Yesterday it housed people; today it houses birds and vines.

“What is a ruin but time easing itself of endurance?” – Djuna Barnes

Ruins are fascinating. This is where you begin to see the layers of time working each other. Like the cross-section diagrams that still fascinate me – if you’ve ever read David Macaulay’s books Underground, Cathedral, City, Castle and Unbuilding, then you know what I’m talking about – a ruin reveals the infrastructure behind the skin, the processes behind the world.

In Stewart Brand’s excellent book The Clock of the Long Now: Time And Responsibility, he speaks of the six layers of society, and how each one operates at a different speed. His layers, from fastest to slowest, are art/fashion, commerce, government, religion, culture, nature. You can quibble with his classifications, but it’s not hard to see his logic. The layers are interlocked, each informing the others. When societies function reasonably well, people are able to live decent lives, and feel like they’re contributing to and being supported by the different layers. When societies malfunction (as often happens) – when commerce drives our lives and bends them to its will, or when religious dogmatism stultifies innovation – the resulting friction between layers ruins lives.

Theorists like Deleuze and Guattari, and their latter-day descendant Manuel DeLanda (and predecessors Marx and Smith, to mention a few), go into enormous detail about this. But much of what they have to say may come off as too abstract, until you look at a ruined building, and see the concrete reality. A ruin was once a building, in some ways the perfect handshake between art (fast) and culture (slow). The buildings that survive long enough to be ruins sheltered that which the society that built them valued the most. Cathedrals and pyramids, castles, mansions. It’s not hard to see what will survive this era. The giant concrete and steel edifices of Wall Street will – long after the glass has cracked and the cubicle walls rotted by moss – one day be what factories look like today: shells that once spoke of thunderous activity pursuing what looked like a glorious, permanent future. The ruins were often built by people who could never have afforded to live in them. How many peasants died to put up the walls of Uruk? How many slaves built the turrets in Troy? Whose bones are buried near Macho Picchu? The futures these buildings speak of never came to be.

Often, it’s the art – that most impermanent of things – that tells us the most about who lived and died there. The wall with inscribed/painted stories; the sculptures that adorn the weedy lawn; the adornment on commonplace cups, bowls and tools. The money is now worthless; the laws outmoded; the culture mutated (often to the better, sometimes for the worse) by invasions, migrations, modernization; the gods have been usurped, expunged outright, or re-purposed by the next upstart religion; even the language of the descendants would be unrecognizable to a time traveler from the heyday of the building’s use. What’s left is the bones, and the skin.

But ruins are far from dead. Nature turned railways into gardens long before some real estate developers figured out the trick. The grandchildren of the peasants who lived in fear of the strongmen in the castle use its bricks and stone to build their houses. The cathedral becomes a nightclub. The old factory is now an artists’ colony (and, sadly, soon will be a trendy shopping center). In a ruin you can see the layers of time part like vellum transparencies in an anatomy textbook. You can see possibilities, edges, mortality. You can see the future from the altars they prayed to – and preyed upon from – in the past. You can see threads of hope and resistance, often in the graffiti and in the nooks that the officials didn’t care about. Most of all you can see life continuing to thrive.

Also, this month I decided to help an old friend, Dhimitri Ismailaj, out on his next short film. One Last Time is a short about a young couple struggling with both her aggressive breast cancer and the effect it’s having on their relationship. Dhimitri and I met far too many years ago on an independent feature which, I think, has not yet seen the light of day. He was the first AC and I was the production manager. Since then, we’ve worked together on a bunch of projects. He’s always been there for me, so when he called and asked me to co-produce his latest project, I couldn’t resist. Plus, the script is really, really good. His last project, Requiem For Kosova (also shot by Ben Wolf) went to over thirty festivals and took about 8 awards.

The icing on the cake is that I’ve gotten a chance to work with some old Found In Time friends – Ben Wolf is shooting the film, Anthony Viera is doing the production sound mixing, Ghislaine Sabiti is back on costume design, Roy Nowlin is our gaffer, and Rick Morrison (who I knew from a way back also) is our key grip. We go into production on March 30th.

There’s still time to contribute to the One Last Time IndieGogo campaign – just click http://www.indiegogo.com/One-Last-Time and it’ll bring you to the page. Dhimitri’s done a great job outlining what we need, where the money will go and who’s on board. Thank you!

The festival application process just plain sucks. You start by making DVDs and sending them out. Then you wait, and wait, and get ready… for more waiting. On some level, you’d rather be writing the next script. But you have to pay careful attention to what fests you apply to and in what order. It’s a game where small errors can have catestrophic consequences.

For starters, there are many festivals out there (every town has one). But rather than shotgunning your film to every one of those – the application fees and postage will kill you – do a little research ahead of time, and figure out your priorities and overall distribution strategy.

Here’s a few of the big outcomes I’d like to see happen from a festival screening of Found In Time:

• The film attracts the attention of a distributor and/or sales agent
• The film gets some positive reviews
• We get some fans who’ll spread the word and maybe buy some tickets down the road
• We get some laurel leaf clusters to stick on every piece of packaging and on the website
• We sell some DVDs and merchandise
• We get some honest acknowledgement from peers and fans
• We get to see the film on a big screen with an audience

Chances are, no one festival is going to fulfill all those expectations, so which ones are the priority? And how does it fit into the overall distribution plan?

The approach we’re taking is to go for the genre fans first and the prestige fests second. So in addition to looking at some of the top fests, I also researched some genre (sci-fi and fantasy) festivals, and some non-fests (comic and fantasy conventions) as well.
I then narrowed things down by excluding fests that:

• Require 35mm prints or DCP exclusively. DCP is probably the future of digital projection, but I’d rather not shell out the $6.5-$8K to convert the film or spend one-two weeks attempting (and probably) failing to do it on my own.
• Are less than 3 years old. Fests tend to become a little more organized and well-known over time.
• Have conflicting dates with each other. I usually went with the more targeted (genre-wise) festival.
• Have exorbitant or scam entrance fees (where you basically pay to have your film screened).
• Have gotten negative feedback from anyone I know.
• Don’t seem like they attract much distributor attention.
• Are focused on specific sub-genres (robots! anime! role-playing games!)

What I ended up with was a database of good candidates, along with their submission deadlines, entry fees, website URLs, and any other pertinent information. After staring at the list a bit, I picked out a few with close deadlines, and applied to them first. Play close attention to premiere requirements – if you get into one fest in a given country/continent/medium, it may box you out of a “bigger” fest in the same “territory.” Some festivals (like Sundance, Toronto, Berlin) prefer world premieres. Others don’t care. Generally, the higher the prestige value, the more picky they are about it.

Leave some time for the application process itself. You have to QC your DVDs, pack them correctly, label them as per the submission instructions, and type up a cover letter with your contact information and some basic technical info (region, running time, title, etc.) If you’re not up against the deadline, send the packages Priority or first-class mail – you’re not gaining anything necessarily by sending them Express or FedEx.

Spend some time writing the synopsis and logline. Adhere to the letter of the application – this is not the time to get creative, go over the wordcount, or send superfluous materials. Don’t send a press kit unless they specifically ask for one. But do have your material ready, just in case. When you get into a festival you’ll have to crank out your posters, postcards, stickers, press kits, and duplicated DVD pretty quickly.

My film-going experience in 2011 was a mixed bag. Some of the films everyone loved left me cold; others that I really liked no one seemed to care about. In very short order, here’s my list of the underwhelming and under-appreciated:

The Underwhelming

Marcy Martha Mary Marlene – … was interesting, but I never quite connected with it emotionally. It may have been the mood I was in that night, or that the cult seemed so obviously fucked up that it was harder to believe that people would fall into it.

Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows – all the inner gayness of the Holmes/Watson relationship came out, which was great. But it was a criminal waste of two really terrific actresses (Noomi Rapace and Rachel McAdams), and there wasn’t a lot of detecting going on.

Thor… was fun. But I didn’t buy the romantic relationship between the leads, and the film looked murky as hell (still not a big fan of 3D, sorry).

Black Swan – Yes, I know this came out in 2010. But I saw it in 2011. Apart from some really good, creepy monster/swan stuff, I didn’t really get what the fuss was about. The Red Shoes from 1948 is a much better film, with more to say about identity, objectification, reality and desire.

TinTin – After eight years of motion capture-based human animation, I think we should just use the technology for non-humans and call it a day. I liked the film’s aesthetics, but I forgot about it as soon as I threw out my empty popcorn bag.

Crazy Stupid Love – I liked the performances and the direction. But the underlying message of the film was rather conservative and ultimately uninspiring.

Super 8 – J.J. Abrams could have made a great film about a movie-obsessed boy reconciling with his father after his mother’s death. Or a fun monster movie. Instead he tried to mash them together. But unlike Cameron’s Abyss or Spielberg’s Close Encounters, the result was less than the sum of its parts.

The Under-appreciated

In Time – This is a terrific sci-fi ‘B’ movie with real social relevance, by the same guy who brought us Gattaca and Lord of War.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes – Justly praised for its overall intelligence and for Andy Serkis’ performance. What was under-appreciated, however, was the work of John Lithgow and Brian Cox. Without these two – especially Lithgow, whose plight is in many ways the driving force of the plot – the film wouldn’t have much heft. On a contrary note, when will screenwriters figure out how to integrate female characters into their plots (see Sherlock above). Freida Pinto is stuck with absolutely nothing to do in the film.

Certified Copy – Abbas Kiarostami’s understated, tricky film about a relationship (or is it relationships) – possibly fictional, possibly real, perhaps both – was just wonderful to watch, especially after ingesting a series of overdone CGI hamburger helper.

The Tree of Life – This film should get a medal for giving a big middle finger to everyone out there with short attention spans (and all the technologies that service them). Most of the people who complained (to me, anyway) about the slow pacing, ambiguity, and near-plotlessness are the same folks who text while walking down the sidewalk. This film demands patience and a serene state of mind. But while it’s not a perfect movie, it has a lot to say and can wrap you in its beauty, if you let it.

Mumbai Diaries / Dhobi Ghat – This did well in India, but is unknown here. And that’s a shame. This is a beautiful look at Mumbai, through the eyes of four interconnected people who each have very different professions, classes, and outlooks on life.

This year also marked a turning point in my own viewing habits. I watched films, tv shows, and webisodes on almost every type of screen and using a variety of providers, without really thinking about it. The quality of streaming video often leaves something to be desired, but after about two minutes I stop worrying about it and just watch the film. The main reason for picking one delivery method over another had more to do with my mood at the time (impulsive, festive, social, etc.) than anything else. The big entertainment companies are running scared, and for good reason – with the consumer in the driver’s seat, they can’t dictate the terms. This is not necessarily good news for film professionals, but that’s for the next blog entry.

This year will one day be seen as a critical juncture in the project of world democracy. Citizens across the globe spoke out against state corruption, dictatorship, lack of civil rights, the squeezing of the 99% in the name of false austerity, egregious corporate greed, and the broken situation that many of us are in. Governments and companies have reacted in typical fashion, largely trying to beat the crowds into submission, pen them up, or paint them as freaks. But we need to pay attention to these movements. As film professionals, we are in the same boat.

Most of us didn’t get into making movies because we thought we’d become moguls. But I’d bet most of us (myself included) thought we might be able to at least make a living at our craft. Sadly, that has become harder and harder. Working below the line on indie films means watching your salary shrink year after year. Forget about taking a salary as a writer, director or producer. The unions and guilds are stuck in a constant battle with corporations that can outspend them on lawyers and workarounds, and still make money. Distributors are outsourcing a lot of their work to producers and directors, which will have the long-term effect of slowing down independent production (you can’t really create your next project while you’re trying to distribute the current one).

During economic down times, people who work in the arts and entertainment are looked at as expendable. Why spend money on that when we’re lagging so far behind other countries in education? But when presidents talk about education, they discuss mathandscience. They rarely talk about the root skills that scientists utterly depend on to actually do science – verbal and written communication, problem solving, logic, spatial / temporal analysis, visualization, patience. Where can you learn those things? In art, music, and writing classes.

In addition to scientists, all people look to media to help them get through their day, to inform and inspire them, to relieve their stress, maybe even to change their lives. So we have a role to play in this world.

Which brings me back to the world democracy project. Wherever you are, in whatever way you can – by donating some time, money or resources, going to a demo with your camera, spreading the word, incorporating the themes into your next project – try to support the Occupy movement and its affiliates. This is not about politics. This is about what matters to us as a society. They are asking the real questions of the 21st century. How can we all live sustainably, with dignity and respect? How can we have some say in our lives rather than have them be pressed upon us by economic, gender, racial, age, and citizenship status inequality (to name a few)? In other words, how we can we create and live our life story, instead of having them handed to us like scraps from the table? As storytellers, we can both learn and teach in this situation.

Have a fantastic holiday season and new year! Good luck to everyone in the new year with their projects!

Behind The Scenes – Part I (interview with Arthur Vincie, writer/director)

Behind The Scenes – Part II (interview with Ben Wolf, cinematographer)

Actors are the only people I know who talk about this much, but everyone who works in film production has to deal with it. It’s the silent killer of hope, the thing that keeps us up all night, and makes us into smokers, coffee drinkers, and sometimes alcoholics. I’m talking, of course, about waiting.

Once you’ve finished writing a script; once you’ve sent your feature out to festivals; once you’ve wrapped up your last gig and recovered from the wrap party; once you’ve auditioned… you’re in the horrible position of waiting. There’s always plenty to do, but it’s hard to muster up any energy. You socialize for a bit, catch up with all the people you’ve been neglecting, try (for the latest time) to make things up to your spouse/sweetheart/squeeze. You write the next script, scan the want ads, prepare for the next batch of festivals. But some part of your day is spent thinking about the call or email you haven’t gotten yet. If the waiting goes on long enough, the mental black hole that it creates grows.

A few years ago I finished a spec script, and did the usual thing of sending out query letters. A production company whose films I much admired wrote me back asking for it. I sent it off the next day, then spent about three months in various states of agony. I really tried to forget that I’d sent it away, and succeeded to some extent. But the nagging feeling of unfinished business was always there, especially at the end of the day when I was trying to go to sleep. I was almost relieved when I finally got the rejection slip.

The process of sending out Found In Time to festivals and agents is bringing back similar feelings, but I think I’m dealing with them better. Here’s what I’ve learned so far:
It’s pointless to ignore your feelings… so you might as well admit that you’re unhappy waiting for a response. Then try and get back to work.
Focus on specific tasks with measurable goals. We all need something to occupy our minds. It might as well be something that we can gain some sense of accomplishment from.
Commiserate with your friends but don’t bitch. There’s a fine line and I’m not really sure where it is. But if you keep circling around a topic with your other film friends over and over again and it makes you feel worse, chances are you’ve crossed it.
It’s not personal. This is the tough one. When you receive a rejection notice you feel like crap, but you can always say that they didn’t like the script/performance/resume because of a difference in taste (which it often is). When you have haven’t heard anything, you start to feel like a loser. Once I worked on four back-to-back features in seven months as a UPM or line producer, but then didn’t work for two months. By the end of that stretch I felt like hell. Of course, this was at the beginning of the recession. While it was pretty obvious to everyone around me that the whole ship was on fire, I just thought I sucked.
Use the tension. The anxiety can be put to some use. When I’m waiting, my workouts tend to be harder and my writing a little sharper. If I can’t sleep, I’ll try to do something productive with my newly-found time. This doesn’t always work, of course.
Don’t give in to depression. Depression is like a warm grey blanket. It’s a great way to keep from feeling anything, and it is useful sometimes (particularly when the emotions involved are too painful to really process). But it’s very easy to live in it every day. Rituals and structures often help. When I was out of work I still woke up in the morning, showered, and changed clothes. Even though I could sit around in my bathrobe all day I found it kept my mind fresh to change. My actor friends take classes – acting, dance, continuing education, anything to keep their minds sharp.

The best thing to do is to find another project to work on. I’m starting my next script, in part so I don’t think too much about the festivals. I don’t want to lose sight of my long-term objective – to get Found In Time sold – but I do want to keep from obsessing over that which I have no control.

How do you handle waiting? How do you keep it from interfering with your life? Do you accept it, fight it, or keep it out of your mind altogether?

So, after a year of writing and development, six months of preproduction, and ten months of post, I feel like I’ve finished the film. But, as a producer once told me, “you’re half done.” Now comes the scary young adult stage, where you see how your baby does in the big, bad, cold world.

So – the last month has been about research, cranking out artwork and other promo material, and reading. I can’t recommend Selling Your Film Without Selling Your Soul enough – it’s a great guide to distribution by some very smart people. The hybrid/DIY distribution model they advocate, as made concrete by their case studies, is the smartest thing I’ve heard in a while. Also, check out Film Specific. It has a huge collection of articles, blogs and instructional videos, all centered around distribution and financing. It also has an extensive list of agents and distributors. Keep in mind that you’ll have to subscribe to get all the goodies (a 12-month membership is around $250) but it’s definitely worth it.

This is a learning process. On the one hand, I’m handy enough with graphic design, web development, and wordsmithing to do a fair amount of the grunt work (cranking out site content, artwork, blurbs, etc.). But I find it hard to gain enough distance from the film to figure out how to BRAND it. The very word BRAND is horrible to me, in fact. The connotations are unpleasant – I’m going to take Found In Time, with all its individuality and rough edges, stick it in a harness and apply a red-hot steel poker to it. But it’s a very crowded media landscape, so you do need some way to decisively mark your film so your audience can find it.

I wrestled with this initially when I was writing the business plan. The fundamental question is – who, besides your friends and family, will see your film? When I wrote the script, I was trying to explore something about the nature of time, so naturally I thought the audience would be geeks like me. To get to the geeks, I figured I’d bring the film to where we like to hang out – conventions, comic book stores, genre festivals, local comics/reading/gaming clubs, and (possibly) seminars. Some of these venues would serve as springboards, spreading the gospel about the film and leading to other screenings and, hopefully, customers.

But, we didn’t want to rule out a wider release or audience, so we’re first pursuing the traditional strategy of hitting up the “top tier” festivals. We’ll see if this bears fruit. While we’re waiting for that to happen (or not), we’re putting together a list of sci-fi/game/comic conventions; fantasy book/movie clubs; and distributors and sales agents who specialize in genre material. The key with special event screenings is to make money on the DVD and merchandising sales (t-shirts, broadsheet posters, and possibly soundtrack albums). If you break even on the screening, you’re doing well. You usually have to split the box office with the venue; but the merch is all yours (just like the popcorn and drinks is all theirs).

While DVD revenues have fallen off a cliff compared to a few years ago, they’re still the strongest distribution channel for independent films like ours. People still buy CDs and DVDs because they’re physical, and generally offer higher fidelity than you can get via streaming. They’re also convenient – you get the media, the artwork, and the extras all in one package, rather than having to download bits and pieces. For DVDs we’re going to try to self-distribute at first, and see if we can self-fulfill as well (burn-on-demand services can take away 30-40% of your revenues).

The other piece of the puzzle is streaming and video-on-demand. We think Found In Time will find a home as a genre film, something folks will download who are looking through the “fantasy/sci-fi” section on Netflix or Hulu or Amazon. I’ve done this myself – that’s how I came to see Eden Log, Ink, Franklyn and other films that I had never heard about. We’re fortunate in that our title starts with a relatively early letter in the alphabet (scary, but it makes a difference).

So, great, now we know the niche to go after… how do we stand out to THEM? There are a bunch of time/reality-bending films out there right now, and a few more coming down the pike. Some (Source Code) are good, others (Adjustment Bureau) over-promised and under-delivered. Fortunately, a few low-budget sci-fi/speculative films (Bellflower, Another Earth) have come out, so I think the fans are looking for good stuff regardless of budget level or effects.

Okay, that’s it for now. Check out our trailer and poster. Also, look for the first Behind The Scenes video, coming next week (just after Halloween)! We’ll be making several of these and releasing them on the web. Hopefully you’ll find them fun and informative!

Quick Self-Promotion: I will be teaching a three-part course on Visual Storytelling at Brooklyn Brainery! The course looks at the tension between showing and telling in films. The first session will focus on existing films. During the second and third sessions, students will bring in works-in-progress (films, scripts, poems, novels, etc.) and discuss ways in which they can show their stories.

Where: The Brooklyn Brainery, 515 Court St., Brooklyn, NY
When: Thursdays, 6:30-8pm, October 6th, 13th, and 20th
Cost: $45
Register on the official site

Post

I’m just starting the promotion/marketing journey, but I wanted to step back for a minute and talk about the lessons I learned during post. What follows is a brief look at what I learned during post.

Make Time For VFX in Production

After Dan Loewenthal and I had scanned through the film a few times, and discussed/vetoed/decided on a few tweaks, we figured it was time to lock the picture. Up to that point, I’d put together some very rough visual effects shots, just so we had something to look at, and to give me some idea of what I wanted. I figured that few, if any, of these attempts would survive through the end of post (though a couple did). The VFX shots came in three basic flavors:

• Hiding/Erasing booms, boom shadows, lights, and other gakk
• Compositing plates together (there are a few shots where we extended sets and doubled characters)
• Creative work – adding tazer effects, glows, blood, and other things that weren’t there during the shoot

What I’ve learned is that I have to pay more attention during production when setting up VFX shots. Ben Wolf, my DP, is really good at setting up and executing low-budget VFX. But I rushed through the process a bit, creating more work for Vickie later. A good example is of a composite shot called "Two Chrises". In the foreground plate, we had Anthony (left) and Chris (right) arguing, then turning around as a second Chris enters the room.

There are several problems with this shot. First, foreground Chris moves into the area that the background Chris occupies. If you’re going to shoot a shot like this without using a greenscreen, then keeping the layers separate is pretty important. Second, the lighting from outside changed slightly between shooting the foreground and background plates, so Vickie and Verne Mattson, our colorist, had to spend more time in post evening up the shots.

Ben did a superb job framing and executing the shot. And the actors’ performances were great – MacLeod Andrews (Chris) and Eric Martin Brown (Anthony) are, after all, reacting to someone who literally isn’t there, and they sell it. The problem is that I didn’t schedule enough time to proceed just a little more slowly and make some minute adjustments, so we had to rush through the shots.

On the other hand, this shows you what you can do even without a lot of money or a greenscreen. We could have tried setting up a portable greenscreen, but placing it far enough away from the actors and lighting it properly may have been very difficult in that location (it was a small office).

Regardless of these oversights, Ben, Vickie and Verne were able to put together a wonderful shot. Dan Loewenthal, the editor, broke it up into two pieces and put a reaction shot by foreground Chris in between, to heighten the impact of the shot.

DropBox!

I am not affiliated in any way, shape or form with DropBox. However, I totally swear by it. It is worth it to upgrade to the Pro Version ($10 a month). With Vickie in Queens, Quentin in Brooklyn, and Verne in New Jersey, it would have been very inefficienct for me to shuttle files back and forth. YouSendIt is a great option for sound files (Quentin and I used it a few times) but for video files, DropBox is key. It works like a virtual hard drive that synchronizes a directory on your hard drive with its online counterpart. Stick a file in your local Dropbox directory, and it will be uploaded. If you give other people permission to see your account, they can download it. No more shlepping drives and DVDs back and forth.

Amend the Script

After the picture edit is done, you should go back to your script and amend it to reflect the locked cut. You’d be surprised how many differences there are between what you wrote and what was said on set, and between that and how it was cut together. I found little chunks of dialog had been added, others taken away, and some bits rearranged within the same scene. Presenting an amended, as-edited script to your sound designer will help him/her out immensely.

You Can Never Have Enough Drives

I started out with a 2TB internal drive and a 500Gig Camera/Sound Master drive. Since then I bought three 2TB external e-SATA/FW drive – one serves as a backup of the internal drive, a second is for Vickie (and contains everything) and the third is for Verne. I also purchased a second 500Gig "shuttle drive" which went back and forth with me on those occasions when I was meeting with someone had to grab a file from them or give one to them. I will need another 2TB drive pretty soon, to back up all the behind-the-scenes footage, the various QuickTime exports I’ve made, and the VFX final files. Since space constantly gets cheaper, I only bought new drives as a I needed them.

Life After Post

Okay, that’s it for now. There’s a lot going on at the moment – we’re in the process of building a new website for the film, and creating publicity/promo materials. I’ll have more to say about that next time.