I was a screener for a film festival recently. It’s something I’ve done before many times — and just like writers reading a lot of others’ writing, watching a lot of films can give you perspective on both what you want to do and what you don’t want to do as a filmmaker. As you might imagine, a screener’s job is partly to vet films. You’re trying to score all the submissions to see which…
Just as the fictional Felix Unger asserted his inability to do impossible cooking tasks, so too would Neil Simon probably protest any prowess at writing, but let’s be honest. If writing were cooking, Neil Simon was the magic chef of scriptwriting. (The idea of Neil Simon being a figment of his fictional creation’s imagination seems like the fun neurotic thought to occupy one of Neil Simon’s characters.) And if you recall my piece on Sam…
Since it’s “Shark Week” here on my blog, I thought it would only be appropriate to share this wonderful retrospective from Aja Romano over on Vox about our ongoing love affair with all manner of shark movies. I mean, you may recall that I love creature features and shared an excellent resource with which to follow up on them. Therefore, I offer this article as a targeted way to catch up on your movies with…
I will leave it to you to determine whether I am one of the sharks or am merely swimming with sharks, but I will be at a “Shark Tank for Filmmakers” event this Saturday out in the wilds of Northern Virginia, where the passenger jets roam. The event is organized by fellow filmmaker Ron Newcomb, who has been tirelessly working on building the narrative film community in the DC region pretty much since I’ve known…
Ah, film festivals. Getting into one is always gives a good sense of validation to a filmmaker — and the best are a delight to attend as both filmmaker and audience member. But what if your film doesn’t make it in? I’ve known Jon Gann for most of this century and I know all the work he’s done in creating, improving, and advising film festivals. So when I saw he wrote a pair of articles about why films don’t get…
Okay, I’m double-dipping here, because we posted the same links on the Jabberwocky Audio Theater website today. However, it’s not only a busy week, but I’m coming off of recording the first season of Quorum, so I’ve got voiceover artists on my mind. And really, when isn’t a good time to check out Paul Frees’ demo tape? It feels wrong to call him “inimitable,” because not only do people imitate him, Frees was a master…
Not unlike business plans, it seems like one needs to have a “social media plan” these days. In the past year, many people I know have abandoned Twitter or left Facebook or joined Instagram. And I seem to be in the midst of that periodic flurry of people following me on Twitter or giving me a long treatise about why they want to connect with me on LinkedIn. So for future edification, but mainly for…
Earlier this week, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (aka the people behind the Oscars) announced they were adding a “Best Popular Movie” category. (I mean, it’ll probably be called “most bestest outstanding achievement in popular film” or something like that, but you know what I mean). On the one hand, it’s their awards and award process, so change away. On the other hand, why shouldn’t they tweak and adjust and change their…
For the past few weeks, I’ve been handling the catering orders for our Jabberwocky Audio Theater recording sessions and revisited one of my life’s perennial sources of both comedy and drama. People get flustered with my name. This, in and of itself, is not an issue. It’s more when people seem to feel that I somehow picked this name just to make their lives more difficult is where it gets annoying. All of you with “odd” names…
Most of the creatives I know instinctively want an audience. When they think about why, the immediate answers of “someone who likes my work” or “someone who buys my stuff” are natural. I mean, what’s not to like about emotional and financial validation? Bring forth the audience! But building an audience is hard. In fact, it’s something of a slog — a seemingly Sisyphean slog (which I’m experiencing first-hand as I try and build an audience for…