1. Large, loft-style apartments in New York City are well within the price range of most people—whether they are employed or not.

2. At least one of a pair of identical twins is born evil.

3. Should you decide to defuse a bomb, don’t worry which wire to cut. You will always choose the right one.

4. Most laptop computers are powerful enough to override the communications system of any invading alien society.

5. It does not matter if you are heavily outnumbered in a fight involving martial arts; your enemies will wait patiently to attack you one by one dancing around in a threatening manner until you have knocked out their predecessors.

6. When you turn out the light to go to bed, everything in your bedroom will still be clearly visible, just slightly bluish.

7. If you are a blonde and pretty, it is possible to become a world expert on nuclear fission at the age of 22.

8. Honest and hardworking policemen are traditionally gunned down three days before their retirement.

9. Rather than wasting bullets, megalomaniacs prefer to kill their archenemies using complicated machinery involving fuses, pulley systems, deadly gasses, lasers, and man eating sharks, which will allow their captives at least 20 minutes to escape.

10. All beds have special L-shaped cover sheets that reach the armpit level on a woman, but only to the waist level on the man lying beside her.

11. All grocery shopping bags contain at least one stick of French bread.

12. It’s easy for anyone to land a plane, provided there is someone in the control tower to talk you down.

13. Once applied, lipstick will never rub off – even while scuba diving.

14. You’re very likely to survive any battle in any war unless you make the mistake of showing someone a picture of your sweetheart back home.

15. Should you wish to pass yourself off as a German or Russian officer, it will not be necessary to speak the language. A German or Russian accent will do.

16. The Eiffel Tower can be seen from any window in Paris.

17. A man will show no pain while taking the most ferocious beating, but will wince when a woman tries to clean his wounds.

18. If a large pane of glass is visible, someone will be thrown through it before long.

19. If staying in a haunted house, women should investigate any strange noise in their most revealing underwear.

20. Word processors never display a cursor on the screen but will always say: “Enter password now.”

21. Even when driving down a perfectly straight road, it is necessary to turn the steering wheel vigorously from left to right every few moments.

22. All bombs are fitted with electronic timing devices with large red readout’s so you know exactly when they’re going to go off.

23. A detective can only solve a case once he has been suspended from duty.

24. If you decide to start dancing in the street, everyone you meet will know all the steps.

25. Police departments give their officers personality tests to make sure they are deliberately assigned a partner who is the total opposite.

26. When they are alone, all foreign military officers prefer to speak to each other in English.

In the beginning of your proposal I want to feel your passion for the project, I want to know you are totally connected to this film and that you will be there for the long term. This confidence comes from your connection to your film.

Reach out and touch my heart, that’s what funds films, touch my heart and I reach for my pocketbook. I believe we communicate through the heart chakra so I want to “feel” your film, hear your words and see your images as they will appear on the screen. That’s a tall order but that’s what funds films.

To sum it up we want a visual description of your film. If you can’t tell me what it will look like, then you need some “daydreaming time.” You need to sit and meditation on what your film will look like when it is finished and then sit down and write about it.

Even documentaries where filmmakers don’t have any idea of the outcome of the film can still be visualized. You know the style you want in the film and you think you know the direction of the film, so tell us that. If the film changes in mid flight we don’t come back to you and ask you to return the money, instead, we will applaud you for finding the heart of the film.

When you can become the film, like the characters in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 became the books, then you can write a compelling proposal. I want your proposal to tell me you are so close to the material that you are the film.
www.caroledean.com
www.fromtheheartproductions.com

The scene—an early one in the story—is a 1930’s college classroom in which a restless student body is listening to their professor debunk the glamour of archaeology as a career. He ends the lecture with his personal, time-tested observation that, contrary to popular myth, “X” never marks the spot.

The professor is Indiana Jones. The film is the third in the adventure trilogy in which he and his father embark on a perilous quest for the Holy Grail. Although “X” subsequently does provide a significant signpost along the way, the end result of the journey pales in comparison to the enlightenment gleaned from the process itself.

As intently as “the Jones boys” do battle with Nazis to pursue the gift of immortality, so do writers everywhere combat rejection to pursue a sometimes elusive immortality of their own—the desire to see their names scrolling up the credits in a darkened movie theater.

The “X” philosophy was brought home several years ago when I was faced with the painful decision of terminating a new writing partnership with a young screenwriter in LA. While the good news is that she had yet to put a finished product on the table, the bad news is that her attitude toward the creative process itself will likely be a detriment to reaching her goal of becoming rich and famous.

Specifically, her zeal for schmoozing at industry events had yielded a potentially valuable contact for us. Unfortunately, the producer was only in the market for scripts featuring women over the age of 45. Rather than add an obviously contrived 20 years to our current heroine, we politely declined. Not two weeks later, one of my screenwriting students turned in a proposal for a film that would have been perfect. I suggested to my associate that, since she had personally met the producer, perhaps she could do a favor and play intermediary.

Her response was curt as well as myopic.

“I’m a struggling writer myself,” she declared. “I’m not about to start helping the competition beat me out of the chance to get noticed.”

Like the proverbial dog in the manger, she was adamant about denying someone else access to a forum which we ourselves were unable to join at the present time. The result? The producer lost a first-rate script, the writer lost a golden opportunity, and the associate lost my respect. Rather than agree to disagree on the concept of shared resources, she punctuated the end of the relationship with the declaration that she could reach her goal entirely on her own, notwithstanding that six months earlier she had vigorously campaigned to hitch her star to mine.

On the one hand, I can relate to some of her trepidation. On the other, it’s a sad commentary that we’ve so lost sight of faith in our fellow man that we’d purposely withhold resources that could ultimately benefit the literary community at large.

To illustrate with an analogy, every time the state lottery hits the double-digit millions, how willing are we to let someone step ahead of us in line at the drugstore to buy a ticket? “Yikes!” we think. “What if they end up purchasing the winning stub that might have been ours?” Will they generously insist upon sharing their newfound fortune? Or will they be too absorbed in their own Snoopy dance-of-joy as to completely forget it was the result of a stranger’s spontaneity and kindness?

It’s a chance you take. So, too, is the sharing of one’s expertise with someone we perceive to be a potential competitor in our own race to that distant “X”.

Just as doctors and lawyers are cornered at cocktail parties to dispense free advice, my accessibility as a consultant and a columnist often puts me in the dilemma of wanting to be helpful and wanting to be paid what my time and professional knowledge are actually worth. Whichever I choose, however, it would never be with the intent of holding back crucial details that could spell the difference between the requester’s success and rejection.

A case in point is the monthly women writers group I used to mentor when we still lived in Northern California. I had fueled their enthusiasm for an upcoming writing contest when one of the members asked whether I’d be entering it, too. When I said yes, she quickly remarked, “Then I guess there’s no point in any of us trying since you’re already published and will probably win.”

“If I didn’t want you to participate,” I replied, “I didn’t even have to tell you about it, much less supply the entry forms or recommend which pieces I think represent your best work. In the second place, I’d like nothing better than for one of you to come away a prize winner.”

Why? Because it would validate all of the encouragement and instruction I had been providing to them to get them to hone their craft and pursue their dream.

It’s the same approach I take with any writer who wants an agency referral, critiquing services, or just a trick of the trade that will help him or her jumpstart a career and open the door to publication.

Will they one day look back and remember the assist? Maybe. Maybe not. Even Indiana Jones was slow to recognize that the core of his survival as an adult could trace its roots to the teachings of a parent whose obsession with antiquities Indy himself had once deemed “tedious.”

Whether you’re a beginner or a pro, it’s never too late to put the lure of that all-consuming “X” in its proper perspective and to appreciate—as working writers—that we’re all in this together. Not only does the bigger treasure lay on the path between here and there, but the legacy it creates for future generations of moviegoers will be priceless in its scope and diversity.

Former actress/director Christina Hamlett is a professional script consultant whose credits to date include 25 books, 122 plays and musicals, and 5 optioned feature films. She is also a ghostwriter for The Penn Group in Manhattan. Her latest MWP title, Screenwriting for Teens is targeted to high school students who want to learn how to write film shorts.

This sense of economy carries over into my lectures and classes for aspiring screenwriters, reinforcing the philosophy that if no one is going to mention why there is a moosehead above the mantle, maybe that moosehead really doesn’t need to be there. Little did I know at the time that I was laying the groundwork for my eventual segue into writing for film…and the necessity to craft a good story that can succeed on the strength of its plot, not the weightiness of its budget.

A case in point was the adaptation of my Scottish time travel, The Spellbox, to a feature length script for an independent producer. Aside from the challenge of compressing 400+ pages to 120, there were scenes which I purposely omitted in deference to what it would ultimately cost to execute them (i.e., a banquet in which the Great Hall is set on fire). Anything which involves destruction of sets, utilization of stunt people, or more insurance is going to drive up the price tag of a movie.

For writers who have yet to get their scripts over the transom and their foot in the door, such items can be a red flag to producers whose coffers are not quite Cameron-esque. While everyone hungers to write a cast-of-thousands epic with a wealth of elaborate sets and technical glitz, the reality is that the lower the author can keep the script’s production costs, the higher the chances of a sale.

The bottom line is that it’s easier to add in the glitz later than to have the crux of your plot contingent on its being present in the first draft.

Can your own script pass the following ten-point economy test?

1.Contemporary storylines are generally less costly than period pieces.
2.Fires, floods, earthquakes, volcanos, explosions—while many disasters can now be computer-generated, those that can’t are going to cost money.
3.Do you really need those swarming crowds? Even though they’re paid scale for just taking up space, they’re still an expense.
4.Anything with animals—especially trained ones—could be a big-ticket item.
5.Exterior scenes leave the crew at the mercy of time, season and weather, as opposed to interior shots which will look exactly the same whether it’s 3 a.m. in the dead of winter or 7:30 on a summer night.
6.Night scenes are more expensive to film than scenes in daylight.
7.Are your car chases/crashes necessary or just gratuitous? Vehicular mayhem can put a sizable dent in the budget.
8.Going on location is pricier than staying on a soundstage, especially the travel factor.
9.Specifying that “Mel Gibson has to be in this movie or it simply won’t work” probably isn’t a compelling pitch.
10.Every time the equipment gets moved, the cash register dings. Try to minimize your locations so multiple scenes can be shot at one time.

Former actress/director Christina Hamlett is a professional script consultant whose credits to date include 25 books, 122 plays and musicals, and 5 optioned feature films. Her latest MWP title, Screenwriting for Teens is targeted to high school students who want to learn how to write film shorts.

Suffice it to say, many new screenwriters approach film reps in much the same fashion as those who have been out of romantic circulation for awhile: nervously, desperately, and placing far more weight on the outcome than on the process of defining what exactly it is they want from the experience. Time and again, I’ve counseled writers who have been so thrilled that someone—ANYONE—has finally agreed to pay attention to them, they end up sabotaging themselves and/or tolerating all manner of shoddy behavior.

Herein are some tips for not only ensuring call-backs from the right people but heeding warning signs about the wrong ones. (If they work for your love life, too, so much the better!)

COMMON GROUND

If you were seeking a potential mate, would you flip open a telephone book and call the first name your pencil-point dropped on? Of course not! Yet how many writers use a similar technique with the rationale, “Don’t they all work pretty much the same way?”

The fact of the matter is that agents—good agents—specialize in representing certain types of projects and genres. The time and effort invested in establishing contacts has paid off for them in terms of reputation; producers recognize that scripts which have crossed these agents’ desks and been forwarded for review are the cream of the crop. Agents on top of their game are savvy about what’s selling, what’s not, and what has the highest potential for crossover marketing.

So how do you know which one is the best match for you?

Track Record: Would you pursue someone who wasn’t gainfully employed or was purposely evasive about what he/she did for a living? On the same note, would you feel secure with someone who had either (1) never sustained any long-term relationships, (2) blamed all failures on the other party, or (3) couldn’t remember any names because none of them stayed long enough?

Availability: Is your target agent genuinely interested in meeting someone new at this time or is their plate already full? Congenial as they may be at a party and ask you to give them a call sometime, the truth is that very few of them actually hope you will.

High Maintenance: Will the agent expect you to foot the bill for all postage, photocopying, phone calls and adult beverages? Likewise, will he or she expect you to pay out large sums of money in order for him or her to tell you how wonderful you and your screenplays are?

Exits and Exclusivity: How difficult/expensive will it be to extricate yourself from an unpleasant arrangement? (i.e., agents who demand a commitment of two years whether they sell anything or not.) You should also be wary of those who demand that you not see anyone else, even though they have yet to declare their own intentions toward you or even return your phone calls.

Expectations: Most agents will expect you to keep working after the honeymoon period is over. New authors, on the other hand, have the rosy view that their days of struggle are finally gone now that their future is in someone else’s hands. “One book wonders”—alas!—are rarely enough to pay the rent for either of you. If you want an agent to stay committed to the partnership, how committed are you to keep supplying exciting material on a regular basis?

Former actress/director Christina Hamlett is a professional script consultant and the author of 25 books, 122 plays and musicals, and 5 optioned feature films. Her latest MWP book, Screenwriting for Teens is targeted to high school students who want to learn how to write film shorts.

After having written two books on the subject (“Directing Actors,” and “The Film Director’s Intuition”), totaling together 700 pages, it’s a challenging assignment to condense for a magazine article the most important information and advice on directing the actor for film. I’ve organized the article into three sections (well, three and a half), according to a time line. First, long term activities, things I think a filmmaker should start doing young, and keep doing for the rest of his or her life, in order to have successful and collaborative relationships with actors, and a long and happy career. Second, “middle term” activities, that is, what to do as soon as you know you are going ahead with making a movie. Third, the short term — when you are actually facing the actors on the set, with all the pressures of equipment and crew facing you at the same time. The “half” is rehearsal — a controversial activity that many directors choose to leave out of the mix.

It’s in a summary, lacking the anecdotes and examples I can provide in my books — or the hands-on practical experience I provide in my workshops and consultations. I hope it will be a useful digest and reference for both new and experienced filmmakers.

LONG TERM
Take an acting class, for as long and as often as you can. Meet actors, get to know their particular interests and problems. Learn and understand the actor’s tools: intentions, objectives, facts (situation, given circumstances), subtext images, physical life, obstacle, adjustments, the magic “as if.” Learn how to tell whether an actor is listening. Practice working with actors, either in a class, or by getting together an informal group of actors and directors, or by directing theater. Start now collecting the ensemble of players (and crew members) you want to collaborate with throughout your career.

The very best way to connect to actors is to be able to connect to characters, as people rather than as plot devices. Learn about life, from observing people and figuring out what makes them tick. Study history, biography, languages, psychology, even science. Read a daily newspaper, watch documentaries. Ask your friends and acquaintances to tell you the stories of their lives. Spend time around children and nature. Soak up other arts besides film and television: painting, music composition, plays, poetry, novels. Make the effort to get into Shakespeare, because of all writers, Shakespeare understood human behavior with the most clarity and detail.

Have something to say. Examine the world around you and all the things you have seen and experienced. Have a point of view, and examine it to make sure you are not merely regurgitating the opinions of others. Cultivate an interest in self-knowledge. Let yourself feel your own feelings, and empathize with the feelings of others. Stop asking, “What is the usual way things are done?” Value learning and insight over fame and fortune.

MIDDLE TERM
If you haven’t already begun to build your own ensemble of actors, get a casting director if you can possibly afford it. In casting sessions, instead of looking for the performance, look for these things: the actor’s ability (talent and skill); whether he or she has enough life knowledge to play the part; whether you can work together. Don’t cast performances, cast relationships.

Start your script analysis. Even before casting — it will help you know what to look for. Even if you have written the script yourself, you need to look at it with fresh eyes. A proper script analysis will give you an iron-clad connection to the story and the characters, and a strong vision that you will be able to communicate to others.

Many inexperienced filmmakers think that the way they hear the lines and see the characters in their mind’s eye is an adequate script analysis preparation. The tendency of novices, once they have heard the line in their mind, to adhere rigidly to that line reading or interpretation is very detrimental. You need to get underneath the surface of the script. The words on the page — the dialogue and (to some extent) the stage directions — are clues to its subtext. The subtext of a script is what is playable for an actor, and it is what brings to life the script’s emotional events. Instead of imagining the line readings and expressions of the characters, the director must imagine the characters’ history, needs, intentions, relationships, situations, idiosyncrasies. Get past superficial judgments and hand-me-down formulas. Know what the script is about. Prepare yourself to tell a story about people.

Use the tools of through-line, beats, and story subtext to understand the structure of a script, and thus be able to create its emotional events. Consider the physical movement in the camera frame not just in the two dimensions of the view-finder, but in the three dimensions of the characters’ world. Learn how to block a scene (again, experience directing theater is helpful).

As soon as you think of a great idea that solves a moment or a scene, think of an alternate one — or two — in case the first one doesn’t work when you try it with actors.

SOMEWHERE BETWEEN MIDDLE TERM AND SHORT TERM: REHEARSAL
All interaction between actor and director is experienced by the actor as direction, so think of every conversation with actors as part of the “rehearsal” process. By “rehearsal” I mean any time spent considering the work seriously. The term “rehearsal” is actually a poor name for the process, because it suggests a repetition, over and over, of a pre-set performance — which is exactly what it shouldn’t be. Perhaps instead of “rehearsal” it should be called “warming up” or “exploration” or “preparing to work” — a chance for the actors and director to spend “quality time” together.

Rehearsal includes getting to know the actors, not just in a superficial social way, but as human beings and as artists. Take time to get below the social mask with them. Find common ground. Find out their values and ideas. Find out their problems, concerns, and insecurities. Discussion of the characters over the phone does not constitute meaningful direction. When you are with the actors face to face, do more listening than talking. Listen to them, their ideas, and also their subtext. Let the actors know you have faith in them.

Many directors hold no formal rehearsal, which means they are rehearsing with the camera rolling. Conventional wisdom holds that there is no time for rehearsal in movies and television, or that rehearsal kills the freshness and spontaneity of performances. This is a misunderstanding of its function, which is not to set out a connect-the-dots schema for the actors to follow by rote, but to open up the possibilities of the script, find its emotional and physical structure, and give the actors permission to play. What I think many directors (and actors) mean when they say they don’t have time to rehearse or they don’t believe in rehearsal is that they don’t know how to rehearse.

Rehearsal, conducted properly, creates trust, connection, and chemistry — and gets important work done ahead of time, so things can go smoothly on the set. Without substantive rehearsal the director is left to hope that things will magically fall into place and the actors will “hit the ground running” with no warm-up or pep-talk. (We don’t expect this of athletes.) All actors are different. Rehearsal is chance to collect information on how actors work, and to identify and solve their concerns and problems ahead of time, thus avoiding emotional disasters on the set. Actors frequently test young directors — let the testing take place off the set. Take the time to get the actors to let you in before the pressures are on, so that their sensitive emotional mechanisms can hear and respond to a crucial direction at a crucial moment when time really is running out. Rehearsal is also a place to address critical directorial choices such as pacing. Don’t leave pacing entirely to the editing room.

Disagreements on interpretation are best solved when there is time to consider them thoughtfully instead of under pressure. Rehearsal is precisely the opportunity for conflicting ideas to be brought into harmony. The actor can have the chance to try out ways to bring her own inner life to the ideas of the director. Or the actor can try his ideas in front of the director, and the director can come up with ways to incorporate them. Don’t forget that actors are by nature suggestible. If a new idea — even one opposite to the one they feel committed to — is presented to them with persuasive emotional detail, they may later actually forget that they themselves were not the ones to think of it. By “persuasive emotional detail” I mean giving direction by asking questions and telling stories rather than via instructions and orders. Always do more listening than talking.

But if you feel uncomfortable rehearsing, then don’t. Cast well, make sure the actors are listening to each other, and then back off. You need practice in the art of rehearsal (for instance in a class or workshop) before attempting it in a professional setting.

SHORT TERM
“When a light bulb has burned out, you take time to change it. If an actor is burning out, why not take ten minutes?” — Francis Ford Coppola

Spending time will save you time. Pay attention to actors’ problems on the set. Find out what they are, and pay attention to them. Always put the work first, ahead of ego. Be fearless about looking foolish. At the same time, take emotional responsibility. A director must act as a leader. Don’t project your insecurities on the actors. Look for ways to see the glass “half full” instead of half empty. Appreciate mistakes. Praise the actors. Love them. Listen more than you talk.

Let the actors stay in the moment. Remind them to breathe. Don’t micro-manage. Let actors work. Let them feel safe enough to find their core and to take risks. Don’t ask them to “do it again just the way you did it before.” When actors are getting freaky and frozen, give them permission to fail — and mean it. Try opposites.

Say something to each actor before and after every take. All actors need honest and accurate responses from the director after each take. Make sure the actors are engaged with each other (i.e., “listening”). In order to guide them to playing the objective rather than the result, ask each actor before each take: “Do you know what your character wants from the other character?”

Use the language of permission. Result direction is inaccurate direction. Let’s say an actor on the first take wrinkles her forehead in a way that you like, and the take must be repeated. If you ask her to repeat the wrinkle you’re not actually asking for what you liked. What you liked was the listening, the interaction, or the emotional event resulting from her surrender to a subtext choice.

Make sure that the actors receive feedback from one source only.

When you say “Action,” try not to have an unconscious subtext of “On your mark, get set…GO!” This unconscious “starting gun” subtext creates a tension for actors and a feeling that “now it’s time to start acting,” which is not conducive to good moment-by-moment work. Say “Action” with a sense of allowing, letting go, permission, connection.
When actors make technical considerations of matching shots and hitting marks their priority, their performance can become slick and technical. If you make the story and characters your priority, they will be better able to do so too.

Stand next to the camera. The way to tell if you are getting what you need from the actors is to stand next to the camera during each take, in a full, relaxed concentration. Be present — in the moment — as a human being of intelligence and feeling. The reason why directors should study and practice their interaction with actors is to be able to develop their powers of concentration, so that while the camera is rolling, that concentration can be iron-clad even amid the pressures and distractions of a movie set.

Spec scripts contribute to a writer’s portfolio and help him or her practice the craft of writing. No one reads spec budgets of a PM, and a PM’s portfolio of budgets is really only for self-reference. So, how does a PM practice budgeting? Volunteering is a good possibility.

First of all, consider volunteering not as “working for free” but as “working for trade.” You may not be receiving cash for your services, but you must receive some other benefit from the work you do, and what you receive in return, and how you value it, can vary drastically.

When volunteering is a good thing:

1. You need to practice researching costs and writing budgets. If you have not written many budgets, you may simply need the practice. That means practice not only crafting the document, but also conducting the research and starting or developing relationships with suppliers in the course of that practice. Once done, this spec budget will be a template you can use for writing future budgets.

2. You will be the (paid) production manager if the project is financed. Basically you are working on spec and usually early in development. Ensure that you have this kind of offer in writing, because if not, then they are not serious about your becoming the PM for production.

3. You want to develop connections. You may want to develop a relationship with this producer, genre, production format or studio. Is this project moving you forward in the career path you have chosen? A spec budget here is an excellent opportunity to “test the waters” of those relationships.

4. The work will upgrade you in the industry. If you are new to production management, you need to work in the upgraded position to establish yourself as a competent production manager. This is often done initially by volunteering your production management services.

5. The script/project strikes a chord with you. Sometimes you read a script, or learn about a project and you just have to be a part of that project no matter how. Volunteering by way of writing a budget may be your way to become a part of that magic.

When volunteering is a bad thing:

1. You don’t have the time. If your work-life balance will be upset, or you know you cannot allocate sufficient time to do a good job, do not take the job, voluntary or not. If you cannot spend enough time to do a good job, not only will the budget be poor, but your reputation will suffer by producing inferior work.

2. You are tired of volunteering. Once you start volunteering, you may end up on an undocumented “volunteer list” around town and end up with more offers to volunteer than you have hours in the day. You will have to learn how to say “no.”

Volunteer work is the same effort as paid work. Just because you are not paid in cash does not mean you are not paid at all, for you are really “working for trade.” Make sure that the trade is beneficial to both parties and the arrangement will be fulfilling.

So, with many budget templates on the market, it seems a no-brainer to use pre-existing templates to write budgets. It will save you loads of time. Why duplicate the work? Well, yes, use them… but use them wisely. Here are three factors to seriously consider before using a pre-existing budget template.

Factor #1: Speed vs Quality

This one may be obvious. Using a budget template will increase the speed you can write a budget. No question. How much quality will you lose, however, in that speed? You need to examine the details of your particular production. If, for example, you start with a movie-of-the-week budget template and your project is a feature film, the completion costs of the template will not be helpful when you need to include a film finish and your back to working from scratch or end up budgeting a feature with no deliverable to show it in the theatre.

Each script is unique. By taking the time to go through the breakdown and budgeting process you not only budget more accurately, but can speak knowingly about the details of the production – like post deliverables, special effects, style of shooting, etc. – when meeting with the producer and director.

Factor #1: Your Budgeting Experience vs Outside Research Needed

So you don’t know everything there is to know about estimating production and post costs. That’s okay. Templates can be tapped into for guidance in some respects, but calling up other professionals – like construction managers or post houses – you will not only improve the estimates in your budget with relevant, current and local knowledge, but you will develop relationships within the industry in areas where you may not have expertise.

Ironically, the more experience you have the more templates may be useful. The budgets that you have written end up becoming the best template-guidance for future budgets you write. You know all the ins and outs of these budgets and productions, and if the production was completed, you know the strengths and weaknesses in the budget because you also have cost reports to show the actuals spent.

Factor #3: Rough Costing vs Detail Estimate

What if the project is early in development and far from a production date? You may need a budget to see if the projected financing total is remotely feasible for this current script. In this case, a budget of rough estimates may be sufficient, guided be a pre-existing template. In early development, there will be many unanswered questions about how the film will be shot (size of crew, number of days, location vs studio, etc.), and the answers will evolve over the course of development. You are expected to tap into your knowledge to invent educated recommendations to answer these questions for the budget you write. Take the time to summarize your assumptions on a cover page. Most pre-existing budget templates do not have such a summary to guide you.

If, however, you are drafting a production budget on a project with locked financing and a set production start date, spend the time to delve into the details of writing the budget, and do not rely on a template to know the specifics of your project.

Budget templates are road maps. The production you are budgeting, however, may put you in a different “city” or “time” than any of these road maps depict. Use templates as guidance, but not to replace the work of writing your own budgets and learning accordingly.

Think about the estimator’s pencil and that long, floppy eraser. Use that eraser about half the time, and you’ll not only write better budgets, but you will learn more about estimating production costs for when you sit down to write your next budget.

“The humbling truth is that the film is made in the editing room.”
Writer David Mamet introducing the editing Oscar for the 2002 Academy Awards ceremony

Introducing…the Editor
by Gael Chandler
Author, Cut by Cut: Editing Your Film or Video
www.gaelchandler.com

Filmmakers often hoist the camera and shoot their film or videotape but have little idea how to turn their hard, heartfelt effort into a completed show. They wonder what exactly an editor does to make the raw footage come together so smoothly and fluently. Let me demystify this last process, called editing, editorial, post production, or simply “post” for you.

If I had to sum up what I and other editors do, I would say that the editor is the architect of the show. Our building materials are the footage – long shots, wide shots, medium shots, close ups, over-the shoulders, inserts, raking shots, reverses, master shots, and two-shots. Our blueprint is the script or outline (for a non fiction show like a documentary). From these we create the architecture of the show with sound, dialogue, and the placement and duration of the shots. Like the architecture of a bridge, good editing conveys to the audience what they need to see, hear, and experience to get from the beginning of the show to the end.

To accomplish this architecture, since nothing in the film industry ever goes entirely according to script or outline, the editor plays several roles: magician, coach, and technician. Like a magician, the editor arranges and rearranges the shots to inform, manipulate, and entertain the audience. The editor coaches the director and/or the producer as to a show’s merits and demerits, cheerleading, counseling, leading, and prodding as needed to sculpt the best show possible. And, in today’s world, the editor must be savvy about choosing and operating the digital system that will produce the required finishing format (film, videotape, WEB file, CD, or DVD) and special effects in the most cost effective way.

To recap, the film industry is a world of magic and mundanity, networking and relationships, creativity and survival in which the editor plays a vital, vibrant role.

As one who teaches editing at several universities, including Long Beach State and UCLA, I am familiar with a number of books, both current and otherwise, on the subject. Some of them I have used in conjunction with my courses. Gael Chandler’s book is a welcome addition to this library of editing lore. Besides describing the details of the editing process, the book also features many quotes and tips from established editors. Finally we have a comprehensive text on the subject for every student of editing, written in an understandable manner without sacrificing content. It is what God and DeMille intended. I met Gael Chandler several years ago when she was teaching a Final Cut Pro class. She is a pioneer of electronic editing dating back to the Ediflex. After getting to know me, she asked if I would review a couple of chapters to the book she was writing, and give comment, on working on film since Film Editing on the Moviola is one of the classes that I teach. This I was happy to do and I allowed her to shoot stills of my editing equipment. Since that time I have been eager to see if the finished book would pass muster and I’m pleased to report that it does. Beginning with her forward that describes the significance of “persistence of vision,” the anomaly to which we all owe our careers, and continuing with Director Brian Levant’s comment that ”…editors are the most skilled, happiest people I’ve ever known,” Chandler goes on to describe in detail our craft which she notes, ”…is both magical and mundane.” She demonstrates an extensive knowledge of the post production process. The book is geared towards the beginning editor, but the more seasoned professional can still make use of its many charts and tables. The fact that she includes both film and video makes her book comprehensive. There is a lot of film information included that is not readily found anywhere else and for novice editors this is important. In describing the three video systems (NTSC, PAL and SECAM) in a footnote she recounts the joke among the techs as to what each system represents. NTSC is Never Twice the Same Color, while PAL equates to Pay A Lot and SECAM is reduced to System Essentially Contrary to American Method. This humor adds to the readability of the volume. Chandler also goes into why we make cuts, though many current filmmakers seem to think one should cut merely for the sake of cutting. She recounts the late Edward Dmytryk’s comment, ”…cutting should always be conceived to show the viewer what he should see at every point in the film.” As anything we do in editing does, this book is written from the heart by someone who cares about the craft they have pursued for a lifetime. For the beginner there is advice on how to find work, join the union and make contacts. She lays it out as methodically as she does the steps of the editing process and emphasizes that, ”…it’s not what you know, but who you know.” Gael Chandler sums it up beautifully with this paragraph. “Editing is not for the wimp, space case, or the indifferent. You need stamina and desire to see you through. Keep your passion for your career, loved ones, and pursuit of happiness in balance when following an editing path and you’ll be surprised where it leads you.”