Kickstarter for Cult Shows

TechCrunch just posted an idea for a way to save failed, but awesome, television shows: to make Netflix the distribution model.

I second this…with a twist.

How about instead of the Netflix model, we do the kickstarter model? I know tons of Firefly fans (myself included) who’d be willing to ante up more dough than we payed for the series DVD sets to see the show come back.

It’s the crowdsourcing age, so let’s get to it. If a service existed solely to pull the middlemen out of the system and let the content-lovers fund the project (and I think the stats show there are enough of us), then let us fund it.

With a Kickstarter model, it would prevent projects from going to completion unless the fans come through on the funding side, so the fans would have no one to blame but themselves if the funding goals are not met.

And I do understand that this kind of venture won’t be cheap, but with the advent of emerging digital filmmaking technologies it’s getting cheaper every day, and since advertisers, tv studios and other distributing middlemen won’t need their cut, it seems that costs would be reduced significantly.

Let’s imagine that Firefly Season Two has 10 episodes.

TechCrunch estimates that about 4.5 million viewers watched Firefly regularly. Let’s say 1 million of those are willing to buy episodes at $1 each. I don’t think it’s any stretch to assume that at least 500,000 would be willing to pay much more (say 30 bucks for a season). I’d put up 100 bucks (serious).  Let’s say there are 100,000 others like me (go to the forums – I don’t think it’s a stretch).

Right there you have 35 million  without breaking a sweat. And again, if you don’t have enough by the funding deadline, the crowds’ credit cards aren’t charged and back to square one it goes.

Just throwin’ it out there…

MPAA and the Growing Christian Film Industry

Just wrote a little piece for RealLab Productions with the above title: http://reallabproductions.com/2011/01/03/the-mpaa-and-the-growing-christian-film-industry/

I’ve been tapped to do some shooting for RealLab in Georgia for the upcoming documentary Soul Winners.

 

The Coens Part 1: Fargo and The One Shot Theme

I’m dedicating my film chatter this month to the Coens in honor of their upcoming True Grit remake, which hits theaters December 22. First off are some musings on Fargo, which will translate into two posts, a couple other snippets if I have time, and I’ll finish off with two posts detailing my opinion on the remake before and after I’ve seen it

I’m just a tad bit late with my Fargo review, having seen it only a few weeks back, and while I am sure that my observations will come as no surprise to Fargo aficionados, I thought it would be fun to jot down a few observations . So, if you have not seen this film, be warned that spoilers follow.

I love when filmmakers can encapsulate entire themes in one scene or, even better, one shot, and the Coens manage to succeed in both ways here. First, in the scene in which the teenage witnesses are chased down by the gunman  resulting in the car wreck, the Coens give us the shot of the young man leaving the car and running out into the middle of the enormous snow-covered clearing. He is gunned down. His girlfriend, trapped inside of the vehicle, is likewise executed. In this scene I think the Coens hand us the theme on a silver platter: there is no escape.

William H. Macy’s character is like the girl. He tries to deal with impending doom by remaining within society’s constructs and playing along, mistakenly assuming that in so  doing he will be able to have some control over the situation. I think the boy represents the kidnappers. They’ve shirked all of society’s protections and throw themselves into “freedom,” but one that, like the barren landscape beyond the road’s shoulder, offers no place to hide.

This theme is reinforced when the most frightening and sociopathic character in the film is reduced to throwing wood at a pregnant Police Chief and running helplessly onto the middle of a snow-covered clearing before being shot in the leg. This is followed by one wide cinematic shot in which the kidnapper is alone  in the middle of nowhere with Marge behind leveling her gun at him. This bleak picture hands us that theme: judgment is coming; you can’t run, or as Sheriff Bell’s friend Ellis says at the end of No Country For Old Men: “You can’t stop what’s coming.”

New Short Film

My newest screenplay Kids Get in Free is up on plotbot.com.

It’s marred by many a formatting error and typo, so consider it a very early draft.

Would love to hear your thoughts and input!

http://www.plotbot.com/screenplays/kids_get_in_free/screenplay

My Attempt to Prove That Video Game Adaptations Need Not Suck

Required listening for this post: Ninja Gaiden Medley by The Minibosses (open in a new tab).

Movies adapted from video games suck.

For a very long time I’ve wanted to start a project that proved that this does not have to be the case. Today, I’m taking my first baby step in that direction.

The other day I was listening to the above track by Minibosses, a rock band that adapts old Nintendo game soundtracks into head-bobbing medleys, and though it was not the first time I saw a cinematic scene in my head to that tune, it was the first time that it took a more concrete form, and at that moment I decided to go for it and do a mock trailer for a Ninja Gaiden film (that didn’t exist).

So, where else to go for inspiration, but Youtube? There I found the introductory cut-scene from the original game, and voila, the source for my trailer was laid out for me: 

So I set off to adapt the rough 8 bit cinematic into a rough screenplay, which can be read, commented upon, and even edited here: http://www.plotbot.com/screenplays/ninja_gaiden_trailer/screenplay

Feel free to comment, edit, whatever, or if you think my interpretation sucks, write your own.

I have access to a Canon 7d for shooting the finished product, or would be happy to see anyone else take ownership if they have something better to shoot with, but I think this would fun and maybe might turn a few heads.

Video Game films don’t need to be stupid. Let’s prove it.

Hot Keys

I wrote this as an expression of the frustration I’ve felt with certain programs boasting steep learning curves.

Female Directors

A while back a little meme went around on Facebook asking you to list your top 15 directors and tag 15 friends to see who they would pick. I took the bait, and I think it was a constructive exercise because I was introduced to a number of directors I would have otherwise overlooked because I either had forgotten them or had never heard of them.

A friend of mine from high school who has great movie taste chimed in, and after rattling off a list of keepers,  she was surprised upon looking over her list that it did not feature any female directors.

I just saw this story on Hollywood Reporter that raises the point that women directors don’t make the money men do. They bring up the obvious comparison between Bigelow and Cameron: Bigelow’s Hurt Locker only made 16.8 million (someone fact check that please-it sounds impossible), while Avatar (or as my friend not-so-lovingly refers to it-Avaturd) made over 2 billion.

My question for you is this: What great women directors do you admire enough to include in your top fifteen?

I think Bigelow may well end up on my list, but I’m just waiting for something else other than Hurt Locker to tip the scales, because as much as I liked that film, there are just too many other films that trump it for me. I’ve heard wonderful things about this year’s “Little Indie That Could” Winter’s Bone, directed by Debra Granik, but I live in Panama City, FL so I will have to take a rain-check on that one until Oscar season.

Until then-I have Netflix. So catch me up to speed.

Female directors: go.

My First Short Film: Checklist