author: Morrie Warshawski

name: Steev

average rating: 3.43

book published: 1994

rating: 4

read at: 2009/04/03

date added: 2013/12/13

shelves: filmmaking

review:
I sort of skimmed this, I must admit, since I'm trying to quickly raise just A LITTLE more money so I can finish a film. A lot of the book is about organizing your filmmaking career in the process of trying to raise funds for a new socially-conscious film. I'm actually toward the end of making a documentary, and just need a few grand to finish editing.

In fact, if you want to help support the film, which is about war and taxes, please see http://deathandtaxes.detritus.net

For the last year or so, I've been becoming a sort of crowdfunding (and specifically Kickstarter) expert, consulting and making videos for clients who are trying to raise funds for various projects.  If you've followed me during that time you've probably seen me stumping for dollars for these various projects - a microbrewery, an organic chicken-raising collective, a couple days of carless streets in Tucson... all these things became realities thanks in part to the platform called Kickstarter, and thanks in part to my know-how in using it and social media.

Now I'm using that platform to raise funding for a project that I'm actually involved in myself: a documentary that I'm directing about homelessness, and specifically about the challenges of being homeless in Tucson, Arizona.  Check out the Kickstarter video by pressing play below:

My collaborators and I are experienced filmmakers; for years we've all been involved in enough low-budget or no-budget projects to know that it costs a certain minimum amount of money to do a film properly, in such a way that people will notice it, and watch it and respect it and recommend it to others.  This minimum amount is usually much higher than people not in the business expect, but much lower than the numbers thrown around in Hollywood circles.  You can make films cheaply, but you do need something, and the professionals who work on even low-budget films need to eat, and pay rent, and maintain their equipment. Read more>>>

author: Mark Nash, curator

name: Steev

average rating: 4.00

book published: 2004

rating: 4

read at: 2011/03/14

date added: 2011/03/14

shelves: filmmaking

author: Michael Ondaatje

name: Steev

average rating: 4.32

book published: 2002

rating: 5

read at: 2008/01/25

date added: 2011/07/07

shelves: filmmaking

author: Michael Ondaatje

name: Steev

average rating: 4.34

book published: 2004

rating: 5

read at: 2008/01/25

date added: 2011/07/07

shelves: filmmaking

author: Mark Nash, curator

name: Steev

average rating: 4.00

book published: 2004

rating: 4

read at: 2011/03/14

date added: 2011/03/14

shelves: filmmaking

In the last issue of Filmmaker Magazine, there's a section (print edition only) called "Letters To A Young Producer." I'm not a producer, exactly, nor do I want to specialize in that, but there are lots of good bits of advice and stories by several working "indie" producers. The last one, Noah Harlan, says an interesting thing:  basically, if you're producing films with budgets of at least 2 million dollars, that's enough to make a living as a producer, from your fees.  But, in today's funding/investing climate in the filmmaking world, he's unable to pull himself into that bracket.  There are no films being made in that bracket. "The mid-budgeted indie is gone."

Wow.

Is that true? If so it's probably true of directors as well. Possibly it's not true of other roles that are less involved, because they can work on several films a year - grips, camera operators, actors, etc. But producers and directors are kind of sucked into one film at a time for a year or more. Read more>>>

I've been editing video with Final Cut Pro for 9 years now, yes that's NINE YEARS. Yet today I'm wrestling with a problem that brings me to the brink of complete, throw-up-my-hands frustration. Absolute utter despair that makes me want to just give up being a filmmaker completely, or at least being an editor.

It's pretty much too complicated to describe here quickly and not have someone mistake it for a stupid mistake.  Trust me, it's not a stupid mistake.  I'm not an idiot, and, like i think i mentioned, I've been using FCP for NINE YEARS.  Trust me when I say this is a completely new and weird fuck-up that is a total mystery and that you would probably have no idea how to solve either unless you have as much intelligence and experience with this software as I do. 

In other words, I'm not posting this to ask for help. I'm just screaming my frustration.   Thank you, Apple, for once again leading me to believe that I could trust you and your products. sigh. Read more>>>

author: Bobbie O'Steen

name: Steev

average rating: 4.00

book published: 2009

rating: 4

read at: 2010/02/06

date added: 2010/02/06

shelves: filmmaking

posts from the Truth On The Line website.