This is a guest post by Director, Writer, and Cinematographer Oden Roberts.
Mantra: Grant writing is not filmmaking. Once again: Grant writing is not filmmaking. It’s scholarly, tedious and political. Repeat mantra.
A few years back I began the arduous process of submitting my feature script A Fighting Season to the San Francisco Film Society for their prestigious KRF narrative production grant. The process, in a nutshell, parallels the scholarly disciplines guided by the Little, Brown Handbook than the craft I’ve been become familiar with known as “Indie” filmmaking. More »
Just when you thought filmmaking was migrating to the seemingly greener grass of independent film studios, a peculiar thing occurs: 3 major Hollywood studios, Disney, NBCUniversal, and Paramount are reported to have massive, long-term studio expansions in the works. In light of lower film counts and production going elsewhere, why are these studios initiating the “most aggressive growth spurt in recent Hollywood memory” and what, if anything, does this mean for independent film? More »
The Kickstarter for the Supraflux Video Camera Stabilizer ended recently, raising almost $100,000, well over the initial $27,000 goal. If you didn’t happen to get in on the action, however, you’re in luck, because the Supraflux team is giving nofilmschool readers a special discount for a limited time. What is Supraflux exactly? Created by the guys behind the Picosteady, it’s a handheld camera with an ingenious way to control rotation. Check out a video introducing the device below. More »
Back in April it became clear that the Micro 4/3 version of the Metabones Speed Booster (the lens adapter that makes lenses wider, faster, and sharper), was going to be delayed for some time. While it still probably won’t be shipping for a while, the company has sent out some pre-production versions of the adapter, and we’ve got our first look at images from the adapter thanks to Philip Bloom, who recently got his hands on one. Check out his video below. More »
How do you teach comedy? Comedy writers Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, creators of the award-winning British sitcoms Peep Show and Fresh Meat, attempt to do so, or at the very least offer some tips on how to make your comedy better in this BAFTA masterclass. The two sat down to talk about breaking into the industry, how to write funny characters and scenes, and even attempt to answer the age-old question of why we laugh. More »
Earlier this week, the folks at Boinx Software released the upgraded iStopMotion 3.1, an award-winning stop-motion animation software. This upgrade includes a feature that many users have been clamoring for: screen capture. This new feature allows users the ability to create stop-motion and time-lapse videos by capturing frames directly from your computer screen — essentially turning your computer/iPad/iPhone screen into a movie set. More »
About a month ago, we had the honor of talking with director Nicolás Alcalá about his crowdfunded and transmediatic film The Cosmonaut. Ever since then, we’ve been waiting with bated breath for the May 18th release of the film — and now, that day is here. After years of raising funds, traveling across Europe, and enlisting thousands of people to become co-creators of their project, the team of at Riot Cinema Collective are ready to unveil their newest creation. More »
Remember the Digital Bolex? Despite the fact that most of the camera buzz has been around Blackmagic and Canon (with the RAW video hack of the 5D) for the past month or so, Joe and Elle have just kept on with bringing their vision for the Digital Bolex D16 to fruition. While the final design of the camera is not yet being manufactured, many of the pieces needed to make the camera function out of the box (like a custom-built PL mount and the Kish lenses for the turret) are now nearing completion in time for the release of the camera. Hit the jump to see what the fine folks at Digital Bolex have been up to for the past two months. More »
Back in July, UK horror anthology project Blood Cuts reminded us that bedtime stories sometimes contain much more terror than comfort with fifth entry in the series, gothic fairytale Suckablood. More frights, blood and gore have followed since, bringing us now to the eighth chilling instalment, Don’t Move. We get our fright on and talk to Series Producer Ben Franklin about the challenges of upping the Blood Cuts ante with each release after the jump. Join us, if you dare… More »
Director Jack Perez (Some Guy Who Kills People, Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus) has been making low-budget films for quite some time, and just a few months ago he sat down with the great people over at Film Courage to discuss the process of making movies and which are the best films to watch to help you learn the craft of filmmaking. Check out the list below, and be sure to head on down to the comments and add any that have helped you learn the craft. More »
I don’t recall in recent memory any sort of software with this many updates in such a short period of time, but the folks over at Magic Lantern have been working around the clock, and we’re getting almost consistent updates thanks to the incredible people working on the RAW video hack. Basic capabilities from regular H.264 video are being ported over, and it looks like both playback and audio are working in at least a basic form with RAW video mode — so we should see those at some point. We’ve also got a great little comparison from Luke Neumann showing the RAW Canon 5D Mark III against the hacked Panasonic GH2. More »
Last year, we posted about a great opportunity for screenwriters to donate to a great cause and get their screenplay read by a professional manager in return. If you missed your chance last year, screenwriter Joe Nienalt and Benderspink manager Daniel Vang are back to help Joe raise money for the 2013 Heart Walk. Last year, with Daniel’s promise to read screenplays from Joe’s Heart Walk donors, Joe raised almost $45,000 for the American Heart Association (up from over $8,000 the previous year). Over the past two years, two writers and a writing team got representation as a result of Daniel reading their scripts through the fund drive. Joe appreciated our nofilmschool post about his Heart Walk campaign so much last year, he linked to it from his own post to help people understand why they should donate. Joe reached out to us again this year to help him spread the word, and we’re happy to do so. To find out how you can help a good cause and your own screenwriting career, check out the details below: More »
J.J. Abrams made a name for himself in television, but he’s become been one of the biggest film directors in Hollywood thanks to giant movies like Mission: Impossible III and the Star Trek reboot. Recently he sat down with BAFTA Guru to talk about his career, what his father told him before going to college, and his advice for aspiring filmmakers. Click through to check it out. More »
If you’ve been reading these Magic Lantern RAW video posts and watching the clips, and you’d like to get in on the action, we’ve got just the tutorial for you. Luke Neumann, who has been testing the Canon 5D Mark III with Magic Lantern and recently posted a clip of his own, has put together a great video that runs through some of what you’ll need to do to get up and running. We’ve also got another great test video to whet your whistle, so head on down and check everything out below. More »
Literally thousands of people write screenplays every year, and for many of these writers, these screenplays are likely their very first efforts at screenwriting. For screenwriting newbies, several books exist that cover the basics of screenplay format and story structure, and more and more screenplays are available online for new writers to read and study. If you’re just getting started with screenwriting or if you have written one or two screenplays and want to hone your craft, a new online course from lynda.com, Screenwriting Fundamentals by Mark Tapio Kines, may be just want you need. And the best part is you can check it out for free (and any other lynda.com course) with a 7-day trial subscription. More »
The 66th Annual Cannes Film Festival looks more like a dream than a selection of films. Packed with work from Oscar winners like Joel and Ethan Coen, Roman Polanski, and Asghar Farhadi, this year’s festival is set to amaze. Of the 20 films, 5 are from the U.S., and lucky for us, 2 of those U.S. films — Alexander Payne’s Nebraska and Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive – have released clips giving you a sneak peek just in time for Cannes’ opening day. More »
There are several exciting new lighting revolutions in development these days, namely LED and plasma fixtures. The first such high-output/low-footprint alternative lighting technology — all but perfected for the performance needed in high-end film production — came about twenty-five years ago, with the advent of Kino Flo Lighting Systems. Kino Flo isn’t the only manufacturer pushing alternative lighting solutions with filmmaking in mind, but its name is still nearly synonymous with the technology it helped revolutionize. Check out an excellent interview below from Shane Hurlbut, ASC, with Kino Flo founder and president Frieder Hochheim to hear about how it all began and about how the company plans on lending its namesake to some of those new revolutions in lighting, too. More »
Long Answer: Nope. There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about what is actually happening with the new Magic Lantern hack in development that enables RAW Video output on Canon DSLRs. While it seems like some sort of magic on the surface (and it basically is), the reason this is possible is because of the RAW data stream that the camera is already outputting during normal operation. Read on for a clear explanation as well as some words from the Magic Lantern team on how this affects your camera. More »
Trinity Anderson is barely 12 years old and she makes me feel like I’m slacking: she knows how to operate a steadicam, has been animating for years, and just finished a successful kickstarter for her short called Me and Ewe. Seriously? I’m pretty sure at 12 years old all I did was play tetherball and draw really awful stick figure cartoons. (Come to think of it, not much has changed.) Trinity was ever-so-kind enough to sit down for a video interview with NFS to talk about anything from her Dragonframe stop-motion software, to her thoughts on gender equality in the movie biz. More »
Saudi Arabia is experiencing many firsts in terms of filmmaking, specifically with the film Wadjda, which follows an 11-year-old Saudi girl on her pursuit to obtain a bicycle. The movie is the first by director Haifaa al-Mansour, the first to ever be shot entirely in the country, and the first to ever be shot be shot entirely in the country by a woman. Her film premiered with standing ovations and rave reviews at the 2012 Venice Film Festival, and since then, al-Mansour has gone on record about what it’s like to be a filmmaker in a kingdom without cinemas. More »
Sathya Vijayendran: So if using a full-frame lens, you're getting even less image than m43? Plethora of Updates on the Digital Bolex Reminds Us That Good Things Come …
moebius22: Great article, thanks. Learn the Art of Film Grant Writing with Oden Roberts
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