Leading the Celebration at Sinema Hot Sun

Joskey as the main MC? I did not see this coming. I was to be the official social networking person, only to be reshuffled to this new position a day to the event. I did not think I’d make a good MC despite having been a speaker on several occasions.

Just note, being a speaker in any forum is very different from being an MC even in the same forum, an MC should lead the “celebration” read, celebration mood :-)

How did I make it?

·      Arrived to the venue 2 hours early to prepare myself; TIP it always good to arrive early and see the room empty, it gives you courage when the crowd fills in, try it.

·      Had been part of the organizing team, so I understood well the event; Avoid instances of being handed a prepared program and u are told to follow it, ask to be involved in the planning.

·      Good communication with my fellow MCs. We had different abilities, and so we utilized them well.

MC "Loly P" looking on as the raffle tickets are being "mixed" for a draw

·      Prior preparation with the whole team; developing a culture of Preproduction

·      Above all we worked as a team

·      You have to be always thinking 2 steps ahead of your crowd

Best MC team: Max, Joskey and Lolly P

Screenwriting: Rewrites, Rewrites, Rewrites

It always help to have a specific plan, no matter what phase or stage of filmmaking you’re in.



Pre-Write The writing before the writing. There are workbooks that specialize in helping you through this process, but for me, it simply means I write detailed character descriptions and a lengthy synopsis, which is something more akin to a treatment. This process, not to be all spooky and arty, is very spiritual for me. I try to let the characters come into their own, with as little intervention from me as possible. The story naturally takes shape after that.  You should note that I do not write an outline here. That comes later...

First Draft This part is the most fun for me. I lock myself away for a few days and just write. And write and write and write. I churn out ninety pages or so, but at the very least, I make sure I have three complete acts. I don’t worry that much about formatting (though I do use screenwriting software, so a lot of the formatting is done for me), grammar, spelling, or anything else. I just let the story flow.



Break I step away from the script. Leave it and let it simmer for a while in my mind. I might read a book, or maybe write something else. Basically, I do anything to move the script at hand from my conscious mind to my subconscious mind so I can start working things out on autopilot.

Second Draft This phase starts with writing the outline. Yes, I outline the script after I've done the first draft. What this does for me is help me to analyze the story and identify plot holes and weaknesses. It helps me add structure, where I was freeform in the first write.  Then, I go back through the script and add or subtract as needed. I do a dialogue “rinse,” just catching the obvious stuff like radio dialogue and forced exposition. I also may rephrase some of my action to make it a little more interesting.

Break I take another one. You may not need it, but it helps me to frequently step away from writing on a particular project.



Rewrite Yep. The whole thing. I basically revisit the story and make sure that I still love the characters and the various story arcs they go through. I change character names, do a dialogue wash, work on my references, and just make sure the script is...readable. If I'm writing it for someone else, I make sure that it's what they're looking for, or if I'm writing it to sell it, I make sure it's sellable. Thankfully on my current project, I'm only writing for me and my producers, so this step is fairly easy.

Break Okay, so this one serves a specific purpose. I let people read the script. People I trust. People who will be honest with me. They'll tell me if it held their interest or if it didn't, and if the characters are appealing or not. The notes I get back on this break are invaluable to the writing process.



Final Draft And here it is. The end. This is the step that I just finished on my current script. I use the notes that I got on my last break to make the script better, stronger, faster. The main purpose of this writing is trimming the fat. I make the script as lean as possible. If you're an indie director writing your own movie, this step is incredibly valuable, as the leaner your script is, the less you have to shoot.

It's better to leave pages in the trash than film negative on the cutting room floor. And even if you’re shooting digital, the notion that you can just turn the camera on and let it go forever is a sloppy way to shoot. You should always have discipline when you shoot.



So there you have it:  the insanity of my writing process. In the meantime, the fundraising is going so-so. We've been using social media to raise micro-gifts for the initial fundraising phase, and we've had many generous people participate, but we're nowhere near our goal yet.

And this is okay. Part of indie art is learning as we go. And you know what? So is this series. So I'm going to share the bad with the good. We'll figure it out, we will raise the money needed, and we will shoot our project.



Danial James is a media & marketing professional who is in early stages of development on his first feature-film. Contact him at   dan@redhouseprod.com

Acting for the Camera: Creating the Character

The biggest challenge every actor will ever face is the ability to create a believable character.

Anyone can memorize lines while others use creative costumes, props or special effects to bring their characters to life. The truly great actors, however, separate themselves from the pack by going the extra yard and creating their characters from the inside out.

Acting, basically, is the ability to become ‘someone else.' If all actors are technically accomplishing this with each role they undertake – what separates the good actors from the great ones?

To simplify things, creating character boils down to 3 basic rules of thumb:

1. COMMITMENT: This is not just about making a commitment to the film you are contracted to making but to also commit to your fellow actors and the subject matter. The best actors take it a step further and challenge themselves with an internal commitment to their own character.

“Most actors don’t think about how to make their portrayals unique and specific to each role they play, but great actors do.” – Sir Laurence Olivier

2. BASE YOUR CHARACTERS ON REAL PEOPLE: Most character actors talk about spending a lot of time observing other people, and either base a character on one particular individual or piece a character together by drawing various aspects from different people.

A recent example of this was actor Daniel Day-Lewis in his Oscar-winning turn for “There Will Be Blood”. The character had already been created as a fictional one originally written by Upton Sinclair in the novel the film was based upon. To make this character his own, Day-Lewis wanted to create a manner of speaking that was unique. To do so, he imitated the speech pattern of late director, John Huston (whom he had never met but had seen interviews of) and thus made the character of Daniel Plainview more than what was written in the script.

3. FINDING ASPECTS OF YOURSELF THAT ARE SIMILAR TO THE CHARACTER:  Create convincing characters by combining a character model and appropriate aspects of yourself. This is not the same for everyone – as each actor brings a different life experience to bear every time they are challenged with finding the common center between themselves and their characters.

You will then find actors like the late, great Marlon Brando who needed his character experiences to be fresh each and every time. After a successful career on the stage, Brando wanted to bring that same freshness to his film personas. Later on in his career, Brando would refuse to memorize lines from a script and actually had crew members hold cue cards just out of camera sight so that he could read his lines in that manner and thereby make his personal response to the character and lines extremely fresh and honest every time.

Not everyone has the luxury of taking Drama classes or witnessing a great actor creating a character before their eyes. The challenge you should undertake the next time you’re at the cinema is to become more engaged and try to take note of those actors who are giving you a ‘real’ experience as opposed to those that look like they are just going through the motions.

Preproduction: How to Make Sure You're Ready Before You Walk on the Set

In the world of independent filmmaking, it’s easy to assume that more money can make any problem go away. But most filmmakers--independent or mainstream—will readily admit that nothing derails a project faster than being unprepared before the production begins.

It’s tempting to think that the $20,000 budget that you’ve scraped together through loans, personal savings and credit cards—and possibly an illegal act here or there—will trump readiness. It’s not true. So many films don’t get made because of poor planning, or just assuming that you can make it up as you go. Granted, it’s much easier to shoot now with digital as opposed to film, but it should be fairly obvious that you can’t just turn on the camera and film until the battery dies. Because the work that you’ve put in during pre-production will help in post, when you’re editing, looping sound, or trying to figure out how the boom ended up in all of those shots.

Who’s Working on Your Film?

Are they dependable? Fellow film students are one thing, but if you’ve got money in a production, you’re going to need to have a reliable crew, a crew schedule, and stick to it. And your shooting script and shot sheet should be accurate and up to date and readily available to those who need it. It's also wise to have people that you can collaborate with and who will give you an honest opinion. Many independent filmmakers have a singular vision when they're writing and getting ready to shoot their movie and they may not readily accept different ideas.

Things change, of course, but being as professional as possible will make things go much more smoothly. And if you’re not paying the cast and crew, it’s still a cardinal rule to feed everybody.

One thing that Josh Banville, who completed the documentary "A Life Taken," found out was to only include the names of people who actually participated on his film. In an effort to make his film seem less like a one man production (which it was), Banville gave his father (who did loan him money for a computer) credit as a producer. The film told the story of how a Boston man was wrongfully convicted of murder and sent to prison, and eventually the city subpoenaed Banville's rough cut and hard drives because Shawn Drumgold, the subject of the documentary, filed a lawsuit. They also served a subpoena to his father.

"I had to explain to them that he was in fact not a producer," Banville said.

Locations

A lot of independent films suffer because they look like independent films. They use limited locations, and the ones they use always somehow end up being familiar looking apartments or abandoned industrial sites. Guerilla filmmaking can be fun and interesting-- provided that’s the look you’re going for. But you might not want to put that cop that happens to be chasing you in your movie, just because he wound up in the frame.

Rocky Yost, a longtime independent filmmaker, has gotten the most out of limited funds while using multiple locations.

“So many low budget films, are 80%, 90% three rooms,” he said. “If you go out every once in a while and get an exterior…Everybody asked me, ‘how in the hell did you do all that (have multiple locations, and a courthouse for the climactic scene of his film, “Lilly’s Thorn,”) and what did it cost you?’ I made a $200 donation to the courthouse.” The key is, if you have a serious production, many cities or towns will work with you. Contact your state’s film office to get pointed in the right direction.

A key to not wearing out your welcome while on location, Yost says, is to “not run into their house forty times with the crew; do not wear them out with bathroom trips.” He says to always bring your own Porta-John.

Read-throughs

When you’ve finished your script, try and get all the principles together for a read through. Michael Matzdorff, who has worked as an editor in film and television for a decade plus, recently directed his first feature, “Feed the Fish.” And while Matzdorff spent more than a year on his script, when he and the crew were ready to shoot, he felt like more work could still be done on it.

When asked what he would have changed about the process of writing and directing his first independent film, he said, “The main thing is to spend more time with the script, because there were a few things that were a little too cute, gags that worked on paper but did not work on the screen. And have at least three read-throughs of the script with professional actors.”

Storyboarding and Rehearsing

Domenica Scorsese has three short films to her credit, and is looking to eventually direct features. Scorsese has studied the business almost her entire life, both from in front of and behind the camera. In the course of making short films, on tight budgets and with compressed shooting schedules, it is important for her to know as much beforehand as possible.

Even though her first film, “A Little God,” was seven minutes long and had no dialogue, she said, “I storyboarded. I wrote down beats and location scouted. I went through and shot listed so I took all the prep time I could so that we could move and shoot at a better ratio, but also cover the ground that needed to be covered.”

For her latest short, “Roots in Water,” production designer David Stein set up a model of the house Scorsese used in Maine so she could “literally take photo storyboards so I could show the cast what we were dealing with.” This enabled the cast to rehearse at night and be prepared for the next day, as they had only three days on that particular location.

Don’t Assume You Can Fix it in Post

"If you don't put the time in during prep or you cut corners around the necessary equipment, you're going to put the time and money in during post and hope that you come out with maybe a silk purse that may be a really jazzed up sow’s ear,” Scorsese said. “Seeing just how much can be done with Final Cut Pro and then see what happens in (Adobe) After Effects and then to go to have an hour of color correct on the Da Vinci Suite and say, ‘okay, while you can isolate out that particular shade of green in the tree…’ but at the same time, if the raw footage is really not there you can’t build on it.”

It Will Be More Expensive Than You Thought

It’s not rocket science. Filmmaking—even independent filmmaking—is expensive. And as an independent filmmaker, those costs are direct. You can end up eating a big part of the budget if an investor doesn’t come through, or if a piece of equipment breaks, or you try and do something overly ambitious.

Says Scorsese, “One of the things that I've experienced as an actor, and also I've seen my friends go through, for preproduction and through production, is that we have enough for post and then there'll be two or three other things in post where you'll go, ‘Oh okay, got to go in and fix that,’ and I've now learned to basically go it's probably going to be a third more expensive than I thought it was going to be on the end of post. There is what something looks like on paper and then there are the variables.”