Research+Process

“Movie Making Manual.” __Wikibooks.org__. 21 January 2009. WikiBooks. February 15, 2009 < [] >. 1. Over 80% of your time on any screenplay will be spent on rewrites. So much of screenwriting is about structure that you may have the story in the first few weeks while the rest of the time is spent reworking the script so the story works on the screen. 2. It means getting together with another writer and discussing your script and coming up with ideas to solve problems you are having. 3. Even the most successful professional writers value the feedback of their trusted friends. If the writing is interesting enough, friends will feel compensated by just getting to be the first to read the new work and share in the creative process. 4. Describe your film in a sentence. Don't try and force your one-line description into one of these if it doesn't fit. 5. Next to having a great screenplay and a clear vision, casting great actors is the best thing you can do to improve the odds of your film succeeding. Casting good actors is 80% of the directing process because once you have cast actors who understand what they are doing, the director's job is almost done. 6. Inexperienced actors nearly always err on the side of overacting, putting too much into the role. Your task is often to convince them to be more naturalistic. Be clear and don't baffle them with technical terms. Explain how tight the shot is and their range of movement within the frame and they should be able to gauge how to behave. 7. Editing is the process of choosing which picture and sounds will go into the finished film. Initially this includes picking what is good and what is bad, removing the poor material and putting it into script order. Later it also includes the creation and control of moments that may or may not have been intended during the shoot 8.You haven’t finished cutting until several new viewers have seen the edit and you’ve worked with the problems raised. If there are major issues that are never quite dealt with then now is the time that you must be bravest with the material and experiment boldly. It can mean going back to rough cut stage with a scene or two.

9. 10. Gifted actors will have a three octave range in their speaking voices. Therefore, for many scenes with dialog, you do not need any music, as long as the actors create the proper mood with their speaking voice 11. A good idea when planning the inclusion of music into a movie is: There are different types of sound effects. 12. Ambiance = Background sounds = Atmosphere This is the sound in the background. There are two parts to this. A. One part of ambiance is **room tone**. This is the background noise on the movie set. When you erase dialog or unwanted noise (such as the director yelling, "Cut!", you must fill the gap with room tone. B. After the scene is edited, a background sound is added from sound recorded in the field. If you are editing a scene of three men in a cafeteria, you have to go to a cafeteria and record the background sounds from the real cafeteria and put in faintly in the background of the scene. 13. Walla My favorite sound is walla. Where else but in motion pictures do you worry about how people mumble faintly in the background? Walla is indistinguishable voices talking in a mummer. It seems a bit dorky to record people mumbling but it really is great in scenes of a crowd. The most annoying thing is I have not found a good sound effects library with walla. 15. In contrast with action scenes, a **conversation** is edited based on the **rhythm of the dialog** as the actors talk back and forth. The rhythm of the dialog must sound perfectly natural... which is surprising since, most of the time, each actor's dialog comes from a different shot. (BOTH KINDS OF SCENES EXIST IN MY MOVIE) I WILL NOT BE ABLE TO DISTRIBUTE LIKE THIS 16.You create a **motion picture marketing campaign** to sell distribution licenses to distributors at a film and television market recognized by the [|International Federation of Film Producers Associations (FIAPF)], at major film festivals attended by distributors through either self-representation in person or through the contracted services of reputable sales agencies and producer representatives. Additionally, you should create either a motion picture web site or a movie profile with a video trailer hyperlink on a high-traffic web site such as [|MySpace.com] and [|Amazon.com's IMDb Pro].
 * What kind of film are you making, and what kind of music would fit in best?
 * How long does the music need to play during the scene?
 * How loud should the music be? Should it drown out any dialogue, or should it be strictly in the background?
 * Should it be constant?
 * What effect are you trying to convey?
 * Watch the movie all the way through.
 * Stop the movie when you see parts that require music.
 * Note down the number of the starting frame.
 * Plan how long you would like the music to last.
 * Note down the number of the frame where the music stops.
 * Plan what kind of music you would like and how you would like it to behave - should it be low and constant, swirling in and out of earshot? Should it be loud, aggressive, constant?
 * If you get stuck on how the music should behave, go rent out some critically acclaimed movies and study how music is used.
 * 14. Action sequences** are edited based on the images on the screen. For action sequences, the **picture** is the most important thing. Because there is no dialog to worry about, you tell the story visually.

17. Probably 99% of all the motion picture which are distributed use a distributor. If a filmmaker cannot find a distributor, the movie will probably never be distributed. Probably 40% of all movies made never find a distributor. So don't assume that finding a distributor will be automatic. 18. If you want to try to distribute the movie yourself, you must consider your options which are booking directly at a movie theater (either by negotiating a box office split with a theater owner, or renting it for a length of time - also known as "four walling"), [|Distributing Direct], [|Selling Online], [|Digital Cinema Distribution], [|Submitting to a broadcaster], [|Putting videos online], [|Burning a DVD]. The process of self distribution is time consuming, requires an additional financial investment, and is a separate business from filmmaking. However, it permits the filmmaker maximal control over how their work is marketed and the highest return on the dollar. An initial successful self distribution of a film can increase the filmmaker's leverage in securing a distribution deal. 19. Finally, we get to the most controversial part of film marketing. To sell a motion picture (with its huge advertising budget), a campaign must be created to introduce the movie to the public. The basic questions are, "What is this movie about?" and "Who will want to see this movie?" 20. There are many ways to publicize a motion picture or a television drama. The most common are a movie trailer and a behind-the-scenes documentary. The movie trailer is the least expensive and the behind-the-scenes movie can be very time consuming if not expensive. 21. 22. Good writers hate plastic characters so even if they say keep the good guy good and the bad guy bad, you should still write characters with depth. Make the characters real instead of plastic, unless you are shooting plastic dolls and/or action figures.  Keep locations to a minimum.  Keep the number of characters to a minimum.  Write for day time where possible.
 * Keep the story moving forward, no unnecessary tangent or parallel stories.
 * Keep the hero a hero: think cartoon.
 * Likewise keep the antagonist an antagonist.(The antagonist is usually the villain)
 * No overt, unnecessary amounts of blood. In fact, no moving blood at all, that means no blood splattering on walls, or flying out of people's chests or flowing uncontrollably from someone's chest. Once again, think cartoon. Moving blood raises the rating and the lower the rating, the more you sell.
 * No cursing. It raises the rating.
 * Bring the story to a close. Do not leave loose ends, or big things for people to ponder on, tie it up with a bow.

Staudt, Jay. “Producing a Movie.” __Film Making. Net__.
1994- 2009. February 15, 2009. < [] >. 24. Some indie filmmakers shoot movies because it's something fun to do with friends; I know [|I do]. As an independent, realize that while you don't have a big budget to spend on jaw-dropping CGI effects or big name talent, you have something that's much more valuable: //creative control//. 25. With a low-budget or no-budget film, the majority of your investment is your time. You can use weird camera angles and experiment with different effects, so long as you have the means to do so, and you don't have to worry about whether 8 million people will be willing to spend $12 apiece to go out to a theatre and watch it. (THIS SENTENCE DESCRIBES MY FILM WELL) 26. Scripts, like the films that are made from them, have to have several things to be successful. In a script it's the combination of useful formatting and camera/actor direction, good writing, and a captivating scenario or plot. 27.In order to be taken seriously by an agent or producer, movie scripts are formatted in a very specific fashion. 28. Some basic specs for a film script: the //entire// script should be in 10 or 12 point Times or Courier. Your cover page should contain only your film's title in //bold//, followed by several line breaks, the words "Written by", one more line break, and then the name(s) of the author(s), each on its own separate line if there is more than one writer. (USEFUL FOR PACKAGE) 29. Script pages, starting with the cover page, are numbered in the upper right-hand corner from 1 to the end. Each scene number is surrounded by [square brackets] and **bolded**. The scene location is indented and also bold, all caps, and on the same line as the scene number. In the example above, it is **EXT. FIELD - DAY**. Use **EXT.** for an outdoor scene and **INT.** for an indoor scene. 30. When you get around to writing your script, you might be tempted to use certain catch phrases or terms because they sound good to you. But remember that every fictional character needs to have his own voice in order to be believable. 31. Giving each character their own unique voice includes not only word choice, but their phrasing, tone of voice, and sentence structure. It's everything about the way they speak and act, and you have the ability to convey all of those things with your script.

Tyson, Jeff. “How Movie Distribution Works”. __How Stuff Works__. 1998-2009. How Stuff Works. February 17, 2009 <[]>. 32. Carpenter, Paul. “My Movie.” 28 February 2009. 33. Being as the spiritual quest is about finding ones self and fighting ones self in a sense, maybe put a scene in there where john looks into one of the ninjas eyes and sees his own or something like that to fore shadow the whole thing.... 34. I think a lot of what will make this movie really nice is making sure the filming shots in really cool scenic areas, and angles that really capture the emotion. 35. The whole alarm clock starting point is a bit over done, think of something else, or maybe just tone it down - keeping the alarm in as background noise, maybe just concentrating on getting the same morning shots with him in different outfits to show new days. 36. I think you will definitely need to film some security cameras and randomly cut to them in between shots to really get that being watch thing you keep talking about. 37. Maybe also get some shots of some menacing hall monitors talking on walkie talkies and what not. You will have to get the right shots to make Springfield feel like a prison on film...
 * Someone has an idea for a movie.
 * They create an outline and use it to promote interest in the idea.
 * A studio or independent investor decides to purchase rights to the film.
 * People are brought together to make the film (screenwriter, producer, director, cast, crew).
 * The film is completed and sent to the studio.
 * The studio makes a licensing agreement with a distribution company.
 * The distribution company determines how many copies (**prints**) of the film to make.
 * The distribution company shows the movie (**screening**) to prospective buyers representing the theaters.
 * The buyers negotiate with the distribution company on which movies they wish to lease and the terms of the lease agreement.
 * The prints are sent to the theaters a few days before the opening day.
 * The theater shows the movie for a specified number of weeks (**engagement**).
 * You buy a ticket and watch the movie.
 * At the end of the engagement, the theater sends the print back to the distribution company and makes payment on the lease agreement.

Woehlcke, George. Personal Interview. March 5, 2009 38. We been meeting and editing the script, working on forming better dialog.

Ellis, Sherry ed. //__ Now Write __// New York, NY: Penguin Group, 2006 39. “Try to figure out which memory that character might choose, if he was forced to. Go beyond what seems obvious; take your time and really give it some serious thought.” Pg. 127 40. “The first part is discovering a clear desire that motivates your character; the second part is discovering an action that both derives from that desire and embodies it in a complex and meaningful way.” Pg. 103. 41. “We can see ourselves as yet another character acting in the world, and get more in touch with the person that we are. It also helps us to see the many dimensions of a conflict and the complicated ways we react to one another.” Pg. 91. 42. “One difficult thing in fiction is creating characters who are active rather than passive- who act on their desires rather than simply thinking about them.” Pg. 193 43. “Here’s the secrete with dialogue: it’s read with the eye, not heard with the ear. You perceive it faster than you hear it. So although spoken dialogue can be provocative, intriguing, and fresh, it can also be wordy, clunky, and vague.” Pg. 137. 44. “Fictional dialogue has to create character, tension, immediacy as well as form a compelling design” Pg. 137. 45. “In a public place, without being noticed, collect fifteen lines of dialogue format least five different conversations. Now select ten of your lines and use them to write a coherent convincing scene.” Pg 138.

Gunn. Timothy. “The Effects of new Technologies on Independent Film and Video Artists”. __Leonardo, Vol. 29, No 4.__ 1995. The MIT Press. March 16, 2009. <[][e/1576320> 46. “Makers of independent media are often totally dependant on a variety of sources to complete their projects: friends, relatives, foundations, sympathetic professionals for whom the words “scale” and “deferred payment” are common terms of employment, and occasionally the limits of the filmmaker’s own credit card.”

Schuker, Lauren A.E. “Young Intellectuals Making Movies” __Wall Street Journal Eastern Edition.__ May 10, 2008. The Wall Street Journal. <[]> 47. “The first cliché of independent film is shocking the audience.” 48. “Independent films commonly present a world of sullen characters thrown into quirky, out of control situations.” 49. “They are trying, against all odds, to find a human voice that can take film out of its most recent traps. In the end, that is more than can be said for most everything else in film today”

Sanders. Terry B. “The Financing of Independent Feature Films.” __The Quarterly of Film Radio and Television, Vol. 9 No. 4__//)//. 1995. University of California Press. March 16, 2009. < []>. 50. “When the guarantor is a personal friends of the producer or when the producer himself is financially responsible, no fee or percentages are involved” 51. “The people who frequently defer a portion of their fees or salaries include the producer himself, the writer, the director, the actors, the director of photography, the music composer, and the film-processing laboratory.” 52. “The function of the distributor includes the leasing of the film to exhibitors, the arranging for play dates, the delivering, and the collecting of film rentals.”

Intros both big to small funnel. Wake up at 6:25 am with a camera in your hand, ready to get the perfect shot of a sunrise; you get a bunch of different camera angles but you not done yet. You have to take this clip, important it into a computer then go about the challenging task of editing. This is a familiar situation for many Independent Film makers. Independent films are good for both experienced and inexperienced film makers because it gives the ability to get lots of different camera shots and angles, experiment with the video more to get a better product, and have a smaller budget. Independent films usually “present a world of sullen characters thrown into quirky, out of control situations” (Schuker). In this essay I plan on explaining my original Independent Film. //The difference between my film and others is that this movie challenges the viewer to become part of the experience through the use of various metaphors, images, character development, and plot twists, which advance the plots deeper meaning.//

You have spent the last two weeks trying to get noticed by an agent and finally give up. You think it will be a whole lot easy to attempt to sell your film yourself and a lot more profitable. There are many different ways to sell an Independent Film; one of the best ways to get your noticed is by entering it in Film Festival, if your Film is well received at the festival there is a better chance you will be able to get an agent. Some people try to produce movies single handedly, although this will reap more benefits in the end it takes a lot of time and commitment, very few people can do this successfully. In this essay I will take you through the steps to getting a movie produced using my film as an example. My film has potential to get produced, both because of its plot and because of the strategies I will use to get it produced.