Producing Advice

Advice from Joke and Biagio–you decide what it’s worth!

Did My Idea Get Stolen? Focus on This Instead…

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There’s a great guest post on John August’s blog called When You Think Someone Stole Your Idea. Written by aspiring screenwriter Randall Girdner, it explores those sickening thoughts most of us have had at some point: Did someone steal my idea? Will someone steal my idea? The post is an honest exploration of Randall’s situation, … Read more

Follow Rian Johnson’s Lead to Jumpstart Your Filmmaking Career

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Rian Johnson sold LOOPER the same way we’ve sold all of our TV shows and pilots…using great tape to generate excitement.

Clip-O-Mania

If you haven’t seen it already, Rian released the “clip-o-matic” tape he put together to help generate interest in his latest box-office hit LOOPER starring Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon- Levitt.

Have a peek:

Talk about a super-cool behind the scenes look at the birth of a film.

A Tried and True Technique

Clip reels like these are created for every kind of project you can imagine, and the good ones really do open doors.

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Steal This Editing Secret to Edit Film and Video Like a Pro

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Final cut pro dying to do letterman final cut pro

Editing: The Dark Art

For some, editing film and video comes easy, naturally, as if the editing gods possess their mouse clicks and control their keyboard shortcuts to magically whittle hundreds of hours of footage down into mere minutes of genius.

Then, there’s the rest of us.

You might already be a great editor. Yes? Then you should be soooo happy for you.

If not, maybe you have a best friend or romantic counterpart who is an editing genius and will gladly toil for hours on your passion project or pitch tape idea.

Or, maybe you’re flush with cash and can spend $100 to $300 an hour on a great editor who will polish your project to a sheen.

None of those things true for you?

Then you’ll be editing your project yourself. Daunting, given this simple truth:

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We Want to Make a TV Show with You

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Our agents said “you’re crazy.”

Friends said, “don’t do it.”

The lawyer said, “I wouldn’t recommend it, but if you must…”

Well, We Must…

When we wanted to break in to Hollywood, no one would take our calls. We had:

  • great video pitches
  • unique ideas
  • the determination to succeed

It wasn’t enough. We still needed to convince production companies to meet with us and consider teaming up.

For most aspiring filmmakers and TV producers today, that’s still the case. People won’t take your calls.

Starting Now, We’re Taking Your Calls

We’ve decided to try an experiment.

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I’ll Work for the Promise You’ll Pay Me Eventually

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Good luck seeing this anytime soon!

One of the blogs we love to frequent is run by acclaimed screenwriter John August. I met John once, although I’m sure he won’t remember. I was an assistant on the Paramount Lot and he was one of the nicest, most down-to-earth writers coming through our offices.

The other day John posted an anonymous blog from a fellow writer ranting about the fact that, in our industry, companies don’t pay until there are “executed” agreements. They will not write the check…but we ARE expected to start delivering work right away.

Some Background

Whether you’re a writer, director, producer or production company, the process of getting to a signed contract is basically the same. Most deals get beat out verbally, deal points are agreed upon by email, and then the deal is “closed.”

Sort of.

Once the artist/agent/lawyer/studio all agree and a deal is “closed” (verbally) we as artists are usually expected to start work right away.

However, the deal isn’t “executed” until a proper “long-form” agreement is written up and signed.

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