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| Speaking of Making a Movie | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Dec 2 2007, 07:02 PM (619 Views) | |
| kathyk | Dec 2 2007, 07:02 PM Post #1 |
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Pisa-Carp
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My son recently graduated from art school. His focus is film making - has been since 4th grade. He's won awards here and there, got into a prestigious school, but has very esoteric ideas of the films he wants to do. Suffice it to say, he will never be Hollywood, but he has an undeniable talent. He's living in NY with GF and managing without working 9-5 - something he thinks would drain his creativity. He gets by by doing temporary gigs doing this and that - a lot of it boom work on productions. The rest of his time - I mean all of the time - is spent devising his next projects. He e-mailed the other day with a query. He's come up with the idea, for a feature film - fully scripted, budgeted, casted for the most part. He's ready to shoot. All he needs is money - 25 K. He's not asking us for it, but wants ideas. Part of me is tempted to front him money in the way of a loan. We are not rich. JF and I are both on 2nd or 3rd careers and it wasn't too long ago that we finished paying off student loans. Aside from that, I don't think it's a good idea. I think he needs to make his own way. But, what do aspiring film makers do? This has to be the most expensive of all the creative arts. Looking for ideas. |
| Blogging in Palestine: http://kksjournal.com/ | |
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| Optimistic | Dec 2 2007, 07:04 PM Post #2 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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He sounds very passionate about his work. Good luck to him! |
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PHOTOS I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up. - Mark Twain We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. -T. S. Eliot | |
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| kathyk | Dec 2 2007, 07:09 PM Post #3 |
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Pisa-Carp
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Boy, he is that. And he also has a gift. A lot of what he's done, to date, however, is just too, too esoteric to capture a wide audience. The intellectual, artsy types appreciate his work, but he'll never get big corporate sponsors. In fact, his current project is somewhat of an anti-Walmart tome.
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| Blogging in Palestine: http://kksjournal.com/ | |
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| The 89th Key | Dec 2 2007, 07:09 PM Post #4 |
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Hey KathyK, I also was an aspiring film maker. I made a couple short films (school award winners), as well as news packages, commercials, etc...I love the art. But it's certainly hard to make a career out of it. Has he exhausted his options as far as getting sponsors, borrowed equipment, volunteer actors, etc? Often shooting a real film can cost a lot less if you find the right means. But my first piece of advice, as I mentioned, is to find corporate sponsors...local places or large businesses...it all depends, but that's his best bet. Also to check various networks, groups, and even classified ads (or on Craigslist) for various opportunities. |
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| kenny | Dec 2 2007, 07:10 PM Post #5 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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They max out their credit cards, mortgage their house, borrow from friends and family, schmooze to convince wealthy benefactors how talented and worthy their skills are, not for financial investment but to make an important artistic statement, get art grants, sleep with rich ugly old people, or rich ugly young people, or rich beautiful young people. IOW. . . anything. How bout working up to that $25K project by doing a few diverse $5K ones to use as a resume? |
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| sue | Dec 2 2007, 07:14 PM Post #6 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Are there not festivals for emerging talent where he is? I don't know a lot about the field, but I do know there are competitions, here and in Banff, for aspiring film makers that are often a stepping stone for some real talent. Some of what I've seen is just brilliant. Seems to me, doing smaller projects, and getting your name out there is what you have to do. But hey, I live in 'Hollywood North' as they call us. |
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| The 89th Key | Dec 2 2007, 07:21 PM Post #7 |
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Well - at least they think they're intelligent. :lol: Not saying anything about your boy at all...honest...but I know the type of audience you're talking about, from my experience in the cinematic field. IMO those artsy-fartsy types are often the most condescending, judgmental, we-think-we-are-intelligent-because-we-like-weird-movies people you'll meet. ![]() PS. It's not restricted to film, either...they'll often travel in packs after a film screening to an abstract-art gallery to drink wine and walk around offering faux-intelligent verbal bullsht as hors d'oeuvres.
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| kenny | Dec 2 2007, 07:31 PM Post #8 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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89, I think no group has the faux intelligentsia market cornered. I think faux intelligentsia, like beauty or bigotry or gobs of other stuff, is in the eye of the beholder. |
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| Daniel | Dec 2 2007, 08:08 PM Post #9 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Give him the money. He's talented and I've seen his picture. He's cute too. ![]() |
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| Daniel | Dec 2 2007, 08:11 PM Post #10 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Um, Roger and Me?? He might get corporate sponsors. He can mainstream his work. Most artists do that. |
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| Rainman | Dec 2 2007, 08:51 PM Post #11 |
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Fulla-Carp
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Couple of thoughts on this. He should keep in contact with his univ., especially those professors that may have connections. Make an appointment(s), show them his resume/CV, ask them to look it over, give feedback, then be able to explain to them what he would like to do in the world of making-a-living as well as what his long-range dream is. Get a job part-time teaching, maybe just an evening class or two at a community college. He should always be doing something that shows moving forward on a CV. Apply for an internship at the local public broadcasting station. He would start out working for free, perhaps doing nothing more than in-house promos. But eventually he might work his way up to assignments and then enjoy a bit of latitude in production. If in a large city, hit the pavement, find a job if even distantly related to film production. Get the foot in the door somewhere. . . The world is full of extremely talented young people, with many accomplishments, deserving to contribute and be noticed (geez, should we talk about young composers of contemporary music, and what chance they have for a living??). They have already paid their dues in many respects, devoting themselves to their Art, just as your son. But of course it's a cold world. There are so many young pianists for example, that can play the hell out of Liszt, yet it's the untalented that can't play worth a damn and never will, that end up being able to afford the most expensive pianos (and always name-dropping the manufacturer), while so many exceptionally talented can only afford a piece of carp, as long as they remain faithfull to their dreams. No, I wouldn't loan the money. There is a one in a thousand chance it would be a good investment, but odds are the money would end up driving a wedge between him and his parents. It would always be the issue, spoken about or not. Just my 2-cents. |
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| Larry | Dec 2 2007, 09:47 PM Post #12 |
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Mmmmmmm, pie!
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Let's see... he played movie producer on your nickel for 4 years, now he's letting his girlfriend support him and avoiding responsibility with the lame excuse that work "drains his creativity"..... I'd tell him to get off his ass and get a job. Any time I hear an "artiste" say something like "working a job drains my creativity" I know I'm dealing with a lazy kid who doesn't want to take responsibility for his life. No way I'd hand him a penny. |
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Of the Pokatwat Tribe | |
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| Phlebas | Dec 2 2007, 09:57 PM Post #13 |
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Bull-Carp
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Pay their dues? He should work as much as he can in the industry. Develop connections, help others, get to the point where he can call in favors.... Learn the business from the ground up. Also, I met him - briefly. Seems very nice. Can't comment on any of his work because I didn't see it, however, you might want to tell him that working 9-5 might actually help him in more ways than not. Bottom line is, you got him through school. It's up to him now. |
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Random FML: Today, I was fired by my boss in front of my coworkers. It would have been nice if I could have left the building before they started celebrating. FML The founding of the bulk of the world's nation states post 1914 is based on self-defined nationalisms. The bulk of those national movements involve territory that was ethnically mixed. The foundation of many of those nation states involved population movements in the aftermath. When the only one that is repeatedly held up as unjust and unjustifiable is the Zionist project, the term anti-semitism may very well be appropriate. - P*D | |
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| kathyk | Dec 3 2007, 06:25 AM Post #14 |
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Pisa-Carp
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Lots of good suggestions. Thanks everyone for your input. I'll pass this along to him, though I think he's doing most of what has been suggested. I'm not sure about fleshing out his possible contacts with his school. That was something I threw out to him the other day. No doubt about it, developing and nurturing contacts can be critical and I do think he's been a bit lax in that regard. Again, I think he lacks the self-promotional verve that doing that well takes. One thing he is not, Larry, is lazy, and his GF is not supporting him. They are both pulling their own. We spend a lot of time with her, including weeks every summer at camp for the past three years, so I get the low down. I'm very invested in seeing that she becomes part of our family. Although he's not working 9-5, he works in spurts often on pretty interesting gigs. He's definitely has a reputation as a competent boom guy and gets fairly regular work on all sorts of crazy professional sets. One of the more interesting recent ones was on a 50 foot boat for several days. The good thing about these gigs is that they pay very well for a concentrated period of work. When those types of gigs aren't available he does all sorts of other handy man/Boy Friday gigs. When he was home for Thanksgiving, he was scanning some guy's huge photo album collection. It's amazing the odd, and not so badly paying odd jobs he's able to find on Craig's List. And when he's not working for money, he works obsessively on his ideas. Here's a piece he did for pay for MOMA recently promoting their annual pop rally. I think you're right, that loaning him the money is not the thing to do. The wedge thing could definitely be an issue, although he's about as trustworthy (and frugal) as they come an I have no doubt he'd honor whatever terms we agreed to. He made it very clear, however, in his e-mail that he's not looking for money from us. And, I also agree that he needs to figure this out on his own. But, I do have this guilt thing. Yes, we put him through school in a manner of speaking, but he went to a free school - Cooper Union. It was expensive paying for his room and board, but it was a fraction of what we're paying for his younger brother at Cornell. So, yeah, that equity thing sort of looms in the back of mind, too. Funny thing is, RM, he did do an internship at PBS during high school. It started out as a voluntary thing. He put a lot of time in, because we were home schooling and he had the time. They liked him so much, they put him on the payroll. When he was a senior in h.s., they sent him to NY on his own with $5,000 of camera equipment in tow on an assignment. He was given some pretty big responsibilities as a hs student. I just spoke to his former boss on an unrelated manner, and unfortunately, she's recently been canned because they wiped out the local programming department she headed. Isaac, I tend to agree with you about the pseudo intellectual thing. I had a laugh hanging out with him and some of his friends after his senior show a year or so ago and listening to them critiquing various student. One girl whose works were already sought after by a gallery, who was clearly on her way to making it was the particular object of some of their scorn for her utter lack of originality, the "preciousness" of her work (I had never heard the term used in a derogatory manner before), "its all been done before" blah, blah (I loved her work, which probably underscored their contemptuous mindset^_^ ). OTH, these are amazingly talented kids and many of them are on the cutting edge of the art scene so there is some legitimacy mixed in with the BS. As to cutting costs, one thing JF has suggested to him for this project is using video instead of 8 mm (I think that's the right mm? - in any event traditional film). He's such a purist, though, I'm not sure he'll compromise. The level of detail that goes into his work is just mind boggling to me. Anyway, I'm rambling. I do appreciate all your thoughts and comments. |
| Blogging in Palestine: http://kksjournal.com/ | |
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| The 89th Key | Dec 3 2007, 06:27 AM Post #15 |
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Good posts in this thread...especially the last couple. Hopefully it helps the situation Kathy - best of luck. |
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| Jack Frost | Dec 3 2007, 06:46 AM Post #16 |
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Bull-Carp
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That would be 16mm film--not 8--and the film cost is about a third of the budget. jf |
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| The 89th Key | Dec 3 2007, 08:39 AM Post #17 |
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Kathy, I am honestly hoping for the best. It sounds like he is a talented and honest guy. I unfortunately gave up my film-directing dreams a couple years ago (along with my TV meteorologist dreams :whome:). I think one main reason is I found that with the movies and commercials I made, that while it was fun to watch them, since I directed them I knew ever little angle and story of each shot....so the *bottom line* is I decided I would prefer to be in the audience watching movies instead of making them and not enjoying my own movies as much - if that makes any odd sense. I still plan on making some short films in the future once I have some funds for new equipment. But that's also a very good point - I always shot with digital video. Film is SO much more expensive, and while it's nice to be an idealist, if your son never takes realistic compromises here and there (such as getting a 9-5 job or using video instead of film) I'm afraid he's hurting his chances more than he knows. Unless you are already rich (like Howard Hughes), sticking to your idealistic guns almost always ends in wasted potential. I think you know that and I think he'll realize that soon enough...but as always, I'm hoping for the very best. I have a good friend that works in a talent agency in Hollywood - he went to Emerson and majored in film. After college he moved to Hollywood and started working from the ground up and now he's been there a few years and is making more and more connections. One time he was in the kitchen at work and Tom Hanks came in to make coffee (since Hanks was meeting with Ron Howard regarding The Da Vinci Code). That is just cool. Sorry for the tangential post. |
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| Jack Frost | Dec 3 2007, 09:14 AM Post #18 |
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Bull-Carp
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89th I think you hit the nail on the head. Idealism is fine and sometimes it yeilds great things but there is a practical side to it that has to be learned as well. Less sexy but equally important. He has a few more lessons to learn in that regard and I hope they are not too painful. jf |
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| Aqua Letifer | Dec 3 2007, 09:21 AM Post #19 |
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ZOOOOOM!
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Well, it all depends on what your intentions are, and making sure they aren't contradictory. If he wants to make a movie in the way he sees fit, he can, but that can mean some serious obstacles. If he wants to do this sort of thing for a living, that would mean a whole lot of compromise and experiencing different parts of the business. But you usually can't work your way up without some kind of compromise. |
| I cite irreconcilable differences. | |
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| kathyk | Dec 3 2007, 11:32 AM Post #20 |
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Pisa-Carp
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Bingo, and I can't begin to articulate what his intentions are. He does have that true starving artist streak, however, where materials things are inconsequential. He will literally go without eating if it interferes with his work (You ought to see me shoving food in front of him every time he comes home!) and seems to have a penchant for threadbare clothes (I learned long ago not to buy new for him, because he doesn't wear it). I think that making his art is of paramount importance to him, and that he does not pay much thought to the future as most people do. Of course, as a parent, that worries me. I also worry that his perfect girl friend will also lose patience with him. On the other hand, I really admire his visions and his drive to realize them. He truly is driven. I do feel envious of some of the kids he knows whose parents have been able to plop down 50K or whatever to finance their films. But, yeah - I don't think that is going to lead to their success. Ironically, he's had a number of paid gigs on some of those projects. As someone else (can't remember who now) pointed out, if the need is strong enough, he'll find a way to make it happen. |
| Blogging in Palestine: http://kksjournal.com/ | |
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| Qaanaaq-Liaaq | Dec 3 2007, 02:44 PM Post #21 |
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Senior Carp
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Tell your son to go to Tajikistan to make his movie! (j/k). I saw a Tajik feature length film a few years ago at a film festival. The director said it cost him about $500 to make it there. Proof that a dollar goes a long way in Tajikistan. Seriously, tell him to find a film maker’s forum. Go to Google. Enter “film maker forums”, select one, and then register. He can post questions to other film makers on a wide variety of topics including how to acquire funding for films. I suspect that it’s probably such a commonly asked question that the forum will have a built-in FAQ on it. Another possibility is film festivals. Film festivals are staged in different cities at different times of the year. Some of them offer seminars for aspiring film makers. I know this one girl who has already made her feature length documentary and is now trying to advance it by airing it at a number of different film festivals. |
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| dolmansaxlil | Dec 3 2007, 03:34 PM Post #22 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Kevin Smith, in a lecture at some university film school or another, said that if you want to make a movie you needed credit cards. Lots of them. While he admitted that applying for a whack of credit cards probably wasn't the most financially prudent thing to do, that's how he made his first film. The subtext was, "You're not going to get someone to front an idea from an unknown. Suck it up." As to your son, I have done the odd jobs to make rent between doing what you love. I didn't have it in me to carry that on for very long. But I can vouch for the fact that some of those odd jobs can be ridiculously well paying for such short gigs. I made $700 once for driving a rental van to an airport at 4am and unloading about 6 things, then returning it. It was a big-budget show, and they were stuck at the last minute with no one to deal with the logistics. When the producer called and said they had a $500 cushion in the budget for Toronto, so that's what they could pay me, I said, "At 4am?" She said, "Ok. $700." "Deal!"
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"Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst." ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson My Flickr Photostream | |
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| kathyk | Dec 3 2007, 03:34 PM Post #23 |
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Pisa-Carp
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Film festivals are a great way to get shown and he's actually had some good luck in that vein. He's had films shown in the Brooklyn Underground Film Festival the past two years. But, I don't think festivals generally offer much in the way of funding unless you hit it big and win a prize at one of the really big ones; it's more the prestige of being selected and making a name for yourself. Tajikistan! Now there's an idea. :lol: He might actually go for it. He was in Alabama this summer filming a Viet Nam war reenactment, living in a tent with cherry bombs flying over his head. Why not Tajikistan. I'll mention the film makers forums idea to him. |
| Blogging in Palestine: http://kksjournal.com/ | |
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| Frank_W | Dec 3 2007, 04:11 PM Post #24 |
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Resident Misanthrope
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Sundance? |
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Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin." Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!" | |
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| Qaanaaq-Liaaq | Dec 4 2007, 07:38 AM Post #25 |
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Senior Carp
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In addition: The odds are overwhelmingly against him making a profit from his film venture. Just because some of his film making friends have parents who can loan them $50k to make a film doesn’t mean that their films will be successful. Like the warning signs say in some casinos: don’t gamble more than you can afford to lose. I hope your son has good writing skills. For each film we made in our college film making course, the professor required us to write a pre-production paper called a “treatment”. Unless one is willing to spend his own money to make a film, a film maker has to have good writing skills in order to persuade organizations to help fund it. You said that he’s into esoteric and arcane subject matters so it’ll be harder to find backers. I’ve been taking film making courses at a nearby university. I like it. |
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Give him the money. He's talented and I've seen his picture. He's cute too.






6:11 AM Jul 11