PAPER # 1 & 3 REWRITES!
Posted on May 5, 2008
Filed under PAPER REWRITES
PAPER # 1 REWRITE
Welcome to My Brand Spakin’ New Blog!
I’ve always wanted to start a new blog, but I could never think of anything to write that was worth reading. I realized that if I were going to make something actually worth reading, then I would have to either inform people of information that they would like to know about, or write about something that would help people in general. I decided I would do both, and talk about how people break into Hollywood and the art of filmmaking itself.
By breaking in, I mean “The process of being hired by Hollywood executives in order to create more creative content after successfully demonstrating your worth through any entertainment medium.” Let’s break this down even further by starting backwards: “…Demonstrating your worth by any entertainment medium.” This medium can be writing, short film, feature film, commercials, producing, or through internet content.
But in order to be noticed by the Hollywood executives, you have to “…successfully demonstrate your worth…” and this means winning a contest of some sort (i.e. On the Lot), by garnering attention at a prestigious film festival (Sundance), or gaining internet fame (David Lehre).
Finally, you must be “…hired by Hollywood Executives in order to create more creative content…” which means exactly what it says, and that’s because Hollywood is a game, and to stay in the game, you have to keep playing the game, or else you’re out, and someone else joins in.
I am a 20 year old filmmaker and I’ve been making films since I was fifteen, and my goal is to break into Hollywood before the age of 23. It is a notorious age because many filmmakers have become successful at or around the age of 23: Steven Spielberg, Robert Rodriguez, Peter Jackson and many more.
On the road to breaking into Hollywood, there are many different tried and true routes to take: make a feature and hope it does well at festivals, or take years climbing the ranks and hope to prove studios that you are finally worthy of helming a big studio picture.
However, my focus will be mainly on the internet, and how it is helping today’s young filmmakers acquire recognition more quickly and efficiently. For example, there are people who get agents after posting videos on Youtube. There are filmmakers who become underground sensations because they have uploaded their films in bit torrent sites. And now there’s a new trend appearing where filmmakers are getting recognized from winning several online video contests and making loads of cash.
I hope to also provide information on a set of strategies, guidelines, and principles that all successful filmmakers instinctively follow that anyone can read about and hopefully try to follow also. In the coming weeks, I will speak to faculty and interview several filmmakers on the cusp of breaking in and talk to them about their futures in the industry and hopefully start developing this blog and how there is an art form to filmmaking.
Of course, there’s no full proof way of breaking in, but there are strategies that can help you along in much the same like way reading Sun Tzu might help you win the war.
PAPER #3 REWRITE
FILMMAKERS AND THE INTERNET: A SYMBIOTIC SYSTEM
The internet is the filmmaker’s new frontier. Those who dare to engage the internet may reap her rewards.
About 100 years ago, the first frontier was cinema, then television, and now the Internet. With this new technological medium, there are the luddites who reject it and then there are those who welcome it with open arms.
About 60 years ago, television was seen as a threat to Hollywood. More and more people were staying home to watch television instead of going out to a movie theater. Now, almost every studio owns a television network division, and television makes a bulk of the money for studios. [1] With the advent of the internet, Hollywood again fears this new technology. They have reason to concern because of the growing piracy and downloading of movies on the internet.
But there are those who have been able to harness its ever-expanding audience and focus the power of viewer-dom for their benefit. A few have been able to catapult themselves in the limelight for Hollywood to take notice.
In 2006, David Lehre released “Myspace: The Movie” a short film about several interactions involving the culture of Myspace.com. Segments include relationships, and meeting strangers and having parties. The video went viral and reached over 30 millions views. The video was mentioned in the Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle and New York Times, with an Interview with the Washington Post here. The Hollywood doors have opened for him, and he was courted by Fox studios to produce a pilot.
What puts Lehre apart from other young filmmakers is that he strategically decided to use the Internet to enhance his chances of becoming noticed. He realized that making a movie about myspace would be the ticket to fame:
He succeeded in his goal, and was rewarded handsomely. He is one of the perfect examples of successfully executing the definition of Breaking into Hollywood by strategically using the internet to show his worthiness and garner the attention of Hollywood honchos. The formula for his video success seems to be Current Topic (Myspace) + comedic observations everyone can relate to + short video = several million views. Other people have tried to imitate this formula by making short movies for Facebook here, here, and here.
However, it has been over two years, and David Lehre is not exactly a household name. Sustaining success through the internet takes time. Lighting struck once, but it has been hard for Lehre to repeat his success. He recently released a short online series titled Turbo Girls, a campy series about spy girls ala Charlie’s Angels. The videos are viewable here. It has garnered only a couple thousand views, but nothing near the success of “Myspace: The Movie.”
He has finished directing the pilot for Fox, which seems to be a variety/sketch comedy show that will soon be released June 2008. He has posted six behind-the-scenes shorts showing the process. You can watch them here. However, they were all released one year ago. Currently, he is producing a music video, a series of commercials, and several online contest commercial entries, and a new film.
LisaNova, real name Lisa Donovan, is one of the premier creators on Youtube, being the 9th most subscribed director. The other top seven creators are: five video blogs, Universal Music group, and the last belongs to Lonelygirl15, which we will also talk about later.
Lisa Donovan currently resides in Venice, CA and works in a field related to the Industry (not sure, she never stays or writes it anywhere). She came to Los Angeles five years ago to become an actor, but as she soon realized, it was hard to break in. She also auditioned for a role on “Mad TV” but they turned her down. However, two years ago, she discovered Youtube and decided to post videos as LisaNova. She rose to fame by mocking the PuffDaddy (P-diddy?) video he made promoting Burger King. Her video is viewable here.
She started to grow her fanbase, so much so, that one of the people who watched her videos passed it on to Nicole Garcia, casting director for “Mad TV.”
They then called Lisa in to audition again, and she got a featured role on the show last year. However, they did not sign her up for another season. But that’s okay, LisaNova is far from over. She has over 92 thousand subscribers, with me being one of them. Her videos get over 100,000 views easy; her lowest viewed movie is around 58,000 and her highest is over 3 million.
Lonelygirl15 started as a video blog on YouTube about a little 16-year-old girl who had very religious and restrictive parents. However, fans became suspicious and they soon discovered that it was all a methodically thought-out fictional series created by a group of young men. This paragraph comes from the New York Times articles that sums up an introduction:
The goal for them was to capture the attention of Hollywood and they succeeded by being signed up by CAA, one of the biggest agencies in Hollywood. Also, Jessica Lee Rose went on a promoting spree to several talk shows.
Without the advent of the internet, specifically video sharing sites like YouTube, none of this would have happened, and the filmmakers would probably not be signed up with CAA right now.
The only other historical example that I can relate this to is the story of Andy Kaufman and his beginnings. He started out pretending to be a foreigner from the island of “Caspiar” with a funny accent (first Borat?). His comedic acts that tricked people into thinking he was a real foreigner made him catch major attention. This then lead to a part in the ABC television series Taxi, where he played a variation of his foreign character. Because he was able to convincingly trick people into thinking he was something that he was not, this gained him vast notoriety, because throughout his career he would continue to trick people into thinking that many of the jokes he performed were true.
Brad is the creator and director behind itsallinyourhands.com and Satacracy 88. He’s a graduate of USC Cinema’s Master program, and soon after he graduated he quickly began production on the online web series Satacracy 88, which is about a woman who discovers she has certain powers and a deep plot that threatens to destroy her. Along with Satacracy, he also created the website itsallinyourhands.com that specifies in interactive online webs shows. What puts Satacracy apart from the many online web shows out there is that Satacracy is a “Choose your own adventure” series that lets the audience decide which route the main character should take by making the choices for her.
I conducted an interview over the phone, and I asked him about filmmaking and the internet with a few questions:
1. What’s your ultimate goal as a filmmaker?
My goal as a filmmaker has changed as I started creating online content. When I graduated from the USC film school, like every other filmmaker, I wanted to make a feature film as quickly as possible. But you’re in competition with a lot of people, you need a lot of money, and you need to be green lit, you need permission to show your work. <You are not important enough to work as a director. The internet allows me to produce and distribute my own content, basically for free, and it gave me the same kind of freedom any artist has; you can just do it now, anyone can now make a movie to express themselves and distribute it for the world to see.
I have to take into account the medium and the art form and it’s a whole different ball game. The line between broadcast and independent online series gets thinner and thinner. It’s the young filmmakers like you and I that are in a really good position right now.
Everything is community based now. It’s not enough to make a film. You have to take into account the audience and where and what their outside market using the internet to gain an audience. For low budget films, they release the film online if you want to make a feature. You can build a community around an infinite number of things. It is an exciting time to start making movies.
2. Has the internet shaped the way you make films?
Yes, it absolutely has. It is a new medium. When I plan an online series, I consider two major components: The way the show is going to be experienced, and the way it is going to be created. First thing is that I think the internet offers more opportunities for interactivity in an unprecedented way.
Going in direct relation with the creators online, creators can have characters exist in many forms, there are ways where the audience decides which way the show is gonna go. Something that is very new. That’s what the difference is between a show that’s meant for online consumption is interactivity, and the ability for the audience to control the show they’re watching.
Typically, when people are watching a show online on a desk, it’s on a small screen. It’s going to change in the near future, but now people are watching stuff in their chair on a screen in a smaller form. So, I try to choose my shot tighter than on television and features. On features, it’s a lot of medium shots. Online, the screen is about the size of the human eyeball, you gatta shoot really really tight, a lot of close ups and I like to keep the pace really really quick. People only have a few minutes to watch the show at work. It’s more about the impact something has in that short amount of time.
3. There are several benefits to putting your films online but have you encountered any negatives to putting your films online?
No, I wouldn’t say I’ve encountered anything negative; you learn things as you do things, the more and more I released the show, the smarter I became to make ways to make more money with it, to proliferate it, and publicize it, you obviously get better the more you do something.
4. Do you believe filmmakers can acquire wealth from the internet alone?
I do, yes, absolutely. There are a lot of opportunities for revenue sharing. As these things become more popular, more influential in the culture or something, we will start to see more and more ways for people to make money with them.
5. Do you think one day the internet will come to bypass and replace studios? Meaning, there will be no need for studios in the future for making films and distributing them.
I think there will always be studios. There might be a trend of smaller production companies versus a handful of larger ones, but if someone can work out the logistics to have a devoted webs series and can produce 25 shows, I don’t think there are going to replace studios. I think they will have studios for this medium as well. The studio system will be fine and they will adapt and produce web content and it will become polarized like it was with radio. As long as the market wants to watch this stuff and the way for more to show adds. , you’ll see the polarization of studios you’ll start to see larger studios kinda get in the game and adapt to the medium.
Adrian Picardi is a young man from Pasadena who graduated from the LA film school in 2006. He entered his thesis short film into the Film2Music contest in late 2006 and it won the Grand Prize, and a trip to Sundance in 2007. The short is viewable here. A couple of months later, he won the Grand Prize for the PSAID contest. He then entered several more contests that year, the largest ones were True to John Woo and the Assassin’s Creed Contest. In both, he made it to the top ten finalists, but alas, in both someone else became the Grand Prize winner.
Because he has won several contests, the LA time writer Alana Semeuls contacted him and mentioned him in the article she wrote on how the companies that sponsor the video contests win every time because the contestants go to great lengths to acquire views and votes:
Even though he may not win every contest, he gets a lot of exposure by get close to winning them, and of course, when he does win, then it is a boost in the recognition. Several independent production houses have contact him in order to sign him up to director several indie pictures, but Picardi has declined because their story quality is not exactly what he’s going for.
Picardi is on the cusp of something big: The first ever known action online web series titled The Resistance. It’s a action oriented series that will run for eight episodes. Right now, there are four teaser trailers posted on the YouTube site, but production on episodes is already underway. They have already finished shooting one episode, and it has a planned release of May/June.
To all three fellow filmmakers, Picardi, Lehre, Winderbaum, I sent out a small questionnaire about the internet and filmmakers. Unfortunately, Lehre hasn’t responded to me yet. I almost didn’t get Picardi to respond, I had to call him and he said because he was super busy and stressed out, he didn’t much time for full responses which is very understandable because “The Resistance” is a super low budget production, with most of the resources coming from friends and family and favors.
PICARDI (SHORT) INTERVIEW
1. What’s your ultimate goal as a filmmaker?
To Make entertaining movies
2. Has the internet shaped the way you make films?
Not really.
3. There are several benefits to putting your films online but have you encountered any negatives to putting your films online?
Not really.
4. Do you believe filmmakers can acquire wealth from the internet alone?
No. It’ll just open up more opportunities and more doors.
5. Do you think one day the internet will come to bypass and replace studios? Meaning, there will be no need for studios in the future for making films and distributing them.
No, definitely not.
Overall, Picardi, through the great exposure he receives from winning these online video contests, gets closer to knocking on Hollywood’s door, and hopefully The Resistance becomes an internet success. Lonelygirl15 was the perfect internet success story that made winners of all those involved. It gave Jessica Rose early fame and it guaranteed work for the three filmmakers in the industry they wanted to break into. Lisanova also tasted fame for that moment she was on television, but it seems as though the internet beckons her more, and she it, because she cannot creatively control anything on television yet, whereas she is the master of her channel on YouTube. David Lehre strategically enhanced his exposure by creating the Myspace movie, but time will tell if he can sustain the internet success he was first baptized with. Without the internet, none of these creators/filmmakers mentioned here could have arrived to where they are now, and yet, the internet would not, could not be what it is today without creators and filmmakers like these, and that is why it is a symbiotic system.
LisaNova is currently is sharing revenue with YouTube as one of the few paid content creators, or “partners,” and she has just started her own video blog where she just talks as herself, and not as any of her characters.
The guys over at LG15 Studios have created the spin-off show KateModern, that takes place in the same universe as the original Lonelygirl15. It’s about a young girl who has a secret that the audience needs to solve (aka watch). Nevertheless, what is unique about it is the product placement marketing and the interaction the show has with its audience, creating alternate reality games to coincide with the show by using the Bebo platform.
Brad Winderbaum is currently working on the final episodes of Satacracy 88 and preparing a new spin off series.
Picardi is finishing up the final touches on the last episodes of The Resistance.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
[1] Flint, Joe. “On The Air”. Entertainment Weekly. Posted Nov 18, 1998. Published in issue #458. <http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,285736,00.html>
[2] Goo, Sara Kehaulani. “Filmmaker David Lehre Interview.” Washington Post. Posted Monday, May 1, 2006; 12:00 AM
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/28/AR2006042800682.html?sub=AR>
[3] Wallenstein, Andrew. “How YouTube Helped LisaNova’s Start Her Career.” The New York Times. Published: April 29, 2007.
[4] Heffernan, Virginia; Zeller, Tom. “”Lonely Girl’ (and Friends) Just Wanted a Movie Deal.” The New York Times. Published: September 12, 2006
[5] Semeuls, Alana. “Sponsors are Winners In Online Contests.” Los Angeles Times. August 25th, 2007
<http://www.commercialalert.org/news/archive/2007/08/sponsors-are-winners-in-online-contests>
NOTE: Link to the source LA Times article has been lost or broken.
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