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Posts by Amelik

Considering that I put on weird clothes and makeup for the camera on a regular basis, it’s weird that I have never actually dressed up for Halloween. It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just… never worked out.

It was fun to hear that this year at least a couple of people braved parties dressed as Captain Disillusion. Alas, I think people kept asking them if they’re “T-1000 on crack”…

But I do have a perfect costume in mind for when I finally get around to celebrating Halloween properly, one of these years. I want to dress up as Judge Doom from Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I would go with the crazy look at the end of the film. Rubbery skin, created with makeup, a bald cap with just a tumbleweed of blond hair at the top; false, unnaturally perfect teeth and florescent cartoon eyes applied right on top of my real eye sockets. The rest of it is just an old-timey black coat, gloves and a cane with a chrome skull handle. It will be awesome.

Did you dress up as a movie character this year? Who? Better yet, let’s see some pictures in your albums and links in the comments to this post!

Do it or I will tell the judge where you are…

REMEMBER ME, EDDIE?!!!!!

As you explore FilmNet’s vast reserves of films, you’ll notice: some people’s work stands out. Sure there are titles here produced by world class film schools with tons of resources, but there are just as many semi-professional short films made by modest means. You can tell they had the same type of equipment and the same amount of people at their disposal as you do on your productions, but their stuff is just so damn good…

It’s all about making your film excel equally in all aspects.

If you quickly throw together a script and shoot the movie beautifully, people will say, “This movie has beautiful cinematography.”

If you write the most dynamic and intelligent storyline ever, then get your shy friends to play-act it all amateurishly, people will say, “This movie has an interesting plot…”

But if you write a strong script, cast it well, shoot it beautifully and edit it professionally, then people will say, “This is a great movie.”

So here are some useful (and not always obvious) resources I highly recommend for making each aspect of your production better:

Writing/Planning/Pre-production

• http://www.script-o-rama.com – Some dude named Drew keeps a database of free movie and tv scripts it has been around for many years and it is vast. Chances are you can find and download any script you’re looking for there. What’s great is that some scripts are early drafts, showing how different the story was. A great way to study writing.
• The Screenwriter’s Bible by David Trottier – (available on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/yjynnrq). This unfortunately named book is widely used in film schools to help students grasp the rules of American movie script writing so that they can later break them. For this reason, it’s updated and republished regularly. It’s very insightful, easy to understand and covers everything from summoning your creative muse, to story structuring, to how many spaces the character’s name is indented in the dialogue block.
• http://www.ebay.com – Find shot lists, shooting schedules and call sheets from movies and TV shows that you like. Some former AD’s and PA’s are always selling them there. These are copies of actual documents used to make the final product. Study them, track how they organized and scheduled their massive productions, feel puny by comparison.

Production

• The Working Director by Charles Wilkinson – (available on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/ylanobu). This is one of the best books on directing I’ve ever read. No glamour, no hyperbole, just really practical advice by a veteran director successfully working in the trenches his entire career.
• http://wwww.google.com/docs – Don’t waste your money on fancy, specialized production software, at least until after you try Google Docs. The combination of Spreadsheets, Calendar and Tasks are a great solution for call sheets, scheduling and shot lists. Learn the features inside-out and use them. The best part: all your stuff is available when you inevitably lose your notebook in the chaos of a running set.

Post-Production

• http://www.videocopilot.net – If you deal with any kind of visual effects or graphics in your films, you have no doubt visited this site already. Andrew Kramer and team supply the internets with a wealth of incredibly useful tutorials for doing stuff in Adobe After Effects and other popular motion graphics software. They also sell unique and affordable plugins and stock material (effects elements, sound design and music). Plus you can’t beat Kramer’s hokey, absurdist humor.
• http://www.istockphoto.com – The most inexpensive stock photo and video site around, great for finding establishing shots and graphics elements in a variety of formats. If you have accumulated useful footage of your own which you think others might need, you can also submit it there and possibly earn some cash from downloads. Win-win (win).

Well, that should be plenty. Like an ancient Kung Fu master, I’m not going to reveal all my secrets in the hope that my pupil never surpasses me. Go forth and use these resources in your creative work, then upload it to FilmNet and show us!

Launching a community site, like FilmNet, is kind of like trying to put on a party… in a tiny apartment… in Bosnia. It’s not so easy to get the A-list crowd (or any crowd) to show up. The way we see it, our greatness is inevitable. But right now, we just need to build up some street cred.

And we can’t do it without you, our bestest friends in the whole world. We’ve put a lot of effort into developing the site and contacting people to be the initial set of users and contributors. Help us continue these efforts and become an early VIP at the greatest party ever.*

Build Buzz

Before we bust out into the public eye, we need to build some buzz. Tell people that FilmNet’s coming, that it’s likely to be very cool and whatever else you want to make up. You could say:

Yo, I heard Jay Z is gonna be there. Don’t tell anyone.

Or you could say something that’s true, like the fact that FilmNet will help small filmmakers to get their movies made with some unique project management and collaboration features; that the site will have tons of high quality films from the hottest content creators from around the world and that it will all play back in high quality and lightning-fast; that the site will have real-time features and a strong sense of community.

BYOC

Right now, the FilmNet party policy is BYOC – Bring Your Own Content. We need to keep filling the site up with some awesome indie films, web series and music videos as well as talented folks who own them and those who like to watch them.

So the deal is: if you want to be one of the first to see FilmNet, you’ve got to give us a video of yours. This gets you an account and eventual access to the beta site (when it’s live at the end of August) before anyone else! You will find your account and your published video(s) there and you can decide how you like everything long before the general public gets access.

The easiest way to join us is to fill out the form that’s on the landing page of http://www.filmnet.com right now and we’ll hook you up.

Holla at Us**

We have a Facebook Fan Page. Join it and share your thoughts! Is the idea of FilmNet interesting to you? Got any questions? Observations? Accusations? Please feel free to use our page as a place to vent. We’ll be here with a witty comment reply when you’re happy and a bucket of ice cream when you’re sad.

• Post on our wall
• Comment
• Promote your work with posts or pictures in our fan gallery

That’s about it. We’re gonna get back to work now. Thanks in advance to all!

Peace,
FilmNet

* Okay, maybe not the greatest party EVER, but a pretty damn good party. And we hope you understood that “party” is just a metaphor for our website. Don’t show up with Vodka and escorts at our offices. Well…
** We sincerely apologize for that horrible pun heading.