Filmmaking Question

[Bob Zelin]

yet another post of mine that will be removed (hey, it’s Christmas, maybe no one from management is looking today) –

When it comes to film production…
1. What challenges beings faced

REPLY – where to find cheap labor to produce the film. How do you find free actors, cameramen with RED Cameras from their parents who will work for “spec” and bring their cameras along, and shoot for free, until you sell your film. Finding young editors and graphics people with all the equipment and software, so they can edit your film for free (you will pay them when you sell your film to the Weinstein company for millions).

2. Where the in-efficiencies in film production (finding and hiring good talent etc)

REPLY – it takes SO LONG to find young people who are 1) qualified, and 2) willing to work for free, so you can make huge profits for yourself. You are best off going to film and video schools to find such talent. It’s at least much easier finding “talent” who is willing to work for free, as (unlike cameramen, DP’s, lighting people, editors, sound guys, graphics people), actors seem more than willing to work for free, if they actually get a chance to be in front of the camera.

3, Do you have perspective on how current technology can help those inefficiencies?

REPLY – YES ! Davinci Resolve and Fusion are FREE. Use that to edit your film and do your effects. Find your free student talent to edit and do effects (and of course color grade) with Blackmagic Design products.

As for cameramen – find a kid with an iPhone, and have him shoot your film for you –
https://mashable.com/2017/07/01/michel-gondry-iphone-7-film/#EJtR2cYTbkqK

Look how much money I have saved you, after advising you. Make sure to put my name in the credits.

Bob Zelin

Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com

[Mark Suszko]

The challenge of film production has not changed… it is: “How do I get the money to make it all happen?”.

There are some recent new techniques, for example, using Patreon, Kickstarter, GoFundMe, etc. But those aren’t exactly “new” either, just enabled in a new way by modern tech.

Been reading a book about the director, John Frankenheimer, and a section on his movie adaptation of “The Iceman Cometh”. That movie is 4 hours long, and they had to cut material from the play to get it down to that length. One of the details of the production I found interesting was, the film was meant to be part of a series that were shown to audiences by “subscription”; i.e. you pre-paid for a “season ticket” to get exclusive access to see this and several other movies, specially made for this project and this audience. It’s perhaps similar in a way to the business model of “Fathom Events”, which I’m also fascinated by.

But John Frankenheimer was doing it back in 1973. It didn’t pan out back then, because not all the movies in the subscription series were of a scale and quality of “iceman”, so the subscriptions didn’t sell out, and regular Joes could walk in and buy a ticket the day of the screening, if there were seats available.