I am back in Los Angeles at the Directors Playhouse, with a special run of “Story Different” my script development workshop that keeps helping writers and filmmakers win festival awards.
There are new dates upcoming in August.
http://cinemahead.com/workshop-2/sd/
If you're in town, take a look at the calendar or just stop by.
You can always grab a podcast from the resource page
http://cinemahead.com/resources/podcasts/
I started talking to Adolf El Assal when he was posting his funny feature film “Les Fameux Gars”. “God’s Hand” is his earlier short, with some of the same actors.
the story:
An Argentinean immigrant living illegally for nearly half his life in Luxembourg must struggle daily for survival. Inspired partly by a quote from the late American auteur Orson Welles, the film depicts a loner who must fight his way out of the illusion that no one else exists around him.
MANO DE DIOS is an award-winning short film written, produced & directed by Luxembourg filmmaker Adolf EL ASSAL. Born in Egypt in 1981, El Assal grew up in Dubai, London and Luxembourg, where he set up his company, Independent Spirit Productions. After over 60 music videos and mini-docs, he began to make “no-budget” guerilla films.
you can see the whole film for .99c on Vimeo, which I have never done myself, but supporting awesome makers like Adolf is rarely a bad idea.
Right after college I worked for an IBM subsidiary in Europe as a PC salesmen. The company has radically transformed itself from a hardware box-moved to a solution-oriented innovator. From boxes to answers. That’s the way to go.
What makes a good game or a strong screenplay?
Both should be simple, engaging, and offer irresistible rewards.
Play this fresh original classic by the Mat Teubert. Hurry, before the work buries you and summer is lost.
http://pixelbreakfast.com/outbox
For more on story development stop by www.cinemahead.com
From the Hollywood reporter:
Steven Spielberg predicted an “implosion” in the film industry is inevitable, whereby a half dozen or so $250 million movies flop at the box office and alter the industry forever. What comes next — or even before then — will be price variances at movie theaters, where “you’re gonna have to pay $25 for the next Iron Man, you’re probably only going to have to pay $7 to see Lincoln.”
George Lucas agreed that massive changes are afoot, including film exhibition morphing somewhat into a Broadway play model, whereby fewer movies are released, they stay in theaters for a year and ticket prices are much higher. His prediction prompted Spielberg to recall that his 1982 film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial stayed in theaters for a year and four months.
The two legendary filmmakers were speaking at the University of Southern California as part of the festivities surrounding the official opening of the Interactive Media Building, part of the USC School of Cinematic Arts.
Lucas and Spielberg told USC students that they are learning about the industry at an extraordinary time of upheaval, where even proven talents find it difficult to get movies into theaters. Some ideas from young filmmakers “are too fringey for the movies,” Spielberg said. “That’s the big danger, and there’s eventually going to be an implosion — or a big meltdown. There’s going to be an implosion where three or four or maybe even a half-dozen megabudget movies are going to go crashing into the ground, and that’s going to change the paradigm.”
Lucas lamented the high cost of marketing movies and the urge to make them for the masses while ignoring niche audiences. He called cable television “much more adventurous” than film nowadays.
yoko says: active meltdown!
This is a repost of a Yoko Ono campaign from the Guardian. Grab your busy, inspired, crazy, shining life by the horns and say what think and show what you feel. About activism, apathy and silence of course. About personal passion for the places where Big Global meets Local and personal. Making one minute of honest media a day may also (eventually) lower unemployment levels (yours)…
https://witness.guardian.co.uk/assignment/51af32ffe4b0ae18e994afa7?INTCMP=mic_2029
Check out micro documentary films here
Check out this article in my blog series about the Death of Cinema.
This is from the New York Times page. the article itself is not so revealing of any deep insights: Hollywood is data-analyzing films to predict box-office success. Like Netflix, Facebook or any other interactive service, use and preferences can and will be used for (or against) you. What is worth reading is the set of 300+ comments to this article, showing how many filmmakers hold different views.
Here is one comment, verbatim, the others you should check out yourself.
Pure Snake Oil
When you hire execs who can’t read a script, have no movie, literature, or artistic insight or training, you create a mentality that everything can be measured by meta-data and statistics. The best film experience is an emotional experience, connecting to the heart and soul of an audience. These are not the elements that an algorithm can measure, it’s a measure of humanity itself. It’s art. Why do multimillion dollar projects fail while there was a line around the block to see My Big Fat Greek Wedding? Answer– an emotional connection to the audience. While embracing statistics and algorithms to seek a formula for success and profit, these clueless execs are banking on failure.
What would happen if a teenage science genius invented a simple and cheap way to alleviate (or solve) earth’s energy needs? Could it affect climate changes?
What story do you see? An action film about the powerful who own and protect the sources of power and profit? Celebration of ingenuity and youth genius with optimism?
Or an ego-driven idea/dream/fraud that could never see deployment, let alone commercial standing?
PREMISE: what if a young scientist discovers a useful and safe nuclear power-source but is antagonised, challenged, and threatened by those in power to the point that, in order to survive, he must give up his altruistic ideas.
Come to the Cinemahead forum and contribute to this story in the making.
Is there enough conflict for a script here?
Is the kid hero interesting?
Does he have the will it takes?
Are the stakes high enough for crowds to care?
Does what happens with glocal nuclear energy matter?
to the core!
d