Alex Ellerman

Hal- this "current phobia" about camera direction has been ongoing for years and years - it's not going anywhere. camera directions are for auteurs and shooting scripts and work for hire and people who don't know what they're doing... it's easy enough to say 'rising over the shower current to find her naked body.' we don't need to say Medium shot to crane over shower curtain. citing Alfred Hitchcock or Woody Allen as an example to follow doesn't work very well... the rules do not apply to them. the gatekeepers are looking for reasons to eliminate you to save them time from reading your 100 pages, and you do not want to give them any. if you sell your work to someone or get them interested without having a 3rd act written, more power to you... but where i'm from, we call that prematurely using up a good contact, and it's generally not a good idea.

Hal- drafts of scripts change. but i took the draft i found on the Internet and posted it. People do not speak exactly like that in real life -- the script purposely omits "well... um... so... because... " connector words. that is the advice i gave. OR meryl streep, in her infinite actor wisdom, made the speech more 'actor friendly.' As for hal's excerpt, it's more akin to a shooting script than a spec script and stylewise it would not be received well by an agent or a director. find me a script that sold for $$$ that says "Magic hour shot of." Paul - your post is difficult to decipher. You say the characters are all his voice? well, that simply doesn't work. that's where you get movies with 2-dimensional, cardboard characters. Your post is way too far afield for me because the writing excerpt isn't very serious, so i can't give it the serious treatment you are, and besides, it has nothing to do with the original poster or teaching anything meaningful about screenwriting. there are rules and generally accepted practices of screenwriting as they are to cinematography. it's not filmic in a major motion picture to watch two guys say "sup," nothing, "chilling," cool, how bout you?" we skip over all that. they don't do boring scenes of "okay then, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye" everyone in the group of 10 people hugs everyone, " goodbye, miss you," etc., because the EDITOR would kill it all. so don't put it on the page either. in screenwriting, you enter the scene as late as possible, and leave as early as possible.

This speech? as close to real life as possible? MIRANDA You see that droopy sweater you're wearing? That blue was on a dress Cameron Diaz wore on the cover of Runway -- shredded chiffon by James Holt. The same blue quickly appeared in eight other designers' collections and eventually made its way to the secondary designers, the department store labels, and then to some lovely Gap Outlet, where you no doubt found it. That color is worth millions of dollars and many jobs. Your superior attitude is not acceptable at this magazine. In this industry. Or in my presence.

Before you go buying or reading books... read scripts. For free. on the Internet. if you're gonna write a comedy... read Groundhog Day. Action: read Die Hard. Thriller: Chinatown etc. etc. The script you have "written" is more like a transcription of real life, and not filmic. As a general thought, don't look to cinematographers for guidance on screenwriting, or sound, or tennis.

"not to mention friday the 13th series was heading down hill after part 8..." hehehehe...

Hey Rich - can you go over this please (again?) ? does the distrib pay for advertising in this region, is there no advertising, is it up to you, which is to say, adviseable if you have the money? in my business experience, distributors (not film) will say they will budget for something, but it's a foreign country / language, and very hard to track, and likely they keep the money rather than spend it on marketing. Are you trying to get these viewings to translate into DVD sales or are you concerned with selling the territory and leaving it at that. Thanks again.

My advice to you is change your goal. Your goal should be something less financial and more along the lines of: I want to make the most kick-ass documentary I can. I want to illuminate the situation in Darfur. I want to reform the US prison system. I want to follow this crazy band for the next year. You are a first-time doc maker. Concentrate on making something kick-ass.

BFI Modern Classics... movies like Heat, LA Confidential, Silence of the Lambs, etc. critical analysis from screenplay to cinematography. but every book has a different author, so your mileage will vary. In my unsolicited opinion, you need to iterate the difference between a horror film (horrifying) and a thriller (thrilling), but be wary of the subsets (psychological thriller, action thriller, comedic horror) etc., and really define what you are looking for. to me, Psycho was a horror movie when it was released, but by today's standards, it is a thriller. the bar for gore has just moved so far. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b?url=se...amp;x=0&y=0

Hey Guys - the one thing about Saskatchewan to note is that it is the credit is for labor only, i believe. I think other tax credits extend to all aspects of production. The bonus is Saskatchewan is that they will let you collect on out of town employees. But looking through Wisconsin (25% plus other incentives) and Detroit (42%), there are some serious incentives, plus there is a Federal incentive too: >>Here?s how extended and amended Section 181 works You can elect to deduct qualified production costs in the year (or years) production costs are paid by the Producer. Even if your project doesn?t get distributed, by applying the tax breaks of Section 181, your investors get benefits on their federal taxes. When you package it with a good state incentive, you can almost guarantee a taxpaying investor a recovery of their investment of 50-77%. The maximum deduction is $15 million but the maximum deduction is increased to $20 million if the costs are significantly incurred in economically depressed areas. >>>Best of all, the Act benefits can be combined with any state film or television incentive programs. The only thing you don't get in this instance, if you are an american, is the benefit of currency fluctuations. but that is probably difficult to time, as well.

Wow Rich - i read through their site and some pdf's, definitely an interesting place... are there some filmmakers in good old Saskatchewan? thanks~

Hey guys - just curious, given the economic meltdown, where would you be looking to produce your movie in the current climate? for me, there are a couple answers to get started. First off, the dollar has enjoyed a resurgence recently, so it makes sense to look outside the US. A place like Australia has a pretty diverse list of film locations, a good film history = good crew hopefully, and their currency has recently tanked, giving me the max for my money, and they are English speaking, so it's easy to get around/crew up/ and even get some actors. If I were to stay in the states, I would be looking for somewhere with incredible incentives currently, like Louisiana or Michigan. For me, Michigan would make the most sense. Any other hotspots you would be considering right now? it's kind of a fantasy for me b/c i'm not yet ready to film, but i'm curious.

Couple things: 1. Library of Congress is where you want to register your materials. 2. agents take 10% and are regulated in CA. Managers aren't regulated the same way and they take anywhere from 10-20%. Really reputable agents don't even make you sign a contract. First timers often have better luck finding managers than agents. If the person offering to rep you isn't in NY or LA or wants $$$ from you, then be careful. 3. A script for a tv show episode isn't going to cut it. You need to familiarize yourself with terms like showrunner, bible, character breakdowns, etc., all the bits and pieces that go into a tv show pilot (I do not write for tv so I don't know them all). This is pretty rough advice, therefore. Not sure an agent would rep a 10 episode show b/c how many tv shows are 10 episodes? it's like anything, from being a writer to a cinematographer... if you have to ask how to get an agent, your work is probably not ready. I think it's better to focus on craft and writing something kick-ass than worrying about how to market it, but that's just me.

Definitely

The national debt cannot be divorced from the banking crisis. the machinations that we are using to solve this crisis are hamstrung by our debt, by the pending hyperinflation/stagflation, by the lack of money that we have out behest to address the problem. From some rather brilliant work (watch video of him calling crisis 2 years ago) by Peter Schiff: http://www.newmogul.com/item?id=1002 Rather then allowing market forces to rein in excess borrowing and replenish savings, it will encourage even more borrowing and drain what is left of our savings pool. Rather than allowing our economy to return to one based on legitimate production, it will continue to encourage reckless consumption. In the end, by refusing to allow market forces to work their cure, our economy will inevitably die from the disease. Our economy will now face death by hyperinflation, which will cause a complete loss of confidence in the dollar and result in prices and interest rates skyrocketing out of sight. The evaporation of our national wealth will lead to civil unrest, food and energy shortages, and the possible imposition of martial law. If such a scenario unfolds, what is left of our Constitution will surely be completely shredded.

2 points: 1. Bush went into office with a budget SURPLUS. we are now $10 trillion in debt. He had something to do with this crisis, 8 years in charge as an absentee father with a hooligan kid. 2. it's not only affecting rich people. You got a house and it's down 10-20% in value, you got a 401k and it's smoked, and maybe you have some personal holdings (smoked), plus unemployment is steep. The avg. american will be hit hard by this.

The attached pdf was on reddit, written by John Allison of Banch Banking & Trust... a very sane and short analysis of what needs to be done. allison.pdf

Hi - you're writing this script for yourself, so you can really do anything... the rules are more important when you're writing on spec or assignment. That being said, you should get ahold of some scripts (google) and read them. You should also look for some "shooting scripts," and you might even be able to compare and contrast a spec script and a shooting script for the same movie. Some scripts are just transcripts of the movie, that is not ideally what you want.

how much directing of a solitary actor do you really need to do? discretion is the better part of valor. I think someone knows how to feel sad, for instance. I would read Eisenstein on montages and i would resist the temptation to over-direct.

to drop interest rates, they already increased the money supply (which they did several times in the past year). the injections of capital to ease the liquidity crisis is the same, increasing the money supply, aka diluting the cash holders, and is essentially a non-apportioned tax... it's already here - the money supply is NOT in equilibrium. that is the question the Fed must answer: isn't their primary job (even though they are neither Federal nor reserve, they are PRIVATE ) to protect the integrity of the dollar???

re: left-wing socialist subprime mortgages: offhand, I don't know who dreamed them up, i've heard Clinton and Bush blamed. BUT... racially, black families were steered into higher risk/rates than white families something like 87% of the time. so while the mechanism may be socialist, the profits were all capitalismo. re: 3 years of locked up paper on Lehman... I think you may be saying your friend had to vest her options over time? If so, I don't know why someone who worked at Lehmans 25 years didn't cash anything out, didn't diversify? after all, they should be somewhat investment savvy. saying that everyone got paid in stock from the janitor on down doesn't make it right to me - the CEO's still get 1000x more than anybody else (at least). I don't follow the logic, and i don't but that the Lehman name is toxic to her resume. it's just very competitive to find a job in the financial sector right now due to the contraction and poor market conditions. re: "nothing is lost." that works on paper, the invisible hand. but we still feel inflation, deflation, stagflation? the buying power that is lost, the cost of living increase, and the fact that the super-rich, with money on the sidelines, can now buy up assets at fractional value, below replacement cost? doesn't that foster a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich? i'm not all doom and gloom. happy about the long term and short term approach the govt. is taking. concerned that new oversight put in place will stagger business somewhat. wish that leadership had been more conscious during the last 5 years.

Stealing is wrong. If the filmmaker (or their designee) is not behind the delivery method of the movie, then it should be avoided. Now, should filmmakers consider/develop/embrace a new business model which includes giving away some of the product for free? yes. by all means. consider consider consider. try and figure it out. because the new young generation wants & expects some free stuff. they aren't willing to shell out $15 for a CD only to learn that one song is good and the other nine are padded crap! enter napster / itunes and the record industry falls apart and radio right with it. as the Internet evolves so do the delivery methods and expectations of the consumer, so the film/book/song copyright holders should evolve as well. Is their a Universe where someone finds that girl in the movie hot enough that Rich could sell a DVD/signed poster together? Actual pieces of the set on ebay with dvd's? Isn't this part of the reason for director commentaries? filmmaking how to's? I have my own idea for an alternate method, mostly because Rich has drummed it into my head that I'LL NEVER GET A THEATRICAL :), but i can't give it away here!

This is what happens to foreign companies domiciled outside the US, servers outside the US, but domain registered inside the US: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/05/us..._cuba_websites/

Rich - the packaging site is disturbing, b/c as you alluded to, that is someone that wants to mass copy & sell your movie!@ that sux. it's a different animal than someone who wants to download and watch your movie, who *could* potentially be turned into either a paying user or a convert to tell other people about your movie... using that which is infinite (downloads) to sell that which is scarce (dvds) is the economic model used by Reznor to give away his downloads and sell fancy versions of his records. Here is what you are up against with today's youth/internet opinion:

i can't agree... here's why: 1. an option is not a sale. after a $1 option, you are still unsold and unproduced. 2. a $1 option is akin to an attachment that does you no good. it does you precious little good to attach Tara Reid to your spec script. Yeah, she was in a Coen Bros. movie and American Pie, but guess what? she will sink your project because she is dead weight. much the same with a $1 option to a producer. You are allowing them to use you 9/10. i will make the 1/10 allowance for the odd up and coming producer with contacts who really likes you, takes you under their wing, introduces you to an agent/manager, etc.

it more than likely is a false sense of hope, especially if you have only one script. Producer gets 1 year exclusive option for $1. You go into next meeting and say: "i have a script currently under option." They say: 1. Oh yeah? great. can i read it? A: well, it's under exclusive option. You can read it, but it's tied up. 2. oh. who optioned it, for how much? A: er, Faye Schwab for none of your business for a year. 3. A year! that's too long. what else do you have? A: (you better have another kick-ass script). Hey will you want to read it if/when the option expires? 4. You mean after everyone in town has read it and passed on it? No thanks. This really only works if Producer shingle has some kind of experience/track record. I get your point, but can't see how a $1 option is the same as the WGA minimum in your description. I just want to caution the TS to seek further help, and protect his work, don't sell for $1. that producer doesn't appear on paper to have enough substance behind them; seek more information. real people with real contacts have no problem giving more information & proof of ability.