Mark Bonnington

Their success is certainly unusual, I'll give them that, and I can see how they were able to spin the plot to their advertising advantage, but I don't see the Blair Witch instance as being a useful case study for micro-budget indies. Not only because they had an unusual plot that lent itself to an otherwise unaccessible marketing tool ("The true story of..."), but also because the Blair Witch people distributed their film by getting a distributor to push their film. It's that distributor bottleneck that's preventing most indie films from being released, so analyzing the success of Blair Witch won't be of much use to the person that can't get a distributor. The quick solution is to say "convince the distributors to pick up your movie", but that step of convincing them is usually impossible... so the next step is to figure out how to distribute without a distributor, and that's what I'm looking for - case studies where people successfully sidestepped the distributors. I used to have a great opinion of humanity, but then more than 45% of the country voted Bush Jr. for a second term :blink: . My opinion of modern mankind has gone downhill ever since.

The Blair Witch movie was pushed with a multi-million dollar advertising campaign, back when the Internet was still untapped. It utilized false-advertising (claiming the story was a real-life event, when it wasn't), and targeted a demographic of gullible people in order to create the snowball effect necessary for major success. Lessons that can be learned from that project... throwing lots of money into advertising will fill seats, there are more gullible people in the world than one might imagine, and at some point the sheep mentality of the masses will cause them to watch a movie simply because they hear everyone else is watching it.

Why did that last message post twice??? That's too weird. Anyway... getting back on track. Has anyone here had GOOD experiences with self-distribution and self-promotion of a micro-budget feature? I'm looking for case studies of the common man, not the "Blair Witch" people and that crowd. If you had success, how do you feel that you achieved it?

As the disparity between rich and poor continues to grow in the U.S., I expect the government will reinstate these types of tax breaks as a sort of "please don't revolt" peace offering.

As the disparity between rich and poor continues to grow in the U.S., I expect the government will reinstate these types of tax breaks as a sort of "please don't revolt" peace offering.

Exposure choices are partially artistic, so different people will handle it differently. Some will expose to show what's in the shadows, others will expose to show what's in the highlights. The decision usually depends on the scene and the subject. If you want maximum flexibility in post, you'll typically try not to overexpose or underexpose anything, but that's frequently difficult because the range of light in sun and shadow is too extreme to capture everything. If you're shooting digitally, the vast majority of people choose to underexpose. If an object in the scene is supposed to be really bright, like a light-bulb, then the scene can be overexposed a little, letting those lights wash out to pure white. For instance, I would let the overhead sun get blown out if I was shooting outdoors, and instead I would try to set the exposure so the overall sky was well lit. At night, if you are trying to film what's in the shadows, then you'll have to overexpose in order to brighten up the darkness. If you want to emphasize just how dark everything is then you can expose for street lamps or whatever other lights exist and then the darkness will remain black and difficult to make out. There's a balance between showing the objects in the shadows versus them the objects looking like they're in a weirdly colored daylight. If you're recording fireworks, you'll want to set the exposure to underexpose by a lot, in order to show the extremely bright trails of light. The same holds true for night-time fireball explosions and such. Diffusion will soften the picture, and in the process it might happen to make the shadows a touch lighter and the highlights a touch darker, but it's an extremely minimal change, almost unnoticeable. For that reason, the effect of diffusion is usually to gain the softness and not to influence exposure. Meters measure whatever light reaches them. They will tell you to use longer exposures when they don't get hit with much light, such as in the middle of a dark field at night. The will tell you to use short exposures if you hold the meter in a flashlight's beam. You have to take into account the environment, where the lights are, and what you want the final picture to look like. Getting a good exposure requires practice, a bit of intuition, and more practice.

What are you talking about, 35k is a HUGE amount of money to raise! That friend of yours must be from a wealthy family. I don't think borrowing from friends and family is a good idea. If it's borrowing $5 from 7000 friends, then it won't hurt them too badly if they never get paid back. But taking thousands of dollars from each of a handful of people would surely cause bad feelings when the lenders discover that your project has failed financially... which appears to be the inevitable end to most indie efforts.

I've heard of some buildings in the U.S. that have the same thing, mostly in New York, but I don't know if that sort of copyright would hold water by the time it got to court. Maybe if you built an identical building somewhere, then you might have copyright problems... but a 2-d representation of a 3-d object? I've always heard Europeans have less strict laws about filming in public places, like they can film people without permission in public spaces, but I've never heard about the specifics and I don't know if it applies to every EU country or just a couple. Plus the laws change all the time based on the general sentiment of the people. In the U.S., anything (except people) can be filmed without permission as long as you're standing on public property or your own property. I think even people can be filmed without permission as long as it's for a documentary. Permission is needed when you're physically standing on private property (that includes mall parking lots and places that aren't always obvious as being private). And of course, once again, even though the law says it's ok to film private buildings from public places doesn't mean the judge isn't some sort of Nazi psycho who thinks 'people should have privacy even in public' or some stupid bit of logic like that, subsequently giving victory to the rich building owner. It all comes back to your personality and level of risk you want to take. I'm rebellious and I don't care about the risks of filming copyrighted material... it helps that I'm poor with very little to lose, it gives me the edge to do what I think is right instead of what's legal. You, on the other hand, might be a conscientious supporter of your country's laws or you might have a timid nature and be fearful of any sort of legal action... in which case you'd want to get permission or find somewhere else to shoot. If it's just an issue of not knowing the laws of your country, do a search through the Internet and start poking around the legal books in your area. Don't just accept popular opinion about permissions, as it's usually not based on the real laws but instead is formed from hyper-conservative guesswork.

If Red delivers what they claim, and I think they will, the price versus performance will be better with the RedOne than other HD cameras. Plus, I've only written a quarter of my script so far and I don't think it'll be finished until next year, which is approximately when I'd be able to get hold of a RedOne.

How much does image quality matter in the sale of a movie? I was hoping to shoot my feature on the RedOne camera, which has a film-like picture quality to it. I think the novelty of using that camera will have worn off by the time my feature is finished (since thousands will have used it by then), but showing a movie at a quality better than the typical DV indie movie... is that going to make a significant difference in the sales that I can get? Will the movie market be begging for HD and 4k movies as more and more people get the hardware to play that resolution? Or will the content (actors, special fx) reign over any kind of image quality?

If you own the video equipment, lighting, or any other major components critical to making a movie then you might be able to get some sort of pay for providing that equipment. But the actual position of DP is probably not one that comes with a salary, since amateur projects usually don't have money and can find people willing to perform DP duties for free.

I'm not a lawyer, so don't take this as legal advice, but it's what I've picked up from various sources over the years... Trademarks are used as packaging identifiers when selling a product, so that buyers know they're getting a product from a certain company. Trademarks have absolutely no power of copyright, you can reproduce them at will, you just can't use them on the packaging of a product you are selling. If you have a trademarked item in your movie, regardless if you've made a documentary or feature film, since it is not on the packaging of the movie then you can legally show that trademark without permission from the trademark owner. For an informal reference to using Trademarks, see this link... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use_(US_trademark_law) You do need permission to show copyrighted artwork or music in your film, but only if you can't classify the copyrighted material as being used in a way that fits "fair use". There are supposedly four aspects that are looked at to figure whether an item falls under "fair use"... (gotten from the following source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use) 1) Purpose and character The use in question helps fulfill the intention of copyright law to stimulate creativity for the enrichment of the general public. 2) Nature of the copied work Facts and ideas are separate from copyright. Copyrights are invalid if they withhold the release of facts and general ideas. 3) Amount and substantiality The amount copied should not exceed the basic amount needed for the intended use, nor should it contain the "heart" of the copyrighted material if lesser content can be shown in its place. The "heart" of the material is completely subjective, but generally it can be considered the key information that gives value to the copyrighted work. 4) Effect upon work's value The effect that the allegedly infringing use has had on the copyright owner's ability to exploit his original work. The key issues are whether the use in question acts as a direct market substitute for the original work, and/or whether potential market harm might exist beyond that of direct substitution. Courts recognize that certain kinds of market harm do not oppose fair use, such as when a parody or negative review impairs the market of the original work. Copyright considerations may not shield a work against adverse criticism. So there you have it, the big four items to consider in whether you can claim fair use for copyrighted items. Item 2 is a straight-shot for fair use permission, and is the reason why documentaries are nearly untouchable. But as you can see from items 1, 3, and 4, nonfiction films can also use copyrighted material under the fair use rules. Item 1, the impetus for using copyrighted materials, is definitely on the side of making feature films, since movies are a form of stimulated creativity and cannot be fully realized without referencing the world around us as well as the copyrighted items within that world. Item 3 is satisfied as long as the copyrighted item does not show up for longer than the movie requires, and the copyrighted item is only exposed in a superficial way. Item 4 is satisfied because the inclusion of copyrighted material is frequently a boost to that product's sales rather than impacting sales negatively. If a movie sheds light on a product in such a way that it causes negative impact to product sales, then the inclusion of the copyrighted material in the movie can be considered to have been placed in the movie in such a way as to represent the movie maker's criticism to the copyrighted work. Keep in mind that no matter what the law says, the final decision falls to human judges as to whether to enforce the laws or not. Especially in the U.S., lawmakers frequently ignore the laws and pass judgments based entirely on their own thoughts and feelings, or pass judgments in favor of wealthy corporations with the hopes that the corporations might give them financial kickbacks. Again... I'm not a lawyer, so instead of taking my ramblings seriously you should go talk to a real lawyer for advice.

Thanks, I'll give those recipes a try.

Looking for some cheap recipes for realistic homemade blood. Nontoxic would be best.

Seems the Canon HV20 is the latest craze in the ultra-ultra-low budget range. 1080 res and 24p at only $1k.

www.Celtx.com

You don't need permission to use trademarked logos in your movies. Trademarks are only protected when it comes to packaging and selling things. People give up their freedom of expression out of fear and ignorance... don't put up with it, fight to create whatever art you want, with whatever content you want to put in it.

$20 is a lot of money for some people (like me and a million other working-class people in the U.S.), but my guess is that his concern was more about whether the book would have good content or not.

If I had a million dollars that I put into marketing my $10k movie (queue laughter), is that marketing presence enough to get my movie picked up by major distributors? Would my movie get into movie theaters simply because of the advertising money that I'm throwing around town? How would an independent get into a major cineplex?

But not all movies cost a lot to make, relatively speaking. Set aside the big names, the cast of thousands, exotic locations, special fx... sure the plot options get limited, but you can still tell a good story without that stuff. The only issue then becomes making the public aware of the movie, giving them a chance to decide for themselves whether they want to see it or not. I hate the idea that there are good films out there that nobody went to see simply because they didn't know the movies even existed. Architects who are unknown, that build good low-budget houses, still get paid for their work. Same with most other professions. So why is it that indie filmmakers rarely get paid for their movies? Why is it an all-or-nothing existence for the low-budget filmmaker?

I ended up in a sea of spam when I did a Google search. I'll try again, but I figured this forum might be a jump start in the right direction. And some of the recipes I came across... they could result in ANYTHING. I'd love to hear first hand experiences from filmmakers who have tried them and can say "that was useless", or "that was the most realistic stuff ever".

That's kind of what my current script is... based on a bit of my own experiences, then mangled and rewritten into a comedy. I keep hearing that a person can move to something bigger and better if they succeed at making smaller films. But if I'm making someone else's blockbuster movie, then I'm not really doing what I want to do anymore, which is to tell my own stories. I know the market is driven by the customer, and advertising gets the customers, but are the independent filmmakers going to have to put up with this forever? Is there any concerted effort being taken by the independents to push aside the monopoly of the corporations?

What are the recipes for making scar, cuts and other injury prosthetic devices? How about making full human appendages with foam latex (arms, legs, heads, etc), anyone have recipes and sources for the ingredients to do that? Any other horror movie blood/gore FX instructions would also be appreciated... good recipes for blood, recipes for slime, etc.

Ah, I getcha now. Yeah, I guess in that perspective $10k really is a pittance for making a full length movie. I'm taking it all in. But I've heard "you can't possibly succeed at <x>" from people I've talked to through most of my life. Sometimes it's true and I fail, but sometimes there are ways to get things done where others have failed. What I'm looking for is an idea of the daunting task ahead, and I'm feeling around for the logic behind it all to see if there's a logical solution to achieve success. It's the analyst in me that's fighting the odds, and it's the human (ego) in me that's being naively optimistic. My motivation is to create, for the sake of improving the world. But, you know, money's good too. Down with SAG! Ok, I'll go make the good movie the way I originally intended it. Then I'll follow it with a horror movie, followed by another good movie if the horror movie brings in enough for me to keep shooting.

Excellent question. I suppose that is the crux of the matter... what is the motivation to see my movie. Why do people pay for blood and nudity? Why do people pay to see comic book adaptations, or big-name stars? Maybe because they're tired of the day to day life, they want visual stimulus they can't get at home. They like escapism, and fantasy, without having to go to the effort of creating it for themselves. They want to live through the characters on screen. Some of the moviegoers want to have their emotions prodded, either with laughter or tears, others with fear and suspense. That's what I'll have to shoot for in my movie, to make it worth while, I've got to prod the viewer awake. I've got to give him something to look at that he can't see in his work-a-day lifestyle. And I'll have to make it better than the next guy's film which also happens to have the support of a million dollars. How long did you have to be in the movie business before you started to see positive returns? How many movies did you have to make?