Filmmaking / Directing

You're funny Shane! Happy Friday, going to be an awesome webinar!!!

Hello, Sydney and Shane. My name is Rey Parla. . . I am an artist in Brooklyn, NY. This is precisely the course I have been waiting for since joining the Stage 32 community. I am looking forward to it. Thank you for making it available here and through the emails. See you soon. ~Rey

This has been very helpful as someon who is new to all of this, I really appreciate this webinar.

Bravo! This looks incredible! While collaboration is important, knowing how to take charge of your production and wear many hats is likewise a huge advantage!

Thank you to everyone who attended today!! How was it for all?

Hi, Patrick McIntire. Great post! I'm glad to hear indie films are on the rise! My feature scripts can be made for $3-$8 million, but I'm looking to write more micro-budget scripts since I'll have more people to pitch to. Some of my scripts will be low-budget, mid-budget, and big-budget though. Thanks for sharing the tips and insight! Your posts are helpful!

Thank you.

Great piece Patrick, thank you.

I wrote Malibu Sunrise three years ago but have failed to get two actors and one actress to star in it. It is copyrighted and so I am looking for a SAG-AFTRA Producer to put up $5 million. Malibu Sunrise is a PG-13 romantic comedy. You can read it if you send me an email: vicalexander37@gmail.com PS: I'm an independent filmmaker with complete production and post-production equipment, with a BA in film production from San Francisco State University.

That's great news to read!!! I have 9 genre features that can be made for the $3-8MM and 6 of those can be made for Under-$3MM. Thanks for the info, Patrick McIntire!

It's a business Vital Butinar, that's all I am saying.

Maurice Vaughan the problem is not the gig work, it's actually fine, the problem is that film stuff doesn't happen frequently enough. :D

I think he's right, I've known for a long time (since about high school) that it's extremely difficult to make money as an artist in any medium, and so you have to seriously consider a backup career or at least a day job, which is also why so many artists eventually sell out.

Banafsheh Esmailzadeh I would tend to agree with you, but in the other hand it's also wrong because art is kind of what makes a civilization worth existing if you think about it. It's literally all around us, maybe not everything is great but then again nothing is.

Well I'm fortunate to live with an artist that hasn't sold out yet she still sells a lot of her sculptures and is able to make a living. It might take some time in between but she needs time to create in between. Interesting is art a business or is business something that happens parallel to art. :)

Vital Butinar oh 100%, we as humans need art in order to survive. It's just unfortunately kind of a paradox when it comes to making business out of art; you can be an absolute genius and everyone loves your work but for one reason or another, you're not making money. On the other hand, you can create slop that everyone hates but it gets you money.

I think it's safe to say none of us like this but that's just reality. Art kinda gets the short end of the stick a lot of times even though it's incredibly important.

You are fortunate and I'm glad she's doing well, and hope she continues to flourish. I think art and business are two separate things but not mutually exclusive; it just happens that not everyone can have a happy union of both and we all want to be the ones who do.

You're right, Jack Binder. It's great news for independent filmmakers and indie films. Anora winning big at the Oscars helped its theater run, and I'm sure it helped the movie on streaming too. I just looked up its budget and box office numbers. The budget is $6MM, and the worldwide box office is $46,203,400. That's huge for an indie film with that budget!

The commitment to theatrical is real and contagious, Jack Binder. More and more theater owners are committing screens to indies as well. Get ready for the self-distribution revolution with a completely different economic paradigm. I believe that will be next on the menu.

This is great news for indie filmmakers - and the great news keeps on coming (even FLOW was the first indie animated film to win an Oscar). And I totally agree with Richard "RB" Botto - John Fithian's "Attend" is one of the companies leaning into self-distribution on a theatrical level and that wave is on the near horizon. Exciting times!

Sam Sokolow Look to keep an eye on Attend and the myriad other platforms that have arisen to address indie filmmaking, film financing, and distribution. While there were several start-ups with a crypto origin, not many have seemed to gain traction. I do think this is huge opportunity and there will be breakouts, which will better serve independent film!

Great topic, Willem Elzenga. "To me storytelling is something natural which came through all the stories I have digested in my life." Me too. I put stories and experiences from my life in my scripts, and sometimes I don't realize it right away. I thought of a sitcom idea that's about an experience in my life. I just have to figure out the story. Thanks for the pdf.

I'm of the belief that storytelling is innate in humans and therefor a necessity for humnakind. Joseph Campbell's The Hero With A Thousand Faces explores this beautifully and is the basis for The Hero's Journey (which Stage 32 has amazing education on). That's why even way back in the day, some hunted dinosaurs and some guarded the cave and some drew on the wall - society needs those who "draw on the wall". Incidently, studies found that in those old caves, the drawings were usually in the most acoustically vibrant parts of the caves so enhancing the story telling experience has always been a part of it. That's why I love stories and storytellers and how this community on Stage 32 brings storytellers together.

I don't know the hard mechanics about storytelling but I think of it as an art that's as natural to us as breathing. One of my teachers at uni said that it's so natural to us that we've been processing stories since we were babies, we just did it without words.

I think Sci-Fi Horror is one of the scariest combos, Dwayne Williams. And Fantasy Horror with Slasher elements, like Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives.

Jason Lives could be considered a Slasher Horror with Fantasy elements too, Dwayne Williams.

Yeah, I immediately think of sci-fi mixed with psychological horror—something about the unknown and mind-bending fear hits hard. Sam Sokolow , what do you think? What’s the scariest genre combo in your opinion?

Maurice Vaughan I’m leaning more toward a fantasy world with a slasher element, but I’m curious—do you think a cyberpunk theme can portray horror as effectively as older settings? The mix of neon-lit dystopia, body mods, and AI-driven nightmares feels like it could create a unique kind of fear.

Oh yeah, Dwayne Williams. Psychological Horror is really scary too. Yeah, I think a Cyberpunk theme can portray Horror as effectively as older settings. I think a Cyberpunk dystopia and things like body mods look creepy.

Maurice Vaughan if you include all the the cgi animations, yes it will have quite some vfx.

I'm excited to see the film, Willem Elzenga! Let me know when the promotion material is ready, and I'll share it on social media if you like.

I like the concerns you've brought up about this, I think art is always a reflection of reality, and therefore it's ok to make a movie about an ongoing war. I'd only add that any film about the war in Ukraine is only worthwhile, in my eyes, if it really has something bold to say beyond acknowledging tragedy, and if it understands that all art is political, while also acknowledging the long and complicated history between Ukraine and Russia, and what role America has played in the current invasion.

There are other perspective you could write about instead of the actual, physical war itself. For example, global responsibility of this war, financial responsibility, and responsibility of an alliance. Write about the envirnoment surrounding this war.

Stories are needed to bring the world together and only telling stories in hindsight may be limiting. I think films can be made and, I agree, that an extremely responsible POV is of the utmost importance. A Stage 32 educator, who has also worked on other Stage 32 education, Nick Waters, made a documentary about Ukranian dancers at the beginning of the war that raised awareness and brought a humanity to the screen that we didn't always see on the news. I think of the film often as this war rages on.

Thank you, Jane and Maurice.

You're welcome, Rich Terdoslavich. Thanks for sharing the advice and insight in your posts with the community!

Hi, Gareth Taylor. Hope you're doing great and you connect with members in Australia and New Zealand!