Susan Ee

$40k development deal open to submissions

Ion Television is looking for scripts in the area of "drama procedural."  I've no idea what that means.  For details, go here.

Good luck!
Susan Ee
www.feraldream.com

Photo vs Text

I learned the following things:

JPEG = good for natural shapes like photos.
PNG = good for sharp shapes like text.
GIF = old format, avoid if possible
Photoshop = good for photos, terrible for text
Illustrator = good for text and graphics.  Not sure about photos, seems okay.

When you make a poster/postcard of your film, work on the photo in Photoshop, then "place" it in Illustrator to put in the text.  Then print it out from Illustrator.  For some reason, my Illustrator CS3 defaulted on "save for web and devices" to GIF.  The photo looked terrible and it took me awhile to figure out why (see comment above re GIF).  Sadly, it's quite easy to make text with effects in Photoshop, but it looks all jagged when you print it out.  Illustrator's text looks great when you print it, but it's complicated to give it effects. 

It's frustrating to deal with such an overly-complicated system, but one of the things I love about shoestring budget filmmaking is that I learn so much about so many things...

Susan Ee
www.feraldream.com

TV 8 hrs a day, 7 days a week

The Economist reports that Americans are still watching TV for an average of over 8 hours PER DAY.  Watching TV is like a full time job for us.  This is the number I've heard over the years and it looks like it hasn't gone down despite the popularity of the web.  Japan, Australia, Canada and most of Europe watch an average of 3-4 hours per day.

Susan Ee
www.feraldream.com

Tooth Fairy at Big Water Film Festival!

Big Water Official Selection

Tooth Fairy will be playing at the Big Water Film Festival Nov 6-8!  It’s on the shore of Lake Superior in Northern Wisconsin.  It sounds like a sweet community that would genuinely appreciate our little movie.  Besides, you can't beat the certificate they sent us!!

 

That is the last of the festivals for now.  This brings our acceptance rate up to 40%! 

Susan Ee
www.feraldream.com

Tooth Fairy website is live!

I've had a few people ask me about TOOTH FAIRY's website, so I made one.  It's a little different from other website designs, though.  Let me know what you think.  www.tooth-fairy-movie.com

Susan Ee
www.feraldream.com

Parasites, metallic organs, and VFX. Oh, my!

Our friend at Zen Films is taking on a very ambitious project.  It involves a game, a web series, a graphic novel, and a movie.  It makes me tired just thinking about all the work he must be doing.  That may be what it takes to market an indie film these days.  Major kudos to Robert Pratten for trying to kick off the shackles of the currently broken revenue strategy for indie films, and embracing the here and now. 

Plus he gets kudos for a storyline with parasites.  And metallic organs.  And no doubt, cool visual effects... 

Susan Ee
www.feraldream.com

Shooting movies with an SLR Camera

Canon-eos-5d-mark-2

People are starting to shoot movies with digital SLR cameras.  The video samples from the Canon EOS Mark II look impressive.  It can shoot video in 1080p and can obviously handle various camera lenses without bulky adaptors.  It's priced at $2,700. 

I only saw one sample where the camera is moving, though.  There were streaks during the motion, but I'm not sure if that was caused by the camera motion or some other artifact.  It does not shoot in 24 fps (I say 24 fps for ease, but I mean 23.9-something).  As much as I hate the hassles and extra processing that go into editing in 24 fps, it is supposed to be the thing to use if there's a chance you might film out because 24 fps matches the rate of film.  So for a feature, or to practice for a feature, it seems like a good idea to shoot HD in 24 fps.  Of course, the Canon Mark II is the first version of its kind so this space is worth watching. 

Susan Ee
www.feraldream.com

How to get your movie on IMDB

Let's face it, IMDB sucks if you're trying to get correct credits up on its pages.  My first film, PSYCHOPATH, met all of their criteria by being invited into a festival, but IMDB wouldn't give it a page.  They didn't reject it, exactly, they just kept saying that there wasn't enough information so they dropped it to the bottom of their list and their busy schedules wouldn't allow them to get to it, ever.  "Not enough information" translates to "too small potatoes" since I gave them all the information I had.  They hate films with 3 crew members and 3 cast, regardless of whether it qualifies by their own rules. 

Unless you pay them.

So there you have it, folks.  Despite what they advertise, you can get your film on IMDB if you pay them.  I finally figured this out and went onto Withoutabox (IMDB and Withoutabox are sister/twin companies).  I did a filter search for the cheapest festival I could find ($10), and I submitted Pscyhopath to the festival via Withoutabox.  You can't just pay, you have to actually submit a copy of the film to the festival.  Once the festival receives your submission, they update your status.  Then, you get an invitation to put up a page on IMDB.  Voila!  As of today, Psychopath is finally on IMDB.

My second film, TOOTH FAIRY, got a page because I used Withoutabox for its festival submissions.  But IMDB merged my film with another film that had the same title.  After weeks of confusion and battles with the other Tooth Fairy team (it's a Tooth Fairy fight! :-), I finally brought in the big guns.  I asked a bunch of people in Hollywood what I should do.  Man, the responses I got could fill a blog all by itself.  There are actors and filmmakers out there who've been battling IMDB for years to get their credits corrected.  Some of them have done multiple studio films and can't get their credits listed.  Anyway, it turns out that there actually is a way to contact IMDB (it seems they used to have a phone number listed a long time ago but not any more).  Here is the link that lets you send an email to a human at IMDB:  http://pro.imdb.com/helpdesk/contact.  You would think that finding a help link would be trivial, but believe me, it's not.

Whether or not they listen to you is another story.  Me?  I was lucky.  I sent them an email explaining the merge problem and listed the cast and crew of each of the movies.  IMDB said they would take care of it.  Then they asked the other Tooth Fairy guys to resubmit their information.  So far, I don't think their page is up.  I hope they get their page because 1) I'm sure they deserve it, and 2) I don't want them to get frustrated and raid my page again.

Right now, both PSYCHOPATH and TOOTH FAIRY have IMDB pages, but the credits are incomplete.  So the battle goes on.  I won't give up the fight until everyone on my team gets their credits.

Good luck with your own IMDB battles!

Susan Ee
Susan Ee's IMDB page
www.feraldream.com

Thoughts on the New New Distribution Model

A lot of people are asking "When is Tooth Fairy coming to my town?"  Since Tooth Fairy is a short film, I plan to put it up on YouTube as soon as the festival rounds finish.  But it got me thinking about indie features and their distribution.  If a film gets picked up by a traditional distributor, then great.  It'll get distributed in the traditional way (hand-waving, without going into details :-).  But if the filmmaker ends up self-distributing or the distributor puts out the film in a limited release, one option I've heard is to do a simultaneous limited theatrical and online distribution via a digital distribution company like Gigantic Releasing.

According to Indiewire, Gigantic Releasing streams your film in cities you don't have theatrical distribution.  For $2.99, a viewer can have streaming access to your film for 3 days.  It's basically the same price as the majority of the indie movies on Amazon's video on demand. 

It's unclear to me what the advantages are of going with a streaming company like Gigantic Releasing that tries to tie the timing of the availability of the movie with your theatrical release.  Will a reporter or reviewer be any more likely to mention your digital "release" than a video on demand release?  Not likely. 

Possible advantages that I see with going with a digital distributor like Gigantic Releasing as opposed to just releasing it on Amazon's VOD is IF they do a whole lot of marketing on your behalf, AND they don't charge you much, if any, for their marketing expenses.  OR they pay you enough money upfront for the distribution rights to make it worth your while.  OR they get your film on Netflix (doubtful since Netflix has its own streaming program). 

If they don't offer any of these advantages, I'm not sure I see the added value. 

On Amazon's video on demand, the filmmaker gets 50% of rental price.  For Gigantic Releasing, I couldn't find their filmmaker royalty or any other contract details on their site or via Google.  This lack of public information is very old school.  So much for the new new distribution model.

One could say that Gigantic Releasing's movies are curated while Amazon's VOD is not.  But that only matters if the world knows about it.  So in a couple of years, when the new new model may be the standard, there may be advantages.  So if your film will be ready for distribution in a couple of years, it might be worth checking into at that time.  But for now, my choice would be to go with Amazon.

Susan Ee
www.feraldream.com

TOOTH FAIRY Showings

Tooth Fairy Peeking

Chicago REEL Shorts Festival

Today at 2 (noon on the west coast), TOOTH FAIRY will premier at the Chicago International REEL Shorts Festival!  Tooth Fairy will play as part of Kids Shorts at Film Row Cinema, 1104 S Wabash, 8th Fl., Chicago.  It sounds like an awesome program!  Wish I could be there.

It cracks me up that TOOTH FAIRY got into both children's programs and horror programs.  Here is the schedule of upcoming showings so far:

Chicago International REEL Shorts Festival – Sun. Sept 13 at  2 PM, Film Row Cinema, Chicago http://www.projectchicago.com/

Tacoma Film Festival  –  Sat. Oct. 3^rd at noon, Grand Cinema, Tacoma, WA

http://www.grandcinema.com/page.php?id=43

Dark Carnival Horror Festival – Oct 2-4, Bloomington, IN, final schedule yet to be determined

 http://www.darkcarnivalfilmfest.com/

Independents Film Festival – Nov. in Tampa, FL, final schedule yet to be determined

 http://independentsfilmfest.com/

 Utopia Film Festival – Oct 19-25 in Greenbelt, MD, final schedule yet to be determined

 http://www.utopiafilmfestival.org/

 Click! Network - Tacoma’s cable TV network, video on demand, Oct.

 http://www.click-network.com/

 The Education Channel – Tampa’s cable TV network, Nov.-Dec.

 http://tecc.tv/educationchannel.org/index.php

Check it out if you're in the area! 

Susan Ee
www.feraldream.com