicta can also be used as in-flight programming or be shown in waiting areas at airports, hotels, supermarkets, and sports stadiums. For more ideas where cinedictum can be shown check out the list available at www.cinedictum.com/films/use.phtml
Despite language barriers cinedicta can be shown in numerous countries because their sense, and especially their humor is visual rather than verbal. Often there are no words at all in the films which gives them a timeless quality.
That's interesting. What do you propose?
We have thoroughly studied the best of the planet's short stories, world and ethnic literature, and national epics. We have explored the entire experience of humanity and used it in cinedictum. Today, we have fifteen-hundred screenplays selected for cinedicta in our database. However, we continue to replenish our list by adding more stories to our database daily.
The first batch consists of ten cinedicta and because of the considerable public interest in these brand new movies, we plan to create many more cinedicta in the future.
We invite everyone to take part.
Our films are absolutely independent. No one tells us what kind of cinedicta to create, or how to do it. We are an independent company and we are proud of it.
Cinedictum has a distinctive excellence. Viewers will always watch until the end.
I believe that Cinedictum will soon find its niche in the world of cinema.
Where can I find out more?
You're always welcome to visit the cinedictum home page at www.cinedictum.com.
Tuesday, June 18, 2002
The Story of Donald and Dot Clock
Submitted by Roger DeBris
John Edmund Parcher wanted to make his own damn movie. A decade of work as a part-time audition actor (entertaining casting directors who called him in to read for hundreds upon hundreds of roles) led him to realize that waiting on anyone to open doors for him would not work, and that the few times he was actually hired would not do. Several short film projects with a variety of aspiring directors gave him the where-with-all to finally make a feature film. The only problem was, what would the film be about?
Sometime in the mid-nineties, somewhere in the Midwest, was a daily newspaper with a tiny blurb proclaiming, "Donald and Dot Clock Found Dead in their Home." The story went on to state that the cause of death was not known, that the police did not suspect foul play and that there was no evidence of suicide. What happened to Donald and Dot Clock? This was the burning question that brought forth the idea for John Edmund Parcher's first feature film and transformed Parcher into "Donald Clock" for the silver screen. However, the "Dot" character was still missing.
At a reception after a random Sundance screening, John Edmund saw a tall, wiry, striking female figure, with a unique aura about her. He approached her and introduced her to the idea of Donald Clock and the part of Dot. Her name was Eugenie Bondurant, and she originally hailed from New Orleans. She said yes and several years later the first day of shooting began.
First time director, Michael Kowalski, was studying film in the Anthropological Department of the University of California. He had made a few short documentaries, including his final graduate thesis project. John Edmund had met Michael on a Greyhound bus ride from back east to Los Angeles. Michael expressed interest in the "Donald and Dot Clock" project and brought along a writer who came up with a loose outline of the story. The initial script played around with elements from "Marty" and "Ben," a shy loser and a rat. Since John Edmund was a strict Vegan for the past twenty-five years, the writer created several scenes as a dark satire, including a beating with dead rabbits, skinning rabbits, as well as a talking skinned rabbit.
The filming itself lasted twenty-three days and was spread out over four years. The first rough cut was shot over thirteen days and was cut on a Light Works system at Disney Studios. The editor of a Disney feature allowed Michael and John Edmund to sneak in and cut "Donald and Dot Clock" on the sly. The editor had dated Eugenie in years past. The first rough cut spanned two hours and needed a lot of work.
The director would spend the next eight months or so figuring out what to do. Finally, a crew was gathered and additional scenes were shot, and others were re-shot. Between film shoots, numerous ideas were shot on video in order to test out various plot developments. The footage was then plugged into the film on a Mac Final Cut Pro system Michael had set up in his home, the Disney show having been completed.
A dedicated group of professionals donated their time and showed up time and again; camera operator, gaffers, grips, and the actors who performed in a variety of roles. The director of photography, Mary Beth Bresolin was Michael¹s girlfriend and they had gone through an ugly breakup just after the principle photography. Despite this, she came and shot the film every time she was needed over the course of the four years it took to reach completion.
The filming took place in each participant's homes (actors, director, and producer) and all over Los Angeles without permits. One of the big "special effects" in the film took place when Donald throws himself into the La Brea Tar Pits. After he climbs over the fence and jumps towards the tar pits, the close up insert is that of John Edmund as Donald sinking into a kiddy pool filled with molasses, soy oil, and some dirt, to duplicate the tar pit look. This same mix was covered all over John Edmund when "Donald" finds himself in the afterlife, walking through the Los Angeles sewer system where he greets Dot, who had been mourning his death at the spot where she commiserates with rats earlier in the film.
When the film was fashioned into a presentable form, it was left in the hands of the person who got the whole thing started, pulled the train out of the station on the adventure bound for glory. John Edmund Parcher faced the daunting task of launching the film to the viewing public utterly alone.
Through the hundreds of rejections from film festivals including, Sundance, Slamdance, Nodance, Digidance, Slamdunk, Tromadance, and more, John Edmund felt lost, but not without hope, for he was finally found by the Lost Film Fest. The little film festival that could expressed true love for Donald and Dot Clock Found Dead in their Home and has screened the film out of their home base in West Philadelphia and all around the world.
John Edmund Parcher wanted to make his own damn movie. A decade of work as a part-time audition actor (entertaining casting directors who called him in to read for hundreds upon hundreds of roles) led him to realize that waiting on anyone to open doors for him would not work, and that the few times he was actually hired would not do. Several short film projects with a variety of aspiring directors gave him the where-with-all to finally make a feature film. The only problem was, what would the film be about?
Sometime in the mid-nineties, somewhere in the Midwest, was a daily newspaper with a tiny blurb proclaiming, "Donald and Dot Clock Found Dead in their Home." The story went on to state that the cause of death was not known, that the police did not suspect foul play and that there was no evidence of suicide. What happened to Donald and Dot Clock? This was the burning question that brought forth the idea for John Edmund Parcher's first feature film and transformed Parcher into "Donald Clock" for the silver screen. However, the "Dot" character was still missing.
At a reception after a random Sundance screening, John Edmund saw a tall, wiry, striking female figure, with a unique aura about her. He approached her and introduced her to the idea of Donald Clock and the part of Dot. Her name was Eugenie Bondurant, and she originally hailed from New Orleans. She said yes and several years later the first day of shooting began.
First time director, Michael Kowalski, was studying film in the Anthropological Department of the University of California. He had made a few short documentaries, including his final graduate thesis project. John Edmund had met Michael on a Greyhound bus ride from back east to Los Angeles. Michael expressed interest in the "Donald and Dot Clock" project and brought along a writer who came up with a loose outline of the story. The initial script played around with elements from "Marty" and "Ben," a shy loser and a rat. Since John Edmund was a strict Vegan for the past twenty-five years, the writer created several scenes as a dark satire, including a beating with dead rabbits, skinning rabbits, as well as a talking skinned rabbit.
The filming itself lasted twenty-three days and was spread out over four years. The first rough cut was shot over thirteen days and was cut on a Light Works system at Disney Studios. The editor of a Disney feature allowed Michael and John Edmund to sneak in and cut "Donald and Dot Clock" on the sly. The editor had dated Eugenie in years past. The first rough cut spanned two hours and needed a lot of work.
The director would spend the next eight months or so figuring out what to do. Finally, a crew was gathered and additional scenes were shot, and others were re-shot. Between film shoots, numerous ideas were shot on video in order to test out various plot developments. The footage was then plugged into the film on a Mac Final Cut Pro system Michael had set up in his home, the Disney show having been completed.
A dedicated group of professionals donated their time and showed up time and again; camera operator, gaffers, grips, and the actors who performed in a variety of roles. The director of photography, Mary Beth Bresolin was Michael¹s girlfriend and they had gone through an ugly breakup just after the principle photography. Despite this, she came and shot the film every time she was needed over the course of the four years it took to reach completion.
The filming took place in each participant's homes (actors, director, and producer) and all over Los Angeles without permits. One of the big "special effects" in the film took place when Donald throws himself into the La Brea Tar Pits. After he climbs over the fence and jumps towards the tar pits, the close up insert is that of John Edmund as Donald sinking into a kiddy pool filled with molasses, soy oil, and some dirt, to duplicate the tar pit look. This same mix was covered all over John Edmund when "Donald" finds himself in the afterlife, walking through the Los Angeles sewer system where he greets Dot, who had been mourning his death at the spot where she commiserates with rats earlier in the film.
When the film was fashioned into a presentable form, it was left in the hands of the person who got the whole thing started, pulled the train out of the station on the adventure bound for glory. John Edmund Parcher faced the daunting task of launching the film to the viewing public utterly alone.
Through the hundreds of rejections from film festivals including, Sundance, Slamdance, Nodance, Digidance, Slamdunk, Tromadance, and more, John Edmund felt lost, but not without hope, for he was finally found by the Lost Film Fest. The little film festival that could expressed true love for Donald and Dot Clock Found Dead in their Home and has screened the film out of their home base in West Philadelphia and all around the world.
Wednesday, May 29, 2002
Get Lucas a Cattle Prod
Submitted by Melinda Murphy
God help us, the annual summer blockbuster season is here. Have you noticed it comes earlier and earlier?
In the stalwart tradition of an ex-movie critic, I decided to see a few of the new releases. I'm way too fond of my VCR - the relationship is becoming obsessive. So, I returned to big, dark places full of sticky floors and strangers who will not shut up.
It being May '02, I had to get the juggernaut out of the way. Juggernaut is what my favorite comic, Denis Leary, called Titanic. And he was right. Mainstream films are so bloated, so expensive and so over-done, they need a company logo, a dozen lawyers and good lighting just for the press junket. So I gave in and saw Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones.
The ass-numbing effort reminded me of carnie show rides. When I was 12, I got on a ride, liked it for about five minutes; but when it speeded up, things started swinging at my head and I started sliding out of my seat and then - I just wanted to get off.
The special effects in Attack of the Clones are like that. Things fly at your face and after awhile you just want it to stop before the headache starts. There's either a mechanical whatsit or an enraged creature lunging at the audience every five minutes for two hours and twelve minutes.
I'm not sure if Lucas' mid-life crisis, a hidden drug problem, or enough money to roll around in built the foundation for this film and its depressing predecessor, Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace.
The dialogue? God, what happened, George? Where are the memorable one-liners like "Well excuse me, your worshipfulness?" I had no idea that Ewan McGregor and Samuel L. Jackson could be that boring. They do voice-overs on car commercials with more verve.
Character development? There isn't any. I was so annoyed by C3P0 and R2D2 that I hoped one of the angry grasshopper critters would finish them off. C3P0 was cute in the earlier films, but now his plumy Brit accent and incessant whining had me fantasizing about him getting stomped into the stadium ground by an angry whatsit. Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen were no better, but it's not their fault. Everybody is wooden and dull; even the computer-generated characters have poor line delivery.
Plot? It's even worse than I feared. While in the first one, it turned out our heroes' struggles were precipitated by a trade dispute (NAFTA in space), this story stumbles from point to point. Politicians vie for power and somebody's lying, though it's easy to forget exactly who (think Watergate). The characters blather on in monotone; an assistant director should have randomly zapped the actors with a cattle prod just to get a screech out of them!
The romantic sub-plot is butt awful. Pull two socks out of a dryer and rub them together - they will have more energy between them than Anikan and the former-Queen-turned-Senator. At one point, they're frolicking - on I forget which planet - running in alpine meadows. For a second I thought I was watching The Sound of Music. Most of the time, Anikan utters forgettable, awkward lines that might as well have been written by one of Lucas' adopted kids; kind of how a fourteen year-old would imagine great love.
The only up side to this mess, is one of the last scenes where Yoda - that's right - Yoda takes on one of the heavies in a light saber duel. I don't think Lucas intended this response, but it was like watching Kermit the Frog do Kung Fu. The kids in the front row were howling with laughter.
Lucas decided that good writing and editing are needless details that would only hinder a story better suited to the Sci-Fi Channel on a Sunday night. Speaking of cable television, one of the characters even makes mention of "spice mining" - is Lucas scamming the venerable Frank Herbert?
Thank God I saw something coherent before I saw Attack of the Clones - the new Hugh Grant vehicle, About a Boy, which is a wonderful surprise, like a torte that tastes as good as it looks. Yeah, it's fluffy but it was fun, not an ordeal that you don't want to run out of water during.
Grant plays a useless, wealthy cad who has frittered away his life chasing chicks and shopping for compact discs. He meets a kid and the kid gradually weasels his way into the cad's life, changing him forever, and helping him develop empathy for someone other than himself. Grant's dead-on in this role, just like he was in Bridget Jones' Diary, and maybe that's not a compliment.
The plot and character development are good. Aussie Toni Collette is brilliant as a screwball London hippie who feeds her kid soymilk and "Ancient Grains" cereal for breakfast, tells him he's "not a sheep" and then sends him off to school in enough wool and organic fiber to make him look like a rainbow-colored lamb. Grant's character meets her through a self-help group that made me laugh out loud - S.P.A.T. or Single Parents Alone Together. The subtle pokes at contemporary life, which earn giggles and some serious laughs, are reminiscent of Fight Club. When Grant's character is doing a voice-over about a frightening ride to an emergency room, he doesn't hesitate to say it was scary "but driving really fast behind the ambulance was fun!" It's exactly this sort of black, poking-at-political-correctness humor that made flicks like The Opposite of Sex a classic.
It's sad that the entertainment biz continually disappoints with warring egos spewing crap like Attack of the Clones, when you consider that the movie's budget was bigger than Zaire's gross national product. Or, better yet - and this has been said before - for what it costs to make one summer blockbuster, Hollywood could produce two dozen independent films.
God help us, the annual summer blockbuster season is here. Have you noticed it comes earlier and earlier?
In the stalwart tradition of an ex-movie critic, I decided to see a few of the new releases. I'm way too fond of my VCR - the relationship is becoming obsessive. So, I returned to big, dark places full of sticky floors and strangers who will not shut up.
It being May '02, I had to get the juggernaut out of the way. Juggernaut is what my favorite comic, Denis Leary, called Titanic. And he was right. Mainstream films are so bloated, so expensive and so over-done, they need a company logo, a dozen lawyers and good lighting just for the press junket. So I gave in and saw Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones.
The ass-numbing effort reminded me of carnie show rides. When I was 12, I got on a ride, liked it for about five minutes; but when it speeded up, things started swinging at my head and I started sliding out of my seat and then - I just wanted to get off.
The special effects in Attack of the Clones are like that. Things fly at your face and after awhile you just want it to stop before the headache starts. There's either a mechanical whatsit or an enraged creature lunging at the audience every five minutes for two hours and twelve minutes.
I'm not sure if Lucas' mid-life crisis, a hidden drug problem, or enough money to roll around in built the foundation for this film and its depressing predecessor, Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace.
The dialogue? God, what happened, George? Where are the memorable one-liners like "Well excuse me, your worshipfulness?" I had no idea that Ewan McGregor and Samuel L. Jackson could be that boring. They do voice-overs on car commercials with more verve.
Character development? There isn't any. I was so annoyed by C3P0 and R2D2 that I hoped one of the angry grasshopper critters would finish them off. C3P0 was cute in the earlier films, but now his plumy Brit accent and incessant whining had me fantasizing about him getting stomped into the stadium ground by an angry whatsit. Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen were no better, but it's not their fault. Everybody is wooden and dull; even the computer-generated characters have poor line delivery.
Plot? It's even worse than I feared. While in the first one, it turned out our heroes' struggles were precipitated by a trade dispute (NAFTA in space), this story stumbles from point to point. Politicians vie for power and somebody's lying, though it's easy to forget exactly who (think Watergate). The characters blather on in monotone; an assistant director should have randomly zapped the actors with a cattle prod just to get a screech out of them!
The romantic sub-plot is butt awful. Pull two socks out of a dryer and rub them together - they will have more energy between them than Anikan and the former-Queen-turned-Senator. At one point, they're frolicking - on I forget which planet - running in alpine meadows. For a second I thought I was watching The Sound of Music. Most of the time, Anikan utters forgettable, awkward lines that might as well have been written by one of Lucas' adopted kids; kind of how a fourteen year-old would imagine great love.
The only up side to this mess, is one of the last scenes where Yoda - that's right - Yoda takes on one of the heavies in a light saber duel. I don't think Lucas intended this response, but it was like watching Kermit the Frog do Kung Fu. The kids in the front row were howling with laughter.
Lucas decided that good writing and editing are needless details that would only hinder a story better suited to the Sci-Fi Channel on a Sunday night. Speaking of cable television, one of the characters even makes mention of "spice mining" - is Lucas scamming the venerable Frank Herbert?
Thank God I saw something coherent before I saw Attack of the Clones - the new Hugh Grant vehicle, About a Boy, which is a wonderful surprise, like a torte that tastes as good as it looks. Yeah, it's fluffy but it was fun, not an ordeal that you don't want to run out of water during.
Grant plays a useless, wealthy cad who has frittered away his life chasing chicks and shopping for compact discs. He meets a kid and the kid gradually weasels his way into the cad's life, changing him forever, and helping him develop empathy for someone other than himself. Grant's dead-on in this role, just like he was in Bridget Jones' Diary, and maybe that's not a compliment.
The plot and character development are good. Aussie Toni Collette is brilliant as a screwball London hippie who feeds her kid soymilk and "Ancient Grains" cereal for breakfast, tells him he's "not a sheep" and then sends him off to school in enough wool and organic fiber to make him look like a rainbow-colored lamb. Grant's character meets her through a self-help group that made me laugh out loud - S.P.A.T. or Single Parents Alone Together. The subtle pokes at contemporary life, which earn giggles and some serious laughs, are reminiscent of Fight Club. When Grant's character is doing a voice-over about a frightening ride to an emergency room, he doesn't hesitate to say it was scary "but driving really fast behind the ambulance was fun!" It's exactly this sort of black, poking-at-political-correctness humor that made flicks like The Opposite of Sex a classic.
It's sad that the entertainment biz continually disappoints with warring egos spewing crap like Attack of the Clones, when you consider that the movie's budget was bigger than Zaire's gross national product. Or, better yet - and this has been said before - for what it costs to make one summer blockbuster, Hollywood could produce two dozen independent films.
Tuesday, May 07, 2002
Filming What We Know
Submitted by Joseph Gaines
I'll start by saying that I am not a filmmaker. Rather, I am someone who finds himself in the right place at the right time with a story that tells itself. I am lucky enough to have all the resources I need to let this story be retold on film. I don't have to spend a dime on props, the sets are already built and the characters have no need to rehearse their parts. It's just myself, a circle of friends (who know far more about the nuts and bolts of film than I do) and a story that is screaming to be told.
It begins with an accident.
In the fall of 1989, something happens which surprises pretty much everyone in the entire world, especially those who are right in the middle of it. A series of nation-wide demonstrations to change one government's oppressive policies seem certain to provoke a violent response from the military and state police. If this were Tiennamen Square in Beijing, then the story ends here. The government brings the resistance to a bloody and indisputably final end. However, it is not Beijing.
A political and economic system which posited itself as the only viable alternative to fascism disintegrates rather suddenly under the weight of its own dysfunction. The Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German Democratic Republic), the socialist dictatorship which had governed east Germany for the last forty years, collapses seemingly overnight. A "peaceful revolution" takes place, without one shot fired or one drop of blood spilled.
Perhaps "overnight" is an exaggeration. For weeks, protests and prayer vigils have been precipitating just such a collapse. But in one night the Berlin Wall, the ruling Socialist Unity Party's greatest symbol of its real and lasting power, is opened. And blood really is shed; by the time the border opens, three party chiefs have committed suicide. More will do so before the dust settles.
As I said, it begins with an accident. Towards the end of a press conference on November 9, Guenther Schabowski, a DDR Politburo member, lets slip a press briefing which should have been released the next day, announcing a relaxing of the DDR's stringent travel restrictions. Word spreads among DDR citizens even faster than it does to the state police. Hundreds of thousands cram border crossings and the border guards have no choice but to let them through.
And so it goes. More protests, revelations of wide-spread corruption, families and friends reunited - the beginnings of a real public dialog. All of this leads to the eventual reunification of east and west Germany in the following year.
This story is nothing new for Germans. They have talked and written this topic to death.
Why then would anyone want to make a documentary film about it? Who would even watch it?
People will watch this film for the same reason why, when I moved to Leipzig, I thought that the DDR was really just a puppet state of the Soviets and therefore really not very interesting in and of itself - I just didn't know what had really happened here.
I didn't know that many people here had forged a strong sense of independence, of a national identity independent of west German capitalism, of pride in the socialist ideal of equality and support for all citizens, however flawed that reality ultimately proved to be.
I didn't know that there were actually significant ideological differences between the Soviet Union and the DDR, some of which led to blunt political strife in the public arena.
I didn't know that, even though the socialist experiment failed, it wasn't all bad. Many people just lived their lives, left alone by the Stasi (the DDR secret police, often used by the government to terrorize its own citizens), confident that they would always have education, always have a job, and would be cared for from cradle to grave. In the end, everyone knew that the DDR had to clean house, that the ruling party had to go, and that the border had to be opened. Practically nobody expected the whole thing to cave in.
My trade and training is that of a classical musician. I am in Leipzig on a fellowship from the Rotary Foundation to study at the oldest music conservatory in Germany, the Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy College of Music and Drama in Leipzig. I confess that I'm a news junkie and I have a serious love for the study of politics and history, but I have no formal training as a filmmaker. More accurately, I have no formal training to interview and translate for a film, which are my tasks in this project.
I have the good fortune to have already begun interviewing my subjects without even knowing it. All I had to do was ask my speech and vocal diction teacher here about what it was like to work as an artist in the DDR and the stories just came. I cautiously experimented with other local artists of various trades, casually asking what was it like back then? I just had to ask the questions. They did all the talking.
It's said that, as a writer, you should write what you know. I'm hoping the same is true of filmmaking, that you should film what you know. I speak the language of actors, musicians, and artists in general. I know them, so I will retell the stories of the DDR through their eyes. Most Germans have seen some kind of documentary film about the DDR, but they have never seen one told in the words of the artists who lived through it.
Who will watch it?
During my first few weeks in Leipzig last fall, I had the good fortune of being able to attend many screenings and events for the 44th Annual Leipzig International Festival for Documentary and Animated Film. I saw dozens of animated shorts, full-length features, and documentaries of all shapes and sizes. Our film being about the history of the DDR as experienced by Leipzig-area artists, this festival seems a logical first venue and a worthy goal. We hope to have wrapped up post-production by July of 2003, in time for submission to the Leipzig "Dok-Festival" in October.
We will keep the original audio (i.e., the interviewees speaking in German) but add English subtitles. On a practical level, this format will serve both English and German-speaking audiences well. Germans are accustomed to hearing films in their own language (virtually all American films shown here are dubbed), so this will be nothing unusual for them. Americans are used to seeing most foreign films in the original language but with subtitles, so we will be accommodating them as well.
Love, betrayal, innocence, violence, corruption, espionage, you name it, the DDR had it all. All I have to do is ask the questions. I don't even have to worry about a script. As the producer, I have to make sure I get my non-German-speaking crew flown here from across the Atlantic, housed, fed, and kept out of trouble for at least a week. I have to make sure all the interviewees will be in town and available, that we have the right camera and that we stick to a relatively tight production schedule.
In the interviews, people will say what they want to, what they need to, but thankfully I don't need to plan that.
Besides, like I said, it all began with an accident anyway.
I'll start by saying that I am not a filmmaker. Rather, I am someone who finds himself in the right place at the right time with a story that tells itself. I am lucky enough to have all the resources I need to let this story be retold on film. I don't have to spend a dime on props, the sets are already built and the characters have no need to rehearse their parts. It's just myself, a circle of friends (who know far more about the nuts and bolts of film than I do) and a story that is screaming to be told.
It begins with an accident.
In the fall of 1989, something happens which surprises pretty much everyone in the entire world, especially those who are right in the middle of it. A series of nation-wide demonstrations to change one government's oppressive policies seem certain to provoke a violent response from the military and state police. If this were Tiennamen Square in Beijing, then the story ends here. The government brings the resistance to a bloody and indisputably final end. However, it is not Beijing.
A political and economic system which posited itself as the only viable alternative to fascism disintegrates rather suddenly under the weight of its own dysfunction. The Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German Democratic Republic), the socialist dictatorship which had governed east Germany for the last forty years, collapses seemingly overnight. A "peaceful revolution" takes place, without one shot fired or one drop of blood spilled.
Perhaps "overnight" is an exaggeration. For weeks, protests and prayer vigils have been precipitating just such a collapse. But in one night the Berlin Wall, the ruling Socialist Unity Party's greatest symbol of its real and lasting power, is opened. And blood really is shed; by the time the border opens, three party chiefs have committed suicide. More will do so before the dust settles.
As I said, it begins with an accident. Towards the end of a press conference on November 9, Guenther Schabowski, a DDR Politburo member, lets slip a press briefing which should have been released the next day, announcing a relaxing of the DDR's stringent travel restrictions. Word spreads among DDR citizens even faster than it does to the state police. Hundreds of thousands cram border crossings and the border guards have no choice but to let them through.
And so it goes. More protests, revelations of wide-spread corruption, families and friends reunited - the beginnings of a real public dialog. All of this leads to the eventual reunification of east and west Germany in the following year.
This story is nothing new for Germans. They have talked and written this topic to death.
Why then would anyone want to make a documentary film about it? Who would even watch it?
People will watch this film for the same reason why, when I moved to Leipzig, I thought that the DDR was really just a puppet state of the Soviets and therefore really not very interesting in and of itself - I just didn't know what had really happened here.
I didn't know that many people here had forged a strong sense of independence, of a national identity independent of west German capitalism, of pride in the socialist ideal of equality and support for all citizens, however flawed that reality ultimately proved to be.
I didn't know that there were actually significant ideological differences between the Soviet Union and the DDR, some of which led to blunt political strife in the public arena.
I didn't know that, even though the socialist experiment failed, it wasn't all bad. Many people just lived their lives, left alone by the Stasi (the DDR secret police, often used by the government to terrorize its own citizens), confident that they would always have education, always have a job, and would be cared for from cradle to grave. In the end, everyone knew that the DDR had to clean house, that the ruling party had to go, and that the border had to be opened. Practically nobody expected the whole thing to cave in.
My trade and training is that of a classical musician. I am in Leipzig on a fellowship from the Rotary Foundation to study at the oldest music conservatory in Germany, the Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy College of Music and Drama in Leipzig. I confess that I'm a news junkie and I have a serious love for the study of politics and history, but I have no formal training as a filmmaker. More accurately, I have no formal training to interview and translate for a film, which are my tasks in this project.
I have the good fortune to have already begun interviewing my subjects without even knowing it. All I had to do was ask my speech and vocal diction teacher here about what it was like to work as an artist in the DDR and the stories just came. I cautiously experimented with other local artists of various trades, casually asking what was it like back then? I just had to ask the questions. They did all the talking.
It's said that, as a writer, you should write what you know. I'm hoping the same is true of filmmaking, that you should film what you know. I speak the language of actors, musicians, and artists in general. I know them, so I will retell the stories of the DDR through their eyes. Most Germans have seen some kind of documentary film about the DDR, but they have never seen one told in the words of the artists who lived through it.
Who will watch it?
During my first few weeks in Leipzig last fall, I had the good fortune of being able to attend many screenings and events for the 44th Annual Leipzig International Festival for Documentary and Animated Film. I saw dozens of animated shorts, full-length features, and documentaries of all shapes and sizes. Our film being about the history of the DDR as experienced by Leipzig-area artists, this festival seems a logical first venue and a worthy goal. We hope to have wrapped up post-production by July of 2003, in time for submission to the Leipzig "Dok-Festival" in October.
We will keep the original audio (i.e., the interviewees speaking in German) but add English subtitles. On a practical level, this format will serve both English and German-speaking audiences well. Germans are accustomed to hearing films in their own language (virtually all American films shown here are dubbed), so this will be nothing unusual for them. Americans are used to seeing most foreign films in the original language but with subtitles, so we will be accommodating them as well.
Love, betrayal, innocence, violence, corruption, espionage, you name it, the DDR had it all. All I have to do is ask the questions. I don't even have to worry about a script. As the producer, I have to make sure I get my non-German-speaking crew flown here from across the Atlantic, housed, fed, and kept out of trouble for at least a week. I have to make sure all the interviewees will be in town and available, that we have the right camera and that we stick to a relatively tight production schedule.
In the interviews, people will say what they want to, what they need to, but thankfully I don't need to plan that.
Besides, like I said, it all began with an accident anyway.
Tuesday, April 30, 2002
The Horror, The Whore
Submitted by Bill the Rake
A new poster in Los Angeles. "Your kids never think of you as a rock god, but Gwen Stefani does! E!"
The Rosie O'Donell sequel to The Firm. Flabber.
Lee Majors gets a lobotomy and ends up on Son of the Beach mumbling "Farah, Farah."
Anson Williams thinks he's going to see a lotta chicks but ends up charming fifty Hannibal Lecter orange jump suits.
The Rake gets kicked out of LA's posh Westside like a Palestinian from the West Bank but debuts in Nudity Required disrobing and aiming his gun and is featured in the Son of the Beach episode "House of the Prostitution" with promo gal Bobbie.
Sabre Tooth gets more lines than in X-Men by becoming Notch Johnson's beach man.
Marsha from the Brady Bunch, Maureen McCormick tries to put a notch in her lipstick case by prosecuting Notch Johnson for pre-marital relations in the Scarlett Burka.
The biggest and best thing to come out of this town besides Charmed is Son of the Beach. Though on the FX channel like The Shield, co-producer, writer, and star, Tim Stack tells Anson Williams he can get the show on HBO! Sex in the City will be on hiatus until the lovely skinny blond lady has her baby. So maybe there's the chance. Otherwise the new Son of the Beach episodes will air starting this summer. You don't want to miss episodes like the "Gaytrix" or "Penetration Island." I appear in "House of the Prostitution" and "Penetration Island." Son of the Beach has gone from bad high school theater production to, now with three able-bodied directors, the status of feature film action. Imagine duplicating The Matrix for low budget television.
Son of the Beach is rated in the top 100 for television shows like Sports Night, now on Comedy Central, but that had the weight of ABC, William Macy and that black actor guy who played Benson, also known as Robert Guillome.
Anson Williams, Potsy from Happy Days, was so excited about being on Son of the Beach that he invited his business associates to the Los Angeles city jail set for the spoofing of Gladiator scenes and donned a suit he hadn't worn in six years.
They missed Lee Majors' lines of "the horror, the whore" taken from Marlon Brando's character in Apocalypse Now. Lee Majors did perform with his pure "method" acting like Robert Redford in The Last Castle. His method was so strong that the Aussie director had to say, "Lee, don't you remember me, I met you the other day?" He was playing Robert Redford's character and would not respond to Lee. Maybe he was acting like Marlon Brando in A Street Car Named Desire and instead of exuding "Stella, Stella," he was thinking "Farah, Farah." Oh the horror, the whore who kicked me out of the Westside to suffer the heat of Van Nuys. Short of getting beat down by Israeli Defense Force Nazi storm-troopers in the occupied territories, I remain a fan of Howard Stern's Son of the Beach.
A new poster in Los Angeles. "Your kids never think of you as a rock god, but Gwen Stefani does! E!"
The Rosie O'Donell sequel to The Firm. Flabber.
Lee Majors gets a lobotomy and ends up on Son of the Beach mumbling "Farah, Farah."
Anson Williams thinks he's going to see a lotta chicks but ends up charming fifty Hannibal Lecter orange jump suits.
The Rake gets kicked out of LA's posh Westside like a Palestinian from the West Bank but debuts in Nudity Required disrobing and aiming his gun and is featured in the Son of the Beach episode "House of the Prostitution" with promo gal Bobbie.
Sabre Tooth gets more lines than in X-Men by becoming Notch Johnson's beach man.
Marsha from the Brady Bunch, Maureen McCormick tries to put a notch in her lipstick case by prosecuting Notch Johnson for pre-marital relations in the Scarlett Burka.
The biggest and best thing to come out of this town besides Charmed is Son of the Beach. Though on the FX channel like The Shield, co-producer, writer, and star, Tim Stack tells Anson Williams he can get the show on HBO! Sex in the City will be on hiatus until the lovely skinny blond lady has her baby. So maybe there's the chance. Otherwise the new Son of the Beach episodes will air starting this summer. You don't want to miss episodes like the "Gaytrix" or "Penetration Island." I appear in "House of the Prostitution" and "Penetration Island." Son of the Beach has gone from bad high school theater production to, now with three able-bodied directors, the status of feature film action. Imagine duplicating The Matrix for low budget television.
Son of the Beach is rated in the top 100 for television shows like Sports Night, now on Comedy Central, but that had the weight of ABC, William Macy and that black actor guy who played Benson, also known as Robert Guillome.
Anson Williams, Potsy from Happy Days, was so excited about being on Son of the Beach that he invited his business associates to the Los Angeles city jail set for the spoofing of Gladiator scenes and donned a suit he hadn't worn in six years.
They missed Lee Majors' lines of "the horror, the whore" taken from Marlon Brando's character in Apocalypse Now. Lee Majors did perform with his pure "method" acting like Robert Redford in The Last Castle. His method was so strong that the Aussie director had to say, "Lee, don't you remember me, I met you the other day?" He was playing Robert Redford's character and would not respond to Lee. Maybe he was acting like Marlon Brando in A Street Car Named Desire and instead of exuding "Stella, Stella," he was thinking "Farah, Farah." Oh the horror, the whore who kicked me out of the Westside to suffer the heat of Van Nuys. Short of getting beat down by Israeli Defense Force Nazi storm-troopers in the occupied territories, I remain a fan of Howard Stern's Son of the Beach.
Tuesday, March 19, 2002
The Holy Grail of LaLa Land
Submitted by Melinda Murphy
Before Christmas, I decided to vacate Draino, Nevada. I spent the holidays packing and chucking anything I wouldn't absolutely need in Los Angeles. I'm part gypsy and creative minimalism comes easily. I even toyed with the idea of eighty-sixing my thermal underwear - for good.
Of course, I couldn't attempt this wild escape without hearing "The Word" on L.A. over and over.
"You think the people here are rude? You have no idea!" fumed my friend and former San Diegoian, Jen. She is another frustrated writer, mother of three who lives in a cluster of tract homes and trailers seventeen miles north of Reno, where the shakedowns on meth labs are continuous.
"The Final Word" on L.A. came from a woman I met while at a gas station.
"I used to live in West Hollywood," she said, smiling sadly. "But I had to leave. I was into some bad shit."
She then regaled me with tales of buying and dealing rock cocaine amongst a backdrop of gay prostitutes, teen runaways, and former television stars.
"Besides," she added, "I really missed winter. I missed the bundle-up weather you have here."
It was eighteen degrees Fahrenheit and the latest winter storm was hanging fatly over the rim of the eastern Sierra like a thundercloud over Dracula's castle.
"But I'm better off now," she finished, "At least here if you want crack, it's more expensive and the rocks are a lot smaller."
Yet another reason to hate Reno. It's hard to get decent crack.
I spent New Year's Eve sitting on the bare oak floor of my frigid rental, watching television. I downed a Valium and some Tuaca and went to bed, intent on avoiding anything Auld Langsyne.
I jerked awake at 7:30 a.m. with a heavy feeling in my stomach. I started stuffing, cramming, and squeezing everything into my thirteen year-old compact car. My aunt pulled up at 11:30 a.m. pealing with laughter.
"My God, it's the Beverly Hillbillies!" she chortled.
She snagged my furniture and the miscellaneous items that wouldn't fit inside the car and hauled them off to storage.
For the uninitiated, the best way to pack a beatermobile for urban invisibility is this - always put the vitals - VCRs, computers, stereos - underneath the clothes, Tupperware, and other priceless heirlooms. Make the thieves dig for the electronics.
I drove off with orders to call on my cellular as soon as I hit the Motel 6 in Mojave, a truck stop about two hours north of L.A.
I cruised smoothly past Mono Lake, favorite brine-fly-covered destination of celebrity Ed Begley, Jr.
In Bishop, California it was dusk and the gun-metal sky was spitting rain. The greatest sandwich shop in the world, Schatt's Bakery, was inundated with Yuppie skiers on their way back to L.A. from a weekend in Mammoth Lakes. It was a sea of ugly sweaters, cell phones, and pushy bimbos with that reverse liposuction in their drooping Mick Jagger lips. I clawed my way to the front of the line and bought a sandwich.
At the Motel 6 in Mojave, there is a minor incident. I open the right front door of the Hyundai and a box of See's candy given to me for Xmas flies out of the car like it's spring loaded. The next morning, I hear the maids arguing over who has to pick up the chocolate strewn across the parking lot like little brown anti-personnel mines. They hate me now. I can never go back.
In the late morning sunlight I climb a ridge of rolling red hills and catch a glimpse of Santa Clarita to the west. The hills are so red, I keep expecting Mister Spock to pop out behind one with a phaser, or maybe see Jack Palance come trotting onto the asphalt on a nice Spanish pony.
The traffic gets tense. The slow lane is suddenly the eighty mile-per-hour lane and semi-trucks and Mercedes in the far left lane bomb past me at ninety-five.
I make some frantic lane changes and I get off in 'Weird and work my way through perpetually heavy traffic to a Trader Joe's on Santa Monica Boulevard, because it has public potties and the other shops want you to pay to pee.
I spend twenty minutes sitting in the humid parking lot studying a 1998 Thomas Guide. My former actress friend, Veronica, gave it to me. Her exact words were: "This is your bible. Keep it with you at all times." I map out the first six of three-dozen rental listings I'd gotten from one of two sketchy "renter referral" sites on the 'Net. They are sketchy because they want you to shell out money just to get the names and numbers of realtors who might have listings.
I drive up Santa Monica and make a right on Poinsettia. Bang, the first listing. It's a two-story blue building with a big fat FOR RENT sign. I call on my cell. "Oh, we just rented that bachelor unit," the realtor/slumlord/gopher tells me, but they have another, even nicer for $300 more near Hollywood High. This is a part of the world where bait-n-switch was invented.
I lean out my car window and ask a nice sort-of-unemployed-probably-gay-actor type what the Poinsettia rentals are like. He laughs and says that same sign has been in front of the building since he moved in two years prior. He thinks his landlord keeps it up to intimidate the tenants and suck potential renters into his other hovels.
I cruise over to the ones near Hollywood High, which looks like a fearsome inner-city P.S. Near by, the apartment buildings are varying shades of dirty yellow, with iron fences and bars on everything -- sort of like county jail if the inmates all had private rooms. The slumlord tells me over the phone that the units don't have actual kitchens, just a hot plate and a dormitory fridge and that they require first and last month's rent, a deposit, and a $35 non-refundable credit check. They're going for $800 a unit and there are about thirty apartments per three-story building. Someone is sooo rich, and it's not me.
I drive to Silver Lake. It's another G.G. (Gay Ghetto) I've heard so much about, renovated 1930's bungalows, impressive stands of eucalyptus tress, and tiered rose gardens. Friends neglected to tell me that Silver Lake is directly up hill from Echo Park, right up hill from Rampart, the infamous street where the L.A.P.D. meted out corruption and brutality. Scenes for Training Day were filmed near Echo Park. I am literally the only white person for ten blocks in any direction, even the sales signs in the store window are in Spanish. Occasionally, someone points and giggles at my wheezing car stuffed to the gills with boxes and bearing the ultimate goober plates, Nevada The Silver State. I head up Silver Lake and up and up. The neighborhood defies gravity. Duplexes and parked cars perch on the edge of streets that make San Francisco look flat. After a half hour, I find one of the listed rentals. The FOR RENT sign is gone and there's a filthy Toyota Pathfinder parked out front with New Jersey license plates. Shit.
I coast back down to Sunset and Santa Monica and spend the rest of the afternoon wandering between Melrose, West Hollywood, and the Hollywood Hills, where all the Mexican landscape crews drive nicer cars than mine. I see one FOR RENT sign in Melrose, for condos at $1,300 a month.
I make the long commute down to Torrance and the familiar Ramada Inn where I'd stayed just before Christmas on my "Looking Around Trip."
The next day, I stupidly check out of the motel, re-stuff the car and head back to 'Weird. I find a "studio" in Hollywood. The real estate agent has his on-sight person wander over in his flip-flops to show me the place. It's actually an up-stairs room with a private bath and a tiny "pantry" with a mini-fridge and a microwave. There's a full-size kitchen on the ground floor that I would technically share with five other strangers in the building. It is nicely renovated but noisy with bare hardwood floors and is just a scant six blocks north of Korea Town and some ugly gang graffiti. The current tenant hasn't moved out yet. They want $835 a month for the room plus an $800 deposit, a one-year lease and the ol' $35 non-refundable credit check.
I call my former actress friend, Veronica. She screams, "TAKE IT!" I call the real estate agent back. He tells me he rented it at 4:30 p.m. to a new tenant who already paid him cash. He says he told the current tenant he has forty-eight hours to move his furniture out. Just like that.
This time, I make it as far as LAX on the Pacific Coast Highway. I'm whipped. I check into a Budget Motel. Los Angeles International Airport is a city unto itself. There are hotels, condos, restaurants, lounges, and an entire mall somewhere in the innards of the parking garages and terminals straddling the highway for more than two miles.
The front desk guy at Budget is the rudest person I meet in L.A. Judging by his accent, he's probably from New York. He slaps my card key down on the front counter and then turns his back on me and the Asian tourists with five-hundred pounds of luggage to yell at someone on his cell phone. He does a good imitation of some freak on The Sopranos. I hate that show.
I go to a hamburger joint a few yards down PCH from the motel. It's called Woody's Smorgasburger. It's the best hamburger I've ever had in my life. Dazed tourists sit at tables around a fireplace and sip microbrews as a light fog drifts in from the coast. It's fantastic. I go back to the motel and listen to the steady stream of traffic all night.
The next few days, I spend trying vainly to find the "nice" part of Long Beach where fabled affordable rentals exist. In San Pedro, I call on a one bedroom partially overlooking Long Beach Harbor, which really isn't worth looking at. It's $950 a month, first and last.
I go through northwest Long Beach - terrifying during the day - because I'd found an ad in the paper for an "artist's loft." It's a studio upstairs in what looks like a crack house. I don't even stop. The agent wanted $625 for it, which is comparable to Reno's housing prices. I keep thinking if they'd just do an episode of Fear Factor where the contestants had forty-eight hours to find a place to live in L.A. it might be worth watching. Ditch the eat-a-cockroach episodes.
Finally, on Thursday, I start hunting around Harbor City and Coloma, which are sort of south of Torrance and north of Long Beach. The price is right. Most of the rentals are around $600.
I meet Mister Slumlord at a one bedroom in Harbor City. He's driving a Lexus. It's not even Good Block, Bad Block country. It's more Okay Building, Over-priced Building, and Rat-Infested Tree House. The unit is on the ground floor of a two-story, 1970's concrete box with a security gate. The rooms are large and fairly clean. The view is of a parking lot and the loathsome federal housing building next door where kids run wild through broken glass and the boom-boom of gangster rap never stops. We go back to his office six blocks away. Slumlord demands a copy of my last paycheck stub, my bank statement, and a half-dozen other things. I dutifully dig it all out of my car. Twenty minutes later, he sits reading the credit application and taping his pen on his desk.
"So you haven't actually started this waitress job yet?"
No, I say, I have to have a place to live first.
He tells me my check stub is "totally unusable" in the credit check because there's no actual dates on it. I tell him I was with the U.S. Postal Service in Reno for six months and that's how they print their check stubs. The stub reveals that I was averaging two grand a month in a town where $1,100 a month is considered a lot of money. I pay $35 for a non-refundable credit check with my Visa debit card, which Slumlord sneers at because it's not an actual credit card. He tells me it will take three to four days to run the credit check. It's Thursday, and I'm supposed to have a place by Sunday at the latest and start my new job the following Monday.
I go back to the Ramada and pay up from Thursday night through Saturday night. The rates go up on the weekends. The room is running me $60 to $80 a night. That night, my plan starts to unravel and reality starts to creep in.
I talk to a friend-of-a-friend of my former actress friend, Veronica. Ted is a producer and real estate agent who lives in Bel Air. He has a sound editing business out in San Fernando Valley and a dozen rentals he inherited from his rich parents who were also in The Biz. Ted tells me he has condos and duplexes in Melrose, Culver City (a 'burb that exists entirely under freeway overpasses so it's sort of always twilight), another in Hermosa Beach and several in Santa Monica. For wannabe writers, Santa Monica is the Holy Grail of Housing. I'd sell myself, take a bullet, and steal if I thought any of it would get me a lead on a rental in Santa Monica. His rentals, all two bedrooms, start at $3,000 a month and he hasn't had a vacancy in over a year.
"Landlords have it made right now," he cheerfully tells me, adding that since an earthquake (didn't say which one) awhile back, the constant tide of Mexicans, and an apparent moratorium on building new rentals - L.A. is experiencing the greatest housing shortage ever. When homes and rentals in Orange County rose outrageously in the 1990's, any incentive people had for living outside Los Angeles County disappeared.
"The big trend for the last ten years has been to move back into the city proper because some of the highest paying jobs in California are in L.A.," Ted says. And they're not just in the entertainment industry. Most are in the banking sector, in advertising, and e-commerce.
"Oh," I say.
Friday evening, I get a call from the woman I'd planned to go to work for, an assistant manager with a chain of Denny's-like restaurants. She tells me that she can't wait any longer to actually hire me and doesn't mind continuing to lie for me and say "yeah, she works here" but doubts there will be an actual position by next week.
Saturday, I drift tiredly up to an internet rental referral agency in Redondo Beach. I plunk down $60 for two months membership. I get fifty pages of printouts, this time for roommate situations. Back at the motel, I call fifteen answering machines and leave fifteen separate messages.
On Sunday, I add the third quart of oil to my car in as many days. My Hyundai is bad. I call my aunt in Reno and tell her I'm throwing in the towel, mostly because even if I find a place, the odds of the car dying are good. I don't want to test my survival instincts with a beatermobile meltdown on the fearway at six in the evening returning from a temp job.
I head up the 110 on a misty, balmy Sunday morning. In light traffic, I drive past downtown and catch my first look at the Library Building glinting in the hazy sunlight. It's now the fifth tallest building in the U.S. Last fall it was the seventh. As I get above Hollywood, I see the turn off for Griffith Observatory and the L.A. Zoo. In my seven days of apartment hunting, I never even made it to the park, and now it will be closed for a month for renovations. I'm practically in tears. I pass Glendale and Burbank, where the real studios and celebs haunt. I see a sign for a sports bar where I know a Project Greenlight writers group meets every Wednesday evening.
North of Santa Clarita, I take a county road and jog east until Mojave and then back up to highway 395 and Owens Valley. I stop in Bishop near midnight and it's twenty degrees. My car blows oil and overheats twice between L.A. and Reno, so I spend quality time waiting for the festering heap to calm down enough for me to pop the radiator cap and add water and radiator fluid. I make it up Sherwin Grade to the turn-off for Mammoth Lakes. By the time I hit Mono Lake, the wind is howling and the snow is splatting against the window. At 3 a.m., I fall into my aunt's dusty spare bedroom and defeat.
The next morning, at a local repair shop, the mechanic tells me the car's engine is going - camshaft, piston rings, cylinders - everything.
"You're not planning on making any road trips in this, are you?" he asks.
Before Christmas, I decided to vacate Draino, Nevada. I spent the holidays packing and chucking anything I wouldn't absolutely need in Los Angeles. I'm part gypsy and creative minimalism comes easily. I even toyed with the idea of eighty-sixing my thermal underwear - for good.
Of course, I couldn't attempt this wild escape without hearing "The Word" on L.A. over and over.
"You think the people here are rude? You have no idea!" fumed my friend and former San Diegoian, Jen. She is another frustrated writer, mother of three who lives in a cluster of tract homes and trailers seventeen miles north of Reno, where the shakedowns on meth labs are continuous.
"The Final Word" on L.A. came from a woman I met while at a gas station.
"I used to live in West Hollywood," she said, smiling sadly. "But I had to leave. I was into some bad shit."
She then regaled me with tales of buying and dealing rock cocaine amongst a backdrop of gay prostitutes, teen runaways, and former television stars.
"Besides," she added, "I really missed winter. I missed the bundle-up weather you have here."
It was eighteen degrees Fahrenheit and the latest winter storm was hanging fatly over the rim of the eastern Sierra like a thundercloud over Dracula's castle.
"But I'm better off now," she finished, "At least here if you want crack, it's more expensive and the rocks are a lot smaller."
Yet another reason to hate Reno. It's hard to get decent crack.
I spent New Year's Eve sitting on the bare oak floor of my frigid rental, watching television. I downed a Valium and some Tuaca and went to bed, intent on avoiding anything Auld Langsyne.
I jerked awake at 7:30 a.m. with a heavy feeling in my stomach. I started stuffing, cramming, and squeezing everything into my thirteen year-old compact car. My aunt pulled up at 11:30 a.m. pealing with laughter.
"My God, it's the Beverly Hillbillies!" she chortled.
She snagged my furniture and the miscellaneous items that wouldn't fit inside the car and hauled them off to storage.
For the uninitiated, the best way to pack a beatermobile for urban invisibility is this - always put the vitals - VCRs, computers, stereos - underneath the clothes, Tupperware, and other priceless heirlooms. Make the thieves dig for the electronics.
I drove off with orders to call on my cellular as soon as I hit the Motel 6 in Mojave, a truck stop about two hours north of L.A.
I cruised smoothly past Mono Lake, favorite brine-fly-covered destination of celebrity Ed Begley, Jr.
In Bishop, California it was dusk and the gun-metal sky was spitting rain. The greatest sandwich shop in the world, Schatt's Bakery, was inundated with Yuppie skiers on their way back to L.A. from a weekend in Mammoth Lakes. It was a sea of ugly sweaters, cell phones, and pushy bimbos with that reverse liposuction in their drooping Mick Jagger lips. I clawed my way to the front of the line and bought a sandwich.
At the Motel 6 in Mojave, there is a minor incident. I open the right front door of the Hyundai and a box of See's candy given to me for Xmas flies out of the car like it's spring loaded. The next morning, I hear the maids arguing over who has to pick up the chocolate strewn across the parking lot like little brown anti-personnel mines. They hate me now. I can never go back.
In the late morning sunlight I climb a ridge of rolling red hills and catch a glimpse of Santa Clarita to the west. The hills are so red, I keep expecting Mister Spock to pop out behind one with a phaser, or maybe see Jack Palance come trotting onto the asphalt on a nice Spanish pony.
The traffic gets tense. The slow lane is suddenly the eighty mile-per-hour lane and semi-trucks and Mercedes in the far left lane bomb past me at ninety-five.
I make some frantic lane changes and I get off in 'Weird and work my way through perpetually heavy traffic to a Trader Joe's on Santa Monica Boulevard, because it has public potties and the other shops want you to pay to pee.
I spend twenty minutes sitting in the humid parking lot studying a 1998 Thomas Guide. My former actress friend, Veronica, gave it to me. Her exact words were: "This is your bible. Keep it with you at all times." I map out the first six of three-dozen rental listings I'd gotten from one of two sketchy "renter referral" sites on the 'Net. They are sketchy because they want you to shell out money just to get the names and numbers of realtors who might have listings.
I drive up Santa Monica and make a right on Poinsettia. Bang, the first listing. It's a two-story blue building with a big fat FOR RENT sign. I call on my cell. "Oh, we just rented that bachelor unit," the realtor/slumlord/gopher tells me, but they have another, even nicer for $300 more near Hollywood High. This is a part of the world where bait-n-switch was invented.
I lean out my car window and ask a nice sort-of-unemployed-probably-gay-actor type what the Poinsettia rentals are like. He laughs and says that same sign has been in front of the building since he moved in two years prior. He thinks his landlord keeps it up to intimidate the tenants and suck potential renters into his other hovels.
I cruise over to the ones near Hollywood High, which looks like a fearsome inner-city P.S. Near by, the apartment buildings are varying shades of dirty yellow, with iron fences and bars on everything -- sort of like county jail if the inmates all had private rooms. The slumlord tells me over the phone that the units don't have actual kitchens, just a hot plate and a dormitory fridge and that they require first and last month's rent, a deposit, and a $35 non-refundable credit check. They're going for $800 a unit and there are about thirty apartments per three-story building. Someone is sooo rich, and it's not me.
I drive to Silver Lake. It's another G.G. (Gay Ghetto) I've heard so much about, renovated 1930's bungalows, impressive stands of eucalyptus tress, and tiered rose gardens. Friends neglected to tell me that Silver Lake is directly up hill from Echo Park, right up hill from Rampart, the infamous street where the L.A.P.D. meted out corruption and brutality. Scenes for Training Day were filmed near Echo Park. I am literally the only white person for ten blocks in any direction, even the sales signs in the store window are in Spanish. Occasionally, someone points and giggles at my wheezing car stuffed to the gills with boxes and bearing the ultimate goober plates, Nevada The Silver State. I head up Silver Lake and up and up. The neighborhood defies gravity. Duplexes and parked cars perch on the edge of streets that make San Francisco look flat. After a half hour, I find one of the listed rentals. The FOR RENT sign is gone and there's a filthy Toyota Pathfinder parked out front with New Jersey license plates. Shit.
I coast back down to Sunset and Santa Monica and spend the rest of the afternoon wandering between Melrose, West Hollywood, and the Hollywood Hills, where all the Mexican landscape crews drive nicer cars than mine. I see one FOR RENT sign in Melrose, for condos at $1,300 a month.
I make the long commute down to Torrance and the familiar Ramada Inn where I'd stayed just before Christmas on my "Looking Around Trip."
The next day, I stupidly check out of the motel, re-stuff the car and head back to 'Weird. I find a "studio" in Hollywood. The real estate agent has his on-sight person wander over in his flip-flops to show me the place. It's actually an up-stairs room with a private bath and a tiny "pantry" with a mini-fridge and a microwave. There's a full-size kitchen on the ground floor that I would technically share with five other strangers in the building. It is nicely renovated but noisy with bare hardwood floors and is just a scant six blocks north of Korea Town and some ugly gang graffiti. The current tenant hasn't moved out yet. They want $835 a month for the room plus an $800 deposit, a one-year lease and the ol' $35 non-refundable credit check.
I call my former actress friend, Veronica. She screams, "TAKE IT!" I call the real estate agent back. He tells me he rented it at 4:30 p.m. to a new tenant who already paid him cash. He says he told the current tenant he has forty-eight hours to move his furniture out. Just like that.
This time, I make it as far as LAX on the Pacific Coast Highway. I'm whipped. I check into a Budget Motel. Los Angeles International Airport is a city unto itself. There are hotels, condos, restaurants, lounges, and an entire mall somewhere in the innards of the parking garages and terminals straddling the highway for more than two miles.
The front desk guy at Budget is the rudest person I meet in L.A. Judging by his accent, he's probably from New York. He slaps my card key down on the front counter and then turns his back on me and the Asian tourists with five-hundred pounds of luggage to yell at someone on his cell phone. He does a good imitation of some freak on The Sopranos. I hate that show.
I go to a hamburger joint a few yards down PCH from the motel. It's called Woody's Smorgasburger. It's the best hamburger I've ever had in my life. Dazed tourists sit at tables around a fireplace and sip microbrews as a light fog drifts in from the coast. It's fantastic. I go back to the motel and listen to the steady stream of traffic all night.
The next few days, I spend trying vainly to find the "nice" part of Long Beach where fabled affordable rentals exist. In San Pedro, I call on a one bedroom partially overlooking Long Beach Harbor, which really isn't worth looking at. It's $950 a month, first and last.
I go through northwest Long Beach - terrifying during the day - because I'd found an ad in the paper for an "artist's loft." It's a studio upstairs in what looks like a crack house. I don't even stop. The agent wanted $625 for it, which is comparable to Reno's housing prices. I keep thinking if they'd just do an episode of Fear Factor where the contestants had forty-eight hours to find a place to live in L.A. it might be worth watching. Ditch the eat-a-cockroach episodes.
Finally, on Thursday, I start hunting around Harbor City and Coloma, which are sort of south of Torrance and north of Long Beach. The price is right. Most of the rentals are around $600.
I meet Mister Slumlord at a one bedroom in Harbor City. He's driving a Lexus. It's not even Good Block, Bad Block country. It's more Okay Building, Over-priced Building, and Rat-Infested Tree House. The unit is on the ground floor of a two-story, 1970's concrete box with a security gate. The rooms are large and fairly clean. The view is of a parking lot and the loathsome federal housing building next door where kids run wild through broken glass and the boom-boom of gangster rap never stops. We go back to his office six blocks away. Slumlord demands a copy of my last paycheck stub, my bank statement, and a half-dozen other things. I dutifully dig it all out of my car. Twenty minutes later, he sits reading the credit application and taping his pen on his desk.
"So you haven't actually started this waitress job yet?"
No, I say, I have to have a place to live first.
He tells me my check stub is "totally unusable" in the credit check because there's no actual dates on it. I tell him I was with the U.S. Postal Service in Reno for six months and that's how they print their check stubs. The stub reveals that I was averaging two grand a month in a town where $1,100 a month is considered a lot of money. I pay $35 for a non-refundable credit check with my Visa debit card, which Slumlord sneers at because it's not an actual credit card. He tells me it will take three to four days to run the credit check. It's Thursday, and I'm supposed to have a place by Sunday at the latest and start my new job the following Monday.
I go back to the Ramada and pay up from Thursday night through Saturday night. The rates go up on the weekends. The room is running me $60 to $80 a night. That night, my plan starts to unravel and reality starts to creep in.
I talk to a friend-of-a-friend of my former actress friend, Veronica. Ted is a producer and real estate agent who lives in Bel Air. He has a sound editing business out in San Fernando Valley and a dozen rentals he inherited from his rich parents who were also in The Biz. Ted tells me he has condos and duplexes in Melrose, Culver City (a 'burb that exists entirely under freeway overpasses so it's sort of always twilight), another in Hermosa Beach and several in Santa Monica. For wannabe writers, Santa Monica is the Holy Grail of Housing. I'd sell myself, take a bullet, and steal if I thought any of it would get me a lead on a rental in Santa Monica. His rentals, all two bedrooms, start at $3,000 a month and he hasn't had a vacancy in over a year.
"Landlords have it made right now," he cheerfully tells me, adding that since an earthquake (didn't say which one) awhile back, the constant tide of Mexicans, and an apparent moratorium on building new rentals - L.A. is experiencing the greatest housing shortage ever. When homes and rentals in Orange County rose outrageously in the 1990's, any incentive people had for living outside Los Angeles County disappeared.
"The big trend for the last ten years has been to move back into the city proper because some of the highest paying jobs in California are in L.A.," Ted says. And they're not just in the entertainment industry. Most are in the banking sector, in advertising, and e-commerce.
"Oh," I say.
Friday evening, I get a call from the woman I'd planned to go to work for, an assistant manager with a chain of Denny's-like restaurants. She tells me that she can't wait any longer to actually hire me and doesn't mind continuing to lie for me and say "yeah, she works here" but doubts there will be an actual position by next week.
Saturday, I drift tiredly up to an internet rental referral agency in Redondo Beach. I plunk down $60 for two months membership. I get fifty pages of printouts, this time for roommate situations. Back at the motel, I call fifteen answering machines and leave fifteen separate messages.
On Sunday, I add the third quart of oil to my car in as many days. My Hyundai is bad. I call my aunt in Reno and tell her I'm throwing in the towel, mostly because even if I find a place, the odds of the car dying are good. I don't want to test my survival instincts with a beatermobile meltdown on the fearway at six in the evening returning from a temp job.
I head up the 110 on a misty, balmy Sunday morning. In light traffic, I drive past downtown and catch my first look at the Library Building glinting in the hazy sunlight. It's now the fifth tallest building in the U.S. Last fall it was the seventh. As I get above Hollywood, I see the turn off for Griffith Observatory and the L.A. Zoo. In my seven days of apartment hunting, I never even made it to the park, and now it will be closed for a month for renovations. I'm practically in tears. I pass Glendale and Burbank, where the real studios and celebs haunt. I see a sign for a sports bar where I know a Project Greenlight writers group meets every Wednesday evening.
North of Santa Clarita, I take a county road and jog east until Mojave and then back up to highway 395 and Owens Valley. I stop in Bishop near midnight and it's twenty degrees. My car blows oil and overheats twice between L.A. and Reno, so I spend quality time waiting for the festering heap to calm down enough for me to pop the radiator cap and add water and radiator fluid. I make it up Sherwin Grade to the turn-off for Mammoth Lakes. By the time I hit Mono Lake, the wind is howling and the snow is splatting against the window. At 3 a.m., I fall into my aunt's dusty spare bedroom and defeat.
The next morning, at a local repair shop, the mechanic tells me the car's engine is going - camshaft, piston rings, cylinders - everything.
"You're not planning on making any road trips in this, are you?" he asks.
Tuesday, February 26, 2002
Fourteen Essentials of a Good Press Kit
Submitted by Melissa Puch de Fripp
With the outgrowth of independent films in the marketplace, from micro-budget to larger budget features, it's more essential than ever to "outclass" the competition when it comes to marketing the film product. With that in mind, the first impression a filmmaker creates when sending materials to distributors, festival directors, reviewers, and media sources is more important than ever.
With the reality of independent features often going over budget, many new filmmakers find themselves in a position where they cannot afford a professional publicist. If you find you must create your own publicity kit, then you may simply follow this simple formula to create the right amount of "sizzle" and professionalism.
Keep in mind that busy news editors and film editors are inundated with requests for publicity, interviews, reviews, and photo opportunities, and they may literally only have sixty seconds to determine whether or not you go into the "A" pile or the circular file (i.e., the trash). Make your first impression count, and be sure to have trusted friends review your written material for typos, dropped words, and grammar.
The fourteen essentials are:
1) Glossy two pocket folders with cuts on one inside pocket for a business card. These are available at any office supply store.
2) Story Synopsis. Keep it short and simple and never longer than one page. The shorter the synopsis is, the better off you are, because a long synopsis can be edited down to something that doesn't even resemble your film once ninety-percent of your description is eliminated by an editor. Another trick is to provide two synopses. One a quarter page long, and one a half page long.
3) Cast List. Only integral cast, not minor roles and extras. The cast list should only be one page, and again the shorter the better.
4) Director's Biography. One page only.
5) Producer's Biography. One page only.
6) One Sheet of Mini-bios. Keep it to three paragraphs, one paragraph for your director of photography, one for your composer, and the third for another member you consider integral. Be sure to include awards and honors your key people have been given, if applicable. Note: If you have co-producers or associate producers, give them a one sheet of mini-bios, exactly like the one for director of photography, composer, etc.
7) Still Photographs. Black and white 8" x 10" glossies are the norm, but many filmmakers are also including color slides, which are good for magazines that include color in their pages or for cover stories. Be sure to either have a printed caption on the front of the photograph, or a typed label with the caption stuck on the back along with contact details. For slides, be sure to number the slides and place them in a professional one page slide holder (available at camera specialty stores) and attach one page with captions that correspond to the slide numbers.
8) Tip Sheet. This sheet should be nothing but the simplest facts, including genre, running time, what medium the film was shot in (35mm, 16mm, super 16, digital), locations used, and who your legal representation or producer's representative is, if applicable.
9) Action Photo of You. If you're the director, include a director's photo of you on the set, or stage one if you didn't have any decent shots of yourself taken during the film shoot. If you need to stage one, see if a camera rental facility will let you come in with your director of photography and take a shot next to the camera. If you're the producer, then it's recommended that you have a shot taken with the director. Thus you won't be left out of the publicity loop. Editors typically choose director's photographs over producer's photographs. Cover your bases.
10) Trailer. If you have a trailer, don't hesitate to duplicate it on ½" VHS tape. If you're dubbing your own trailers and they wind up looking too "second generation," either don't use it or spend the money to go to professional dubbing house to get cleaner looking copies. You're better off having no trailer or film clip enclosed than having a grainy looking one.
11) Articles. If you've already received any print media, be sure to get clean copies and enclose them in the press kit. If articles were printed with color photos, then be sure to get color copies to keep the visual impact alive.
12) An invitation to your latest screening.
13) Your business card.
14) A personalized memo or hand-written note to the editor who will be receiving your press kit, thanking them for taking the time to review your materials.
Optional. If there is something unique about your production which you want known, then by all means, write a one to three page "story" about your production and title it, "About the Production." On the upside, this helps an editor. On the downside, it may take some of the mystique and questions away from the reader. If you choose to write about your production, then do not include any horror stories of broken equipment, squabbles that you miraculously fixed, or how your relatives didn't come through with the cash, but you still made it without them. Save your war stories, and pull them out of your hat once your reputation is established and you're a big hit. For now, you want to seem like nothing less than a fabulous filmmaker with an aura of positive energy surrounding you.
With the outgrowth of independent films in the marketplace, from micro-budget to larger budget features, it's more essential than ever to "outclass" the competition when it comes to marketing the film product. With that in mind, the first impression a filmmaker creates when sending materials to distributors, festival directors, reviewers, and media sources is more important than ever.
With the reality of independent features often going over budget, many new filmmakers find themselves in a position where they cannot afford a professional publicist. If you find you must create your own publicity kit, then you may simply follow this simple formula to create the right amount of "sizzle" and professionalism.
Keep in mind that busy news editors and film editors are inundated with requests for publicity, interviews, reviews, and photo opportunities, and they may literally only have sixty seconds to determine whether or not you go into the "A" pile or the circular file (i.e., the trash). Make your first impression count, and be sure to have trusted friends review your written material for typos, dropped words, and grammar.
The fourteen essentials are:
1) Glossy two pocket folders with cuts on one inside pocket for a business card. These are available at any office supply store.
2) Story Synopsis. Keep it short and simple and never longer than one page. The shorter the synopsis is, the better off you are, because a long synopsis can be edited down to something that doesn't even resemble your film once ninety-percent of your description is eliminated by an editor. Another trick is to provide two synopses. One a quarter page long, and one a half page long.
3) Cast List. Only integral cast, not minor roles and extras. The cast list should only be one page, and again the shorter the better.
4) Director's Biography. One page only.
5) Producer's Biography. One page only.
6) One Sheet of Mini-bios. Keep it to three paragraphs, one paragraph for your director of photography, one for your composer, and the third for another member you consider integral. Be sure to include awards and honors your key people have been given, if applicable. Note: If you have co-producers or associate producers, give them a one sheet of mini-bios, exactly like the one for director of photography, composer, etc.
7) Still Photographs. Black and white 8" x 10" glossies are the norm, but many filmmakers are also including color slides, which are good for magazines that include color in their pages or for cover stories. Be sure to either have a printed caption on the front of the photograph, or a typed label with the caption stuck on the back along with contact details. For slides, be sure to number the slides and place them in a professional one page slide holder (available at camera specialty stores) and attach one page with captions that correspond to the slide numbers.
8) Tip Sheet. This sheet should be nothing but the simplest facts, including genre, running time, what medium the film was shot in (35mm, 16mm, super 16, digital), locations used, and who your legal representation or producer's representative is, if applicable.
9) Action Photo of You. If you're the director, include a director's photo of you on the set, or stage one if you didn't have any decent shots of yourself taken during the film shoot. If you need to stage one, see if a camera rental facility will let you come in with your director of photography and take a shot next to the camera. If you're the producer, then it's recommended that you have a shot taken with the director. Thus you won't be left out of the publicity loop. Editors typically choose director's photographs over producer's photographs. Cover your bases.
10) Trailer. If you have a trailer, don't hesitate to duplicate it on ½" VHS tape. If you're dubbing your own trailers and they wind up looking too "second generation," either don't use it or spend the money to go to professional dubbing house to get cleaner looking copies. You're better off having no trailer or film clip enclosed than having a grainy looking one.
11) Articles. If you've already received any print media, be sure to get clean copies and enclose them in the press kit. If articles were printed with color photos, then be sure to get color copies to keep the visual impact alive.
12) An invitation to your latest screening.
13) Your business card.
14) A personalized memo or hand-written note to the editor who will be receiving your press kit, thanking them for taking the time to review your materials.
Optional. If there is something unique about your production which you want known, then by all means, write a one to three page "story" about your production and title it, "About the Production." On the upside, this helps an editor. On the downside, it may take some of the mystique and questions away from the reader. If you choose to write about your production, then do not include any horror stories of broken equipment, squabbles that you miraculously fixed, or how your relatives didn't come through with the cash, but you still made it without them. Save your war stories, and pull them out of your hat once your reputation is established and you're a big hit. For now, you want to seem like nothing less than a fabulous filmmaker with an aura of positive energy surrounding you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
