First off, I would like to apologize in advance for this one. I went on sort of a Harry Potter binge this weekend and watched all five movies over the course of two days and my brain is a little scrambled. I can’t believe that after five movies, Ron still hasn’t made a move on that Herminy (did I spell that right? Don’t really care.) chick. Christ man, what do you need, a written invitation?! Also, there’s clearly not enough drug use for this to be a movie about a bunch of kids. Although, I’m convinced that, the divination teacher has got to be on something. I wonder if there’s a deleted scene where she’s smoking out Dumbledore? In all seriousness though, for what they are, those movies are amazing. They are all really well done. Pretty much every aspect of those movies is at the very least, great. Anyway, sorry again.
In my last post I talked about an old short film that I did titled The Wake Up. It really got me thinking about my first short film, Firework De La Muerte. What a pile of crap that short film was. It was roughly an eight page script with the same joke told four times. Really, the joke wasn’t funny the first time and it sure wasn’t funny the 4th time. For that one we shot in a department store which shall remain nameless, without asking anyone. We just sort of got somebody with a red shirt and went with it. That was gorilla film making to the extreme. To be honest, nobody really cared. If I was an employee making minimum wage, I don’t think I would really care either. I think the worst part about Firework De La Muerte is that when it was done, I thought it was great. But then when other people watched it, they didn’t laugh. At first I was in denial. Like there was something wrong with everyone else. Finally, I realized that it really did just suck something awful. It was kind of a slap to the face. But it was necessary. I remember the first time I watched it, without my head up my ass. I just sat there watching it in absolute shock at how bad it really was. After watching it, I actually said out loud.
“O my God…… That sucked.”
There is no place to see Firework De La Muearte, nobody will ever see it. It belongs in the depths of a hard drive, where nobody will ever find it. I think I might of actually deleted it off of my external hard drive. I do still have the prop firework though, made of cardboard, that egg crate stuff you put on a mattress, and duct tape. The prop was actually kind of glorious, I have to say. It was a giant somewhat rocket shape covered in duct tape.
While Firework De La Muearte is an awful short film, it really was something that I needed to do, to get where I am. Now, Censored is playing in festivals all over the place, I’m close to finishing Do Nice Guys Finish Last, and I have a lot of big and exciting projects on the horizon. This sort of leads in to my next topic. I finished up fancy new laurels for Censored:
Technically, the SoCal Film festival hasn’t happened yet, but we have been selected.
I watched 2 episodes of Science of the Movies last night. That show is a big reminder of what I don’t have access to. One episode was all about different moveable camera mounts. There was this gigantic camera mount that had 12 points of axis that you could program to do motions over and over again. It’s basically so you can layer two shots on top of each other. Since the motion of two shots match perfectly, the two shots together look seamless. I honestly had no clue that’s how it was done. All of my split screen shorts were pretty much that, minus the motion. I didn’t realize it, but I kind of stumbled on the early meathod of special effects. That’s kind of cool. I find that I do that a lot actually. It’s kind of weird. I don’t know if I hear about it somewhere else and subconsciously make myself feel like I thought of it, or if I really do come up with concepts that just happen to match what’s already out there.
I am meeting with a script writer today to discuss Project X. By spreading the word through my contacts, I’ve actually got some people interested. Now all I need is a roughly $5000, an HD Camera, locations, equipment, skill, and food. Huh. Anyway, yeah, I’m going to be focusing on that. It’s tough to juggle everything though. Nice Guys Finish Last is almost done. That’s going to need to go out to festivals and Censored is still going. By the way, I submitted to something a while back called the SoCal Film Festival. I really hope I get accepted to that. That would be awesome. Mainly because they would be holding it right near my house. I could probably go to every night of that if I wanted to. It’s literally a 10 minute drive vs an hour+ drive to the festivals Censored has been accepted to. I would really like Censored to screen somewhere outside of California. Don’t ask me why, I just think it would be cool. Every time you get accepted to a festival they send you these little acceptance things:
Like that guy right there. I suppose can put those on the DVD’s that I send out to other festivals as sort of a selling point. Imagine if I get selected for all 4 of the other festivals I entered? That will be 7 total. That will look kind of insane. You also get one if you’ve been nominated for or win an award at a festival. Strictly Background had like a bajillion acceptance ones and 6 Best Documentary Award winners. These things are actually called Laurels. Every festival does them. At least as far as I can tell, every festival does one. I think they are kind of official and regal looking. It’s kind of neat to have these. Sort of like a digital trophy. Hopefully when Nice Guys Finish Last is done it gets it’s own collection of them.
EDIT(7/29/2009- 3:32PM) – I just got an acceptance E-mail from the SoCal Film Festival. That kicks so much ass. I’ll give you guys all the details in tomorrows post.
Last night, I went to the SAG building in LA to watch Strictly Background. It’s a documentary on extras. I didn’t know this before, but people make a living by just working as extras. This movie is about 10 extras trying to get by. First off it was an unbelievable documentary. I really enjoyed it. I don’t think I’ll ever look at extras the same again. I suppose you lose sight of it sometimes, but those people in the background moving around are actually people. The documentary was kind of a jolt of a reminder of that. I was just surprised that this sort of thing was a full time job. I had no idea. Some people are in it just because they love to be extras, others are in it because they want to be actors and they want something more out of it. It was all really entertaining, funny at times, and emotional at others. Afterwards there was a QA with the cast and crew.
I thought that was awesome, aside from the mouthy bitch in the audience that would not shut the hell up and kept asking bullshit questions that nobody else cared about. There always has to be one, doesn’t there? After her third question I thought about smacking her in the back of the head with a chair or something. Anything to shut her the hell up. At one point she tried arguing with a casting director about how to make it in the industry. Uhmmmmm, what? He’s a been a casting director for 10+ years and you’re some mouthy bitch who can’t even get extra work. Who do you think is going to win that battle? That would be like me and Neil Armstrong sitting in a space ship and me looking over at him and saying
“No offense Neil. But you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
Anyway, you can Netflix it or buy it on DVD. I would high recommend it, it’s an awesome documentary. It’s very well done. I actually took a friend with me that usually hates Documentaries and he even said it was really good. It’s won 6 best documentary awards at various festivals. Seriously, there’s no reason not to check it out. You can check out the web site here. There’s a link there to buy it on DVD. For those aspiring film makers out there, it’s a good side view of the industry.
After the viewing they let everyone mingle with the cast and crew. For some reason, if I see someone on screen, no matter how big or small the movie or short film is, I am insanely nerveous when I meet that person. My mind goes blank and all I can do is smile and tell them how awesome I thought they were. They all probably thought I was on prozac or something. I met the director and producer, I was fine. Told him it was an awesome documentary, we talked a bit. I met the extras that were featured in the film and it was all smiles and blankness. It must be like a mental thing. I think if I keep going to these film festivals and expose myself to it more and more I’ll probably eventually get used to it.
One of my many goals is to get on the set of a short film or film by a film maker that’s way better then me just to see how they do it. Even if I’m just standing there with my thumb up my ass starring at everybody, I think it will give me good insight on how everything is supposed to work.
I’ve been seeing a steady increase in traffic on my site. That’s kind of exciting. I was thinking about trying to get some interviews with directors, producers, and possibly an actor. It really is true that sometimes all you have to do is ask. Worst they can say is “Fuck off cock lick.” Wow, that’s pretty harsh. That actually kind of stings. There it goes, it just passed, see, I’m fine. In reality, I would probably get some sort of legal jargon back that translated in to “No, you’re stupid, stop bothering me.” I think if I can handle a rejection letter from a film festival, I can handle a rejection letter from a famous person.
Have you ever been in a situation where you’re in some sort of a contest and everyone around you is winning awards except for you? And your thinking (or saying) “What the hell is wrong with these people?! My stuff is way better then this!” Then something truly crappy wins and you’re completely outraged? Hate to tell you, but it’s not because everyone else is crazy, it’s because whatever you entered in to the contest sucked. I am actually totally guilty of this. I entered a 24 hour film festival a while back that chose not to show my short in the final screening. Me and the three people involved were totally outraged. Looking back at it now though, it wasn’t because the judges were biased, or because the other teams cheated, or because I knocked up one of the judges daughters, it was because my short film sucked. It was shot on a shitty little standard def camera with no boom mic. It had two actors in it that had never acted before (myself being one of them). The third actor was good, but really, how good can you be when you have all of that bad working against you? When I finally owned up to the fact that my short film sucked, I could learn from it. I could sit back and figure out what I had done wrong. Which was far more valuable and got me much further in my development as a film maker. Best advice I can give you is to go out there and fail. Fail and learn from it.
So, we have a first cut on Nice Guys Finish Last. It came out pretty good. It’s 18 minutes long. Right off the bat, I see a couple things that would shave off like a minute or two. Either way, I don’t think the festival version will be having any credits in it. Gabe did a pretty good job on the first cut. I think there are some other takes that I would like to experiment with. Apparently Gabe had a tough critic in the room while he was editing last night. Someone he doesn’t know was saying stuff like “What is this? Are you guys in high school or something?” I kind of wish I was there for that. I say, tear it to shreds, I want to know the people that hate it and why they hate it. If she could give me 20 specific, valid reasons why it was bad, I would want to hear all of them. Only way you’re going to get better is if people tell you what you did wrong. On the plus side, she did say that some stuff was funny. Gabe said there were scenes where she actually said “OK, that’s funny.” Anyway, the first cut is a good start. Apparently I forgot that one of the cameras had a polarizing lense on the front of it. Some of our outdoor scenes look a little off but that’s ok, we can fix that with some color correction. I was actually surprised, but Gabe usually stuck with one shot for an entire scene, so it really wasn’t that big of a deal. It shouldn’t take us too long to correct it. The colors are fine in doors, it’s just a couple of the outdoor scenes that look a little off.
I wrote a blog yesterday about the book I’m reading, How Not to Make a Short Film. The author of the book (Roberta Munroe) responded to my blog in a comment. The Internet, let me tell you. That’s the second author I’ve had communication with this month. Sometimes I forget that the little name on the bottom of the book is actually a person. You can check out the comment in my last blog, she had some words of wisdom for aspiring film makers. It was all good stuff. I wonder if Kevin Bacon will ever respond to my Bacon Dick blog. Probably not. I wonder if he would be pissed? If I were a celebrity, I would take the Bill Murray approach. Apparently if someone recognizes him, he does some sort of weird dance followed by a bunch of random acts then says “Nobody will believe you” and then runs off. I’m sorry, but that is genius. I want him to adopt me. I’m 27, but still.
Yesterday, I found an awesome site for royalty free music. Check it out: Inomptech Royalty Free Music
The search feature is great. You can search by musical genre or the mood of the music that you’re looking for. I was extremely surprised by the amount of quality music that’s on there.
I need money to make my new short film. Plain and simple. In the past I’ve resorted to selling my personal belongings. I sold a couple old cameras, video games, furniture, computers, really whatever I could get my hands on. I think I can make my new project for roughly $2000. Things I haven’t tried yet are selling sperm and blood. I should try to sell some blood, I have O-, which everyone can take. Obviously, God wanted me to sell blood, so I can make this short film. I’ll have to look in to that. I’m not sure how I feel about donating sperm. I would feel really sorry for the woman who gets that sperm. It would almost be like playing a really cruel joke on someone. I think one of me is enough.
I’ve been reading this new book called How Not to Make a Short Film by Roberta Marie Munroe. She’s done just about everything on a short film and used to be a programmer for Sundance. Needless to say, her advice is valuable. She’s already listed a couple things that I’m guilty of. For one, when submitting your short film to festivals, don’t put your companies logo in the front of it. Nobody has heard of your company and furthermore, nobody cares what the name of it is. I’m totally guilty of this. There are a couple things in the book that I don’t agree with though. In one section there are different budget brackets. The first bracket is $11,000. That’s the first bracket. They slowly ascend to $75,000. Basically what that tells me is that according to this book, you can’t make a decent short film for under $11,000. It lists all of the equipment and crew you need. I totally and completely disagree with that. $11,000 for a short film is bloated to me to say the least. Robert Rodriguez shot El Mariachi for $7000 and most of that budget was spent on the camera. And that was an 80+ minute long movie. The example the book uses is a 15 page short film. And it’s using the time frame of a 2 day weekend shoot. Maybe I missed something in the interpretation, but that’s what I’m getting out of it. Later on in the chapter there is an interview with a film maker who made a successfull short film for roughly $4500. One of the things listed in the $11,000 budget is a continental breakfast for a 35 person crew. Go to the supermarket, buy some fruit, get some yogurt, granola, some bread to toast, little orange juice, some bagels, put someone who will work for free on food prep duty, and there’s your continental breakfast. Better yet, go to Togo’s and order a sand which platter, they’re like $40, I do it all the time. Also, 35 person crew?! Are you serious? That seems bloated to say the least. I shot Censored with an 8 person crew and I had no clue what I was doing and that seemed bloated and that’s been accepted to festivals. I shot Nice Guys Finish Last most of the time with a 4 person crew. I shot Say Something with a 5 person crew and it cost me like $100, if even that. That was an 8 minute long short film that all of my teachers(who were industry professionals) thought was great. Maybe I’m just not at the level she’s at yet, but Jesus Christ. If Robert Rodriguez can make a good movie for $7000, I can make a 15 minute short film for way under $11,000. I think, anyone can shoot anything they want for free, they just have to know the right people and make the right moves. Don’t get me wrong, Roberta Marie Munroe is a smart lady and she wrote a great book. I would recommend How Not To Make a Short Film to anyone. It’s got some good stuff in it, I just can’t agree with that one point.
On to my next order of business. Is anyone in the market for blood and/or sperm? I’m selling.
What do you do to get in to the film industry? Do you go to school and get a masters? Do you get a job as a file clerk or something for a studio and hope for the best? Do you just keep making short films and entering them in to film festivals and hope someone discovers you? Do you shoot a pilot and pitch it to different people?
I’m not sure. I’ll let you know when I figure it out.
So, The Los Angeles United Film Festival showed my short film, Censored last night along with another short film and a feature length documentary. Censored was on first and it got a respectable amount of laughs and applause at the end. Still, I couldn’t help but think “I can do better then this.” The laughs were there and everyone seemed entertained but I want something funny to a point where it’s unforgettable. Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud of Censored and I think it’s a great short film. But I’ll probably never make something that I think is absolutely perfect.
Now, on to the other two films Censored was showing with.. The other short film was funny. It was animated. I really do wonder how many other shorts and features played that weren’t either animated or documentaries. Am I missing something here? Are all independent films becoming documentaries or animated? Maybe it’s just cheaper and easier to do things that way. I mean if it’s animated, you don’t need lights, or boom mics, or blocking really. You can do most of it on a PC or Mac. Anyway, the one that played with my short film had some big laughs in it. It was funny. The documentary we saw was an interesting subject. Masturbation, which I can relate to. It was a test screening so they still have some editing and tweaking to do. But I really do think they have something there. It was interesting. I could really see it showing on Showtime or HBO. And honestly, if I was flipping through the channels and happened to see it, I would probably watch it. Maybe I’m an idiot for this, but I thought the title was Unfinished Documentary on Masturbation. I thought it was a clever title. I laughed when I first heard it. I was kind of disappointed to find out that it wasn’t. Maybe I’m a retard for that, but whatever.
You know what I did notice at the film festival? Nobody bashes anyones film. You’ll hear constructive criticism, but never a “that sucked.” It’s the good kind of criticism. While we are all in direct competition with each other at times, this industry and craft is tough enough as it is without the pissing or dick measuring contest that sometimes ensues in a competitive atmosphere.
My final take on all of it? Well, the film festival was awesome. Being given the opportunity to have so many people view my short films at once was an amazing experience. So, I think I need to submit to more film festivals. Why not, right?
