Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: aspiring filmmaker, casting calls, creative talent, film, filmmaking, Free, Now, short, Star, Vimeo
Getting anyone to give up their time and work for free is difficult, especially getting a stranger to give up their time and work for free to work on a short film for an aspiring filmmaker who will likely amount to nothing. It is however, the key to creating engaging stories. I like to think that I can tell an OK story. Why would I try to be a filmmaker if I couldn’t? What I believe will help me move from creating OK stories to great stories, is by utilising the talents and skills of others involved in the process of screen production. Film/video is a collaborative process after all. Getting creative people is difficult. I’m not in the film industry, I don’t have many contacts or networks to call upon. Getting creative people for free is even more difficult. Here are my thoughts on securing the help of others if you are in the same boat:
1. To get people interested enough to be involved in whatever part of the filmmaking process that you need help with, you need to be able to back up your claims of ‘if you work with me, you will be creating a great film’. I was as transparent as possible on ‘Journey From Madness’, and presented the full script to anyone who would be interested in reading it. Local based professionals, online talent, whoever I sent it to, I went back to the story and made sure it was as good as I could get it. So..give your script one last read through.
Star Now offers a good platform for finding other creatives
2. Reaching people who have some creative talent and can help contribute to your project is difficult. There are however, a number of online forums that I have personally had success with. Online casting directories such as Star Now offer a great platform to post casting calls for not just acting talent, but valuable crew as well. Here is a link to my most recent casting call, with over 60 applications. In it you can see that again, I have tried to be as transparent as possible and give as much information as possible. Other venues such as vimeo give you the opportunity to browse and post videos created by the users, and you can hunt down and communicate will sorts of creative types.
3. Whilst you may not be able to arrange payment, make sure that on your shoots/during post production that your cast/crew are as comfortable as possible and get lots of food/snacks/beverages together to keep everyone going. It really keeps the morale up, and gets to have a quick chat around the eskie or coffee dispenser.
4. Have fun. This should actually be number one I think. Oh well, too late. By making it an enjoyable day for all involved, you are more likely to get better performances out of everyone, and more importantly, secure some more of their time and effort in the future should you ever need it.
There you go, four simple ideas for trying to get some more creative input into your projects.
Nick
Filed under: Uncategorized
Ever wanted to hold a moustache? Well now you can! Simply make sure that you have a QR reader on your smartphone (NeoReader is a great free one), and see what I have say about movember!
Nick
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Whilst photographs are not strictly my domain, I do know a very talented photographer by the name of Kylie Daff, and inspired by some incredible imagery of hers, I wanted to create a cinemagraph. What’s a Cinemagraph you say? Well it’s a term coined by Kevin Burg and Jamie Beck over at photography blog From Me To You and uses an old file type to provide animation to a still photograph. To create these two test cinemagraph’s, that very talented photographer that I mentioned above took some video for me to experiment and play with last weekend during a shoot. I really love the idea of displaying a ‘living photograph’. Whilst some may look creepy and Harry Potter-ish with moving eyes, it really goes one step further in capturing emotion and blending two forms of art together. When I get a bit more time I will run through the process I followed.
Edit: You may need to click on the picture to see the full effect!
Nick
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http://www.pozible.com.au/index.php/archive/index/1725/description/0/9046.
Hands up if you have ever watched a short film? Not many in the world have in my opinion, but they can be a great for of entertainment on your phone, laptop, ipad etc which won’t demand much bandwith or much of your time. Visit the link above to learn about my new project and whether it is something that you may want to contribute to seeing.
Nick
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: capocci, combo, Music, pat, rockabilly, Video
Here’s a link for a music vid i provided some camera work on a little while back. The band is called Pat Capocci Combo, the music vid ‘baby sue’, and not a bad vid for a no-budget shoot! Congrats to the creative team.
It’s been a while since I’ve sat down and hit some words and stuff out for this blog. It is meant to have been a diary of sorts for my journey towards bigger and better things in the film industry. Perhaps then, it is perfectly ok that there have been no new posts, as there has been a halt on said journey for a while now. It could be easy to blame this on my day job, since my full-time work (of which I work hard at) takes up alot of my time, not just the 37.5 hours a week when I am physically in the office. The biggest factor on my inability to produce anything recently though has been money. I have moved house twice in the last 6 months, which of course takes a big toll on an pocket change one might have lying around. Add to that my very nice, yet very european and therefore expensive car has needed alot of work done. Upwards of $5000, again within the last 6 months, in fact.
So, these factors have all contributed to my procrastination into film land. I’m broke. Bankrupt. No loose change. In the red. Well, not really, but I have literally had ZERO cents to spend on my passion thus far. However, everyone everywhere has some financial struggle or pressure, yet still manage to do something worthwhile with their time. With that in mind, I am working on something big (well, not budget wise). I am filming it this weekend in fact.
I will create an entirely seperate blog for the project though, so in the meantime, better late than never….my new year’s resolution is to have a short film play in an international film festival (one that is recognisable).
Oh, also, I recently provided some DP skills as B Camera on a music video shoot for a musician called Pat Capucci:
Filed under: Screenwriting, Uncategorized | Tags: 7d, Brett, Canon, DSLR, Extra, Glidecam, HD, Movie, Trailer, Trousdale, Webfest
As mentioned previously, I have been working on a new concept for developing/emerging filmmakers. MovieExtra Webfest is holding an online competition to pitch a 7 part web series, with a winner picking up a $50,000 budget to produce the series. Now I don’t want to say too much about the project, it’s now with the competition judges to be determined as a finalist or not. What I will say is what is on the trailer information:
Insert Hero Here tells the story of Max, an over imaginative, yet kindhearted guy, who wishes life was more like Lord of The Rings, Star Wars, or Spiderman. Follow Max over just one epic day in his life, as he battles villains, monsters and phobias to win the heart of the woman he loves, Hayley. To do that, Max must stand up to Michael, Hayley’s unfit boyfriend, and retrieve a picture of Michael being unfaithful to her. A picture that has ended up in Michael’s possession. After being bullied for so long in his life, Max knows that this will be the one chance he has to make a difference in the world. To right a wrong. To prove his love. And all this whilst Max is dressed in his Live Action Role Play costume as a wood elf…
The idea itself was borne out of the combination of two things. A personal issue I had been dealing with terribly, as well as the learning of what a Live Action Roleplay Group (LARP) is, and that there are people who dress up and physically act out and play characters from a fictional setting in the real world. A kind of real-life world of warcraft type thing. I absolutely love this idea! To pretend to be someone else, to make-believe you are fighting an epic battle, to forget about the issues effecting you in real life is exactly what filmmaking is all about. It’s about emersion into a fictitious world.
And so I have crafted a story of seven parts, each to be no longer than 3 minutes long, telling the story of Max who escapes his uneventful life in fantasy, wishing he were as brave and as noble as some of the heroes he plays. As is always the way with me, I just had so little time to actually get a trailer together, that I had to settle for just 1 actor being available with the short notice I needed people on. Brett Trousdale played the part of Max for the trailer, which I actually view more as a screen test, as I aim to complete a short film around this story next year. I have worked previously with Brett on a couple of projects, and he is a fairly talented young actor, who listens to your ideas, and gives a bit of input too. That’s important.
I filmed the footage myself, with a Canon 7d, Sigma 18-50mm and Nikon 28mm glass, a tripod and glidecam 2000 pro and rode video mic. That’s it. There wasn’t time for lighting control, which is a shame since I think I could have made a great looking internal scene, but c’est la vie. A bit of Premiere Pro and After Effects work, and voila. An OK looking trailer. What’s next? Well the finalists are being announced over the next few days I believe. Fingers crossed, but as I mentioned, I now have a crackin’ story in my head that should see the light of day sometime in 2011.
View and vote for mine and other entries into the competition here: http://apps.facebook.com/moviewebfest/showentry?entryurl=%2Fcontests%2Fshowentry%2F650736&ref=mf
Nick
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- Even wizards can’t do everything
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- Firepower!
Filed under: Uncategorized
With the difficulties of starting off as an independent short filmmaker, having to self finance/produce my own stuff, I am looking forward to applying for a couple of grants this coming year, to help propel me upward & onward. In the meantime, I have put an entry together for “Your Big Break” – A competition run to produce an interesting 3 minute short film with the help of the New Zealand Tourism Board. 5 finalists will be flown to NZ, to shoot their short film with a budget of NZD$100,000 and the winner will be picked by Peter Jackson and have their short film screened in the US somewhere. Pretty cool opportunity. With pretty cool opportunities however, comes a lot of entries with over 1000 submitted I have been told.
Being the pessimistic realist I am, I clearly don’t expect to win or even come close to winning, but thought it was good exercise to put an quirky little script together.
View my entry here.
Nick
Well, A Problematic Delivery is still on YouTube and is still under consideration for the Aus Post 200 seconds filmmaking comp. I have now rested enough to begin my next project, a little experiment with a man with a superb cinematic eye and who I am lucky enough to call friend & DOP, Gavin Rawlings. He likes to look at the sun alot:
The idea was to test a few new camera techniques that we are interested in, to potentially incorporate them into future films.
In particular the use of a SnorriCam and stereoscopic filmmaking. Should be interesting…
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In an effort to document my attempts at entry into the Australian Film Industry, I have decided to post a blog like the young crazy kids do these days. I have opted against twittering my updates, because let’s face it, Twitter is shit.
Once any new project is being developed or completed, I shall aim to tell the world here, so that you may follow either my rise to stardom, or fall into desperation and the inevitable adult films I would make because of it.
Enjoy!
Nick
