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Avid Media Composer
For many film editors, including yours truly, Avid’s Media Composer is the preferred software for cutting our work. It’s rock solid, powerful and once you really know how to use it, one of the most versatile tools for getting the job done. However, over the past several years the future of the Media Composer platform has been in doubt. Strong competitors moved into the marketplace, and Avid, once king of digital editing, seemed headed to the sidelines. But as fast as it seemed to fall, Media Composer may be making a comeback, due in part to major enhancements to the […]
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Burn Self-Distribution Resource List
DIGITAL PRINTS Different By Design (Los Angeles) (310) 689-2470 http://www.dxdproductions.com/ Feature film DCP master: $10/minute + $50 setup fee + $150/drive Duplicates (on USB hard drive): $150 each Feature film Blu-ray master: $250 Duplicates: $25 each Trailer DCP master: $10/minute + $50 setup fee + $25/thumb drive Duplicates (on USB thumb drive): $25 each Trailer Blu-ray master: $250 Duplicates: $25 POSTERS & POSTCARDS U Printing www.uprinting.com They’re in Los Angeles, so you can pick up directly from them and avoid shipping costs. Posters (27×39 100-pound glossy) $1070 for 2,000; postcards $420 for 10,000. WEBSTORE Shopify http://www.shopify.com/ Prices vary […]
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The Watergate Theory of Screenwriting
At the 2013 Screenwriting Research Network International Conference, Larry Gross discusses narrative, knowledge and Kurosawa’s Ikiru. I want to begin by expressing my sense of unworthiness at being offered the chance to give this keynote address, given the stature of some of those who proceeded me in performing the task, and I want to express briefly my personal admiration for three of these predecessors. Here in Madison, Wisconsin, I don’t have to explain the importance of David Bordwell as one of the world’s greatest film scholars. I only want to mention that I first became aware of his work in […]
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Too Much of a Good Thing?
Digital cinema has afforded independent filmmakers many benefits, one of which is the ability to achieve something previously only the province of big-budget films: very high shooting ratios. However, the resulting mass of footage can overrun the typical understaffed, underfunded, low-budget edit room. “You’re shooting more footage, and usually with two cameras,” says Paul Frank, editor of the recent Maggie Carey comedy The To Do List. While he notes that there are many pros to this way of shooting — it benefits performance, it allows for more improvisation and, ultimately, more options in the edit room — he also notes […]
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A Fresh Look at Apple’s Final Cut Pro X
Hard to believe, but FCP X is well over two years old and already into its ninth iteration. Its popular multicam tool arrived with version three in January of last year. In the past 12 months alone, no less than four new versions have been released, bringing dual viewers, a unified import window, support for native REDCODE RAW, MXF, Sony XAVC (up to 4K) and optional Rec. 709 display of ARRI ALEXA ProRes captured in Log C. Recent improvements also include a handy freeze-frame tool, chapter markers for QuickTimes and DVDs, better audio channel editing tools, and FCPXML 1.2 to […]
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Home Screen: The Made in NY Media Center by IFP
Editor’s Note: The subject of this article, the Made in NY Media Center by IFP, is developed and operated by IFP, also the publisher of Filmmaker. Cantankerousness is a disease that can affect even the smartest among us — back in the day, Socrates protested his ideas shouldn’t be written down, fearing that there was no way the written word could capture the meaning and emotion of the human voice. But instead of honoring the wise old man’s wishes, his young pupil Plato recorded his inspiration’s objections, using the very medium that Socrates was so set on strangling at its […]
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Foreign Sales 101: What Independents Need to Know About Selling Films Abroad
This article originally appeared in our Summer, 2013 issue. With substantial revenue (sometimes well above 50 percent) coming from exploitation outside of a film’s home country, it is vital that producers know how to target and then structure deals with foreign sales agents. For those beginning to explore international distribution, here are some very basic ideas and concepts about the business of foreign sales to know going in. What is an international sales agent? In simplest terms, an international sales agent is the conduit to your film’s distribution outside of its country of origin. The sales agent will acquire a […]
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The Way It Is Now
For the past half-year or so, I have been in constant dialogue with the distribution and foreign sales companies who are releasing four of my recent productions. While engaging these companies, in conjunction with the four directors, I noticed some patterns emerging that are revealing of the current distribution landscape — patterns that differ dramatically from the old ways of theatrical and home video release. Rest assured, it’s not all bad news. It used to be that foreign pre-sales would help us get our dramas financed. Now we can barely find foreign sales agents for our American independent films, even […]
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¡Viva La Revolución!
A few months ago I went to the Los Angeles premiere of a horror film, Aftershock, directed by Nicolás Lopéz and produced by Eli Roth. Roth stars as an American who travels to Chile to visit local friends, but what starts as a romantic comedy about a trio of losers trying to get laid shifts dramatically and horrifically when a massive earthquake hits. Roth, in a khaki suit, plaid shirt and blue tie, looked more the producer than director of horror films such as Hostel and the upcoming The Green Inferno. He introduced Lopéz with generous praise. Roth had known […]
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Meeting Ingmar Bergman
“Dear David, the important thing is you told me the truth.” — Ingmar Bergman Early 1964 “It’s Paul Kohner. Do you want to talk to him?” asked my assistant Peggy. Why not? Paul, who was born in Germany and worked for several American studios in Europe in the ’30s, was a highly respected agent in Hollywood representing mostly talent born or based in Europe. The good news with Paul was that you never knew what he might have up his sleeve, since his representation was reasonably unpredictable. The other good news was that he was on the phone from Los […]
