Features
Latest Articles:
User Generated Content
The buzz word at the moment is citizen journalism. CNN provides these journalists with their own weekly program, the BBC invites people to submit their news, and July saw the first Citizen Journalism Awards. Of course Citizen Journalism is nothing new, but the demand for this type of content appears to be on the rise. So much so that it is being branded as a genre - 'social media'.
Why do images captured on celluloid have a sort of "glossy look" when well-mastered dv-footage doesn't?
It's notoriously difficult to make DV look "glossy". Why do images originated on celluloid tend to look sexy? Can we achieve that same look on DV?
Creating a Press Kit
This is the most important element of the filmmaking process, and ironically, the one most often overlooked by new filmmakers. If you hire the best cinematographer, screenwriter and actors in the world to work for you, they will make you a film: eight thousand feet of celluloid with absolutely no marketable value. You cannot sell a film. You can only sell a movie. You turn a film into a movie by using publicity to create a buzz, or hype for your film. Additionally, publicity will attract acquisition executives to your movie.
Getting Ideas
Writing a screenplay is very hard. Writing a good screenplay involves a good amount of fortune, and a strong belief in the first biblical reference. But like everything else, I believe that there can be a plan. And with a good plan you stand a better chance of succeeding. The key to becoming a successful screenwriter is really very basic - get great ideas, write them down in a distinct personal style, circulate each finished script in the film community and as soon as one script is finished, start the next. If it is so basic, why isn't everyone doing it? Because writing a screenplay is difficult. Writing a truly great screenplay is very, very difficult.
Production Diary for "The Board"
Wish Craft are currently shooting their feature film The Board and the Writer / Director / Producer keeps us up to speed with this production diary which will be updated frequently.
First Response
More often than not we know more about the film we are going to see than we need to. It leads to us being conservative in our choices and stops us from appreciating film's greatest pleasure: spontaneously responding to what is happening on the screen.
Shooting Super-16mm On A Low Budget
This article will first look at some of the reasons why you might want to shoot on film and will then go on to consider how to shoot on super-16mm for the least amount of money.
The New Horizons of UK Film Finance, a Life Jacket for the UK Film Industry?
When the Chancellor announced the Pre-Budget report last December, the film industry could breath a great sigh of relief. Following the ambiguity which ensued after the announced cull of section 42 and 48 relief, an uneasy few months resulted which witnessed a slew of production companies including several Hollywood productions being pulled from the UK.
Can Cannes Compete? Because Berlin Means Business
A strange suggestion, you might think, that the undisputed heavyweight champion of festivals might need to up its game. The ever-improving Berlin, though, is at last drawing enough favourable comparisons to its French counterpart to make this a reality. Where Venice has struggled to beef up, Berlin has bravely taken on the challenge.
An Interview with Suzanne Ballantyne
Suzanne Ballantyne has been the Senior Programmer at London's Raindance Film Festival since 1995. She is also widely respected as an independent film analyst and writer. She is currently working on her debut feature.
