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Justin Hayward

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Everything posted by Justin Hayward

  1. But anyone can put themselves in the circumstances you're referencing. It just takes time. Sometimes 5 years, sometimes 10, sometimes more. My producer friend that recently made and sold a movie has been working in the industry from assistant to production manager for about 17 years. She came from a tiny town with no money and no film connections at all. But she worked and learned and recently produced and sold a movie. It's not impossible if it's something you really want to do. But like anything, it takes perseverance.
  2. And I'm talking about a movie that cost a lot more than 20K. So to your point, it might be worth it if you can keep your budget that low and still make something sellable. But it's a hustle. No doubt.
  3. I have a couple producer friends that recently went this route, but it took a few years and loads of hustling. Certainly not quitting their day jobs.
  4. Wait... :blink: So, what's the formula for and why are studios following it if it doesn't mean they'll make any money?
  5. "Nobody knows anything... not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what's going to work. Every time out it's a guess and, if you're lucky, an educated one." - William Goldman, Adventures in the Screen Trade
  6. You don't, but if people spent as much time on the script as they do trying to find money, we would all benefit with better movies :) Also, people squander that hard sought budget when they cut all those unnecessary scenes that they should have cut from the script. I've seen people cut 30 minutes out of a two hour movie which added up to about a week and a half of shooting. That's a lot of wasted money. I just get tired of people complaining that the only thing stopping them from a successful film career is money. Then you read their script and realize they've hardly put any work in the most critical part of the process. I've seen guys spend hours and days on the phone searching for actors and investors, but won't sit down and rewrite a glaring problem with their script. It makes no sense to me. Writing is the cheapest part, but I find it's also the hardest and, for some reason, the most ignored while frantically trying to find money. Can you tell this is a pet peeve of mine? :D
  7. Oh come on Richard, You're on feature number 5. You should know how easy this is! :lol:
  8. Maybe, but lots of money doesn't make a good script, which is something people often like to learn the hard way.
  9. Looks great! I like it a lot. Looks like the aspect ratio changed at some point.
  10. Whaaaa??? Maybe start prefacing your posts with this tidbit? :P :D
  11. If you want to make a short and take it to a bunch of festivals, it's smart to tailor your story to a specific genre or topic and only submit to festivals that focus on that subject matter. You'll up your chances of getting in and up your chances of winning awards. I recently made a short targeted for children and we submitted to a bunch of children festivals. We got into almost everything we submitted to, won a handful of awards, and a bunch of prize money. This is random, but a friend of mine in college made a student film about over population. He submitted to a festival that focuses on stories about over population, and he won a thousand bucks... which in college may as well been a million :lol:
  12. The festival director recently admitted it's very difficult to get a feature into Sundance without a connection. But, the only reason it's difficult to get a short into Sundance is because they only accept about 0.5% of the entries. So it's got to be pretty good.
  13. Way more than that. The competition is high, but the quality is low. I think some of the naysayers aren't commenting on the odds of getting noticed with a short, but more commenting on the odds you'll make something good enough to get noticed. How often do we see something flat out amazing that goes totally unnoticed by anyone? More often than not the films that get into Sundance deserve to be there.
  14. I've had so many conversations with filmmaker friends about this director of photography. I'm happy he lived a full life in the job he wanted to do. I'm moved from hearing of his passing.
  15. Hyperbole? I've found if I take your career advice and do the exact opposite, I'm always successful. :P :D
  16. Macks Fiiod has himself listed as a director, so I'm only referring to the benefits of a director getting their short into the Sundance film festival. I don't know what a cinematographer would gain from shooting short films other than experience and getting some good looking content on their reel. Of course I've seen many cinematographers start a career by shooting a feature that got into Sundance. At least a few on this forum. But I don't know about shorts.
  17. If your short gets accepted into Sundance, agencies and producers will contact you about what you want to do next whether they've seen your short or not. I had a short film play in Sundance and the William Morris Agency called me to set up a meeting two weeks before the festival. At the time, I didn't even know who they were. My friend had a short film in Sundance and he got an agent, a manager, and immediately started developing projects (not to mention a sit down meeting with Harvey Weinstein at the festival). Doors get opened, but they'll close very fast, so it will be up to you to follow through and keep yourself out there. Small festivals are good for people that like to watch their movie with other people, which I do not. Edit: Small festivals are also good for winning prize money, so if you submit to them, submit to the ones that have cash awards. ;)
  18. It seems strange this day and age that there are working directors without first hand editing experience. I mean, we're not splicing and taping anymore.
  19. If you make a short and it gets into Sundance, agencies and producers will contact you to set up meetings, but it will be up to you to make anything of it. If I made a short now I would submit it to three or four of the top film festivals in the world. If it doesn't get in to the very big ones, I wouldn't bother with any more. Otherwise you're only paying for travel to watch your short screen in front of a handful of strangers. Which some people like... not me.
  20. And just because you know what you want, doesn't mean what you want is automatically good. Something I've learned the hard way!
  21. I'm not talking about safety, or low budgets, or any of that. I was a PA and a grip and a gaffer and a DP before I was a director and I can not tell you how many times other crew members confessed that they were going to half ass something and try to slip it past the director or DP. It drove me crazy. I wanted to scream at them that they were on the clock, being paid their full rate! Why not do their job as best they can??? It made me very jaded, but it also made me hyper aware of those kinds of people. But the same thing can be said about any job. When I was 16, I was a dishwasher at a pub, and I made a point to be the best dishwasher that pub had ever seen. When I told this story to certain crew members on certain films I've worked on, they laughed at me and bragged about being fired from crappy jobs like that cause they don't put up with bulls--t. I can't imagine bragging about being fired from anything... but that's me. That said, I've also worked with many crew members that have an excellent work ethic, and I love working with them.
  22. This happens at some point at almost every level on set. The more you know, the faster you can nip it in the bud.
  23. Even if it's an ad for toilet paper, write a treatment that says "My take on this toilet paper will end starvation and bring world peace." You'll never lose :)
  24. I guess the same could be said about phones. It seems like every second of down time is spent hiding around a corner texting, emailing, surfing, or whatever. :angry: It all comes down to having to find people when you need them instead of them standing by. It's frustrating.
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