Interesting and somewhat random things I've read

I'm reading a lot today. I have my exam for Line Producing on Tuesday so I'm trying to catch up on all the handouts for that class. At least I've got all the textbook stuff read. I also have a pile of reading for Adaptations: two sets of stories for workshops, plus a film that Debbie is going to talk about. Some interesting stuff is floating to the surface though, so here are a few quotes and ideas.

Debbie's film to discuss is Perfume. We'll be talking about how to handle smell in film. I think that's going to be a fascinating discussion.

One of the handouts for Line Producing is called Designing a Movie for Sound*. This is a good read, but I feel like I'm reading it for the wrong class. Anyway, here was an interesting idea: "Starving the eye will inevitably bring the ear, and therefore the imagination, more into play." It ties in nicely with what John Hoover says often in Cinematography which is not to be afraid of the dark. We already know what these people look like, we don't have to bash them with light on every frame.

Publicity From Day One** is another article for Line Producing. They give the tip: "Make sure the festival publicist see your film prior to the event. They can't talk about what they haven't seen, and most of them are lucky if they get to even a handful of films." Mostly this article is talking about big festivals and feature films, but I've got to say, that's true in my small films/small festivals experience as well. No one will do your publicity for you, even they they would have wanted to. At Woods Hole, late in the week, I sat with their publicist at a gathering for a bit. After we'd talked for about 10 minutes she said she wished she'd known all this about me earlier (mostly that I was both local and a returning filmmaker) earlier because she'd have promoted my film more if she realized.

One of our articles is about clearances. Mostly it's horror stories of film school shorts that could have gotten distribution except they didn't have the right clearances and/or the cost for clearance beyond festivals was more than anyone was willing to pay. So if IFC might be willing to pay $2k to air a short on their channel, but you'd owe SAG $10k in back pay to the actors as soon as you make any money at all it's a net loss for you to sell the film at all. BUT, what is most interesting to me in that article is several film schools (USC, AFI, others?) retain the copyright to any of their students' work. Must remember to ask Charles what BU's policy is on that.








*Designing a Movie For Sound, by Randy Thom. I just wish there weren't 4 pages of whining before getting to the 6 pages of suggestions.

**Publicity from Day One, by R.J. Millard in The Independent, September 2003