Community Project

NickClapper

NickClapper

My greatest regret, during my time on IndieTalk, has been my failure to get a community project off the ground. We came pretty close with the organ lottery project, but it never quite worked out. The past few days has seen a new member trying to get another community project off the ground, but is, I suspect, going to fall into a number of inevitable traps.

I am currently studying for the final exams of my academic career (*sob*) so am just sitting in libraries all day, every day. I'd like something to break it up a little bit (in addition to the couple of projects I am, slowly, working on). So I've come up with a new way to do a community project.

If you would like to participate in this project as a director (or in a shooting capacity), I need the following information out of you:

What actors are at your disposal? [i.e. two men and a woman]
What locations are at your disposal? [i.e. a house, a bar, an abandoned quarry]
Can you record decent quality sound? [i.e. yes]
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Please be conservative with your responses. In order for this project to be realistic and work, I need to be sure that people can (and will) shoot their scenes in the allocated manner.

Once I have a bunch of participants, I will go away and write a short script that incorporates these various shooting units into a single coherent story. I will ensure that no member has more than a maximum of two days shooting (though generally will try and keep it to what can be done in a single day). If you cannot record decent quality sound, I will give you no dialogue to shoot. Everything will be kept as simple as possible (within the constraints of a very tricky project!) so that we have the maximum chance of success.

Additionally, if you are not willing to direct (or arrange the production of) a shooting unit, there are loads of other roles that are required:

Composer
Editor - individual units should edit their scenes but a central editor will put it all together and try and ensure that the editing matches throughout.
Post-sound
VFX - will not be VFX heavy, but we can incorporate some if there's someone who can supply the talent.
Marketing - with so many cooks, would be great to have someone responsible for pushing the film.
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In order to make this attempt as successful as possible, I will only accept forum regulars into the scheme. New members (and I'm talking people who've only been around a few weeks) are welcome to input and help out, but it is of paramount importance that I know people will stick around and see their unit through to completion.

The deadline for signing up is 18th April 2014, giving people two weeks, after which we will allocate two months (and a bit) to complete production of your scenes, meaning a shooting deadline of 30th June 2014. As I have said, should be no more than a day of filming over the course of two months, so if you can't commit to that then please don't!

I really hope this works, and I think it can. Let me know if you have any thoughts and get signing up!

Current units:
David.rhsc (San Francisco, USA)
cheeseandachallenge (Wellington, New Zealand)
Cracker Funk (Richmond, USA)
wheatgrinder
Flicker Pictures (Boston, USA)
mad_hatter (Birmingham, England)
Dreadylocks (Omaha, USA)
Lucky Hardwood (New Orleans, USA)
ChimpPhobiaFilms (Ohio, USA)

Fence-sitting-maybe-merchants:
WalterB
Dreadylocks
sfoster
mad_hatter
ChimpPhobiaFilms
ItDonnedOnMe
jax_rox
Flicker Pictures

Music team
JoshL
mike mcguill

Sound team
mike mcguill

Sound maybes
AudioPostExpert
Alcove Audio

Marketing maybes
RayW

And remember to fill in this form if you want to have a shooting unit in the film!

(Of course, if you're local to an existing unit, why not team up?)
 
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Ray's definitely going to need a producer cred' for all the herding he's doing.

Just sayin'.

In fact, is there a designated producer? If not, why not anoint Ray producer? Or AD.

Sorry to try to put more work on your plate, Ray. But if the shoe fits...
 
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Oh, hehe, I had long ago done a rewrite of my scene. I guess I naively assumed each unit director was expected to make it their own?

Anyway, I did make my characters more likeable, but for an entirely different reason than discussed here. In my experience, visual artists (drawing, painting, etc.) tend to be rather unassuming about their work. And the people that they marry (or otherwise partner up with) tend to be rather supportive (otherwise, they wouldn't fit as a pair). So, I thought I'd rewrite the dialogue to fit better with the personalities of the many artists that I know (not saying I'm any more an authority on that than anyone else here, just sharing my experiences).

Also, my artist is a female. This was purely a casting decision. She's the best fit, for many reasons. She's super talented, I've worked with her before, she's stoked to work on projects like this, and she has the time for it (and in her case, the biggest time-commitment is the actual painting, which is what she's most excited about). She's also really cute, and her husband ain't nothing to shake a stick at either, and we want good-looking people, right? :)

Your thoughts?

I NEED THE UFO FOOTAGE! Who is doing the SFX? Cuz I'm gonna go shoot the plate if nobody else does it soon. Have these jobs been assigned?
 
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Cracker Funk said:
Oh, hehe, I had long ago done a rewrite of my scene. I guess I naively assumed each unit director was expected to make it their own?
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That was my assumption as well, but I figured it best for everyone to keep in touch with how we'll be shooting it for the sake of trying to keep things consistent?

I NEED THE UFO FOOTAGE! Who is doing the SFX? Cuz I'm gonna go shoot the plate if nobody else does it soon. Have these jobs been assigned?
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This. Apparently Wheat and Santhem were working on it, but there hasn't been many updates on it.

rayw said:
The questionnaire is in three parts and will be presented on the blog in three posts, each of which will have a question as a header followed by the answers you, Johnathan, Joseph, Dan, and Dead Walter provide.
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This could get a bit wordy. Perhaps just do a selection of the best/most interesting answers?





I think I made this suggestion earlier, but I'll repeat it. As it stands it the script feels a bit like a sequence of dislocated (obviously linked narratively) moments - one scene happens, then we move away to a new set of characters and what not. I don't think that's the most interesting way to approach this. To push the connectivity, we could bring in some simply cross-cutting (it may get a bit hard to follow if it gets too complex) - so for example, my scene with Laura on the phone to Vern could be cut with Vern actually talking on the phone, instead of separating each moment.

But maybe that's a bit cliche?
 
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Here's an updated draft: http://www.theclapperbored.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Indietalk.com-Community-Project.pdf

@C&C: I integrated your scene and just tweaked a couple of formatting things. I also took out the Google Earth bit because I think it may cause us legal problems, but up to you...

@CF: That's fine, I am more than happy for people to rework their scene BUT can you let us know if you make changes that impact on the other units? For example, I've had to alter the end of David's scene in order to incorporate the gender swap in yours. Not a problem, but we just need to make sure we're all on the same page about it. I've swapped the genders (and tweaked the scene) in this draft, just to give people an overview.

WHEAT AND SANTHEM: HOW'S THE UFO STUFF GOING?
 
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rayw said:
Excellent!

You won't be responsible for your group, only as the director of the San Fran scene.
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Ah, gotcha. The difference is probably semantic for the purposes, but I'm not the director. I'm just the guy on the team who's a member here. If you think the DP's perspective on the project might be interesting I could try to come up with something in that vein.
 
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richy said:
Ray's definitely going to need a producer cred' for all the herding he's doing.
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Executive Cat Herder. :)

cheeseandachallenge said:
This could get a bit wordy. Perhaps just do a selection of the best/most interesting answers?
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Five UDs providing one to two sentence answers to five or six questions shouldn't blow the circuits of anyone without AADD. :)

Seriously, I've read hundreds of interviews for writers/directors/producers.
These will be more than easy to read.

NickClapper said:
Here's an updated draft: http://www.theclapperbored.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Indietalk.com-Community-Project.pdf
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What happened to Vern during the page 12-13 recap?

David.rhsc said:
I'm just the guy on the team who's a member here. If you think the DP's perspective on the project might be interesting I could try to come up with something in that vein.
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Option A) forward the questionnaire to the director you're DPing for.
Option B) just spitball it yourself, put on your actor hat and "pretend" you're mimicking the actual director.
Whichever is quickest.
I don't care.
Doesn't matter.
The project needs content for the public to read, good/bad, real/fake, doesn't matter.

Wheat?
Dead Walter?
How you guys doing with your questionnaire?

Tick-tock, guys.

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e2e18378aa5aab3df07d225e8e217684.jpg
 
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NickClapper said:
@CF: That's fine, I am more than happy for people to rework their scene BUT can you let us know if you make changes that impact on the other units? For example, I've had to alter the end of David's scene in order to incorporate the gender swap in yours. Not a problem, but we just need to make sure we're all on the same page about it. I've swapped the genders (and tweaked the scene) in this draft, just to give people an overview.
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Yep, that's obviously my bad. I don't know how I missed that. For what it's worth, I only very recently cast her (and her hubby). But yeah, I'll try better to keep in mind how any change could effect others.

Wheaty, sorry if it seemed like I was rushing you. Day-jobs (and life) comes first. I honestly just wasn't sure if you or anybody else had officially accepted that job yet.
 
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Cracker Funk said:
Yep, that's obviously my bad. I don't know how I missed that. For what it's worth, I only very recently cast her (and her hubby). But yeah, I'll try better to keep in mind how any change could effect others.
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Yeah, it's a tiny thing so really no big deal, but it's so easy not to spot and then mean we have to ADR/fix in post...etc. Glad that's all good – if you've rescripted your scene, it'd be good to send it over so that I can embed it into the overall shooting script.

No worries Wheat, let us know when you've got some time.
 
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I don't think we need contracts. Just standard talent release forms, etc. On the off chance that pigs learn to fly, hell freezes over, monkeys fly out of my butthole, and this movie makes money, then it is documented here that we'll donate it to charity, or something.
 
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Well, that changes things for me. There's no way I would pay someone to write up a contract, but if your lawyer friend is offering to do something that's easy for them, and free for us, sure, I'll sign it.
 
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Cracker Funk said:
Well, that changes things for me. There's no way I would pay someone to write up a contract, but if your lawyer friend is offering to do something that's easy for them, and free for us, sure, I'll sign it.
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Coolio, they'll just be casual and not extensive (i imagine a page or 2). This is the stuff we briefly talked about to be included.

-Respect for all others involved
-Achknowledging that within the unit, the directors decisions are final (and that Nick's are final for the overall project)
-All costs will be the responsibility of the director (you can change this to whoever is taking charge of your own financing, or omit if you're sharing costs)
-All positions are voluntary and unpaid (again, you may need to alter this if you are paying someone), and profits will go to a tbc charity (are we going to first reimburse the cost of those funding it? or just go straight to charity?)
-All members of the cast and crew consent to their photos/videos/interview transcripts of “behind the scenes” being taken for promotional publicity. Unsure if this can double as a release for actors?
-Nick has final cut
-Film is free to be submitted to various film festivals by Nick and other directors
-All Cast and crew to be IMDB listed


Anything missed?
 
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