George Ebersole

There's actually a special section on the site to showcase work. Otherwise three minutes in, and I couldn't stick with it. You need to clean up your audio and do something with the colors. Shooting anyone against a lit window is a big no-no, fortunately you appear to have a newer camera that can compensate for that. I hope this helps.

You don't put down camera directions in a script unless you plan on directing or shooting it yourself, or the shoot is germane to the story. That is to say if you need close ups to further the narrative as part of the story structure, then you put down things like "CLOSE SHOT". Otherwise, like I said, you don't put down camera directions. That's about all I'll say. I did spend a good chunk of change to learn the craft. If you're really wanting an online screenwriting resource, then cruise over to www.zoetrope.com It's Francis Ford Coppola's website. He sells both his wine and movies there, but also hopes a very lively and active forum / BBS where they talk nothing but screenplays.

Well, I'm of the opinion that you can always rent glass.

Precisely.

Maybe. I won't name drop, but the guys I grew up with coded and made sure their customers were satisfied. I'm thinking YouTube is relying more and more on automated processing like a lot of other websites that offer services. I was actually going to advertise on YouTube last year and year before, but not now. Their policing of their own site is pretty lax. I think a lot of it is from the "offer it for free" business model. Which means where they attract new users to boost their base, the return on that base doesn't offset the cost of hiring more personnel to police things like piracy and jihadist crap. But they throw a bash every Friday to keep the troops happy. Go figure. ... with barbcue. You can see and smell the smoke/steam sometimes.

There's a Carl's Junior that I occasionally hit in San Bruno that's across the street from YouTube's HQ. On Fridays the company throws a bash with a live band for the employees. One wonders where their priorities are.

Then you haven't been using YouTube long enough. I've seen lots of pages that have full length feature films loaded, but no, I don't watch them ... maybe one or two, and only because I owned them on disk or they weren't available. Every time I've tried to report an obvious illegal upload (say original "Star Wars" as an example) you have to be the owner in order to file a violation with YouTube. And I think that's cause enough for the boycott. However, it tells me that the ad process is automated. Pre-net the advertisers checked the property or show they were advertising on, and sometimes turned a blind eye if it was marginally objectionable, but then either avoided said material or contacted the station manager or studio heads. To me it just says that YouTube ads should probably cost more, and companies that want to advertise should be more careful about from whoever they're buying ad space. I'm sorry to hear it's happened to legitimate YouTube types, but it's like that websites a zoo with illegal uploads, and people pirating content from other users.

Well, from what little I gather the ad boycott seems more related to socially unacceptable material, and has little to do with copyright. The advertisers are concerned over people creating racist, sexist or hate based messages and their ads being tacked onto those videos. I'm not sure why you're adding copyright to the discussion. I don't know how revenue sharing works with YouTube, but to me it seems like making YouTube videos for money and as a primary source of income seems a little dicey. It's like ... making a local show pre-net, and hoping one of the local UHF or public access channels will flip the bill for it and pay you so you can do it as a career.

Well, that's sort of my thought. Way back when, when I was first starting out, here in the Bay Area at the time, you needed a financial buffer to keep freelancing, or some side gig like ... writing articles for a local paper or something, or rooming with a dozen other people like one of my former supervisors used to do in downtown San Francisco. Now work seems to be a bit more lucrative, but even so you really need to be on your game to make a living in media. I posted this here because I saw one guy crying foul over it, and looked at some related videos ... and just wasn't sure what to make of it. To me, and maybe I'm being naive, but it seems like if you want to "create on online TV station", then you wouldn't rely solely on YouTube, but have your own site, as well as a channel on Vimeo, YouTube, and whoever else to show your stuff. Most of the people here are crew, so maybe this doesn't effect them too much, but for the crew people who are also content creators, again maybe I'm callous to this, but it seems like there'd be more common sense to find other income and not just rely on one website. Thanks Tyler. Best of luck to you.

So, recently I've heard that a lot of companies have pulled ads of various forms from YouTube because of advertisers fear and dislike of their ads popping up on socially unacceptable videos; terrorist oriented or racist videos or other socially unacceptable media. There appears to be a lot of outcry about it by people who rely on YouTube as their income stream. I'm sorry this happened, but maybe I'm heartless, but I actually do see the advertisers POV here. I'm wondering if anyone here has any thoughts on the matter, and whether my perspective is not sympathetic enough.

Well, like I said, part of the idea of hitting the festival circuit, and by that I mean the non-Cannes indy venues, is to tack that festival on your resume. Even if you didn't win anything put a big old "Screened at Film Festival X" as a tagline. And if you do win, then that's just better copy for your DVD case or stream logo.

To be honest I'm surprised there are still film festivals for indy productions. Like everyone else said most of the time they do nothing. However, there used to be a kind of thinking that if you entered your film in a festival, no matter how small, that it could be something you could tack onto your resume, or your film's resume; i.e. "Presented at the South Dakota State University left-handed dyslexic's film festival" kind of thing. I don't know how true that kind of thinking is, if it ever was, but that's something that was kind of in the air.

I don't know, my gut feeling is that watching "The Empire Strikes Back" in HDR isn't going to make me relive my boyhood again. When I used to watch movies on TV I noted they mostly had better image quality than home video. But now I'm just not seeing the real benefits for more recent films. Just my opinion though. Maybe I'll change my mind by the end of the year or something.

Well that's the whole thing, if you can't tell, then what good is it?

Thanks Phil Honestly speaking, as one curmudgeon to another. again this is just for me, it seems like if any DP worth his salt is getting the image the director wanted, then there really isn't a need for new technology like HDR. I've seen demos, and my thinking is that good image comes down to resolution technology, because you can always tweak blacks and colors in post no matter if you're shooting digital or film. That may sound naive or heresy, but I think at some point you have to decide on what or how you want to present your final product to your audience. If you can get that, then you're done. I won't call HDR a gimmick, but in spite of all of the impressive image comparisons that I've seen, again, it doesn't hit me as being something that can't be achieved through other means. Besides, 14grand for a 30" monitor? No thank you.

i7 3.3GHz with 5800 onboard cache, 32 gigs RAM I built it not more than 8 months ago. It was going to be my editing rig as well as my gaming rig, but if HDR is the new thing, and if I can't edit or author HDR ... well.

Thanks. It seems to me that proper color adjustment can be done on the end user / consumer end to get a desired image. Maybe I'm being naive in that, but for all the visual tweaks I've seen done to source material I've yet to come across any image enhancement that actually makes a poor to so-so film a good film.

So, is HDR really all that "good"? Is anybody here authoring their projects for 4k HDR? I bought one recently, and even though I've built a new rig with the latest video card, a Dell superwidescreen 4k monitor, I can't get it to run, and every site I go to I get "It's great!" or "It sucks!" Anybody here have any insight?

It doesn't bother me any. I'm glad for it in fact. When I was starting out you needed gobs of cash to get a rental package and film stock alone. Digital has brought down the cost, so now more people can make their visions happen. I hate shaky cam, massive numbers of jump cuts of a single shot (usually of some dude talking to the camera on YouTube), and "Kids react to..." or "Group X reacts to" vids, but it's part of what's trending. Shoot your stuff, make it better, and show 'em how it's done.

Over with a half twist.

Don't most studios and grip trucks keep them in wooden boxes?

Hmm, that's odd. That particular camera should run silently. You might want to have a tech at the local rental house check it out.

A blimp. Back in the day they ran around 30grand depending on the camera. What kind of camera do you have?

Yeah, I don't get why people pan this film for both the look and story. It is kind of out-there in terms of a romantic fantasy, and I think a lot of people unfairly came down on Coppola for spending a lot of money on the thing, but it's got a real ethereal and intimate look to it. And I think the story's pretty good too.

"King Arthur" in 2004 with Clive Owen as Artorious. I think Antoine Fuqua really put a best effort forward in this film. There's one or two campy moments, but I think otherwise it's a good meld of action, sword-and-sandal epic drama, and mythology. Phil Connoley mentioned "Moonraker". For the longest time I thought this was a real corny film on many levels, but the SFX sequences, in particular the shuttle launches, really hold up. I can't say that the gimmicky humor in the Moore era of Bond films has much appeal, but it is an exceptionally well shot movie.