NoFilmSchool » free

Five Reasons to Give Away Your Film's Soundtrack for Free

Ryan Gielen — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 20:32:07 +0000

On Feb 1, 2008 Mark Cuban posted to his blog about a far-fetched, impossible-to-execute marketing concept that he desperately wanted film studios to adopt, in order to leverage the value of free giveaways to combat the crumbling theatrical marketplace. Digital was exploding, distribution was becoming a fractured nightmare, and studios were scrambling to adapt.

The idea was staggeringly simple: give away the film’s soundtrack for free. (more…)

All Automatic Duck Plugins are Free for a Limited Time

Ryan Koo — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 22:59:12 +0000

I am way late with this, but better late than never — and better free than $500. Wes and Harry Plate, the father-son duo behind Automatic Duck, were recently hired by Adobe. Automatic Duck makes (made) the well-known plugins Pro Import AE, Pro Import FCP, and Pro Export FCP, which allow users to open Final Cut Pro projects in After Effects, as well as enabling some other interoperability. This move by Adobe seems as much to prevent the duo from updating their must-have plugins for Final Cut Pro X, as much as it is to help Adobe with their already admirable integration between Premiere Pro and After Effects, but as a result all of Automatic Duck’s existing plugins — which formery ran $500 apiece — are free. Said Wes and Harry: (more…)

'PressPausePlay' is a Free and Timely Feature Film on Art and Technology

Ryan Koo — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 17:56:35 +0000

PressPausePlay is a feature-length documentary on “hope, fear, and digital culture” that has been making the festival rounds for a while and is now available gratis on the internet. It’s highly recommended viewing at any price — you can buy it for $14.99 on iTunes or rent it for $3.99 on Amazon — but now you can also download it for free (in 1080p, no less) on the PressPausePlay site. There’s also a nifty Adobe AIR interactive version (also free) with interactive hotspots and links to full interviews. Here’s not just one but three relevant trailers: (more…)

Jon Reiss on Actually Making Money from Self-Distribution: a Case Study

Guest Author — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 17:19:09 +0000

This is a guest post by filmmaker/author Jon Reiss, whose brand new co-authored book Selling Your Film Without Selling Your Soul is 100% free (until the end of September) and 100% essential reading for filmmakers. Seriously: do not miss this book.

Two years ago I wrote a book Think Outside the Box Office which is a nuts and bolts guide to direct distribution and marketing for films that I wish I had when I released my feature Bomb It (about graffiti and street art all over the world). Last week marked the launch of Selling Your Film Without Selling Your Soul (SYFWSYS) a book that I wrote with Sheri Candler and The Film Collaborative – which is available for free digitally until October 1 and also available in paperback. SYFWSYS includes marketing and crowdfunding strategies, distribution spends, community building and detailed ancillary and digital distribution numbers for the following films: Ride The Divide, The Cosmonaut, The Best and The Brightest, Sita Sings the Blues, Note by Note, Bass Ackwards, Adventures of Power, American: The Bill Hicks Story, Undertow, For the Bible Tells Me So, and the webseries PioneerOne. What follows is an excerpt from one of my chapters in the book about the release of a film Ride the Divide. (more…)

Essential Book for Filmmakers 'Selling Your Film Without Selling Your Soul' Now Available Free #syfnotsys

Ryan Koo — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 17:23:39 +0000

I’ve been waiting for this one for quite some time, and after flipping through it quickly, it looks to be an absolutely essential read for filmmakers. I’m talking about the free eBook Selling Your Film Without Selling Your Soul, which is presented by Prescreen and is co-authored by full-service indie nonprofit The Film Collaborative, filmmaker and distribution guru Jon Reiss (I called his first book Think Outside the Box Office a “great gift for filmmakers“), and marketing strategist and social media expert Sheri Candler. It’s available in several eBook forms, including for iPhone, Kindle, Nook, and of course PDF. It’s free until October 1st. Go get it now. Or watch the trailer: (more…)

Free Must-Download eBook 'Selling Your Film Without Selling Your Soul' Coming in September

Ryan Koo — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 13:39:42 +0000

Selling Your Film Without Selling Your Soul is a free, awesome-looking eBook coming in September from some heavy-hitters in the indie film scene. The book is a series of case studies that “dive deep into the real numbers and real details of independent film distribution,” and will be released free in September during Independent Film Week here in New York — when I’ll be taking meetings about my first feature film, Man-child. You may have heard of it? I just launched a Kickstarter campaign and I’m counting on your support! How’s that for an example of selling my film without selling my soul?!? Check out the book’s video trailer: (more…)

DaVinci Resolve Lite is the Free Version of a $29,995 Color Grading Suite

Ryan Koo — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 14:53:20 +0000

Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve is a high-end color correction suite replete with an elaborate control surface designed for professional colorists. It costs $30,000. There’s also a $1,000 software-only version that runs on Mac and Linux. And now there’s a free Mac version that retains many of the key features of its paid brethren. Here’s a demo of the color correction and impressive tracking features of Resolve in action: (more…)

Free Hour-long Tutorial on Optimizing Premiere Pro and After Effects CS5.5 Performance

Ryan Koo — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 13:04:00 +0000

Video tutorial site video2brain has published a free tutorial on optimizing your PC/Mac system for running After Effects and Premiere Pro CS5.5 (currently 50% off as part of Production Premium). Click on the image for the full 14-part video tutorial: (more…)

Get the 100-page Indie Film eBook 'The Modern MovieMaking Movement' Free

Ryan Koo — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 16:42:44 +0000

I’m not the only one offering a free 100-page eBook with the goal in mind of helping other indie filmmakers. Jason Brubaker, who created the MovieMaker Action Pack, has just published a free 100+ page eBook entitled The Modern MovieMaking Movement. While his paid offering looks to have a number of informative multimedia resources, this eBook is completely free, with no hard sells attached. The book includes interviews with a number of folks featured on this site in the past, including the following: (more…)

200 Movies to Watch in Full, Online, for Free

Ryan Koo — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 15:05:49 +0000

Open Culture has posted a list of 200 movies that are available to watch in full, online, for free. Alongside their list they also provide a compendium of web sites that offer free movies; definitely worth checking out in this, the winter of our hardships. Here are some picks from the list: (more…)

Radiohead's First Concert Film in 15 Years is Fan-made and Free

Ryan Koo — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 21:16:21 +0000

The best live show I’ve ever seen was Radiohead performing at All Points West just outside NYC here in 2008 (though this recent Flaming Lips show was pretty incredible too). Radiohead’s 25-song, two-encore set sounded amazing, the weather was great, and, well… it was Radiohead. I bring this up because the band, who famously self-released In Rainbows with a “pay what you want” model to great success, has just lent their music to a crowdsourced Czech concert film made up of 50 different amateur camera angles. Radiohead has much greater ownership of their music than most bands (they left their former label EMI because they wanted rights to the master recordings), and with ownership comes the ability to do something like this — just because they want to. In fact, this fan-filmed show — which has the same backdrop and a similar setlist to the show I witnessed — is their first concert film since 1995. And not only is it free, but the highest quality version is available not through iTunes or Amazon, but BitTorrent. (more…)

12 free apps for Mac creatives

Ryan Koo — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:00:18 +0000

Your Mac may make you look more like a designer or filmmaker, but beyond the basic functions of iLife, how do you write screenplays, record audio, develop websites, convert video and all the other productive stuff you bought a Mac for? What if you spent all your money on the hardware and don’t have any cash left for software? Luckily, there are plenty of creative applications available for the Mac for the price of free-99. Here are twelve apps worth a lot more than their price tag suggests. (more…)

The Google Phone will be free

Ryan Koo — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 06:22:33 +0000

UPDATE: It seems I was wrong, but not before others picked up on this idea. As it turns out, the Google Nexus One isn’t nearly as disruptive as a VOIP-driven, ad-supported device could be. I still maintain that the below is possible, and hopefully we’ll see it one day soon.

This isn’t specific to film, but considering mobile devices today are much more than just phones — they’re connected computers that serve as our digital, personal assistants — this has bearing on how all of us will be interacting with each other (and content) in the future. So I thought I’d throw around some unqualified and totally speculative speculation about What’s Next when it comes to mobile platforms. (more…)