Film Content Envelopes

What? A film content envelope?

Here's what I mean.

Should you have a film on Youtube, you could go straight out and say "Click on this Youtube link" and hope that people would click on the link and go through to your movies. This is how most poeple try to get someone to look at their work.

There is another way, and that is to create a film content envelope. by that, I mean to create an article and embed the link within the article. You could, for example, write an article called "10 Best Docs Of The Year" and make sure that  your documentary is one of the ones listed.

Of course there is peril attached. Before you can successfully do this, you need to follow the 10 Commandments Of Film Content Envelopes

So You Want To Be An Actor?

Lianne Silano is one of our fabulous interns and is also an actress-in-waiting. She has really impressed the Raindance team with her hard work and willingness to accept some of the most boring tasks imaginable at Raindance - like emailing each and every inquiry for our popular Saturday Film School - 30 - 60 different emails a day.

Imagine my delight when she put together an article of the 10 main acting schools and built a new article on the Raindance Film Festival website. And all this from a passing comment that I couldn't really remember a few of the main acting schools.

Read her: So You Want To Be An Actor and get informed yourself.

In Praise of Low Budget Filmmaking

I returned from Norway a last Sunday where I had my eyes opened to teh scenic splendour of that country, to the possibilities of filmmaking in Scandanavia, and of making movies on a minuscule budget as well.

While there I met so many talented and successful filmmakers, all clamouring to work with filmmakers from other countries.

I was interviewed by one of their glamorous journalists the day after I got back to London.

Read my interview titled:
In Praise OF Low Budget Filmmaking

Inception: A Movie about making Movies

Its been a week since I saw Christopher Nolan's Inception and it wasn't until last night that I decided that I had solved the ambiguous ending's meaning. I was 95% confident the character Cobb (DiCaprio) was still asleep. Then, I woke up this morning opened up Word and searched Google for some related articles and this particular piece (below) blew what I thought I knew away.

Inception compared to Fellini's 81/2

posted by Charlie Burroughs

I'm inspired

"Pi" to "The Wrestler" He's responsible for some of the decades most startling movies - agree?

Then I read Darren Aronofsky's Scripts.

OMG

Humbling!

And Im off to Brussels for Raindance's Writing Low Budget class Monday/Tuesday

Music and Filmmakers

We all know music plays a vital role in the movies and how we perceive the protagonist rise or fall. In a scene in Office Space three computer programmers take their anger out on a fax machine in an open country field with a baseball bat. The slow motion drop kicks, homerun swings, and punches that gut the inanimate object are punctuated by a song by the 'Geto Boys'. It's the contrast between these nerdy white collared 30-somethings and a hard-core rap song that make this scene forever burned in moviegoers minds.

Raindance has some truly great takes on movies and music. Here are three that describe what goes into those magical scenes that make you laugh, cry, and fear for the characters on screen.

1. James Burbidge: 5 Things I learned about Film from Song Lyrics: Its a look at what a filmmaker must think when hearing meaningful songs on the radio and how those little memorable lyrics could fit in his next movie.
2. Sarah Romeo: Music Rights: The costs and licenses needed to put a great song at the right moment of your movie. Includes some low-budget options.
3. Charlie Burroughs: Top 10 Songs Performed by Music Characters: The best scenes where characters become artists and belt out the lyrics of famous songs.

"There is no paper jam why does it say paper jam":

Is Tim Burton Really Any Good?

I'm a Tim Burton fan. Not every movie, mind you. But most sort of nailed it for me. Alice in Wonderland was sort of 50-50.

I do believe that as a filmmaker, and as an artistic entrepreneur, that he has had truly one amazing career.

Don't you?

I've put all of his screenplay PDF's together in one convenient place. Why don't you go over and grab them before some lawyer sends me a take-down letter?

And judge for yourself.

The Tim Burton Suite

Music and Movies

by Sarah Romeo

Nothing sets the mood quite like music. Your film’s soundtrack can make or break the tone of your story, but acquiring the actual songs can be a daunting task. Read on for the ‘need to know’ in buying your movie’s tunes!

What Licences Do I Need?

If you have some tracks in mind for your film, the first step is to contact the music’s publisher—most singers and songwriters have little control over their own music, but their publishers will own almost all the rights. The best way to find out a publisher’s information is to look up the song you want on a site like Amazon, find the record label name, and find the appropriate contact information on the record label’s website.

Once in talks with the publisher, you’ll find out the different licenses you need to acquire. These licenses have different names depending on who you’re dealing with and where you’re making the deal.

Purchasing music rights in the UK or the US, you’ll usually need two licenses:

1) Publishing License - This one is from the publishers, or whoever holds the copyright to a pre-recorded composition. It gives you the right to synchronize a piece of music with your visual image. Some companies also refer to this is as a Synchronization License.

2) Recording License - by the person or persons who OWNS THE RECORDING. In many cases, actually frequently, this is a record label or recording major such as Sony, Warners, Universal, EMI, etc. To approach the Composer would be quite wrong unless the recording was an indy that the Composer had made themselves. However, for most commercially available music, it is a record label or recording company major that you are dealing with.

Some companies also refer to this as a Master Use License.

MUCH MORE TO LEARN FROM ROMEO

The Ebert Rules for Film Critics

Source: Chicago Sun-Times

Long time film critic Roger Ebert gives a laundry list of do's and don'ts for the film writer. Here were a few of my favorite rules.

Do the math. If one week you state, "'Mr. Untouchable' makes 'American Gangster' look like a fairy tale," and the next week you say, "American Gangster" was "Goodfellas" for "the next generation," then you must conclude that "Mr. Untouchable" is better than "Goodfellas."

Be wary of freebies. The critic should ideally never accept round-trip first-class air transportation, a luxury hotel room, a limo to a screening and a buffet of chilled shrimp and cute little hamburgers in preparation for viewing a movie. If you go, your employer should pay for the trip. I understand some critics work for places that won't even pick up the cost of a movie ticket, and are so underpaid they have never tasted a chilled shrimp. Others work for themselves, an employer who is always going out of business. Yet they are ordered to produce a piece about Michael Cera's new film. I cut them some slack. Let them take the junket. They need the food. Also, I admire Michael Cera. But if they work for a place that is filthy rich, they should turn down freebies.

I admit the Freebie Rule was a hard one for me to acknowledge. In the good old days, movie critics flew more than pilots. I flew first class to Sweden, Ireland, Hawaii, Mexico, Bermuda, Iran, Colombia, Italy, Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia. I was virtually on the Los Angeles shuttle. I flew to England in November for the filming of "Battle of Britain," and was whisked at dawn to a rainy WWII air field near Newmarket where I was able to stand for hours and freeze my ass off while watching the filming of a scene involving a dog gazing wistfully into the sky for its master's missing airplane. If someone had given me a chilled shrimp, I would have rubbed it between my hands to warm them.

No posing for photos! Never ask a movie star to pose with you for a picture. No movie star ever wants to do this. They may smile, but they're gritting their teeth. "It is the Chinese Water Torture," Clint Eastwood told me. "And 99 times out of a hundred, the stranger they hand their camera to looks through the lens, pushes the button, and says 'It isn't working!' and then the fan has to walk over to the guy and demonstrate the camera and say, 'now try it'. And then it isn't working again. Looking at someone looking puzzled at a camera, that's the story of my life."

Continue Reading

A Raindance Tweet

The 99 Most Jaw-Dropping Movie Moments

Source: Total Film

Courtesy of Total Film's website a list of the 99 most thrilling moments in movie history.

Can you name these moments? -

How Some Famous Directors Got Their Start

Source: Meredith Hicks, Raindance Intern

Ever wonder where Scorsese, Spielberg and Nolan got their starts?

Find out here

Pirate Radio Q&A

Source: Chicago Tribune

...In truth, "Pirate Radio" is about mid-1960s disc jockeys -- not television personalities -- and they're stuck on a boat off the coast of southern England. They're marooned by choice: Back then, as the film's intro credits remind us, because the BBC programmed such a limited amount of rock music (just less than hours per week), the popular alternative was for rock 'n' roll DJs to broadcast from ships anchored in the North Sea just beyond U.K. borders. Aptly named pirate radio ships broadcast the hit bands of the time -- the Who, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, the Kinks -- across the airwaves and into transistor radios tucked lovingly under the pillows of millions of adolescents up past their bedtimes. Including Curtis.

We sat down with Curtis and the film's young protagonist, played by Tom Sturridge, to find out what happens when a film's cast members are shipped away to "Boat Camp": the director's unique version of preproduction rehearsal.

Question: Tell me about Boat Camp.

Answer: Tom Sturridge- The notion of Boat Camp makes it sound like we did some intense military training before filming -- which it wasn't remotely. Boat Camp was more like, we all slept on the boat for three days, watched DVDs, got drunk and became friends. Which was amazing, but not in any way rigorous.

More Q&A

How To Start A Screenplay & The Rewrite

By Josh Golding

Nothing makes people more superstitious than talking about working methods. I had a student who told me she was fearful of “analysis blowing away the magic.” I can understand what she meant. It’s like asking where inspiration comes from – surely it’s something unique for everyone?

Ernest Hemingway had an interesting method for getting himself started in the morning. At the end of each working day, he’d grab all his pencils in his big fist and slam them down on the desk, breaking all the points. When he came in the next morning, he’d pull out a penknife and start to whittle them. When he’d sharpened four or five – six, if he had a hangover – he’d find himself reaching for one and beginning to write.

Grahame Greene’s credo was to get up from bed and go straight to his writing desk. He had to get going before the banality of everyday life interrupted his stream of consciousness.

Somerset Maugham, whose output was huge, told an amazed admirer that he only worked four hours a day. “Only four hours,” he admonished, “but never less.” Consistency is all – but each will have his own voodoo.

So where do you start with a screenplay? With a treatment, step outline, improv – or by just plunging in? I can’t tell you what will work for everyone, but I can tell you what works consistently for the writers I work with.

Some people start with a character, but no particular story. I advise them to write a scene that puts their character under stress. Hemingway defined courage as grace under pressure - what qualities does your character reveal when the going gets tough? How can you create a journey for them that brings out their inner qualities?

I advise you not to go too far with this exercise, though. Once you start writing dialogue, it’s all too easy to fall in love with your words – and find it hard to cut them, even when they have nothing do with your theme.

Continue Reading at Raindance

The 5 Steps To Rewriting

By Elliot Grove

An extract from his book Raindance Writers' Lab: Write + Sell the Hot Screenplay. Focal Press 2008

Just as writing your screenplay requires a method plus creative thought, so too does the task of marketing your screenplay. Try to market your screenplay without a plan, and plan to be confused. So see if you can follow the marketing plan.

Preparation

There are two things that writers hate – writers hate writing and writers really hate selling.

Unless you master the art of selling, you will never be a professional
screenwriter – no one will pay you for your work. And selling your work need not be a painful and dreaded experience. In fact, it can be a lot of fun, if you have a plan of attack.

These next chapters are designed to help writers who hate selling, sell their script. But you have to follow my little system. Let’s assume you have finished your script and are asking ‘Now what?’

1. Let it rest

Put your screenplay aside for at least two weeks. I like to let mine rest for a month. You want to leave it long enough so you forget it – so it seems fresh when you see it again.

Perhaps you will start working on your next project, or simply try to catch up on seeing as many films as you can. This is a sweet moment. You have actually written your screenplay. You still don’t want to show it to anyone, but at least you can announce that you are finished.

---

Hint: Rewriting is a crucial part of the writing process, but is often
approached incorrectly.

---

If you have done your homework and made a detailed plan, your first draft will be built on a solid foundation. Then determine exactly what the theme of the piece is. Make sure all scenes focus toward the theme. Ask yourself if there is a bolder, fresher, quicker way to say the same thing. Cut, cut, cut. Fix the dialogue last.

2. Character rewrite

Go through the script with a fine tooth comb and set aside anything that does not directly pertain to the goal of the main character.

When you read the script again, you will be amazed at how much energy it has. Look at your script and see if there is anything new you can add to the script, or perhaps you can retrieve and recycle some of the material you set aside earlier. Maybe that scene you thought was a great set-up to the page forty-five scene would work better as the page seventy-five scene, and so on.

3. Table reading – the dialogue rewrite

Continue Reading at Raindance

By: Lindsey Curran

So you know the basics of cinematography, but you’re having a hard time thinking of ways to give your shot a little more stylistic punch. What can you do?Well, next time you’re watching a favorite film, start thinking about the different camera angles you’re seeing. Unlike your eyes, a camera isn’t fixed in a certain position at a certain height off the ground. Developments in technology have made it possible for a camera to go just about anywhere. Here are just a few ways to start getting a little more adventurous with your cinematography.

1. High Angles
Get up on a ladder; shoot out a window, from a helicopter, anything. A birds-eye view allows a perspective that is completely new and different from what we are used to seeing. High angles can also be used to make the subject of a shot look smaller and more diminutive, enabling you to influence how the viewer perceives the subject.

2. Low Angles

Orson Welles once dug a hole in the floor on the set of Citizen Kane so that he could shoot Leland and Kane from floor level in a scene. Low angle shots, like a high angle, can provide a brand new perspective on a scene. Low angle shots also make the subject look like its towering over you, gigantic and intimidating.

3. Canted Angles
Who says your horizon has to be perfectly level? Directors like Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton use canted angles frequently in their films, and even the 2008 Oscar winner Slumdog Millionaire makes extensive use of canted angle shots. Canted angles, in addition to being visually striking, can also emphasize a sense of disorientation or alienation in the subject of the shot.

The Complete Tricks

The Hero vs The Opponent

A segment of my article on the relationship between the hero and the opponent.

by Charlie Burroughs

There are a few ways you can show the hero and opponent are similar. One way is subtle visual cues. On the night of District Attorney Harvey Dent’s fundraiser Bruce Wayne gives a heartfelt toast to the “white knight.” Wayne is distraught and before drinking the glass of champagne he exits the pent house for some air. Outside Wayne tosses the champagne over the balcony without taking a sip. Moments later the Joker crashes the party looking for Harvey Dent, “You seen Harvey Dent?” The Joker explains he is the night’s entertainment and grabs a glass of champagne. He tosses the beverage over his shoulder and takes a drink from the empty glass. Why would the director want to waste alcohol like this unless he wanted to point out these characters are similar. Of course you don’t have to be so subtle the opponent can come right out and say he is similar to the hero. “I don’t want to kill you,” The Joker says when being interrogated by the Batman. “You complete me.”

Visually Dirty Harry does something similar to The Dark Knight. This visual cue is a little more harmful than wasting alcohol. In Harry’s first dirty job he cleans up on a failed bank robbery. He snaps off six shots leveling the get-away car and crippling the bad guys. However, Harry didn’t leave unscathed after getting shot in the leg by a robber. The placement of this shot on Harry’s leg is the same spot Scorpio is stabbed at by Harry later in the movie. This is a physical weakness both characters share.

Side Note: Make the opponent impervious to physical pain. In Dirty Harry Scorpio pays a man to beat him to a bloody pulp. Then Scorpio tells the media it was Harry who beat him up. Harry’s response to the police chief? “He looks to good for me to have done that.” In The Dark Knight the Joker is physically abused by Batman, but for all his strength Batman can do nothing to crack him.

What about the structure of these movies? I already noted the introductions were similar, that isn’t all these two movies share structurally. The Hero has to overcome a societal problem...

Read the article in its entirety

A little about the hero and opponent.

10 Things New Filmmakers Needs Every Day

1. A good mobile telephone

A good telephone will become your mobile office.

Get the best phone you can, one that can allow you to surf and accept and write emails, and take location pictures.

An invaluable tool that lets you stay connected even when you are on the fly.

A good website to find the best deals

2. A good email address and website

Yahoo, Gmail and Hotmail might be free and easy to access, but getting your own domain name means you can have an individual and bespoke email address.

Register a domain at whois.com, and get a basic package that allows you to create your own email address, like elliot@raindance.co.uk, and join the professionals!

To build a website, use a programme like Apple's iWeb and DIY. Doesn't need to be fancy, include a section About You, Contact Details, Current Projects and your Showreel.

The 7 Steps to Building Your Own Website

Get a good service package from as little as £3.18 + VAT per month with Nativespace (the hosts of Raindance Film Festival)

5 Tips On Building A Filmmaker's Website

3. A good laptop with a good battery

And load it up with a useful editing programme like Final Cut Pro, an office admin programme, like Word, and something you can make good presentations with. It is also really useful to have a software package that will let you resize and optimise pictures for the web.

Here's the computer I use: Apple laptop

4. FLIP Camera

At £145, 720 HD, and an 8 gig hard drive, this little beauty is a must.

- See the review video from Computer Now
- See a camera test
- How one blogger got over $20,000 of free publicity using a FLIP

You can get your FLIP HD on Amazon for just £139.99 inc VAT

Perfect for getting those spur-of-the moment interviews to add to your DVD extras.

Order online here

For the rest of the list

Top 10 Tips For Guerilla Filmmaking

by Dan Rahmel

Turn the camera sideways or upside down – This technique has been used in more movies than you can imagine and still works as well or better than many CGI simulations. Need an actor to walk across the ceiling? Build a floor that looks like a ceiling and turn the camera upside down. Need a creature scuttling across the wall in defiance of gravity? Construct a floor that looks like a wall and turn the camera on its side.

Realize that different angles of the same scene don’t have to be shot in the same place – A very common film technique that is often overlooked by beginning filmmakers using different locations for the same scene. For example, say a character just got out of prison and is met outside by a criminal buddy and they discuss a new criminal endeavor. As a guerilla filmmaker, sets are hard to come by and they tend to be expensive. However, filming a long scene outside a prison without the proper permits might get you thrown in one! This scene could be done by parking a car (with the film crew inside) across the street from a prison. After your actor stands by the entrance for a moment, he begins to walk beside the prison wall. Now you have the setup. Find a readily accessible wall that visually matches that of the prison (maybe even make one) and film the entire dialogue scene there. If done properly, when cut together in editing, the audience won’t be able to tell the difference. This technique is especially useful if you are a writer/director. You can script scenes for this technique to add scope to your film that your budget could never afford.

Water the streets – An old cinematographer’s trick for filming exteriors on asphalt or concrete (especially at night with street lights around) is to water road surface. The reflections and street glow add a lot of depth and character to a scene.

Fake sweat with petroleum jelly – If you need your actor to appear to be sweating, spread petroleum jelly lightly over the area to be photographed and spritz with water. The general shine plus the beading of the water will pickup very well on film. Note that you should find another technique for lengthy shoots. For one, the actor will become uncomfortable under the hot lights when sealed under a layer of jelly. Also, since the jelly will seal the pores, long scenes with it on will cause acne and other undesirable skin effects over a several day shoot. It takes a lot of extra makeup to disguise the blemishes you created in the first place (as I found out on a shoot).

Use preplanning and holidays to maximize your budget – If you are a guerilla filmmaker, you probably have more time and inventiveness than money. Be sure to take advantages of the various holidays (particularly the day-after-holiday sales) to maximize your film budget dollars. Halloween is the best filmmaker’s holiday with inexpensive fog machines, costumes, wigs, and make-up (although most Halloween make-up isn’t good enough for film work, you can always use some extra spirit gum). The fluorescent orange plastic jack-o-lanterns are perfect for making no-budget road pylons. Christmas is excellent for cheap lighting (background cinematography effects, set decoration), reflectors of all sorts, electrical equipment, and sales on camera equipment. Thanksgiving provides table clothes (backdrops, simulated drapes) and kitchen equipment (timers, barbeque paint, heat-resistant items for use with lights). Easter has numerous inexpensive dyes (great for the Art Department for everything from fabric to aging/distressing work) and other useful items such as pavilions/tents. Of course all holidays are good for cheap candy/crew food ;-).

For More Guerilla Filmmaking Tips

Weekend Festival News

Film Festival news currently going on around the world.

Tokyo's 'green' film festival

• More green
• Inside Japan

Rome International Film Festival

• More Rome
• Freedom Is Within Us

The 9 Elements of Great Films

by John Truby

These same elements are present time and time again in the great movies, like King Kong, The Outlaw Josey Wales, She Wore A Yellow Ribbon, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Meet Me in St. Louis, It's A Wonderful Life, Sunset Boulevard and Touch of Evil and they are worth highlighting:

1. These movies tend to have strong single line - with one overriding problem or goal for the hero - to give the story drive, momentum, and a sense of priorities, or in the extreme, a sense of the first cause.

2. These films occasionally digress from that strong line to allow the film to "breathe." That is, they play with the structure to comment on what is happening, to cause the viewers to rethink their expectations, and to present actions or words that make an abstract, or thematic, point.

3. These films usually have heroes with a moral problem. The hero commits or fails to commit actions that hurt other people. These are characters with moral flaws, and the stories drive toward the moment when the hero uncovers his or her moral blindness.

4. Perhaps the most crucial element of great films is that the audience believes, what each is fighting about. Even more important, these movies attach entire clusters of values and beliefs to the two antagonists. The great movies set up, around a single central opposition, an array of other oppositions that grow until they have national or even international implications, and present the essential predicaments of human life.

5. The great movies have powerful, condensed openings that present the crucial patterns of the story and then slowly bring these patterns to the surface and explore them in an explicit way. By the end the audience has a sense of the patterns of thought and values that cause problems, not just for these particular characters but for anyone anywhere.

For Elements 6-9

HBO Imagine

HBO has introduced a whole new way of telling a story on the web. HBO Imagine: A voyeuristic view of a story from multiple angles at a time. You as the viewer searching for the true story starting with a cube. The cube is the scene of a crime and you can manipulate it to create new perspectives of the crime. From there the story unfolds by unlocked scenes or puzzle pieces that reveal the true story.

Multicamera Imagine Engine