What is your ideal facility?

I’ve recently been in talks with a local non profit agency about a film and media facility they wish to create. The question was posed to me, “What would you need to improve your productions?” I realized that my answer would be incredibly from your average beginner. I have a good access to most of the facilities one would need to produce a short film, and I have my own prejudices about how it should be done. So, I thought maybe it would be better just to ask a few filmmakers just starting out in their ventures into the wild world of media.

So here is the task. Imagine a non-profit facility that can:

• Supply Equipment
• Help you network through meet up groups
• Hold Classes to teach different aspects of film and media

So on to the questions:

• If there were such a place, would you use it
• How much would you be willing to pay for an annual membership
• What sort of classes would you want offered
• What sort of equipment or facilities would you want offered
• What if the center had this requirement: Only you could use your material for commercial profit - but the facility would have rights to use your material for teaching or other non commercial purposes. Would you be ok with that?
• For the centers website: Do you think a website that is essentially just an event calender is good enough, or would you like a large scale, myspace like, website where members would have profiles and be able to display their content

And any other suggestions or comments would be very helpful.

Thanks in Advance

Moving, upcoming features, film finance, and other such nonsense

No film tips here. Just a little note to say I’m going to be moving over the next few weeks. Not far…down the road actually. But needless to say updates may be a little sporadic. However, I can tell you about what I’m currently working on:

• Video tutorials - I’ve been really lazy on this one. I have three video tutorials about 2/3rds finished. They are pretty unique, and hopefully they will knock your socks off. So make sure to have socks on while watching them to avoid any serious injury.
• Film Finance - I honestly may have stumbled across the most brilliant film finance method ever conceived. How’s that for hyperbole? Seriously though, I have a pretty interesting idea on how I can help you finance your own short films, or equipment purchases of up to $25,000, while at the same time helping to finance my own projects. I’ll keep you posted.
• The Way To You - My friend Donny at Big Foot Productions just gave me a call. The Way To You is officially green lit, though not as originally planned. Instead of being a 90 minute feature comedy, it will now be an online web series of 12, ten minute episodes. Haven’t signed any contracts yet, but I’ll probably be production manager, technical adviser, and possibly second camera on this one. It’s a pretty exciting project, and as it progresses I’ll try and throw some behind the scenes footage up here.
• My Job - There is a strong possibility I may be changing occupations soon. Shhh….don’t tell anyone. Honestly though, I’d highly doubt anyone where I work now even knows or cares my blog exists. And if by some bizarre chance someone does find this post, then I’ll just turn it into a big press release “Blogger gets fired over blog post”…the media loves that crap. But anyways, I’ve got two offers going right now…one as a full time media integration specialist for an extremely technologically advanced super computer 3d visualization center, the other as a media specialist for a public access TV station. Both of them should free my time substantially to produce more films, and write more for this website….so pretty exciting either way.

So stay tuned…

I love to say I told you so.

When I wrote the post about the writers strike, and the idea that networks would start picking up web series, I thought that I was a few months ahead of the curve. It turns out I was only a few days ahead, as NBC just announced they are picking up a web series.

NBC has picked up the web series Quarter Life created by Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick. The 36 episode series, with each episode being 8 minutes, is being condensed into six, hour long episodes. For more info check out : NBC picks up ‘Quarterlife’.

I think NBC may have made a mistake though, since all the press I’ve read so far about the deal fails to mention the price. If they told the price, no matter how small by television standards, its probably big enough for independent producers to consider creating dramatic web series in hopes of getting picked up.

Writers Strike and the future of television production

This isn’t a news site, so I didn’t really feel the need to jump on the band wagon and report the news about the WGA strike. However, after hearing about it for a few days straight, some very interesting thoughts occurred to me. Most importantly, I think the writers won’t win.

I know for some of you that is a pretty grim prediction, because essentially the writers deserve to win. The writers want an increase in residuals from 4 cents to 8 cents per DVD sold. If you ask me even 8 cents per DVD is ridiculously low…which was my first indication that the writers can’t win. If the WGA was striking for residuals, it would have asked for a higher number and conceded for less in negotiation. There really isn’t a ton of negotiation room between 4 and 8 cents that the WGA can still accept as victory. Can they really come out and say “We had to compromise a little…but we won an increase….its 6 cents now!”

So why strike if its not about residuals? Because its about self preservation. Through the last year of negotiations the WGA realized it was losing ground. If they didn’t do something before the contract expired…then the contract would just expire and the studios would just start doing whatever they wanted, regardless of what the WGA thinks…essentially breaking the union. For a multitude of reasons, I think that even with the strike, a breakage of the union is still inevitable.

Affecting the unaffected
The WGA has an enormous weakness in the fact that the people most negatively affected by the strike, are the least positively affected by the result. The people who are out of work today - i.e. writers for the Tonight show, Daily Show, and so on - have very little stake in the outcome. These types of shows don’t have a strong DVD product. Conversely, the people who do worry about residuals have essentially already been paid, and are still getting paid (though at the lower rate) for their current residuals. Most of these shows have already shot to the end of the season. How long can the day to day writers stay on strike on behalf of writers who are significantly better paid, who are sitting at home still collecting checks? In the case of shows that are new, or have yet to get a foothold, how long can these writers afford to not work while their show loses what little popularity it had. Right now, just a few days after the strike, Ellen is already getting negative criticism for going back on the air and performing comedy…or in the case of Ellen I should say attempting to perform comedy.

Forcing collusion
The major studios are always in competition. Each time sweeps comes around they make a desperate attempt to compete against one another in hopes of getting more of the market share. Certainly, if one studio was being boycotted by writers, that studio would be hard pressed to find a solution as quick as possible…but that isn’t the case.

Since all studios are being boycotted, then none have to worry about their competition pulling ahead in the ratings with some new series. If everyone’s quality of product goes down by the same amount, then they are still equal. If no studio can get writers to write new material, then they are all competing on equal footing.

Companies need to advertise their product, and they only care about numbers. They don’t care if they are advertising on the newest episode of Lost, or an old episode of I love Lucy. They want X eyeballs for Y dollars…period.

And if you think that Americans will stop watching TV anytime soon just because there is nothing on…well you must not have turned on a TV in a while…there’s been nothing on for years now and still people are watching.

The brave new world
The world has changed alot since the last strike in 1988. There are a ton more stations, and alot more content out there. The most important is, of course, the internet. The internet, many experts say will help bring a speedy resolution to this strike, because TV studios can’t afford to lose more audience to internet media. I think quite the opposite is true. The internet is the nail in the coffin for the WGA.

The thing to remember is that above all things…the studios have money. How does a studio compete with an internet series stealing all their viewers? Simple…it buys it. Even a successful web series creator can’t pull down the money that a studio can offer. When you gross $200,000 a year and have to pay actors and crew out of that, its pretty hard to turn down an offer from a studio who offers you $500,000 per season….which is ridiculously cheaper than the studio would have spent to make it in the first place.

The internet will essentially become the major stations new golden goose. They will have the opportunity to pick up programs that have already been created, already been tested and have already generated an audience. And once one big internet series gets picked up for a six or seven figure deal, the internet will literally explode with content…more so than it already has.

Once it becomes clear that the studios can survive, and even prosper without contract writing staff, the writers will have no choice but to cross the picket line. Once a union loses its ability to cause significant financial damage with a strike, that union is essentially dead.

Hollywood Vs. Indie: Sex and Nudity

A recent discussion on a message board has prompted me to post, what I hope will be the start of a series of articles. The discussion essentially erupted into a flame war after a colleague of mine posted a casting call for a short film. His casting call included just a single phrase that stirred the entire debate: “One of the rolls requires nudity”.

No real description was given as to what the part entailed, however many of board members reacted rather negatively to the post, calling the movie sick, and tasteless. The crazy part is the casting call didn’t even include the description of the movie, or even the title! People just assumed he was making some bizarre trashy horror flick…blood blood boobs…blood blood boobs. For all they knew, it could have been a religious short about the garden of eden. But sadly people always assume the worst.

But what really got me upset was one person’s inference that things should be done “tastefully”, the way Hollywood does it, by covering up the nudity. Allow me to get on my soap box.

Hollywood Vs. Indies
Everyone knows, whether Hollywood or Independent, that sex in a movie sells. By and large, most sane people want to see attractive people naked. However, the way Hollywood treats sex and nudity is usually 180 degrees different than the way Indie movies do.

Hollywood tries to satisfy the ambiguous standards of the MPAA. If they want to market the movie to adults, they make it just raunchy enough to get an R rating, while still getting the hottest possible female star to agree to do it… usually for no justifiable story purpose.

Director: “Why does Angelina Jolie get naked in this scene?”
Producer: “Who cares! Angelina Jolie agreed to get naked in this scene!”

The nudity is used in a purely sexual way only as a marketing tool. This is true of many Hollywood movies, except those made by directors held in such high esteem that they are given free reign by the studios.

Now contrast that with an independent movie. Many indie movies go to extremes in terms of sexual content. Movies like The Dreamers, Short Bus, and Nine Songs, take huge risks in presenting sexual situations like you’ve never seen them on film. However, despite its extreme nature, the entire sexual nature is integral to the plot. The sexual situations are presented to say something important about the character, or to make an important statement about societies views on sex.

However, in my opinion, the most insidious use of sex and nudity occurs in Hollywood movies, targeted not for adults, but for teens. I’m talking about PG-13 movies. In PG-13 movies, they try to get just under the threshold of what the MPAA will allow so that they can market a sexualized movie, but market it to a younger audience. Here sexual situations are implied, and most often presented with little or no consequence. Jessica Simpson bounces around in a tiny top and every goes wow look at the boobies.

In my opinion fake nudity and fake sex, marketed towards teens is far less moral or tasteful than realistic sex, and full nudity marketed to an adult audience for the purpose of making a point. A black and white artsy photograph of a woman completely nude, is significantly more tasteful and more moralistic than a racy yet clothed Maxim photo spread.

When it comes to determining what is “moral” I tend to side with context over content. It’s not about how naked are you, but why are you naked in the first place.

KillerFilm Launch

I’m happy to announce the relaunch of my horror film review website Killer Film. We’ve added five new writers, a brand new design, and a ton of new content. Check it out! And for all of you directors out there, be sure to drop me a line about getting your film reviewed.