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 look at my movie credits, you’ll see that I’ve been working with the same crew on almost every project. This is not by accident. The truth is, making movies is challenging. And from my perspective, bringing unknown people into the process makes everything even more challenging and (often) complicated.

But you have to start somewhere. So for those of you planning to crank out some movies, I recommend you start small. Find a few collaborators and assign jobs based on interest. Then grab a camera and complete some micro projects such as music videos, short films and funny sketches for YouTube.

Here is a project my buddy Jared did in a few afternoons to test his new HDSLR camera. As you’ll see in the following video, he created a very simple sketch – a music video that employs minimal locations, a few actors and a lot of exteriors – which means he didn’t have to worry about lighting interiors. The project was a lot of fun too. (My horrible acting is featured too. I’m the guy who spits gum.)

If you can do a dozen of these small projects without ripping each other’s heads off, you’re on your way to creating your core crew. Then later, as your projects increase in scope and scale, you’ll have a good starting point.

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Posted under FILMMAKING

Shy and awkward is how screenwriter Seth Lochead describes himself. When he was starting out he felt he had to choose between building his career by socializing or by writing a great script.

He decided to try to do the latter.

The result is “Hanna,” co-written by David Farr, starring Kate Blanchett as the daughter of a rogue ex-CIA agent. He told the Vancouver Sun: ““I was going for the absurd mixed with action influences that are seemingly familiar, and then something that twists you a bit. You want to keep people intrigued and on the edge of their seat where they’re mentally having to keep up.”

It’s not clear from the article but I get the sense that Farr was brought in to do rewrites, but Lochead was flown to Berlin to do production rewrites for three months, which was a great education.

It’s a story that can give up to the other shy and awkward screenwriters (hey, isn’t that most of us?)

Beyond that, the internet gives us shy types another way to make connections. Here are three suggestions:

* Write intelligent fan letter (via email) to people whose work you admire–directors, producers, actors. I stress “intelligent” because most fan letters are of the “I think you’re really great!” variety. In yours, mention specifics about their work. It’s a long shot, but some working relationships have started out that way.

* If you’re looking for an agent, read the trades online to see which agents have recently opened their own agency or moved–that’s the time they’re most open to new people. (I know trade subscriptions can be expensive–why not split the cost with two or three other aspiring screenwriters?)

* Write and produce short films and make it easy to find them on the web, as samples of your work. If you’re not into the “making” side of films, team up with some aspiring directors who don’t want to (or can’t) write their own scripts.

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Jurgen Wolff has written more than 100 episodes of television, the mini-series “Midnight Man,” starring Rob Lowe, the feature film “The Real Howard Spitz,” starring Kelsey Grammer, and as been a script doctor on projects starring Eddie Murphy, Michale Caine, Kim Catrall and others. His books include “Your Writing Coach” (Nicholas Brealey Publishing) and “Creativity Now!” (Pearson Publishing). For more tips from Jurgen Wolff, also see www.ScreenwritingSuccess.com

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Posted under SCREENWRITING

I’m going to ask a few questions today and also take us back in time…

Have you ever watched a movie where the story seemed like it was just a bunch of Visual Effects, with no substance?

Conversely, can you think of a movie where the FX and VFX were just icing on the cake?

When I first started out, the movie The Matrix was all the rage. I don’t know if you remember but at the time, that movie was fresh and exciting and as a filmmaker, inspiring. I remember enjoying the movie because first and foremost, it had a great story. The visual effects and fancy camera techniques were secondary, complementary and completely necessary to tell the story. (By the way, I’m not talking about The Matrix 2 or 3… I didn’t understand those movies.)

Two important lessons I learned during that time:

1. The super cool techniques used in the movie were nothing new.
2. And if you were making movies back then, you may have been inspired to mimic similar VFX in your own work.

I know this because, if you traveled the festival circuit after that movie, you would have seen all sorts of short films that tried to incorporate similar Matrix-esq gimmicks into a story that-didn’t-quite fit.

Why?

While your opinion of what makes a movie good might differ from mine, hopefully we subscribe to a similar filmmaking philosophy — That is, anything that we include in our final cut must fit the story and push the story forward.

We all know that staging locations in a recognizable city or adding overhead shots or adding some other nifty, super cool camera tricks can work to make your movie look more expensive than it is – But sometimes if you’re really honest, these fancy tricks aren’t necessarily complementary to your story.

And as filmmakers, this is where we run into trouble. Sometimes it’s just downright difficult to cut all those super cool shots from our movie. (Some of my filmmaker friends would argue that the folks responsible for the most recient Indian Jones movie and the Star Wars prequels may have fallen into a similar FX-for-the-sake-of-FX trap.)

So as a rule of thumb, if you add an element or location or some other nifty, neat-o trick to increase the production value of your independent movie and the element is not inline with your overall story, you run the risk of distracting your audience and taking them out of the movie.

Posted under FILMMAKING