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As a follow-up to yesterdays’s post on Clients not paying, here is one from the writer’s perspective – but that one works just as well for any one who has ever worked for “deferred payment.” I’ve done that mistake as well, and of the maybe dozen (mostly short) films I’ve done that way, I ended up getting paid exactly zero times. And I have never met a single sould who did end up getting some money from a deferred payment job.

If you need the experience, you may consider working for free – just do not fall for the production assistant’s crap promising money down the line. If a film by chance should turn out to be a financial success, any self-respecting producer will immediately start a new production company, sell all rights to the film to this new company, and can rake in all profits.

And when it is time to make the next, proper budgeted, film, guess who they will not call? You. Because if you work for free, you can’t be any good, right?

Harlan Ellison with sharp, sharp teeth

Ellison is a veteran Hollywood writer, and even he get occasionally asked to do freebies. Here is an extract from the documentary “Dreams with sharp teeth”

If you are intrigued as I was, have a look at the well made trailer:

It made me order the DVD.

Every once in a while you will get a client that will ask for a favour. Be it an extra round of editing, extra graphics, or 50% off. Imagine if we would do the same in every day situations – we would be ridiculed. Yet, every one working in the creative realm will get asked sooner or later.

Here’s a film that shows how ridiculous this really is. Enjoy.

Here’s a short that was apparently shot in just two days. Director/writer/DP/editor/visual artist all in one.

What is the safest way for a film maker to become a millionaire?

more…

A dutch blogger has an interesting project describing how he made a bluescreen himself. Or a greenscreen.

For the financially challed film producer, Good Music often is out of reach. There are many so-so sources for CDs full of royalty free music (we own a huge library of those and hardly ever use it – unless we need something cheesy).

Then there are places where you can preview and download music for a fixed fee per piece (Shockwave Sound and Q Music being my preferred ones), and then there is our dear Kevin MacLeod. He offers his collection of music free, as long as he gets credit in the film. If, for some reason, you cannot or do not want to credit him, you can pay a little fee (30 USD).

And now music artist Moby has made his own mini-website where he published over 60 tracks that can be used free of charge for non-commercial productions (commercial productions have to pay a standard fee, the full amount of which will be donated to a good cause). Here’s the incredibly blurry announcement:

Looks like it is now possible to record 5.1 location sound even when there is no budget for a sound recordist. The Holophone H4 SuperMINI is a $2,500 (ca. NOK 13 500) microphone that records surround sound onto a stereo track, all in a size that makes it possible to mount the little wonder on a small sized camera. Do I hear anyone mention the Red camera? Nature documentary?

Imagine the richness this will give in editing. Rather than having to do with pre-recorded sound, or the one-channel camera mike, having 5.1 will surely add production value to those 1-man crew shoots.

The magic of the SuperMINI is that it uses Dolby Pro Logic II encoding to create two stereo tracks from six discrete audio channels. These can output to cameras and stereo recorders with XLR, RCA or miniplug inputs via separate adapter cables. The twin tracks can then be connected to the stereo audio inputs on any professional video camera, audio recorder, mixer, or other gear.

Read the full review (4.5 out of 5) over at DV.com — free registration required, and very much worth it.

I love all the great detail put into this film – the bad use of keying, great handling of cameras with lenscap, timing of editing, typeface, all. Enjoy.
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