FILMMAKERS AND THE INTERNENT: A SYMBIOTIC SYSTEM
Posted onApril 15, 2008
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FILMMAKERS AND THE INTERNET: A SYMBIOTIC SYSTEM
The internet is the new filmmaker’s frontier. It is the new unknown, and it is exciting. Those who dare to engage the internet reap rewards or waste their time because nothing is guaranteed.
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 have 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, Hollwyood again fears this new technology. They have reason to concern because of the grown piracy and downloading of movies.
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 has 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. This is what he had to say in his interview:
He succeeded in his goal, and was rewarded handsomely. 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 relative 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. Why not talk about the first director? Well, that title belongs to Smosh, which we will get to shortly. 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.
Currently, she is sharing revenue with YouTube as one of the few paid content creators, or “partners,” on there, and she has just started her own video blog where she just talks as herself, and not as any of her characters.
Much has already been written about the phenomenon that became Lonelygirl15 last year, so I’ll briefly go over it. It 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, garnering more attention and exposure than any young actress would get at her age.
Without the advent of the internet, specifically video sharing sites like YouTube, none of this would have happened, and these guys would probably not be signed up with CAA right now.
Currently, 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 (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.
Finally, we have Smosh, created by Anthony Padilla and Ian Hecox, two young men from Northern California. They came to YouTube fame when they uploaded their viral hit Pokemon, where they lip-sync to the famous kiddie song. Before the video was pulled by a copyright claim by Shogakukan, the video received over 24 million views. They’re basically the number 1 at everything on YouTube, no.1 director, no.1 subscribed, and no.1 partner.
However, their main goal is unclear. Is their goal to attract tons of views? Is it to get people to go to their website (Which is just an extension of their channel)? Is it to make lots of money? If their main goal is to succeed at many goals, then they’ve succeeded. Yet, I am surprised we haven’t heard of studio execs courting the Smosh bros. for any pilot or ideas.
Currently, their Crybaby video has over 700k views in just two days, and the video before that Smosh Sued for $20 million (their April Fool’s video) has garnered over 2 million views in two weeks.
Conway is a graduate of Masters program for the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Last year, he entered the as one of the 50 semi-finalist for the “On The Lot” competition as one of the contestants that appeared on the show. Unfortunately, he did not make it into the finalists; however, he was interviewed extensively by the Filmnut here. He was competing for a chance to win a million dollar development deal with Dreamworks, but that honor went to Will Bigham.
Currently he’s finishing the final touches of his thesis film, TURBO, futuristic sci-punk video game influenced short film shot on the RED ONE. One interesting fact is that David Lehre is one of the main characters playing the villain in the short.
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, meaning a lot of the script he gets suck.
Currently, Picardi is on the cusp of something big: The first ever known action online web series titled The Resistance. It’s a action-packed, story driven series that will run for eight episodes and see where it goes from there. 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, Conway, I sent out a small questionnaire about the internet and filmmakers. Unfortunately, Lehre and Conway haven’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
What’s your ultimate goal as a filmmaker?
To Make entertaining movies
Has the internet shaped the way you make films?
Not really.
There are several benefits to putting your films online but have you encountered any negatives to putting your films online?
Not really.
Do you believe filmmakers can acquire wealth from the internet alone?
No. It’ll just open up more opportunities and more doors.
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. Conway was given a great opportunity at winning a development deal but maybe it wasn’t time just yet. Smosh, even though their goal does not seem to be geared towards Hollywood just yet, they may one day choose to collaborate with the industry because their viewership on YouTube has entitled them to some form of recognition. 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.
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.
LIVE@EDU FILM CONTEST! WATCH IT!
Posted onApril 12, 2008
Filed under Humor and tagged live at edu film contest watch robot virus funn comedy | Leave a Comment
MINT.COM!
Posted onApril 10, 2008
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I have found one of the best start ups anywhere on the internets. It’s called mint.com and they’re awesome because they do all of your financial homework and statistics for you. I’ve never used Microsoft Money or other money management software for you because 1) they cost money and 2) take forever to set up. Please note, the following is a non-paid endorsement to mint.com because they blew me away with their website and tech.
Off the top of my head, this is what mint.com offers:
1. You can get a detailed over of all your accounts, I’m talking pretty charts and graphs galore, all relevant data stuff.
2. You can set up alert systems, and it will even give you text message alerts to your phone when you’re running low on them greenbacks.
3. You can set up budgets and it will keep track of all that stuff for you.
4. It organizes and categorizes all of your transactions for you, plus you can add your own notes and labels gmail style.
5. It generates this really cool piechart that shows how much you spend related to everything else. It’s uber awesome.
6. You can compare your spending with other cities or states.
7. It recommends ways to save by suggesting savings accounts with other banks and credit interest rates at other places.
8. It’s all Freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
As for security, you can check out their policy here. But for the most part, they’ve been verified from several security companies, and for the most part, I don’t have much money to spend nor a credit line of a druglord for people to steal my info and abuse. So, I decided what the heck, why not try it? Boy, was I glad I did! (Cheesy, I know 
PAGEFLAKES ROUND 2
Posted onMarch 27, 2008
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In my Pageflakes, under the Hollyn-Wood blog, I saw the post for Avid 1.0. He had a link to the commercial video put out of the original Avid non linear editing system. Avid is the industry standard for editing, and those who edit professionally have worked on or know about Avid. For film geeks, it’s a must. Check out the video here.
I’ve been using Avid since I was in High school from 2002 up till today. At first, I hated it. There’s a huge learning curve, especially for those who’ve never edited in their entire life. It was my first experience with editing anything, and it took me a couple of weeks to learn without having to ask for too much help.
Anyway, in the summer of 2002, I took a film workshop that taught me the Avid, and after that summer ended, I decided I wanted to be a filmmaker. So I bought my Canon ZR-50 camera, and I bought a cheap editing system, “Dazzle something” I think, and it was crap. I longed to use Avid again.
Christmas 2005, I got my wish. Soon, it’ll be time to upgrade to Media Composer, but until I can afford the 500 dollar upgrade, I’ll be fine with my old version for now.
Tropic Thunder Strikes!
Posted onMarch 12, 2008
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The Film Blogs of gone asunder over the up coming film TROPIC THUNDER. Everyone from Aint it Cool, Gizmodo, Slash Film are wetting their pants over this movie that seems to have come out of nowhere.
The movie stars Ben Stiller, Jack Black, and Robert Downey Jr. playing actors receiving training for a “Apocolypse Now-esque” movie.
The blurb at the movie site is that these actors:
“…lead an assemble cast in “Tropic Thunder,” an action comedy about a group of self-absorbed actors who set out to make the most expensive war film ever. After ballooning costs force the studio to cancel the movie, the fustrated director refuses to stop, leading the cast into the jungles of Southeast Asia, where they end up knee deep in the shit.”
Jack Black plays an albino, and Downing plays a Australian method actor who decides to have surgery to become black to play the main role, that was meant for a black person, thus this picture. Also, theyhave Tom Cruise cameo where he plays a fat guy here.
There are several reasons why this film will be awesome:
- It’s a comedy about making a war movie.
- It’s a self-reflexive movie (A movie about making movies that knows it’s a movie, just the type of movie I like!).
- Robert playing an Australian actor playing a black man.
- Jack Black as an albino.
- And it’s an R rated comedy. Awesomeness.
All they need is Samuel L. Jackness, and this movie is box office GOLD! Trailer for Tropic Thunder below.
PAGE FLAKES
Posted onMarch 5, 2008
Filed under Intertech | 1 Comment
Recently I’ve created a PageFlakes account which is now accessible to all of my lady stalkers fans out there right here. It’s a website much like igoogle, that creates a homepage with a little more pazazz. You can basically put anything: blog feeds, rss feeds, games, news feeds, calenders and email feeds.
Now, follow me as I take you on a tour of my humble RSS Castle.
This blog is about user generated entertainment outlets like Youtube. He keeps a watchful eye on “usertaiment,” a term Lester Craft coined. He’s written interesting posts about how user generated video scored 22 billion views in 2007, and how men 18-34 are “two-and-a-half-times” more likely to watch video from the top consumer generated media websites - Youtube, Myspace, Veoh, and Break.com.”
Just these two articles alone are worth checking out his blog.
I like to check the box office daily. It also keeps me updated on a lot of film industry news. Many film related sites link to Variety, so might as well go to the source.
A filmmaker’s resource blog that has low budget tips and tricks for shooting films. A recent post is about building a rubber band mount for three bucks. Regular mounts cost 50 bucks, and I should know, I bought one. If only I would have known about this blog earlier, I would have saved myself some gas mone, and the worst part is that the 50 dollar device already broke!
I like his blog. He really does want to help out other screenwriters out there. During the writer’s strike, he wrote almost every day about being in the trenches. Two out of five of his posts are relevant and useful information about screenwriting, like what to do “when the character has two names” or “scripting a short film.”
The other three are usually about random topics like the recent death of the guy who invented Dungeons and Dragons.
He’s another screen writer but not as fun as John August, however, he has written technical and in depth information on the happeneings during the writer’s strike.
The blurb is “An open source social experiment for content creators.” Basically, it’s trying to grow into the ultimate filmmaker’s handbook, but in a low budget and more modern internet age. It was founded by the guy who made HEAD TRAUMA, a successful low budget indy film that owes much of its success to the internet.
A great resource for the indie filmmaker. He has a great book FROM REAL TO DEAL, a step by step guide to getting a film made on the cheap. He updates his blog every week by posting a chapter out of 53, which will take up a whole year to complete. I’ve recently purchased the book and it’s a must have for any indie filmmaker.
This blog keeps me updated on their great After Effect tutorials. They’ve made over 60 videos, and each one truly better than the next. They recently have a tutorial on making wounds “heal” and how to get that terminator T-1000 look. If I were you, I’d save up your lunch money and buy a student copy of After Effects, but it is really the best program you can have as a filmmaker.
It’s the number one underground source for secret tidbits and spoilers on upcoming projects. They always have their ears to the ground. For one thing, it’s a lot cooler than Variety, and more of an “Every Man’s” blog. They get straight to the point and they try not to show off their large vocabulary too hard like Variety does.
HOLLYN - WOOD (Norman, That is)
Written by a USC professor, Norman Hollyn is the Associate Professor and the Head of the Editing Track. He has links to many useful totrials on editing with Avid and Final Cut. He recently posted a link to two Avid sound tutirilas, something not heavily taught in editing film classes.
Ah, Nalts. He’s a prolific video maker (not filmmaker), having submitted over 600 videos on Youtube. He has videos that have been watched by millions of viewers. He’s a self-proclaimed “viral video genius,” well, after making over 600 videos he should be. His videos aren’t terribly funny, but through his youtube experience he has tons of free useful viral and online video information to share. Any indie filmmaker trying to harness the power of online video sharing sites should refer to him for wisdom.
My flakes are organized into three columns. The left column has the slowest feeds, meaning, the least amount of posts per week, and the middle has the highest amount of posts per week, and the last column on the right has my search and bookmark feeds.
The other feeds I have are My Active Blog Search and My Active News Search “Breaking Into Hollywood” but there’s nothing much there. They’re not very useful because they don’t quite match up to the words I’m using for some reason, e.g. I get “Academy Gets Looney for Toon Creators” and “Clinton Link in Brazil Ethonal Probe.”
Then there are my Del.icio.us and Diigo bookmarks, along with my Del.icio.us social bookmarking soul mate rickangelo, whom shares my interest in sites and film making information.
I also have a Zotero bibliography. I’ve included mostly interviews with filmmakers, like Kevin Smith and Jean-Luc Godard. I like the interviews because there is a juxtoposition of periods and career points: a 1995 interview with Smith when he’s first starting out and he explains his beginnings. Then we have Godard’s 1963 interview where he’s talking about the hardships of making a movie with an American Producer. Finally, there’s the interview with a Project Greenlight alum who is still making movies but is struggling in Hollywood.
Overall, I enjoy my PageFlakes page. I see it as a command center, a virtual neurological system through which I experience the Internets [sic]. Sorry, I’ve been reading too much William Gibson. What will the “Series of Tubes” think of next?
BREAKING IN INTERVIEW: BOB KUSHELL
Posted onFebruary 28, 2008
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Career interview with Bob Kushell, co-executive producer Samantha Who, The Simpsons
Here’s an Interview with Bob Kushell, one of the early writer’s and executive producers on The Simpsons, back in the early 90s. I didn’t know who this guy was until I read the interview, but that’s okay. His story, from first discovering his passion to breaking in, is very similar to other stories. However, the twist is that he applied many things I’ve considered tactics and strategies that helped him BREAK IN, w00t!
I’m a big war buff, and I have a voracious appetite to read anything related to war. Basically, having a war mentality can be applied to anything in life: business, love, and art. I read Sun Tzu in middle school, and never really thought about it or applied it until now.
In Sun Tzu’s The Art of War there are 13 chapters as follows:
- I. Laying Plans
- II. Waging War
- III. Attack by Stratagem
- IV. Tactical Dispositions
- V. Energy
- VI. Weak Points and Strong
- VII. Maneuvering
- VIII. Variation in Tactics
- IX. The Army on the March
- X. Terrain
- XI. The Nine Situations
- XII. The Attack by Fire
- XIII. The Use of Spies
Bob Kushell was able to apply a couple of these tactics in order to break in.
Laying Plans
Kushell went to college and studied theater, but then on the side, he also wrote many spec scripts. He kept focused on his mission and was never detracted. Every job he took, it was a strategic step closer towards his goal. For example, he got a job at AMBLIN ENT. and then wrote two spec script. With his connections at Amblin, he was able to get an A-class agent. And that agent got him a job on a prominent show. Yet, at this point he still hasn’t “Broken In” because he has not reached his goal of writing, BUT he was getting close.
The Use of Spies
Actually, Kushell was his own spy because stole scripts of the Simpsons pilot before it came out so that he could write spec scripts on it, which landed him a job on the Simpsons.
Energy
Kushell focused all of his energy on one weapon that he knew he could hone and build: comedy. He studied it from an early childhood, and kept doing it until he finally reached his dream job of working on the Simpsons, and he did it.
This is just a taste of things to come, but there will be more interviews and more Film Zu breakdowns like these for you soon, so stay tuned.
Human Behavior Study #1: Saluting Other Humans
Posted onFebruary 25, 2008
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Recently, I’ve noticed a peculiar facet of human behavior: The amount of regard/respect one human has to another is directly proportional to their acknowledgment of one another. It’s something I’ve been noticing for a while now. Although it’s not scientifically proven, it seems like common sense that how much someone likes you is expressed in their Hello or Goodbye or how much they dislike you but I still think it’s of some meaningful use to many out there that aren’t as socially savvy.
There are several different degrees of “Hellos” that I have noticed in my time on Earth. For those of you who don’t know, these acknowledgments are for people you’ve already know or have met. There are separated by vocal and or physical signals, plus distance (note: I will refer to any human as a She, because it could easily be written as S/he because it applies to both sexes) :
DISTANCE: LONG ( 50ft +)
- “HEY!/YO!” + Double/Triple Hand Wave
She likes you. Bonus if she waves you to come over to talk, or if she comes over to you.
- “Hey” + Hand Wave
She thinks your cool, but that’s it.
- Hand Wave Long
You’re not highly regarded nor disregarded. You’re just there to say hi to.
DISTANCE: MEDIUM (20 ft + or-)
- Hand Wave Short
You’re not highly regarded nor disregarded. You’re just there to say hi to.
- Quick Draw + “Hey”
She quickly raises her open hand to show it to you and says “Hey,” and quickly withdraws her hand. She’s just being nice.
- Quick Draw (no vocal signal)
She’s trying really hard to be nice to you and acknowledge your presence as quickly as humanly possible.
DISTANCE: SHORT (5-10ft)
- Surprise Attack
She sneaks up on you to say hi. She likes you.
- Hug
There are many different types of hugs, as defined by the FREE HUGS GUY, but mainly, the tighter and longer and closer they hug you, the more they like you.
- Hi-Five
She hi-fives you. You’re too cool.
- Hand Shake
You’re fine to interact with. You’re non threatening. Not too exciting either.
- Head Nod
She’s too cool to say Hi to you. She thinks you’re… okay.
- Eye-Ups (optional: Head Nod)
She barely moves her eyes and eyebrows up to acknowledge you. She doesn’t like you very much.
- The Glance of Death
She barely glances at you and then immediately looks away. She thinks you’re ugly/ annoying/ anti-social/ smelly/or ugly. PLUS she doesn’t like you.
Video Contest Tips Part 1
Posted onFebruary 21, 2008
Filed under Video Contests | Leave a Comment
Recently, I’ve been entering several online video contests to try and actually put my filmmaking skills to some use. Yes, making videos for friends and families to watch is nice, but making films for money is nicer! Plus, I actually like to compete, it makes things more fun and interesting. And I liking winning, but I would like to think that I won because of the merits of my skills, and not because my competitor’s entries were lame.
So I’ve thought of the following video contest tips in the hopes that a fellow competitor will read them and apply them so as to beef up my competition. Why oh why would you do that? Because online video contests is a new form of marketing and wealth destribution, but the “THE MAN” wants their monies worth, and if us “Little People” want the monies, we gatta deliver the goods. Not just deliver them, but deliver them in a nice package for everyone’s viewing pleasure. If the quality of video entries don’t increase, then “THE MAN” will just stop this new system of wealth distribution. Let me break it down for you:
Online Video Contests + Lame Entries = 
Sad Corporate Honchos (”We paid $25,000 for that!? Screw this, no more contests.”)
Online Video Contests + Great Entries = Happy Corporate Honchos (”Yay! Let’s Increase the prize for next year’s competition!”)
We’re doing good for now because the Honchos are actually increasing the amount of reward prizes , so that last year’s prizes totaled close to a million dollars.
Following tips are also for me to remember them, less I break these “Tips/Rules” for making videos for future video contests. I’ve actually broken a couple, which is the reason why they’ve come about. Enjoy.
TIP #1 Don’t Shoot/Edit/Turn In Your Entry the Same Day It’s DUE
I’ve actually broken this Rule with a recent Youtube contest for Swiffer. Because I’m also going to school, I don’t have a lot of time alloted for contests, but I really wanted to enter this contest, so 5 or 6 hours before it was due, my friend and I shot it, and I edited it - 5 hours later it was done, but it was too late, I had passed the deadline mark. I’m pretty fast at shooting and editing, and I would have made the deadline if it wasn’t for Youtube’s slow uploading process. Which leads into my next tip:
TIP #2 Know Thy Upload Size/Time
If you are going to upload it on the same day it’s due, Don’t estimate your final export size, KNOW it, live it, smell it before hand. Also, look up your uploading size, kilobytes per second and what not, so that you can also estimate how long it will take to upload. With my Swiffer entry, I overestimated my export size, and I underestimated how long it was going to take for it to upload to Youtube.
TIP #3 READ THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS THOUROUGHLY, AND THEN AGAIN, AND AGAIN
A lot of the lame entries just don’t read them - at all - thus, their lameness. Read the terms and conditions because it basically tells you how to win. Right there! In big bold letters, Terms and Conditions = HOW TO WIN, STUPID! Trust me, if you don’t, then you’ll probably end up doing something that the TnC tells you in plain English not to do.
For example, for a recent contest on Youtube, the TnC said “Do not infringe on other people’s copy righted material!” Duhhh! So what this lay-mo did was put a Justin Timberlake song on his entry. You can’t use other’s stuff to make money for you, that’s illegal. Music? Use royalty-free music. Soda Cans? House hold products? Foods? Make up your own brands or something, but for God’s sake, don’t have them directly in the shot. I had a problem where for one of my contest entries I had a Disney character in one shot, so what I did was I blurred/pixelated it out COPS-style. And it looked funnier because of it!
TIP # 4 DO NOT USE GREEN/BLUE SCREEN
Don’t….It’s painful to watch. Only do it if you are a trained , or if you’ve read lots of books on how to do it right PLUS lots of practice after you’ve read the books PLUS a good program to key out the colors.
There’s this one Lay-mo that enters a lot of contests and repeatedly uses God Aweful green screen, where the green bleeds onto his outline, and so, it looks like his edges are disappearing. It looks utterly, abysmally dreadful.
That’s all for now. I’ll have more soon.
My Bookmarking Hero!
Posted onFebruary 19, 2008
Filed under Uncategorized | 1 Comment
I have found the best bookmark soul mate ever. His Del.icio.us user name is rickangelo. He has 600 bookmark items, and he’s a pretty frequent bookmarker.
His tags are pretty simple. He uses very general tags next to specific tags, i.e. filmmaking distribution or filmmaking music free or software freeware free. However, there are some tags that are undecipherable, such as the tag ts. It is probably an acronym for something, but for what, I do not know.
Just from reading his tags, I am able to deduct a lot about this person. I would say he’s male and he’s young, mid 20s to early 30s. He is a forum junkie, with the top tag belonging to forum with 125 entries. I can safely say he’s a computer and web specialist, working in I.T. His second largest tag is for programming. He’s also probably an actor on the side, with the third largest tag belonging to acting. He plays the guitar (36 tags) and he’s looking forward to becoming an entrepreneur. He also has a lot of tags for Los Angeles, and I’m going to take a wild guess and deduct he lives in LA.
Here are some resources I found through rickangelo, which I consider very useful for me and my blog.
Mindomo – a web based brainstorming, mindmapping software that’s free. Awesome.
Neulio – A website in beta that shows how-to videos on a variety of topics such as how to take a good photo, and video capture techniques.
Ehow – another how-to website.
Grouptivity – a “free social marketing tool” with several ways of boosting traffic to your site.
Screencastcentral – a tutorial library of many how-to’s on improving your computer abilities. Unfortunately, you have to pay for membership.
Filmmakers.com and filmstew.com, two websites devoted everything film related.
QuickOnlineTips - Tips….online….that are quick!
Successforyourblog - How to make a succesful blog!
mybloglog - A Yahoo service that makes you look up other blogs and bookmarks. I was actually able to find RickAngelo’s profile, and he’s actually older than I thought. Man, stalking is sooo easy with the web these days.
But the online gem that I found was an article on the the San Fernando Valley, considered the center of the adult entertainment industry, here. It’s a great article and a great read broken down into parts and interviews. An interesting fact I found out was that one of the most expensive (but one of the highest grossing) adult films ever made, Pirates, was directed by a USC alum. To be honest, I’m not surprised 
