Feral Dream

Charity Giving for Free: CauseWorld

nobody@vox.com(Susan Ee) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 14:33:19 -0800

Happy holidays, everyone! For all you broke filmmakers, writers, artists, and other people with more heart than money, here's a free way to spread good cheer to charities and start the new year right. CauseWorld is an iphone app where you direct sponsors like Citi and Kraft to donate money to the charity of your choice just by walking into a store. Here's a story on it. Pretty sweet, huh?

Susan Ee
www.feraldream.com

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

$300 YouTube Video Lands $30M Deal

nobody@vox.com(Susan Ee) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 17:51:30 -0800

Check out the story of the guy who made a YouTube video for $300 and landed a $30M deal with Sam Raimi's Ghost House Pictures. He put up the video on a Thursday and by Monday, he had a bidding war going for him. Pretty cool.

Here's the video:

Ataque de Pánico! (Panic Attack!) 2009

$300 is obviously not a lot of money for such high production value. Now that I have a tiny bit of knowledge of how VFX and 3D modeling works, I have a little bit of insight into how this might be done. Here are my guesses as to what he did:

1) He bought premade 3D models of a robot and a spaceship. You can buy this stuff for pretty cheap over various 3D model sources on the Internet. Actually, you can get a lot of this stuff for free--it just depends on whether you find the model that works for you. He then duplicated and animated them in a 3D program like Cinema 4D, Maya, 3ds Max, Lightwave, etc. If he's a desktop creator, he may have used a program like Adobe After Effects to combine the live video with the CGI. It may have cost him $300 to make the movie, but there's a good chance that he needed about $10k worth of gear to bring it all together. That's assuming it's all done on the cheap with a desktop or three (the render time has to be horrendous for something like this--he would need to work in parallel).

2) He bought a collection of premade explosions. This stuff can be cheap or expensive, depending on where you get it. The explosion that impressed me the most is the domed building. Either he bought one premade (you can sometimes buy a 3D model that comes premade with an animation of it exploding), or he had to make the model of the building (which you can do with the 3D programs listed above), then create an animation of it exploding. If those buildings are not actual models of the buildings in Montevideo, then I'm less impressed. But I'll bet it is.

That animation looks professional. What strikes me as odd is that the green screen of the kid with the robots behind him is not perfect, which tells me that maybe he doesn't do that kind of VFX for a living. But the 3D stuff was great. Getting that kind of smooth motion and explosion action takes some practice...unless he bought it premade. But $300 is not a lot, even in Uruguay, so I'm guessing he had to make at least some of that himself. Very nice work.

3) If he was using After Effects or some such program, he can duplicate actors into a crowd, or maybe he managed to get a lot of people to act for free with no food (feeding a crowd that size would eat his whole budget up in no time). He can also create fog.

The water splashing, and the dust puffing when the robots stamp their feet are nice touches, and probably not easy to do. The camera work is great too because it not only increases the tension, it doesn't let you look too closely at the CGI, which is very important for suspension of disbelief. He got a lot of things right beyond the technical stuff.

Overall, it's great, and he obviously put in a lot of work. Kudos to him. What's strange to me, though, is that so many studios would come to him and offer up so much money over a cool video that had...um...no story. Maybe 2012 did so well (biggest box office hit in the history of both India and China) that they figured stories are overrated (and so darn hard to get right!) so long as you have engaging destruction. Well, they may be right, up to a point.

Susan Ee
www.feraldream.com

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Jane Doe's Suicide Post

nobody@vox.com(Susan Ee) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:42:59 -0800

For the first time, I have heavily censored a post. I am strongly pro-1st Amendment, and it doesn't sit right with me to do this. But there is no resolution of this situation that is going to make anyone feel better, so I have decided to respect the wishes of my friend's family and redact the post I wrote about my reaction to my friend's suicide.

It’s taken me long hours to convince myself that this family member’s not-so-veiled threat of litigation over something in which s/he has no rights needs to be translated. This translation should read: “I am in unimaginable pain, and if you do this for me, there’s a chance that the pain might be a little more bearable for today.”

I have been telling myself that compassion for the living is more important than a memorial for the dead. That whatever it is I’m feeling is just a drop in the tsunami of tragic feelings her family is dealing with. Any unkind thing I say to them now will be carried for the rest of their lives, and it can’t be taken back next week after I’ve cooled off. I keep telling myself this, but I still feel raw about it.

Per their request, I am removing almost every detail about her in my post, which makes the whole post quite ironic when read in context. Also at the family’s request, I am removing a heart-felt poem written by her which was posted in the comments section by someone who loved her. It is full of despair and beautifully touching. It is my understanding that this poem was published on the Internet. I firmly believe that a writer who publishes her poem would want it read, felt, and appreciated for as long as possible…

…which brings me right back to the mantra of “Compassion for the living is more important than a memorial for the dead, goddammit.”

Susan Ee
www.feraldream.com

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Halfway to a manuscript

nobody@vox.com(Susan Ee) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:03:20 -0800

This month is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). The challenge is to write 50,000 words during the month of Nov. I dove in immediately after the World Fantasy Convention. The great people I met at the convention must have inspired me because I've been on fire since then. I'm writing at a record-breaking speed for me. Yesterday was my most productive day at 3,700 words. That's a long way from the 1,000 word glass ceiling I used to live under.

I'm off to LA tomorrow for a filmmaking seminar so I needed to meet my 25,000 word goal for Sunday by today. Good thing I'm deadline driven. I'm now at 25,349 words. Yay!

Now if I can just keep myself from being distracted by my lust for a new netbook, I'll have a very rough draft of a novel to work with by mid-Dec. I'm keeping my fingers crosssed.

Susan Ee
www.Tooth-Fairy-Movie.com
www.feraldream.com

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

World Fantasy Convention

nobody@vox.com(Susan Ee) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 10:38:10 -0800

Wfclogo

I went to the World Fantasy Convention this week at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose. It was my first World Fantasy Convention and I have to say that it ranked as my favorite of the four SF/Fan conventions I've attended (2 WorldCons and Wiscon). Just about everyone there was a writer, editor or publisher. The crowd ranged from famous to aspiring. Everyone was friendly, the feel was low-key, and the parties were great. The best party I went to was a book launch party for Soulless. The author, Gail Carriger, threw the party on Halloween, and it was beautifully catered by people dressed in full Victorian costumes. The food there was impressive! Her marketing efforts are working because a lot of people at the party said they have to buy the book, and I'm blogging about it right now. So there you go, when your book or film launches, throw a memorable party.

Oh, and the convention gift bag can't be beat--a huge tote full of newly-published books and magazines. :-)

Susan Ee
www.Tooth-Fairy-Movie.com
www.feraldream.com

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Tooth Fairy part of TV Halloween Special!

nobody@vox.com(Susan Ee) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 11:53:49 -0700

Tooth Fairy Peeking

I just got word that TOOTH FAIRY will be included in a 3 hour Halloween TV special produced by Dark Carnival Film Festival and HorrorHound Magazine! It will air on October 24 at 8pm (EST) on Time-Warner channel 991, which is a local independent network that plays in Ohio and southern Indiana.

Considering that Tooth Fairy is playing in both family film showings and horror showings, it's perfect for a TV Halloween special!

Yay!

Susan Ee
www.Tooth-Fairy-Movie.com
www.feraldream.com

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Latest Distribution Model

nobody@vox.com(Susan Ee) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 10:21:31 -0700

Paranormal Activities (a film made for $10,000 that ran the festival circuit and eventually got picked up by Paramount) reached a million requests for it to open in people's towns. Paramount used Eventful to set up a website in which fans can ask for the movie to open in their towns. Paramount promised that if they get a million requests, they will open it nation-wide.

Eventful will set up a request website for your film too, if you're willing to shell out $30,000 -$250,000. Or, you can donate $100 to Arin Crumley's OpenIndie project so you can do a showing in a town if you get 100 requests.

Susan Ee
www.Tooth-Fairy-Movie.com
www.feraldream.com

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Standard symbols

nobody@vox.com(Susan Ee) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:24:06 -0700

Sonnyboo's website has free downloads of standard symbols like festival laurels, DVD symbol, FBI warnings, film ratings, etc. That's where I got my festival laurels for my Tooth Fairy website, but I had to process it to make it transparent.

Susan Ee
www.Tooth-Fairy-Movie.com
www.feraldream.com

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Tacoma Film Festival weekend

nobody@vox.com(Susan Ee) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 11:03:44 -0700

Tacoma Film Festival

A couple of us from TOOTH FAIRY made it to the Tacoma Film Festival this past weekend. Although Tooth Fairy played in Chicago a couple of weeks ago, this was the first festival I attended. I picked it among the other festivals because they were kind enough to give us a room at the Courtyard Marriott for the weekend. It was a really nice hotel, much nicer than I was expecting. The festival did a great job welcoming us. On Friday night, we missed our flight (DOH!) so we were really late for the Friday night party. In fact, there was only one filmmaker pair there with their family. We hung out with them for about an hour, and had a nice chat with Margo Pelletier and Lisa Thomas who flew out from NY. Later in the festival, their documentary, Freeing Silvia Baraldini, won the best documentary award! We were really excited for them because they had obviously put in a lot of work over the 8 year trek of their film. Congratulations again to Margo and Lisa!

Saturday morning, I attended a filmmakers' workshop by Warren Etheredge of the Warren Report, who also MC'd the awards brunch on Sunday. Wow, what an entertaining speaker. I'll have to do another post just on his workshop presentation because I got a lot out of it. I really wanted to chat with him after the workshop but it ended just as my film was starting so I had to say a quick thank you and run off.

The Tooth Fairy showing was...well...awesome! :-) It was great fun seeing the film on the big screen. The audience laughed in all the right places and clapped enthusiastically at the end. It was fun! There was a Q&A session at the end but it was very short due to the schedule. I quickly mentioned how I learned VFX for the film and that my crowning achievement was digitally changing the sheets on the bed to fix a continuity problem.

Oh, and I really, really enjoyed wearing the "filmmaker" badge. :-)

Sunday brunch was also good. We sat at the table with Mark Hug and May Charters who were from LA. They made a film called Lovers in a Dangerous Time which played on opening night. At the table were also the filmmakers of a film called Spooners, which is supposed to be really great and we regret having missed it, but they were hung-over and weren't socially alert enough to give me their cards, so no link for them on this post.

Overall, it was a fun weekend. Many thanks to all the festival volunteers, and a special thanks to the festival coordinators, Emily and Rachel, who made us feel welcome!

Susan Ee
www.Tooth-Fairy-Movie.com
www.feraldream.com

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Hybrid Book/Film

nobody@vox.com(Susan Ee) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 11:42:21 -0700

A few weeks ago, the creator of CSI released a book on paper where every 20 pages or so, the reader can go to a website, put in a password, and see a video that supposedly enhances the story. I just watched the "trailer" for it, expecting it to be horribly cheesy, as most book trailers are...but it appears that book trailers are starting to come into their own. Somebody spent real money on this trailer. Lots of set-ups, recognizable actors, a custom costume, text effects, props, foley, DOF, set design... Of course, it helps that the creator of CSI can probably just use the resources of CSI.

I'm not saying it's not silly, 'cause, the major conflict is Sqweegel vs. Dark. No joke. He must have gotten the character names out of a Saturday morning cartoon, although the content doesn't look made for children and the publisher is Dutton Adult. I wanted to experience this book/film since creating that kind of hybrid would be perfect for me, but the reviews made the book sound like total dreck. It sounds like people may be open to the concept of the hybrid, but that this particular execution didn't work so well. Several reviewers said it felt more like an interruption than an enhancement. A couple mentioned that they didn't like having to give out their email addresses to access the videos. Sounds like the clips on the website are a mixed bag, ranging from "well done" to "terrible." Some people liked the experience of the hybrid, others hated it.

It seems there is a much better executed book/film: Skeleton Creek. For one thing, the premise incorporates video clips into the story rather than just being a gimmick. For another, it's a kid's story. Kid's books have pictures, adult books generally don't. I think kids may be a more receptive and natural audience for this kind of storytelling, at least for now, until the genre matures.

Very intriguing for those of us who enjoy writing prose as well as filmmaking...

Susan Ee
www.Tooth-Fairy-Movie.com
www.feraldream.com

Read and post comments | Send to a friend