Join CAmm Cage staff for networking, free pizza, free beer, and Kristen's 13 tips for filmmakers. Did we mention FREE!? 6-7pm tonight. CAmm Cage & Media Lab. Creative Alliance at The Patterson, 3134 Eastern Ave, Baltimore MD 21224
Monday, March 15, 2010
CAmm Cage Happy Hour TONITE! (3/15/2010)
Join CAmm Cage staff for networking, free pizza, free beer, and Kristen's 13 tips for filmmakers. Did we mention FREE!? 6-7pm tonight. CAmm Cage & Media Lab. Creative Alliance at The Patterson, 3134 Eastern Ave, Baltimore MD 21224
Sunday, March 14, 2010
How To Make a Film in 13 Short Steps
By Kristen Anchor, Dir. of Creative Alliance MovieMakers, a great resource in Baltimore for film equipment, networking, workshops and diy film screenings
Prep work, prep work and more prep work. Most of the work on a film happens way before the camera rolls. (Of course many brilliant people have broken this rule but I'd bet that everyone like Lars Von Trier who breaks the rules is lying a little bit about how spontaneous they are and anyway most have made a few films with LOTS OF PLANNING before they experimented.)
1. Watch lots of movies.
2. Watch more movies. Look at how the shots and cuts tell the story. Notice how most films are not shot with one camera on a tripod on the other side of the room. Take notes on your favorite films.
3. Make friends with people making films. They might have gear and they will need your free labor. You'll learn a ton if you keep your ears and eyes open.
4. Make lots of friends. You're gonna need people who like to do stuff for you. Help people move heavy objects and build your karma.
5. Get an idea or find someone with one. There's no shame in working with a writer if you are more of a director, or the other way around.
6. Have somebody who is not involved in the writing look at your concept or script and then (and this is the VERY IMPORTANT PART) has hard as it may be, listen to them. Turn off defensiveness and listen up.
7. Ask someone else to look at it and repeat step six.
8. Pull together your resources and your friends' friends' resources -- this means people you know who can act, lift stuff, hold stuff, cook stuff, people with film skills to work on your movie, people with the gear to work on your movie, etc.
9. LIGHT YOUR DAMN MOVIE, it will look a million times better.
10. USE A BOOM AND MIC and a sound guy or gal if you can find one - BAD SOUND IS WHAT MAKES OR BREAKS A FILM.
11. Use an editor. It is a rare person who can distance themselves enough from the project they are directing to be a good editor. You are still the 'boss' of the editor, so it isn't so bad, but really, listen to them. They are going to want to cut stuff you are very attached to, but it WILL make your film better. Let go, you can do it!
12. Have a big premiere! Do it up right!
13. Don't be discouraged by film festival rejections you need to get started on your next film anyway!
Prep work, prep work and more prep work. Most of the work on a film happens way before the camera rolls. (Of course many brilliant people have broken this rule but I'd bet that everyone like Lars Von Trier who breaks the rules is lying a little bit about how spontaneous they are and anyway most have made a few films with LOTS OF PLANNING before they experimented.)
1. Watch lots of movies.
2. Watch more movies. Look at how the shots and cuts tell the story. Notice how most films are not shot with one camera on a tripod on the other side of the room. Take notes on your favorite films.
3. Make friends with people making films. They might have gear and they will need your free labor. You'll learn a ton if you keep your ears and eyes open.
4. Make lots of friends. You're gonna need people who like to do stuff for you. Help people move heavy objects and build your karma.
5. Get an idea or find someone with one. There's no shame in working with a writer if you are more of a director, or the other way around.
6. Have somebody who is not involved in the writing look at your concept or script and then (and this is the VERY IMPORTANT PART) has hard as it may be, listen to them. Turn off defensiveness and listen up.
7. Ask someone else to look at it and repeat step six.
8. Pull together your resources and your friends' friends' resources -- this means people you know who can act, lift stuff, hold stuff, cook stuff, people with film skills to work on your movie, people with the gear to work on your movie, etc.
9. LIGHT YOUR DAMN MOVIE, it will look a million times better.
10. USE A BOOM AND MIC and a sound guy or gal if you can find one - BAD SOUND IS WHAT MAKES OR BREAKS A FILM.
11. Use an editor. It is a rare person who can distance themselves enough from the project they are directing to be a good editor. You are still the 'boss' of the editor, so it isn't so bad, but really, listen to them. They are going to want to cut stuff you are very attached to, but it WILL make your film better. Let go, you can do it!
12. Have a big premiere! Do it up right!
13. Don't be discouraged by film festival rejections you need to get started on your next film anyway!
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Filmmaker Ziad Jazzaa talks about filmmaking in wartime Iraq (& screens films Thu Mar 11 at Creative Alliance)
Ziad Jazzaa screens w films from Baghdad
UnderExposure w/ Hometown Baghdad
presented by CAmm and On the Avenue
Thu Mar 11, 7pm.
$10, $8 stus, mbrs.
Award-winning Iraqi filmmaker Ziad Jazzaa fled Baghdad as a refugee and was resettled in Baltimore in 2009. Tonight we screen his favorite feature UnderExposure, for which he was cinematographer, with a cast of fictional characters set in war-torn Iraq: a determined filmmaker, a musician weak with cancer, a wounded soldier. Shot during the Iraq War, with real footage of Baghdad, a city in rubble yet filled with compassion and perseverance, it won Best Film at Singapore’s International Film Festival 2005. Shorts from Hometown Baghdad open. Dir. Oday Rasheed, 2006, 74 Min. Q&A w/ Jazzaa follows.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Mar 6-13 Saturday Film School w/ Michelle Farrell
2 Saturdays: Mar 6, 1310am-5pm (w/ lunch break). $175, $150mbrs, walk in $225, $175 mbrs. The basics AND MORE of camera and lighting, hands on! Award-winning filmmaker Michelle Farrell walks through three-point lighting and mood on documentaries and how to build from there for feature film work. Know your gear and how to strategize, place camera, light, tweak and shoot.
Info and reg: http://www.creativealliance.org/events/eventItem2099.html
Here's a video from one of Michelle's classes here:
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