Is Social Media The New Punk Rock?

Likened to Punk Rock, the main tenets of Social Media become instantly illuminating. Social Media helps breed a 'do what you want' and 'express what you are feeling' attitude associated with Punk and we are not alone in thinking Social Media is the new Punk Rock.


Read on...

Watching Entry after Entry

Everyone at Raindance is watching movie after movie after movie film submission.

Sometimes I stand up to stretch.
Sometimes I stay curled up in a ball.

Thanks god the weather is so crap in London

Fascinating work this year.

Is Twitter the new Punk rock?

We're doing some research here - trying to comparte Twitter and other so-called new media with Punk Rock.

I'd love to hear from you if you have any ideas or comments about this.

Ping me - info (2) raindance.co.uk

- Elliot

Raindance gets political

In Burma VJ, a collective of brave and dedicated citizen journalists fight to show the world the brutality dominating their homeland. In the first review for Raindance’s new Critical Content section, Jules Garnett asks if there really is such a thing as a ‘closed country’.

Read our very own Jules Garnett's review

Lonely Cab Driver

"How is your driving record?" the owner of one New York City taxi business ask the Vietnam war vet, Travis Bickle. Travis responds with a smirk on his face, "Real clean like my conscience." This quote reveals the theme embedded in Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976). The movie is a psychological study of Travis (Robert DeNiro), a man searching for his place in life. Following Travis' taxi down New York City's underbelly also reveals dozens of frustrated people searching for purpose in a country after a purposeless war.

Read the rest

Lazy Hazy Sunday Afternoon

Not much going on today for me - I've been taking it easy.

Quite a few BIG LUNCH parties around town. Networking with the neighbours in a good idea from the Eden Project and Mastercard.

I found some interesting articles while I was trolling around:

A shameful story : Where is the documentary? - UK set to take back Brazil waste

What happens to your passwords when you die? New services promise online life after death - CNN.com

10 Ways To Put Your Content [IE FILMS] In Front Of More People Sickening to think that filmmakers are nothing more than mere content providers.

What does one TRILLION dollars look like? Interesting becasue I'm quite visual.

In WWII the plan was to remove Nazis - what is the plan in Afghanistan? There is one, right?

Indie case study: finance, UK Tax laws, crowd sourcing and much more

Superb tutorials: Hollywood Camera Work Sample Clips: Free Green Screen, Matchmoving, Compositing, Motion Capture

Thta's about it.

I'm really missing my music. My laptop was stolen 3 weeks ago from a MEDIA Belgium gig at the Brussels Film fest - thought I had my music and pictures backed up - but no!

So, if you're reading and have a song you think I'd like, ping it over!

Elliot@raindance.co.uk

That degree

The lovely people at Open University and Plymouth College of Art and Design gave me an Honorary PhD yesterday at a moving ceremony in Plymouth.

It's for work accomplished, apparently. I feel it has raised the standards tremendously for the work I do, and means that my daily accomplishments will be judged at a much higher level.

A Girl's Favourite Martial Arts Action Directors

by Grace Leong

Kung-fu (Martial Arts in Cantonese) films from Hong Kong are a transnational franchise with a 30-year history of appealing to viewers around the world (Peter Hitchcock, 2007). They have changed the way Hollywood makes action films and some of Hong Kong's most talented action stars and directors including Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan have successfully crossed over to Hollywood.

Everyone must already know Yuen Wo Ping, the acclaimed action choreographer of The Matrix and Kill Bill Series. Yuen was also responsible for...

Read the article HERE.

Indie Film History

Check out this behind the scenes look at the Indie film industry since the early 1900s. Movies such as Rashomon (1950) and Easy Rider (1969) are discussed for their revolutionary ideas and filming techniques.

Read the paper HERE.

Elliot To Receive Honorary Doctorate

The Plymouth College of Art will be awarding Raindance Film Festival founder Elliot Grove with an honorary doctorate on July 16. The recognition is for Grove's contribution to education in independent film.

Read more here.

In Praise of Low Budget Films

by Elliot Grove

Recent developments have shown that the large budgeted independent films, are not selling as well as they have, and films made with more modest budgets can succeed. Take the example of the filmOnce, which screened at Raindance in 2007. Or The Blair Witch Project, which had it's 4th screening in Europe at Raindance in 1999.

But how can you get your idea out there?

First of all, have a look at my 10 favourite low budget films

Here is an industry definition of Low Budget, and how the different budget levels are ranked.
It's important to know how to get your budget level across in pitch meetings without saying the budget amount, and still keeping professional.

When you have very little money, you find yourself having to say No over and over again. No one in the industry actually uses the word No even though it is the most frequesntly used word.
Here's how they say the word No in the film industry.

BTW, make certain your script is formatted correctly. Everyone is quite anal about this, myself included.

Here are some ideas for how to write a film on a minimal budget

Rest of the article HERE