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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Hi Richard – It is indeed a long thread, and pretty much charts the history (comings and goings) of Indietalk from 2014 to 2017. So it's quite interesting to look back on.

The most advanced cut of the project is here:

PW: indietalk

I think it's really only missing the UFO video, which can be seen elsewhere in this thread. And then we were on the cusp of moving on to sound, grading and other VFX when the project fizzled out again. But a huge amount of work was put in back in the day, and it suddenly came rushing back to me this morning. Not sure if Walter still frequents these climes, but he was the driving force at the end.


Cool man thanks! Interesting project. Hope you guys can finish!

I have my own "covid", project I am doing in spare time. Actually a 20 year redux version of a feature I shot starting in late 2000. But if you give me a statement of your current needs, maybe I can chip in.

I also own a small animation studio:


We can also do various 3D vfx as well as After Effects. If the time needed is not to great, I might be able to contribute something.
 
Hi Richard – It is indeed a long thread, and pretty much charts the history (comings and goings) of Indietalk from 2014 to 2017. So it's quite interesting to look back on.

The most advanced cut of the project is here:

PW: indietalk

I think it's really only missing the UFO video, which can be seen elsewhere in this thread. And then we were on the cusp of moving on to sound, grading and other VFX when the project fizzled out again. But a huge amount of work was put in back in the day, and it suddenly came rushing back to me this morning. Not sure if Walter still frequents these climes, but he was the driving force at the end.


Weird, thought I posted a reply already... Anyway.

I might be able to help in some ways.

Please let me know how to get that process started and I can give you more information on the specific ways I might be able to contribute.

EDIT: OK so now my earlier post shows up..... anyway. That was odd.
 
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I'm re-editing, since I am new to this whole project. I've been reading through the history, and it seems like this film was riding on completion of special FX and final editing/composing work?

I have an idea that I would like to propose. This would also involve @indietalk.

Why not take what you have made so far, and release the footage (obviously not all 180gb) and let the community take it on as a monthly challenge? Of course this is all on those who are still looking to finish the project. In fact, it could still be completed by them, but also let the whole community in on it in one fell swoop by asking them to re-edit, renew the footage given as a challenge?

It would be fun, take some pressure off of the remaining folks who have been keeping this in their hearts, and would ensure the project is completed in a fun way?

Just a thought. I'm newish here, so I wont be hurt if the answer is no. But I think you all did some heavy work on this, and I've been on this forum for a few months... Just now saw this thread. It might be beneficial to give it a fresh spin or new method to get to the finish line?
 
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I'm re-editing, since I am new to this whole project. I've been reading through the history, and it seems like this film was riding on completion of special FX and final editing/composing work?

I have an idea that I would like to propose. This would also involve @indietalk.

Why not take what you have made so far, and release the footage (obviously not all 180gb) and let the community take it on as a monthly challenge? Of course this is all on those who are still looking to finish the project. In fact, it could still be completed by them, but also let the whole community in on it in one fell swoop by asking them to re-edit, renew the footage given as a challenge?

It would be fun, take some pressure off of the remaining folks who have been keeping this in their hearts, and would ensure the project is completed in a fun way?

Just a thought. I'm newish here, so I wont be hurt if the answer is no. But I think you all did some heavy work on this, and I've been on this forum for a few months... Just now saw this thread. It might be beneficial to give it a fresh spin or new method to get to the finish line?

Well I can't speak to this project. It is not mine.

If it was mine, the answer would be to rather break the project up into specific things it needs.

There were some comments about how the UFO footage was a little weak. As one example.

I think if whoever is orginizing this thing, it might be a good idea to simply publish a list of things it needs to complete, or be enhanced. And open up for contributions.

But I am thinking about small things one person or a small team could do like sound fx, foley, FX shots, and so on.

That would be my comment.
 
I want to rob a bank and complete this. Somewhere I have extensive notes on an intro to provide a clearer context and some more tension. Even came up with extra scenes, but that was too much to finish.
And then life happened in all it's good and bad things and Covid as well: working hard to make a living. Luckily: still making videos for a living. :)
 
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