Breakin' It Down w/ the Script Supervisor - Tonite on The Double Down Film Show

There's the D.P., Producer, and A.D... but are you familiar with the director's other right hand person - the Script Supervisor? On the next Double Down Film Show we'll break it down with Premium Script Supervisor, Rachel Connors, who's helped to keep things on point for dozens of indie features and tv shows through the years.

• How can a script supervisor help you make your film better?
• How can you make the most of your script super on set?
• What do they watch that you don't?
• How can they save you time, money and heartache on-set and in post?

All of this and more will be revealed on this week's Double Down Film Show. Get more practical tips and real talk about working in the film and tv industry every week.

The Double Down Film Show...Filmmaking Reality Starts Here!

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This Episode is sponsored by Brian Famous Brand T-Shirts

The Double Down Film Community is Blowing Up the Scene!

This past month saw not one, but two, Double Down Film Show listeners and community members get major recognition for their new projects and some great ink in major publications. I've kept in touch with both of these filmmakers as they launched these projects and it's always mad inspiring to watch filmmakers and projects grow and take off.

In case you missed the news...

LORIEN GREEN, GETS A WRITE UP IN WIRED MAGAZINE FOR HER DOC, GOING CARDBOARD

Peep this article about first time filmmaker, Down and Dirty DV fan and self-admitted geeky mom, Lorien Green's, new documentary Going Cardboard: A Board Game Documentary. You go girl!

Check out the Wired Magazine Article.










AL THOMPSON'S JOHNNY B. HOMELESS WEB SERIES TAKES TOP PRIZE AT THE NEW YORK TV FESTIVAL

Long-time actor and emerging filmmaker, Al Thompson's new web series, Johnny B. Homeless, starring Saturday Night Live cast member, Kenan Thompson, just won The Audience Choice Award at the New York TV Festival.

Peep the article in The Hollywood Reporter.



Proof positive that hustle, drive and creativity can still overcome a lack of resources. Congrats to these original members of the Double Down Film Community. Don't stop. Get it. Get it.

From Film School to TV Director in 3 Years Flat TONITE on the Double Down Film Show

On the next Double Down Film Show, we’ll rap with working director, Seith Mann. After completing NYU’s graduate film program with his award-winning short, Five Deep Breaths, Seith has gone on to direct episodes of some of the hottest shows on television including The Wire, Friday Night Lights, Entourage, Grey’s Anatomy, Cold Case and more!

We’ll talk about life after film school, the "do’s" and "don'ts" for aspiring directors on set, TV vs. Film, plus more practical advice and real talk about the things you won’t learn in a classroom...only on The Double Down Film Show, your back door to film school.

The Double Down Film Show...Filmmaking Reality Starts Here!

The Double Down Film Show is BACK!!!

Summer’s over and it’s time to go back to school. Season 2 of The Double Down Film Show is kicking off with a candid conversation with the Dean of NYU Film School, Sheril Antonio, Ph.D.

The Back to Film School Show

• How can prospective students get into NYU film school ?
• What should be in your portfolio for film school?
  
• How can you possibly afford it?
• What’s NYU’s secret to consistently turning out accomplished alumni such as Spike Lee, Martin Scorsese, Karen Kasama, Oliver Stone, Ang Lee and many more?
• How can you make the most of your film education no matter where you go to school?

...We’ll ask Dean Antonio all these questions and more.

We’re all film students whether we’re in film school or not. The process of learning the craft in this digital age never stops. Get co-hosts, Anthony Q. Artis and Pete Chatmon’s, real-world advice on furthering your film education whether you’re learning in film school or the film school of hard knocks.

The back door to film school is open once again.


Related Links:

NYU Undergrad Film Program
http://filmtv.tisch.nyu.edu/page/home.html

NYU Graduate Film Program
http://gradfilm.tisch.nyu.edu/page/home.html

William H. Cosby Future Filmmakers Workshop
http://about.tisch.nyu.edu/object/FutureFilmmakers.html

Tisch School of the Arts - Summer High School Program
http://specialprograms.tisch.nyu.edu/page/hsStudents.html

CBS Magazine Ad to Feature Video

The September 18 issue of Entertainment Weekly will include an unusual advertisement--the first ever video ad in print! Americhip developed the video technology, which plays the ads on a screen only 2.7 millimeters thick. The battery-powered ads can last for approximately 65 minutes and are actually rechargeable. Amazingly, each chip can hold up to 40 minutes of video.

Only subscribers in Los Angeles and New York City will receive magazines with the video advertisement; all other subscribers will receive a traditional print ad.

No word yet on the cost of producing these ads. Regardless, it will be interesting to see how the public responds to this form of advertising. You gotta wonder if readers will be impressed by this technology, or if they'll simply look at it as a gimmick.

RIP John Hughes, 1950-2009

Writer and Director John Hughes passed away yesterday at the age of 59. Hughes was best known for what The New York Times rightly terms "a slew of films in the 1980s that defined what it meant to be an American teenager, from the music to the fashion to the social faux pas." Hughes both wrote and directed such hits as Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Weird Science, The Breakfast Club, and Sixteen Candles.

As Entertainment Weekly notes, Hughes' films presented adolescents who weren't "merely mindless horn dogs peeking through peep holes into the girl’s locker-room shower; they were funny, smart, and troubled — fully formed characters in a genre that usually presented teens as little more than bundles of hormones." He wrote about the life of the American teenager with a kind humor but a respectful seriousness--an understanding that at 16, every decision is a matter of life and death.

For more on John Hughes, check out this touching post from a blogger who became his unlikely pen pal after writing a piece of fan mail. Below are clips from some of his best known (and best loved) works.

Ferris Bueller gives a lesson on "Faking Out Parents" in Ferris Bueller's Day Off:



The trailer for Weird Science:

And lastly, the lunch sequence from The Breakfast Club, the film that taught us all that "If you mess with the bull, you get the horns:"

Final Cut Pro 7

Apple recently released Final Cut Pro 7, and it's got some nifty new features geared towards saving editors time. Most impressive is Final Cut Pro 7's support of iChat Theater. If you're working on a collaboration and you want your co-workers' thoughts on a clip, you can set up an iChat and view the clip in real time while simultaneously discussing it. You can even switch between clips and sequences as you chat. This could be really helpful for cross-country collaborators.

Another new feature is automatic transfer, which allows users to "transfer clips from a wide range of file-based cameras including Panasonic P2 and Sony XDCAM. The files are automatically copied to your media storage volumes the moment your media is mounted." There's also a Log and Transfer setting that lets you " set up custom metadata and add it to all your assets in a single step." This option means you'll spent less time organizing your clips after they're imported.

A few smaller features are also included in the update, among them a larger, movable timecode window, and multi-touch gesture support, which allows the user to utilize the MacBook Pro Multi-Touch trackpad in the editing process. Users can "inch to zoom horizontally within the Timeline; rotate to scrub the Timeline, Viewer, or Canvas; and use a three-finger swipe to advance the playhead across edit points."

Also new and notable is the "Voice Level Match" feature of Soundtrack Pro 3 which will help smooth out the common problem of clips not matching. Soundtrack Pro instantly identifies and analyzes vocal content in both clips, then adjusts the level of the stamped clip to make the dialogue levels match.

Apple's color-correcting software suite, Color, is sporting some useful new features such as 4K support for Red camera footage, 20 new film looks, and a few more improvements.

If you're interested in upgrading to Final Cut Pro 7, check out these independent reviews from PC World and Macworld.

In Praise of the Mino Flip Cam

A few months back, I purchased a Mino HD Flip Cam. If you aren't familiar with this cool little product, it's a no-frills super-user-friendly video camera that shoots direct to an internal flash-based memory. (Which means there are no moving parts and that's always a good thing when it comes to durability...more on that in a second.)

The main reason I got the Flip Cam, is because even though we already have a great little Sony mini-DV camera, I still hated to have the thing around my neck for events such as a day at the amusement park, a family outing, birthday parties, etc... Even at one pound, it's more bulk than I wanted to schlepp for a day of fun and freedom. So the reality was that I rarely shot home movies and missed capturing some good memories.

...Introduce the Mino HD Flip Cam. This thing is smaller and lighter (only 3.3oz.) than my little pocket-sized digital still camera, shoots 1280 x 720 HD video, can upload directly to YouTube, personalize the exterior design and best of all - it only cost $230.00. So it solved all of my problems. To be clear, this is NOT a camera I would use for filmmaking, except possibly for some action or hidden cam shots that would benefit from it's tiny size, but for personal use and web posts, it's great.

I have one major complaint with this product and that is that some of the motion in HD looks a little "stroby" to me, this is most noticeable in pans and walking shots. I've only looked at footage on my computer and LCD tv screen, so there could be some display issues going on too, but I think it's just the cam. Nevertheless, I've totally forgiven the camera for that flaw, because I recently was blown away by it's durability.

Get this...after a camping trip I accidentally put it in the washing machine...for the full cycle...lose, not even in a pocket. Of course, it didn't function after that. However, after 3-4 days of drying out, it still works perfectly- video, audio and stored video files.

I was sure that my flip cam and stored memories were lost forever and that I was out $230.00, but the flip cam came thru like a champ.

That is just crazy to me! What kind of camera can survive a f-ing washing machine! I'll tell you what kind- A Mino Flip Cam! Kudos to the people at FlipVideo for making a tough, practical inexpensive little camera.

Producers In All Shapes and Sizes

The title "producer" can mean many things on a production. There are multiple different kinds of producers whose duties can intertwine and overlap. If you don't know which type of producer(s) you need to pull off your vision or even which producer does what, peep out this great article from my long-time friend and Down and Dirty DV collaborator, Maxie Collier, at his website, UrbanArtsClub.com ...

A Potpourri of Producers

Beyond the fickle world of Hollywood vanity credits, lies a real art form and the true meaning of the title producer:

1. a person who produces.

2. Economics. a person who creates economic value, or produces goods and services.

3. a person responsible for the financial and administrative aspects of a stage, film, television, or radio production; the person who exercises general supervision of a production and is responsible chiefly for raising money, hiring technicians and artists, etc., required to stage a play, make a motion picture, or the like...

(read more)

"Do the Right Thing" - 20 Years Later

Just about every filmmaker has a particular film that became the catalyst for them wanting to become a filmmaker. For me that film was Do The Right Thing which dropped at the end of my freshman year of college in 1989. (Yes, I'm Old School, y'all.) A few months later, I changed my major to Film and never looked back. Actually, that's not accurate. I've looked back plenty over the years, but I never turned back.

1989 was the year that I decided to stop being an aimless knucklehead in college and really try my hand at something I felt passionately about. It was also the year that I lost a lot of respect for the Academy Awards.

When Do the Right Thing - this seminal movie that managed to tackle the "third-rail" film subject of race-relations in a way that was totally thought-provoking, compelling and humorous lost the "Best Picture" Oscar to MF-ing Driving Miss Daisy - a forgettable film about the relationship between a cranky rich lady and her subservient Black chauffeur, I realized that the Academy Awards were clearly not based solely on merit, craftsmanship, originality or cultural importance. (And I'm really cleaning up the way I feel about it for my younger readers...but I was pissed off and disheartened to say the least. )

No doubt there are thousands of other young people like me who were inspired by Spike's work to create the images and ideas that help shape our world and define our culture. So on this 20th Anniversary of the movie that started it all for so many of us, I thought a few words from Spike himself about the film would be appropriate.

Which leads me to another thought - I wonder why there are no thoughtful 20-year retrospectives on the cultural importance and impact of Driving Miss Daisy? Hmm...

Spike Lee In His Own Words on CNN



Read the full CNN.com Article.