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Truly Free Film

Producing Your First Feature? 5 Insights That Won’t Lead You Far Wrong…

In June 2014, director Alex Lightman produced his first feature film, Tear Me Apart. Here he talks about the major lessons him and his team learnt along the way.

The London Screenwriters’ Festival 2011 was where my career really began. Made to talk to the person next to me by festival creative director Chris Jones, I shook hands with screenwriter Tom Kerevan. A fateful encounter.

We started working together and soon after met cinematographer Ernesto Herrmann on a short film shoot. The three of us have been working together ever since.

In May 2013 we made the somewhat snap decision to take the plunge and produce a feature film ourselves.

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Truly Free Film

A First Time Writer/Director’s Trial by Fire, Part #4: Unhealthy Obsessive Persistence

Welcome to the game that everyone trying to make a movie wish they would never have to play but do: Unhealthy Obsessive Persistence and Unlikely Approval! (Applause) What do we have for our contestant behind Door #1… wait, Door #1 is locked? Then what’s behind Door #2? A brick wall you say? What about Door #3? It just revolves back to point A. Congratulations! You don’t win! (Audience moans) Adding insult to injury, I have to pay for my own craft service.

At times, working to get a project noticed appears to dip into pointlessness,

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These Are Those Things

Love What You Do… Or Don’t Do It

I don’t post many commercials, but if I had to constrain such posts to things I love, whiskey commercials would be on my list.  If I raised the bar higher, and made it only include those that I admire, I would not have many logs to put on the fire.  Charles Bukowski carried me forward with his prose those years I was aged 22 -25.  I wouldn’t normally recommend advice from a drunkard, but he was a great one.  Live true.

“Live True” Dewar’s White Label [English] from &Rosàs on Vimeo.

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Truly Free Film

More Advice for 1st Time Film Festival Attendees

[tweet https://twitter.com/TedHope/status/276351869205499904]
 

A couple of  weeks back I  used Twitter to crowdsource advice on what first time attendees of Film Festivals should do. See the responses below. It makes a decent follow up to yesterday’s post.  And if you’d like to be part of future discussions, just follow me on Twitter: @TedHope.

 

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Truly Free Film

What Are Your Favorite Film Quotes?

Continuing on with my crowdsourcing of blog posts for you, I followed up my tweet of “What’s the first best lesson you learned about the film business” with one about what was your favorite quote. I didn’t get anywhere near as many suggestions, but the results are good. More suggestions are welcome.

Billie Burke On Hollywood: “To survive there, you need the ambition of a Latin-American revolutionary, the ego of a grand opera tenor, and the physical stamina of a cow pony.” – (via Randy Finch)

Brian De Palma: “The camera lies all the time; lies 24 times/second. ” (via @rudra_banerji Rudra Banerji)

Werner Herzog: “You want to make a film, steal a camera, steal film stock, sneak in to a lab and do it. – from Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (via @wvfilmmaker Jason Brown)

Alfred Hitchcock: “”A lot of movies are about life, mine are like a slice of cake.” (via @rudra_banerji Rudra Banerji)

paraphrasing Mike Nichols: “Directing is like sex. You don’t usually get to watch other people doing it, so you are never sure you are doing it right.” (via @catsolen)

Graham Taylor: “What’s not boring is making shit happen.” (via dantherriault Dan Therriault )

Orson Welles: “A writer needs a pen, an artist needs a brush, but a filmmaker needs an army.” (via TS86142 TAKAE)

Orson Welles: “I do try to keep the screen as rich as possible, because I never forget that film itself is a dead thing, for me at least — the illusion of life fades very quickly when the texture is thin.” (via @catsolen)

“Waste everything except Time” 1 of my carpentry mentors. (via @davepowersNYC Dave Powers)