Wake up Call: The Business Plan

<---A helpful book for starting out

Last week I took a second run at my business plan for film. Every time I dig in, I get so excited about the future of this business. When I walk away, all the crap of life and my artistic mind wants to throw more into it, tell me how hard all of it is, and tries to overwhelm me. It often succeeds. It is why I'm only on the second draft of a business plan investors need to know about.

Too many of us treat ourselves as "filmmakers". Well, I'm sorry, but unless you work at Kodak, or Fuji, you are not a film maker. I am not a film maker. We all need to get it through our heads so we can move on and stop expecting someone to give us an aurteur contract because we can dissect Francis Ford Coppola films.

You are hardly an artist. Just because you know the art side, just because you make a movie and inject something Scorcesse or Lynch has done into your story, just because you can break down exactly why a Michael Bay movie is awful (and I'm talking about myself here too) doesn't mean you are "above" the business nature of your medium. This is a wake-up call, Jake.

The moment you apply a story to your art, you have become an entertainer. And entertainment is a business, there is no way around it. Your market might be stuck up film snobs like yourself, your story might be for pure art reasons. But any time you want to hold an audience captive, any time you would even like the idea of them paying for it, you are a business person.

Even David Lynch is subject to budgets, schedules, marketing, audience turnout, and ROI (that's Return On Investment for you ingenious aurteurs out there).

Here's what I've learned:

• Your art will not go away. You have a unique vision - inherently - no one else sees how you do. Therefore your artistic nature is not a trick, if you don't think about it, if you set aside thinking about your "art", it will not make you worse because you aren't thinking about it
• So start learning the business. Stop watching more movies for a month, and research on how the movie got made. You will only lose time by putting off stepping towards business.
• MOVE FORWARD, or, as I will condition myself to think = MFF. I will let you fill in the blanks there, but I had to use the middle one to get some emphasis on FORWARD. My first draft happened months ago because I finally sat down and said "I'm doing this". Because of that moment on that day, I'm done with my second draft today. But only because I did that first one months ago.

Finally: Rely on other people. Being an artist is a lonely gig, it comes with the territory. But you aren't an artist until you start creating art, remember? And you can't create art until you do some business.

• Which makes you a business person right now. Your business is failing. Because business is not a lonely gig. Understand your business and then get people excited about helping, people who are business people - not other aurteurs like you! How's that supposed to work? You will need marketing people, producer people, and people who know people. Start collecting business cards.
• Like a movie without a screenplay - you don't have a viable business without a business plan. So start writing the business plan. All those people you are collecting cards from have no idea what making a movie is, but if you can relay what making a movie is in terms they already know... How exciting will that be to them to understand the magic behind a movie suddenly?

That's all. Stay tuned for more on HOW to write a business plan. I'm no expert, but I sure have done exhaustive research. So I'll relay it to you. Not to mention, if you don't know anything about Oklahoma Tax credits combined with the federal government's incentive for investing in film, you are missing out. 

There is no other business that can guarantee 70% of an investment will not be lost. Not to mention, at the same time providing the potential of the return to be so massive (how much did the $10G film Paranormal Activity make at the box office?)

Oh... and MFF. Let's go.     (that's "flip"... by the way... like a, uh, front flip, you know... flip)

Blogging While Editing 4 - DYWTGO?

Really didn't want to edit from my office, but a 24" screen beats a 13" any day. I don't know if I can stick around here for very long. Last time I worked in my office late, I got locked in the parking lot on campus. Luckily someone left one of the gates' padlocks off. But I found that after quite a bit of panic.

Working on the exterior apartment sequence. It's really important to get each beat in the scene right. We didn't get a take with every single beat right. But each take has at least one beat that is just golden. I wonder if it's just me as an editor, though. I didn't see it that way when we shot it. I tend to look at each beat as its own moment when I edit. I think that's why my highlights are topnotch. But when it comes to the scenes themselves, I really put so much time into each moment. And as I found out with the final scene, that doesn't always work all that well.

Saw myself on camera. I think I might be a vampire. I. am. white.

The Apple Magic Mouse is AMAZING. I love being able to jog back and forth with the sweep of finger.

Kelli has some great ad libs that are so low I never heard them until I started editing with quality headphones. Mike is a lot louder and it skips over him. Note to self: use two channel audio every time. I'm able to bring his volume down and hers up. It's great.

It sucks to kill your darlings. But I suppose that's just what good writing is.

I've been editing for the last hour with my fly unzipped. Good thing I wasn't Ustream-ing my editing progress.

Kent just sent over the coffee shop sequence with timing and sound. I'm rendering now. Can't wait to see it. I just sent him the exterior apt scene for color and sound treatment.

He had already timed and was working on the sound for that scene! It's like I'm out to make this guy work- I totally expressed my plan incorrectly to him. But Kent gets stuff done and seems to love tor work, you gotta love that in the film biz. It wasn't a problem for him and now this will even give me a chance to touch up the computer store sequence - which I was going to call locked so he could color and sound that one.

They just hit the lights in the hallway. I'm so glad I'm not editing a zombie movie right now.

I wonder what time the deadline is tomorrow? I facebooked DeadCenter - we'll see.

The Office sequence is cut. It is funny.

The Long One-Take

OK Go does it again!
Brilliant!



I'm a fan of the long one-take. Often times it can take me out of a scene because I recognize them - and I recognize that I like them. But then I just get filled with so much emotion for whatever is happening in the scene I can hardly handle myself. They inspire me, and I find that they often engross others as well.

I think this is probably why OK Go got away with a tarp as a background in a badly lit gym with non-spectacular treadmills in the music video that made them famous - ADD LINK HERE

Here's one of my ALL TIME favorite fight scenes. (And I'll admit I've only barely seen the movie - and I still can't get over the tension in the scene - I had a problem in college with falling asleep in the middle of movies, it was weird.)
One versus many and they don't even pull out the classic ninja badguy fight strategy of "One-at-a-Time". This is one bad mother-shut-yo-mouth with a hammer, working his way through a hallway crowded with toughs.



The world got shook up with this one. A pretty normal guy has to escort the first baby in almost 30 years through a grim firefight in the not-too-distant-dystopian-future. Even with blood splatter hitting the screen at one point - I never caught on that this was one take. Probably the best choreography with the most and biggest actions happening on screen. This involves a whole wall blowing out and a lot of haunting facial expressions.

Never mind, can't find the shot anywhere, Universal had it removed from YouTube. But if you've seen Children of Men, then you know what I'm talking about.

Here's a classic one that's actually references another classic opening shot. It's from The Player, and another of my favorites - but how could it not be when it's 8 minutes long - that's almost an entire can of film!



And here's the shot that the studio exec was referencing, from A Touch of Evil



And just because you need one that's EXTRA CRAZY, leave it to Thailand to knock your socks off with a long take where our hero faces an entire building of badguys while running up a spiral staircase. You can feel this guy's intensity and determination even though some of the fighting is a little contrived. It's the real beauty of the Long One-Take.



They used to call them "Tracking Shots" but you can see the difference in OK Go and in Touch of Evil. We don't have to keep them on the dolly and tracks anymore. Though I guess it still does "track" someone. Now the GlideCam gives us the ability to "float anywhere" and make up for any timing miscues.

Where are your favorite One Long Take Shots?

Blogging While Editing 3 - DYWTGO?

Thought I was making good time until I watched the entire sequence. There is a lot of work to do. Basically all touchups. I may have used a reaction shot twice, and I can't seem to find the “room tone” we got, which should help me edit because some of the cuts just DO NOT work because the sound is shaved off here and there. So it pops in and out. I can't tell if I'm jump cutting or if the sound is jarring me.

Nonlinear editing. The reaction shots tell a different story every time. I'm trading in about six different ones at two different spots and it's just such a hard choice. Found it. I think. I replayed 2 seconds over so many times I need to leave it alone for a while. But one thing is for sure, Jane (Kelli) had a great reaction and now it's in – which I didn't expect.

Lost. Somehow we didn't get audio on two glidecam shots. Need direction here.

Just made edited Lauren's lines from “You would not believe” and “I just don't understand” into “I just don't believe” and “You would not understand”. Making her next perfectly delivered line have even more of a punch.

Poll Question: Does this make me A.) a genius; or, B.) a George Lucas style director; or, C.) a complete hack. I'm not sure, but it'll make the movie better....

Not sure I've got the momentum to finish. It's getting late and I've reached a point where those soundless glidecam shots look like they are perfect for what this needs. I've spent hours getting just a couple of lines off those shots but they are pretty shakey as far as sync goes, and I have to cut away before you really get the sense that you're on the glidecam anyway defeating the purpose at some pivitol moments. I think I might know where the audio is but I would lose at least an hour getting it.

So do I keep editing so I can have this finished? Or do I move on to the other sequences where I have to relearn where all the shots are? Think my best bet is to move on. This sequence is maybe killing me a little much.

Just watched all that I have again. It looks really good. I need to shave a lot of that silence I spent so much time protecting though. I can see now it could be a lot tighter. Hope I have time to do that before Wednesday – the Dead Center Deadline.

This opening coffee shop scene is working pretty well. I think it's a good start. The only thing that could make it better, and something it really needs, is more swirling around in the opening shot, the way I designed it. I just got flustered because I had blocked it for an entirely seperate coffee shop. And then when we got there no one was in there while I worked the new blocking. We just didn't have enough people. But oddly, by the time we got the perfect take, the shop was hopping, we all just sort of were consumed with getting the shot we'd designed.

I think I just became a stock holder in Dr. Pepper this weekend.

It's funny. They say, if there is a train track anywhere near by, get a shot of the train. Sure enough. I could have used a shot of the train. The big decision of the movie just happens to take place while a train whistle is blairing and rocking Java Dave's. It sounds awesome but is totally out of place with no contex. You are actually able to see the train from the window but we just didn't think to get a shot of the “cat in the window”, or train, in this instance.

Looking good. I went an hour over when I need to go to bed but I think it's in quality enough shape to enter into Dead Center. It should make it into the Oklahoma films category as is. If they give me more time, I know I could make it into the competition.

Scratch that. After putting all the sequences together I remembered I don't have the ending yet. Dangit. Lots of work to be done. Also, the interior needs a LOT of shaving down of little silent moments. If it looks the way things are now, I might need to tack on the surprise ending I've been keeping in my pocket...