Its at the top, just because. Newer posts below.
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Another no-budget Hollywood success story is brewing. Following in the footsteps of filmmakers like Soderberg and Rodriguez, British Director Marc Price ‘financed’ his film out of pocket, mostly relying on help from friends and volunteers to complete his zombie feature.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Movies/05/21/Colin/index.html
Like me, you may have never thought you would see the words “$70 zombie movie” and “Cannes” in the same sentence. A lot of people are making a big deal about how he arrived at that $70 price tag. Is it really fair to exclude the cost of everything people donated to the effort? However you add it all up, the newsworthiness of this story doesn’t lie in the budget alone. Rather, the message is this; You don’t have to spend $10 million, or even $10,000 to realize a vision worthy of Cannes. It’s a great testament to the power of tenacity.
I am still configuring the site and migrating over the old blog posts.
Look for more posts from the past to be copied over shortly. Thanks for visiting!
A documentary I worked on called Stormy Lessons (Formerly The Boys In Portable 5) makes it’s debut at the Seattle Art Museum June 13th at 7pm. It follows a group of students through their turbulent elementary school years, and then reconnects with them later as adults. Martel Williams of the Portland Trailblazers is featured.
February 15, 2009 – 12:19 pm
It’s time for another 2-day workshop on the finer points of video production. Join me April 5th & 6th at the Northwest Film Forum for an exciting and informative exploration of the discipline. A class description and registration information can be found at the NWFF Website.
December 10, 2008 – 10:22 am
Want to learn more about After Effects? Links to some great books and tutorial resources are below.
After Effects Apprentice
This book gives a great overview of the AE CS3 interface. Best for someone new to After Effects, it lays a solid foundation of the fundamental concepts needed to get the most out of the program. Some of the examples are a little cheesy, but what counts is a solid grounding in the concepts necessary to understand the interface and functionality of the program. After Effects is an incredibly flexible and multifaceted tool, and learning the basics will serve you well and save you much time and frustration as you move on to create more complex and interesting compositions. Read More »
November 10, 2008 – 10:23 pm
I will be teaching another two-day session of my oh-so-popular video production workshop at the Northwest Film Forum. More information can be found at the Wiggly World/NWFF Website.
October 25, 2008 – 5:02 pm
A quick preamble: I often buy books at a local bookseller. I like them to remain in business so I can wander the aisles and look for new books. But sometimes I shop based on price at Amazon.com. I find that they consistently have the best prices on both new and used titles through their network of booksellers. I have bought many books from Amazon that were not available locally, and have never been disappointed when they were delivered. However, your mileage may vary. That said, anything bought through a link from this site will likely be at the lowest price you can find. Not only that, it will help me support my “teaching habit”.
The Filmmaker’s Handbook
If you need an overview of the technical challenges you will face making a film and can buy only one book, this is the one. Cameras, Lighting, Sound, Post-Production, it’s all in there. It was first written in 1984, then updated in 1999, and again in 2008 to keep it current with advances in technology and common practices. Need to know how your camera actually works? It’s in there. Want a quick overview of recording good sound? In there. Telecine? Editing? Distribution? All that, and a bag of chips. To be fair, some topics are covered only superficially, but hey - the book is only 614 pages. You can’t expect to learn everything about filmmaking in a measly 614 pages. This book is a great starting and departure point. Every section has important information for the aspiring filmmaker, and in the event a section of this book raises more questions than it answers, you know to look to other titles for a more detailed understanding of the topic. If you want to learn about the technical aspects of fimmaking, I highly recommend this book.
Read More »
