Filmmaking Stuff Filmmaking Stuff provides resources for independent filmmakers. The website includes articles on how to take a story idea from script to screen, including articles on scriptwriting, producing, finance, shooting, editing, directing, marketing, distribution and how to build an audience. Filmmaking Stuff also has articles detailing how to make money making movies – including interviews with Hollywood Producers, Directors, writers and other filmmaking professionals.

If you have a movie website, hosting is essential. Last night I had a scare. I was logging into Filmmaking Stuff – and suddenly the site went haywire. It blew into a million and one pieces. It was crazy.

If you tried to read the filmmaking articles last night, you probably saw what I was taking about.

Luckily I use www.MovieSiteHost.com – which is my Bluehost affiliate link – and yes they pay me to promote. But anyway… With a phone call, I was able to reach a live person. And he was able to get my site back and running. That was a BIG deal.

Anyway – I write this for two reasons:

1. Make sure you back up your site.
2. And make sure you use a good hosting company for your movie web site.

Hope this helps you avoid the same mistakes I made. Working with a great hosting company is essential. Doing so can help you avoid movie website madness.

Posted under Filmmaking News

With the demise of traditional DVD distribution, you as a filmmaker are responsible for your audience. Why? Because your audience is your business – and without an audience you will have no movie business.

Having an audience database for your movie is essential.

Whenever I give talks, I make people repeat this aloud. This gets a few chuckles, but kidding aside – this is important stuff for any filmmaker.

Building Your Audience Database

As a professional filmmaker, you need to build a database of people who know you and know your work. But don’t let the word “database” throw you off. A database doesn’t have to be complex. At the miminum, it is simply a list of the names and emails of your subscribers.

Once you have this info, you can easily generate personalized email, letters and phone calls to your audience. And having a list allows you to directly promote your current movie project or an upcoming movie project.

Tools For Building Your List

Most of your list building efforts will happen online. So you need hosting for your website. And I suggest you go with a company that allows you to easily set up a WordPress powered website. That way, you’ll be able to grab a copy of the fully optimized WordPress Template for Filmmakers.

But let’s face it… Even with the greatest movie website on earth – The truth is, most of your movie website visitors will NOT buy your movie on the first visit to your site. Think about it. Most people are busy.

So in addition to marketing your current movie (and all of your future movies), you will need an easy way to capture and collect visitor email addresses. I recommend Aweber as an easy way to build your audience list.  And after you grab Aweber, I suggest utilizing this tool to increase subscriber opt-ins.

Posted under DISTRIBUTION

One of the movies I worked on titled TOXIC SOUP will be screening with MOUNTAIN MAN will in New York City on December 7th at 7:30 pm as part of “Occupy St. Marks Theater 80 Film Series: Protest, Power and People.”

This film series, curated by Charles Krezell, will showcase documentary shorts from Occupy Wall Street as well as feature films from around the world. Theatre 80 is located on St Marks Place and First Avenue in the East Village.

We would love it if you came out to support TOXIC SOUP and MOUNTAIN MAN; producer Sergei Krasikov will be attending so please say Hi. And if you aren’t in NYC, please pass this onto any friends or family in the area. The full schedule is below.

- Monday December 5 @ 7:30 pm “Battle for Brooklyn” short TBA
- Tuesday December 6 @ 7:30pm “Medium Hot” short TBA
- Wednesday December 7 @ 7:30pm “Toxic Soup” short “Mountain Man”
- Tuesday December 13 @ 8pm “The Orange Chronicles” short TBA
- Wednesday December 14 “Granito, how to nail a dictator”
- Thursday December 15 “Bigger than the Beatles”

We are also encouraging everyone to support Larry Gibson’s nonprofit KEEPERS OF THE MOUNTAIN foundation by streaming or downloading MOUNTAIN MAN. It costs $4.97 for a streaming rental and $9.97 to download the short film, but all the proceeds are going straight to Larry’s foundation.

To find out more:

http://mountainkeeper.blogspot.com/p/donate.html

AND

http://toxicsoupmovie.com/mountain-man/

Posted under Filmmaking News

Traditional Business Image via Wikipedia

If you are looking for movie money, you need to understand the difference between the indie film business VS traditional business.

Why? Because most prospective movie investors will come from other industries. And knowing how to talk in the language of traditional business will go a long way towards helping you communicate your proposition.

Where do we differ? The goal of the indie filmmaker and traditional businessman are the same – to produce, market, sell and distribute a product.

Problem is – when it comes to creating a movie, most filmmakers focus only on the production. And therein lies the problem.

Without any idea how to market, sell and distribute your movie – why the heck should anybody take you seriously?

Posted under FILM FINANCING

Dear Jason,

This is my third and final eMail to you. I think it’s silly that you have a filmmaking website, but when it comes time to actually help people make movies, you just ignore them… So here it goes – again!

My name is Idiot Filmmaker from another planet. I think you should invest in my movie because it is totally awesome. My friends and I are going to do everything – so all we need from you is the money…

I am thinking our budget is going to be eighty-thousand dollars, but I am really not sure. But we think you should help us because you know all that stuff about film distribution. ( We don’t care much about that stuff, ha-ha.)

Assuming that you do invest in our movie project (you don’t want to miss out, right?) – We are prepared to give you all international rights. So again, just 80K will make you as a producer. Sound good?

You can send the check to my return address.

Sincerely,

Mr. Idiot Filmmaker

P.S. If you pass at this opportunity, it’s your loss. But if you find other film financier for our project, we will still give you an associate producer credit.

P.P.S. What is your personal phone number? I’d like to call you with more details.

- – -

This note was modified and slightly embellished to protect this idiot. However, I get at least three emails like this per week. Please don’t send this kind of stuff to me. I’m busy with my own projects… Besides, this sort of thing will never get you anywhere in business, because you aren’t focused on the most important aspect of any deal: “What’s In It For Me?”

Posted under FILM FINANCING

If you are planning to attend the Showbiz Expo, make sure you check out my talk on “How To Sell Your Movie Without The Middle Man.” I go on at 11AM and will provide some valuable tips on how to get your movie seen and selling.

Some of the film distribution topics I cover are:

1. How to drive traffic to your movie website.
2. What all filmmakers must know about trailer promotion.
3. How to optimize your movie website for conversions.
4. Where to market movies both online and offline.
5. Why a marketing plan is essential for all business plans.

If you can attend the Showbiz Expo, awesome. If you can’t, then you may want to check out The Indie Producer’s Guide To Digital Self-Distribution.

Posted under Filmmaking News

You can’t fix audio in post  I mean, you can. Assuming you have the money and the time to record ADR and hire a group of audio professionals, you can probably fix some of your audio. But as guest poster Tony Tartaglia shares, having a skilled and thorough audio production engineer is an essential part of making a quality, polished film:

As an audio production engineer, I have viewed a lot of independent films and documentaries, and the one thing that stands out more than the quality of the filming and special effects, is the soundtrack, or lack of a proper one. Many independent films and documentaries sound weak or hollow, and in others, the music bed overpowers the dialog tracks.

What makes the audio weak or hollow? Most low budget film makers use a quality camera with an attached microphone, so the distance from actor to camera is the same distance from actor to microphone, greatly reducing the sound pressure level arriving at the microphone while allowing other noises to enter the microphone. The further the microphone is from the source, the more open and hollow the sound is.

Try this experiment. Video a friend speaking any lines at a distance of two feet, now do the identical shot from a distance of twelve feet. It should be quite obvious which one sounds better. The shot from two feet will sound better but look bad, while the one shot from twelve feet will sound bad but look great.

A common remedy for this bad audio is to add music to the track. All this does is further bury the dialog, making the film a chore to listen to, and detracting from the essence of what is being said. In some cases, there is so much noise in the audio tracks, that the film is not even worth watching.

Just to be fair to the videographers out there, I researched two Sony professional handy cameras: the DSR-PD150 which retails for approximately $1300, and the HVR-Z7U which retails for approximately $4000. I found a very curious fact. The two cameras sport the same microphone: the ECM-XM1 which retails for $129. Apparently, the extra $3000 for the HVR-Z7U went into the video capturing and not the sound capturing. Why?

Sony, as with all of the other professional camera manufacturers, realizes that the onboard microphone is for reference audio, and not for the sound track. On board microphones that are rigidly attached to a camera body pick up every noise that is generated within the camera and, worse yet, every noise that is transmitted through the camera, the “handling noise.” For anyone who’s been to a live event and someone bumps into a live microphone or tries to grab a live mic out of a stand, you know what I mean.

Professional sound companies use two microphones that conform to industry standards: The Sennheiser MKH-416 which retails for just under $1000, and the Schoeps CMIT5U which retails for $2100. These microphones are used in dialog acquisition by the boom operator for the sound recorder, and the purpose is to place the microphone closer to the speaker or actor than the camera. Trained boom operators can move the microphone to and fro without generating noise, thereby getting a cleaner sound. This is where it starts, getting the cleanest sound possible into the film.

Next time we will look at the roles of the on-set sound team.

- – -
Tony Tartaglia holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree awarded from the International Academy of Design and Technology in Tampa, Florida and owns his own mixing and editing studio. Tony can be reached for consultations and audio production through his website at tony@soniqualitycorp.com.

Posted under FILMMAKING

If you want to make a movie, you can’t do it alone. Networking – Creating and cultivating relationships within the filmmaking community is essential for your success. Today’s guest article comes from Jonny Morgan, owner of the new online community called the Film Lobby.

Networking With The Film Lobby

Listening to any podcasts, reading any articles or taking advice from others there is one thing that raises it’s head time and time again. The importance of networking. The old adage “you only get one chance to make a first impression” is as important when networking through online social media as it is when attending face to face networking events.

The image you present of yourself should be professional, succinct, consistent, thoroughly up to date and showcasing the best of every talent you possess. Yes there are a myriad choices of social platforms out there, some that can be used personally, some professionally. My advice is to keep the two separate. You don’t wear a suit going to he gym!

My friend Melissa Cantatore is an actress working and living in LA and she strives relentlessly in the pursuit of securing continuous work. Melissa promotes herself as much as possible through her management, agent and by searching out and responding to casting calls herself. Together we designed a website for her, printed up business cards and created a profile on www.thefilmlobby.com.

Remarkably soon after that, two time Oscar winner Ron Judkins saw her online, auditioned her via Skype and she landed a roll in his new film which he wrote and directed, “Neighbours”. With online social networking combined with persistence and professionalism you, like Melissa, can succeed.

So what are your choices? What are your skilled areas and what is the best platform for you? Some may think “well IMDB is great if you’ve made it, MySpace is best for music, Facebook is good for friends and fan pages, Twitter lets me follow my heroes but what is best for me as an establishing OR established professional artist?”

The Film Lobby is an intuitive, free, easy to use platform on which you can showcase your image, photographs, music, reel, shorts, podcast, blog, audio all in the same arena. A platform where you can learn and contribute through forums, search through castings in your area, post castings to help forward your project and mingle with like minded professionals. Join free at www.thefilmlobby.com, professional networking for film makers. The very best if luck to you.

Posted under FILMMAKING

If you’re looking for moviemaking tools, here is my list of top picks:

1. Free Filmmaking Book: This free resource provides you with some basic, no fluff filmmaking information. Additionally, you’ll also get onto my super cool filmmaking mailing list. (It’s what all the cool filmmakers read.) www.FreeFilmmakingBook.com

2. Modern Moviemaking Movement: A few months back, I joined forces with some of the most prolific modern moviemakers to create a free resource for filmmakers. The result was over one-hundred pages of no-fluff filmmaking information. www.ModernMovieMaking.com

3. Make Your Movie Now: This is a site for filmmakers who are serious. If you want to take action and maker your movie now, this resource is for you. www.MakeYourMovieNow.com

Anyway, I hope these MovieMaking tools are helpful.

Posted under Uncategorized

If you have ever seen me at speaking events, you know that one of my core philosophies is to make a movie you can make this year. The reason I push this is because way too many filmmakers never do anything!

The following short (directed by my friend) is an example of this. Shot on a small camera (Rebel T2i), the video provides a good example of how you can pack an emotional punch into a small project.

A little WARNING: The following video contains some strong language that may be inappropriate for anybody under 18 years of age.

Wild Bill Hearts Candy 84″ from Jared Tweedie on Vimeo.

If you can push yourself to overcome fear and excuses – and just make a movie you can make this year, you will be much better off than the majority of other filmmakers who spend years talking, with nothing to show for it.

Posted under FILMMAKING