Then perhaps it's time to expand your wardrobe to include the latest in RB/Gear:
This brand new t-shirt is just a click away from in-your-mailbox and on-your-body... http://www.cafepress.com/RachelBites
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Hater v. Tater
Troubled by the intense envy aroused among friends and strangers by your new "Rachel Bites" t-shirt?
Then perhaps it's time to expand your wardrobe to include the latest in RB/Gear:
This brand new t-shirt is just a click away from in-your-mailbox and on-your-body...
http://www.cafepress.com/RachelBites
Then perhaps it's time to expand your wardrobe to include the latest in RB/Gear:
This brand new t-shirt is just a click away from in-your-mailbox and on-your-body... http://www.cafepress.com/RachelBites
Monday, June 8, 2009
"Rachel Bites" Merchandise
Right now, and while supplies last, you can buy t-shirts relating to a web series that DOES NOT EXIST!
Imagine the confusion on the faces of friends and foes alike when they ask "What the hell is that?" and you reply, coolly, "That's for a web series that doesn't exist."
Confusion will fast turn to envy when they realize you've gotten in on the ground floor, before the damn thing's even been shot!
If, after purchasing one of these shirts, your reputation doesn't appreciate in value by at least 200%, there's definitely something wrong with you.
http://www.cafepress.com/RachelBites
Imagine the confusion on the faces of friends and foes alike when they ask "What the hell is that?" and you reply, coolly, "That's for a web series that doesn't exist."
Confusion will fast turn to envy when they realize you've gotten in on the ground floor, before the damn thing's even been shot!
If, after purchasing one of these shirts, your reputation doesn't appreciate in value by at least 200%, there's definitely something wrong with you.
http://www.cafepress.com/RachelBites
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Rachel Bites Storyboard
So we're in pre-production now on the first four episodes of web series Rachel Bites (about a young woman going to film school in NYC) which we'll shoot over 2 or 3 days at the end of this month. I've been doing storyboards as a way of thinking about what it will look like, and how it will be constructed in the editing. That's a page of storyboards above, which you can see in a larger form by clicking on it. The drawing is feeble, but no worse, certainly, than Scorsese's for Taxi Driver.
The scene numbers are to the left, and it looks like there must be at least 16 scenes in this episode, but in fact we're numbering all of the scenes in these four episodes consecutively, because we'll shoot all four episodes during the same production period. That means that if we see Rachel on the same city street in episodes 1 and 3, we'll shoot those scenes on the same day to "shoot out" that location.
- PH
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Authenticity
This is a response to a blog post by Rosie Walunas, "Product endorsement and breaking the news," on her excellent blog "all things doc":
--
I'm far from the first to predict that "authenticity" will become a trend in the marketing of products: A company makes a good product that lives up to its hype, rendering the hype unnecessary, to be replaced by word of mouth-- a.k.a., the worldwide web. [See Joseph Pine on "What Consumers Want."]
As Pine points out, consumers want a kind of truth-- to get what they pay for. In their search for the best HD television, consumers just want to know which one offers them what they need. A company that lies about its products will have a tough time surviving because their old customers won't return, and potential new customers will hear in advance, by word of mouth, about the lies (or hype.)
Authenticity, truth, an absence of hyperbole in the dissemination of information... sounds like journalism.
Bloggers are challenging major newspapers and stealing readers, in part by seeming more authentic. Nikki Finke, for example, seems to tell more truth about the entertainment industry in a week of her blog postings than you'll read in a year of LA Times or Variety reportage. (Finke, however, isn't perceived as a paragon of authenticity either, and has been criticized for relying on single sources for her scoops.)
Journalists covering entertainment are typically afraid of losing access to the stars that sell their articles, and so are unwilling to speak critically of the industry. Additionally, the entertainment industry buys a lot of advertising, a key source of revenue for Old School News. This conflict of interest is emblematic.
Authenticity has an uneasy relationship with profit. Is it possible to "monetize" (I hate that overused word) authenticity?
Consumer Reports has been doing it for years, by selling subscriptions. They won't accept money from advertisers, and buy all of the products under review themselves. Profit (such as it is) comes from the people who benefit from CR's services.
If I could invest in Authenticity on the stock market, I would; I expect its value to increase exponentially.
I guess I am investing, in a sense, by not wanting to create a lot of bullshit about our movies. But the world is in an interim phase, where marketing and publicity (and bullshit) still rule, and consumers (what a word!) haven't found many ways to purchase authenticity. They will eventually, even if they realize too late that the New York Times provided it and is no longer around to be consumed.
Will Elyria Pictures have to create a lot of hype to survive?
If our upcoming web series, Rachel Bites, finds some kind of sponsorship, I want to be completely transparent about it. It will need a sponsor or product placement, because otherwise we can't afford to make it, but there's no reason to try to hide it. The Jack Benny Show never did. Radio shows like his would often interrupt a story in progress so that the characters could have a delicious sip of the sponsor's coffee. Now that viewers can skip easily past advertisements, that kind of interruption is returning. It seems a small price to pay for a good show. And I doubt viewers will mind, as long as they don't feel they're being lied to.
- PH
--
I'm far from the first to predict that "authenticity" will become a trend in the marketing of products: A company makes a good product that lives up to its hype, rendering the hype unnecessary, to be replaced by word of mouth-- a.k.a., the worldwide web. [See Joseph Pine on "What Consumers Want."]
As Pine points out, consumers want a kind of truth-- to get what they pay for. In their search for the best HD television, consumers just want to know which one offers them what they need. A company that lies about its products will have a tough time surviving because their old customers won't return, and potential new customers will hear in advance, by word of mouth, about the lies (or hype.)
Authenticity, truth, an absence of hyperbole in the dissemination of information... sounds like journalism.
Bloggers are challenging major newspapers and stealing readers, in part by seeming more authentic. Nikki Finke, for example, seems to tell more truth about the entertainment industry in a week of her blog postings than you'll read in a year of LA Times or Variety reportage. (Finke, however, isn't perceived as a paragon of authenticity either, and has been criticized for relying on single sources for her scoops.)
Journalists covering entertainment are typically afraid of losing access to the stars that sell their articles, and so are unwilling to speak critically of the industry. Additionally, the entertainment industry buys a lot of advertising, a key source of revenue for Old School News. This conflict of interest is emblematic.
Authenticity has an uneasy relationship with profit. Is it possible to "monetize" (I hate that overused word) authenticity?
Consumer Reports has been doing it for years, by selling subscriptions. They won't accept money from advertisers, and buy all of the products under review themselves. Profit (such as it is) comes from the people who benefit from CR's services.
If I could invest in Authenticity on the stock market, I would; I expect its value to increase exponentially.
I guess I am investing, in a sense, by not wanting to create a lot of bullshit about our movies. But the world is in an interim phase, where marketing and publicity (and bullshit) still rule, and consumers (what a word!) haven't found many ways to purchase authenticity. They will eventually, even if they realize too late that the New York Times provided it and is no longer around to be consumed.
Will Elyria Pictures have to create a lot of hype to survive?
If our upcoming web series, Rachel Bites, finds some kind of sponsorship, I want to be completely transparent about it. It will need a sponsor or product placement, because otherwise we can't afford to make it, but there's no reason to try to hide it. The Jack Benny Show never did. Radio shows like his would often interrupt a story in progress so that the characters could have a delicious sip of the sponsor's coffee. Now that viewers can skip easily past advertisements, that kind of interruption is returning. It seems a small price to pay for a good show. And I doubt viewers will mind, as long as they don't feel they're being lied to.
- PH
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Advanced Screenwriting Class
Hate to use the blog as an advertisement, but here I am doing it anyway.
I'm teaching an Advanced Screenwriting class at the New York Film Academy that begins April 14th and runs for eight weeks, meeting Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7 to 9:30PM.
The goal of the class is to revise student's feature scripts, to get them in the best possible shape to send out into the world.
So if you have a feature-length script that you're considering submitting to film professionals, remember: You only get one chance. (They won't read it twice!)
We'll workshop student's pages, with rigor and plenty of encouragement and support, following Kubrick's dictum: "There are no bad ideas, only better ones."
To join the class, just follow this link.
- PH
I'm teaching an Advanced Screenwriting class at the New York Film Academy that begins April 14th and runs for eight weeks, meeting Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7 to 9:30PM.
The goal of the class is to revise student's feature scripts, to get them in the best possible shape to send out into the world.
So if you have a feature-length script that you're considering submitting to film professionals, remember: You only get one chance. (They won't read it twice!)
We'll workshop student's pages, with rigor and plenty of encouragement and support, following Kubrick's dictum: "There are no bad ideas, only better ones."
To join the class, just follow this link.
- PH
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Rachel Bites
As post continues on Bridge of Names, we're beginning casting on web series Rachel Bites, an edgy comedy aimed at the 18 - 25 demo.
It stars Rachel Zeiger-Haag, as a young woman in film school in NYC.
Blog readers are welcome to read the scripts and give feedback (quick, before we go into production in late May!)
You can see the scripts (each 3-4 pages long) by clicking on "Episodes" on (the rough draft of) the Rachel Bites website.
- PH
It stars Rachel Zeiger-Haag, as a young woman in film school in NYC.
Blog readers are welcome to read the scripts and give feedback (quick, before we go into production in late May!)
You can see the scripts (each 3-4 pages long) by clicking on "Episodes" on (the rough draft of) the Rachel Bites website.
- PH
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Stitching & Ironing
Right now I'm in the fine cut stage of the edit. I'm preparing for a festival deadline, which means I'm trying to smooth out the sound as much a I can in FCP while also making the picture cut as tight and economical as possible. I love this part of editing. There are a lot of metaphoric descriptions of what it's like but the title of this blog is my favorite. With both picture and sound one of my chief occupations right now is removing all the big wrinkles I can see or hear that will disrupt the story. I don't want an abrupt change, in the background noise, from one shot to another, to pull you out of the scene.
This past week I had one of my proudest (and most reassuring moments) in this process so far. There's a key emotional scene between our two leads - Steve and Agnes - late in the movie. The tenor of the scene will determine a lot about how the audience feels at the end of the movie. The location of the scene is in front of a church at, what turned out to be, a very busy lunchtime intersection in South Amherst, MA. We shot the first three angles for the scene battling the sound of passing trucks throughout. We did some lock-off but the local populace was not in favor of having their lunch drive-time interrupted so that met with only limited success and a lot of heartache for our faithful lock-off crew members. Finally, for the most important angle of the scene - Agnes's close-up - we moved around back of the church, found a tree to match the one in front, and did the shot without truck noise.
When we did the earlier cut of the scene we worked around the truck noise as much as possible with straight cuts, but as you can imagine we had a lot of variation in tone between the angle on Steve and the angle on Agnes. Yesterday I worked for a few hours on pulling out as much of the egregious sound as I could. The most satisfying moment was when I realized that I could pull all the production sound out of our last angle on Steve and replace it with the sound from the corresponding shot of Agnes. I just deleted the Steve-shot sound tracks and dragged the Agnes-shot sounds tracks under Steve's angle. All I needed to hold onto was one small live production sound-effect of Steve slapping his pants leg. No more nasty truck sounds at the end of the scene!
It's hard to explain (even to myself) why I enjoy this seemingly tedious, painstaking work. It means a lot of searching alternate takes for better sound, especially where we're lacking ambience (not a problem with this particular shoot). It's a lot of small decisions that hopefully add up to a better viewing experience. It's the only solitary part of filmmaking that I really enjoy.
- LF
This past week I had one of my proudest (and most reassuring moments) in this process so far. There's a key emotional scene between our two leads - Steve and Agnes - late in the movie. The tenor of the scene will determine a lot about how the audience feels at the end of the movie. The location of the scene is in front of a church at, what turned out to be, a very busy lunchtime intersection in South Amherst, MA. We shot the first three angles for the scene battling the sound of passing trucks throughout. We did some lock-off but the local populace was not in favor of having their lunch drive-time interrupted so that met with only limited success and a lot of heartache for our faithful lock-off crew members. Finally, for the most important angle of the scene - Agnes's close-up - we moved around back of the church, found a tree to match the one in front, and did the shot without truck noise.
When we did the earlier cut of the scene we worked around the truck noise as much as possible with straight cuts, but as you can imagine we had a lot of variation in tone between the angle on Steve and the angle on Agnes. Yesterday I worked for a few hours on pulling out as much of the egregious sound as I could. The most satisfying moment was when I realized that I could pull all the production sound out of our last angle on Steve and replace it with the sound from the corresponding shot of Agnes. I just deleted the Steve-shot sound tracks and dragged the Agnes-shot sounds tracks under Steve's angle. All I needed to hold onto was one small live production sound-effect of Steve slapping his pants leg. No more nasty truck sounds at the end of the scene!
It's hard to explain (even to myself) why I enjoy this seemingly tedious, painstaking work. It means a lot of searching alternate takes for better sound, especially where we're lacking ambience (not a problem with this particular shoot). It's a lot of small decisions that hopefully add up to a better viewing experience. It's the only solitary part of filmmaking that I really enjoy.
- LF
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