Tag: producing

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Truly Free Film

Why Make This Movie? 15 Answers To A Question That Should Be Asked More Often

You are a filmmaker. Maybe you are a director. Maybe a producer. Well, whatever you are, what if you didn’t have to make the movie you’ve been trying to make so long with so much effort? Well, you really don’t. We often work so hard for so long trying to get our precious films made that we also often lose sight of the fact that all creation is a choice. How can we prevent ourselves from forgetting that there is a right time for every choice?  And sometimes that time has passed us by.

Sometimes the process of putting our movies together has gone on for such an extent, we’ve moved on from the reasons that we wanted to make the movie in the first place.

What makes a movie important to make?  And important to make right now?  What are the factors that require us to make it now?  What should we ask ourselves, before pushing blindly ahead yet again?

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Truly Free Film

Ten Rules On The Producer’s Role In Development

On one hand there’s the methods we use to develop scripts, and on the other there is the process.  In the method we ask the questions, finding what works with the writer, director, and story.  The process is what happens in between those questions and where the relationships are born.

What is it that we want to accomplish in the development process?

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Truly Free Film

It All Begins Somewhere

I went to NYU Film Undergrad with the idea I was going to be a director. I got a scholarship, and the school encouraged me, but I felt that my destiny as a director was to be but a hack. I could get things going, but I was just regurgitating others’ ideas (ah, if only that was enough to stop most…). Sure, imitation is a path to learning, but I was impatient too. If I couldn’t be brilliant, I at least wanted to be around brilliance. I pivoted.

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Let's Make Better Films Truly Free Film

Does The World Need Another Decent Movie?

By Julien Favre

With the world economy on the brink, the current environment has rarely been so tough for independent filmmakers. To get our films made and, even more so, to see them sold and/or distributed, is getting incredibly challenging. Foreign sales estimates for low budget independent films are a tenth of what they used to be pre-2008, and let’s not be fooled by the numbers. We will be happy if we sell at all, even for symbolic numbers. From a filmmaker’s perspective, we have entered a dichotomous world: a shrinking pool of independent films do well; most don’t make any significant business. It is now as if there is only room for one indie hit per year. If you are not that film that everybody wants, you barely exist and your business footprint will be close to zero.

Now, you can look at this situation in two different ways. One way is to

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Let's Make Better Films Truly Free Film

10+ Things To Think About If You Want To Make Better Films

(photo by Ted, art from the street)
(photo by Ted, art from the street)

I watch a lot of films. I think I watch about 250 a year. I also watch a lot of films that never come out, that most audiences never get access to.

I learn a great deal from the “noble failures”, the films that have ambition but just miss the mark fully in execution. I honestly like these films and find pleasure in watching them, but I also know that most people like their entertainment and culture to be in a more perfectly realized state — even if most of us don’t have the resources to bring our work to that state. I think most people’s taste is shaped by their training; we learn to like what we get — unfortunately.

Yet I also think there are some things that

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Truly Free Film

Five Lessons We Learned While Making STARLET

by Blake Ashman-Kipervaser (producer)

As a film producer I find that each production I work on has its own unique set of challenges and the process can feel a bit like a roller coaster ride at times. Yet somehow things always seem to work out, and hopefully after its done you feel you’ve learned something or become stronger at what you do. With STARLET undergoing finishing work and getting ready to be released later this year I’ve thought back on some of the recent close calls and other experiences we survived during the making of the film and how fortuitous many of them seem to be in hindsight.  Here are five examples which I hope will help other filmmakers in some shape or form. 

1. The right place at the right time 

While developing another project STARLET director Sean Baker,

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Truly Free Film

Film Production Methods: The “Better” Way Vs. The Easy Way (In 15 Steps)

Two years ago I wrote a blog post “Ten Things We Should All Do On Our Productions“.  I would like to do a sequel to that post and would love your suggestions as to what those things now should be.  I do think the old list fully applies, but I am confident we can add to it.

15 Things We Can All Do On Our Film Productions That Would Make Life & Art Better, Safer, & More Satisfying.One of the ten things that was on that list was doing things the “better” way vs. the “easy” way.  We so love completing tasks we often cave into just getting things done.  But if we all worked together to lift the bar higher, no one would tolerate many of the practices that are currently considered “acceptable”. So why not work together to raise the bar higher?  How about I start with a list of:

15 Things We Can All Do On Our Film Productions That Would Make Life & Art Better, Safer, & More Satisfying.

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