Community Project

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]

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.

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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Sounds like a cool plan.
I will ask my 'parners in filmmaking' whether they are interested and then make an inventory.
(This is not a commitment yet :P )

The actors will probably be not native englisch speaking, since I'm in the Netherlands.
 
Sounds like a cool plan.
I will ask my 'parners in filmmaking' whether they are interested and then make an inventory.
(This is not a commitment yet :P )

The actors will probably be not native englisch speaking, since I'm in the Netherlands.

Absolutely not a problem, I'd encourage everyone to conduct the filming in their native language and we will use subtitles.

Thanks for the vote of confidence (if not a commitment yet ;) ) Walter!
 
Definitely count me in for some music-stuff! In the spirit of community project, I think we should get as many other musicfolks to write bits, rather than one person doing the full score.
 
Definitely count me in for some music-stuff! In the spirit of community project, I think we should get as many other musicfolks to write bits, rather than one person doing the full score.

Definitely.

My personal opinion is that we should have one composer for the film, who does the film's score. Other music-folk could then (in liaison with the composer) contribute tracks, where appropriate, that could be integrated into the score or used as diegetic music.

But I think it's important to the practical reality of this project that we have one Composer who is responsible for organising their team of music-folk and putting together the film's score.
 
Let me think about this. I'd really love to do it, but being in a new city with no connections yet, and very little film scene to speak of (two high school kids just made the local papers and tv evening news for making a short film, if that gives you an idea) I'm still figuring out what resources I have, and if I'm going to bother cultivating connections here since we may not be staying past summer... I digress...

So the only guaranteed segment I have resources for is a very, let's call it "home-grown" one (nice apartment and myself and sean for actors). So yeah, let me think about this and I'll let you know by the deadline.
 
Put me down for arranging a shooting unit. I'll talk too my director and producer about this at our meeting on Monday, but we're chomping at the bit for narrative work and had some bids we made for commercial stuff placed on hold.
 
I'm a strong maybe, probably... most likely. You can mark me down as a director of one of the segments. Although it would easier if you could give at least a broad idea of what the story will be. I have access to an apartment, an empty back room of a building, an abandoned quarry, the interior of a pretty nice looking house, a fairly well sized office room, as well as a forest. It's unfortunately pretty rainy and dull right now, so perhaps something drab, melancholy, deadpan, etc. etc. etc. might help. I'd prefer NOT to have to record dialogue... I recently had a horrible break off with someone I knew and no longer have any sound equipment. I'm not sure about actors, but most likely one or two male actors and perhaps a female actor. I know a talented and fast working composer on the forum who has put out some great stuff and could do wonders for the production if we can't find anyone. Oh, I'm not going to speak for him, but I have a feeling that Rayw might be able to give a hand with marketing, or at least giving advice or assisting whoever takes the role if not him. I'm looking forward to this.

Oh, and Nick, I noticed that people on this thread are from different places, and if the story somehow requires characters to be related or for the characters to be in the same location, changes in (mainly) accents, or scenery/weather might present some problems. Just thought I would bring this up.
 
I'm pretty much in the same situation as Dreadylocks - I'd be interested but have no local resources other than myself, a small dog and my apartment at this point since I've just moved across the country. I definitely hope to have something going on in the next couple months, but it's also partially dependent on my work schedule which has been pretty busy lately. So I'll have to be a maybe for now...
 
I'm pretty much in the same situation as Dreadylocks - I'd be interested but have no local resources other than myself, a small dog and my apartment at this point since I've just moved across the country. I definitely hope to have something going on in the next couple months, but it's also partially dependent on my work schedule which has been pretty busy lately. So I'll have to be a maybe for now...

I'm only about two hours from you and I have a small crew. just a possibility
 
Cool - that would be great if we could work together. I still haven't quite mentally adjusted to the east coast geography where going to another state isn't necessarily a whole day's drive!
 
Oh, I'm not going to speak for him, but I have a feeling that Rayw might be able to give a hand with marketing, or at least giving advice or assisting whoever takes the role if not him.
If I had any actual experience marketing a film I'd be all over this opportunity.
However, I honestly don't know how to effectively spend any marketing time and effort or budget.

I know that a film needs to be marketed, I know MOST "distributors" are only hosting distributors meaning it's all up to the filmmaker/producers, and the best I can come with is just common sense working the social media routes + use all the clever SEO tricks you got in your bag + make more than a few local rag outreaches + when the film is done lump the screener in front of every nickel & dime online reviewer that'll give you the time of day.

With a purchase/contact ratio of 1/1,000 and all that effort above hitting the eyeballs of maybe one to three hundred thousand potential customers, which sounds great, that's still a rip roaring hundred to three hundred DVD or digital download sales via your very own createspace account.

Oo-ah.

That's all I got.
Seriously.

I'm pretty sure a legit film needs something a bit more industrial strength for a proper marketing campaign.
And I'm straight up telling you guys - I don't know how to provide industrial strength or even mom&pop kitchen grade marketing.

With respect to the project and my IT friends I'll spectate a learn by watching what you guys do. :yes:

P.S. - You BTS extras will be more valuable in sales than the feature itself.
Plan accordingly.

EDIT #2 - And I strongly advise you consider a franchisable product since the first film, no matter, how under the radar you try to be (contradictory to all of your marketing efforts!) It'll get ripped off and torrented within days. DAYS.
Basically, this first film should be a big ad for the next film. :yes:
 
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I'm another 'strong maybe' ;)

I'd love to be involved in shooting some stuff, but will have to see if I can fit it in to my schedule. Might be able to tack onto the back of another shoot and use the equipment and a few of the crew.

Otherwise I'll have a DSLR and one female with me as we travel across the US in May/June :)
 
Hey I'm pretty down for something like this.

Location 1) I have access to a female actor and a male (who's not a strong actor-he's a friend who's good for an amateur-but he can take direction passably as long as the role isn't too demanding). My girlfriend is involved in theatre (she's the female actor), so if need be I can get more actors through her (though it'd be easier to keep it simple). All these actors would be passable for ages 16-25 (depending how I dress them).
Locations: a bunch of shitty student flats and appartments (amongst my friends and I), some pretty beaches, train station, ferry terminal, a city centre and everything tha comes with that, in New Zealand it's really easy to get permission for this stuff), some "bush" like areas, typical suburbs (but not modern looking-houses built from about the 60s in varying conditions), a university (so this gives me access to lecture rooms, class rooms, bathrooms, labs, etc).

Location 2) I also, if needbe, can potentially visit my parents, who live in a smaller (quite pretty) town. Really nice beaches and hills and parks and stuff. Their house is also a lot nicer than mine. In my home town I have access to a couple of male and female actors who are 60-80. One of these is quite big in theatre, so he can also potentially help find others.

As for sound, I /might/ be able to borrow some sound gear from my Uni, but I don't have any experience to operate.

There are a lot of mights and maybes through my post; I can make these things happen, for the most part, it's just they're a lot of hassle and involve calling in favours. If the production needs it, I can do it, but it is preferable to keep it simple (of course).




Also I'll give another vote to Mike. He did my post sound on my last short and he was pretty damn great.
 
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