Community Project

NickClapper

NickClapper

My greatest regret, during my time on IndieTalk, has been my failure to get a community project off the ground. We came pretty close with the organ lottery project, but it never quite worked out. The past few days has seen a new member trying to get another community project off the ground, but is, I suspect, going to fall into a number of inevitable traps.

I am currently studying for the final exams of my academic career (*sob*) so am just sitting in libraries all day, every day. I'd like something to break it up a little bit (in addition to the couple of projects I am, slowly, working on). So I've come up with a new way to do a community project.

If you would like to participate in this project as a director (or in a shooting capacity), I need the following information out of you:

What actors are at your disposal? [i.e. two men and a woman]
What locations are at your disposal? [i.e. a house, a bar, an abandoned quarry]
Can you record decent quality sound? [i.e. yes]
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Please be conservative with your responses. In order for this project to be realistic and work, I need to be sure that people can (and will) shoot their scenes in the allocated manner.

Once I have a bunch of participants, I will go away and write a short script that incorporates these various shooting units into a single coherent story. I will ensure that no member has more than a maximum of two days shooting (though generally will try and keep it to what can be done in a single day). If you cannot record decent quality sound, I will give you no dialogue to shoot. Everything will be kept as simple as possible (within the constraints of a very tricky project!) so that we have the maximum chance of success.

Additionally, if you are not willing to direct (or arrange the production of) a shooting unit, there are loads of other roles that are required:

Composer
Editor - individual units should edit their scenes but a central editor will put it all together and try and ensure that the editing matches throughout.
Post-sound
VFX - will not be VFX heavy, but we can incorporate some if there's someone who can supply the talent.
Marketing - with so many cooks, would be great to have someone responsible for pushing the film.
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In order to make this attempt as successful as possible, I will only accept forum regulars into the scheme. New members (and I'm talking people who've only been around a few weeks) are welcome to input and help out, but it is of paramount importance that I know people will stick around and see their unit through to completion.

The deadline for signing up is 18th April 2014, giving people two weeks, after which we will allocate two months (and a bit) to complete production of your scenes, meaning a shooting deadline of 30th June 2014. As I have said, should be no more than a day of filming over the course of two months, so if you can't commit to that then please don't!

I really hope this works, and I think it can. Let me know if you have any thoughts and get signing up!

Current units:
David.rhsc (San Francisco, USA)
cheeseandachallenge (Wellington, New Zealand)
Cracker Funk (Richmond, USA)
wheatgrinder
Flicker Pictures (Boston, USA)
mad_hatter (Birmingham, England)
Dreadylocks (Omaha, USA)
Lucky Hardwood (New Orleans, USA)
ChimpPhobiaFilms (Ohio, USA)

Fence-sitting-maybe-merchants:
WalterB
Dreadylocks
sfoster
mad_hatter
ChimpPhobiaFilms
ItDonnedOnMe
jax_rox
Flicker Pictures

Music team
JoshL
mike mcguill

Sound team
mike mcguill

Sound maybes
AudioPostExpert
Alcove Audio

Marketing maybes
RayW

And remember to fill in this form if you want to have a shooting unit in the film!

(Of course, if you're local to an existing unit, why not team up?)
 
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Just my opinion, but I don’t think the size or shape of the craft matters. I’m picturing a light in the sky, nothing more. Like when you see an aeroplane up in the night sky, but this craft move unnaturally. Perhaps it could be closer, and hence, bigger, but I’d still have it entirely cloaked in light, so that no details can be seen.

Actually giving the UFO shape, and having it close enough to see, takes away from the mystery. In reality, I don’t think you’re going to fool anyone. The general public, who you want to share this video as part of a viral marketing campaign, aren’t going to believe it and just won’t share it. You also run the risk of making your characters look dumb, for believing what is clearly a fake.

My two cents; simplicity is the key to keeping this believable.



P.S. rotwang - Please don't consider this to be a knock at you; it's really not. You're model is nice, I just don't think it's suitable for this project.
 
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@mad_hatter

great points, however, in order to actualize ANY light in the sky, we need to have some consistent properties or it wont FIT in the world where its being generated,.. so yes, an amorphous mass of light, but we still need some numbers around size and other properties as needed to anchor the thing in our reality.

Also, is the object far away or near? Skimming the treetops or flitting in the clouds..


You raise a more interesting point, and that is the unlikelihood of any video we produce being taken as anything other than a VFX project\hoax. As a movie opener I worry that the viewers first impression will be that the viewer is watching is a sudo "documentary" rather than a piece of narrative fiction. An impression made even more likely if we are promoting the cell phone footage online as "real."
 
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wheatgrinder said:
You raise a more interesting point, and that is the unlikelihood of any video we produce being taken as anything other than a VFX project\hoax. As a movie opener I worry that the viewers first impression will be that the viewer is watching is a sudo "documentary" rather than a piece of narrative fiction. An impression made even more likely if we are promoting the cell phone footage online as "real."
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And you might wanna creatively skirt all the derision and outright hate that "found footage" films provoke.

Just attempting to fake off viewers just shoves them away beyond reach.

Make it clearly entertainment.
Not a pretend documentary.


Interest viewers, not insult them.
 
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ALT OPENING:

Code: 
EXT. LOGGING ROAD NW OREGON - EVENING
JOHN and CARL (40+ year old sports men) walk towards a pickup truck 
parked a ways down the gravel road as  the sun sets in this distance. 

          JOHN
keys.
          CARL
keys? you have the keys 
          JOHN
dang it Carl, Im tired gimme the damn keys..
          CARL
Hey, I dont have the keys..

John and Carl stop near the bed of the pickup and remove their packs.
John rummages in Carl's pack.  Carl walks to the cab of the truck
and piers inside, the driver side window is rolled down a bit
leaving about 4 inches open.

           CARL
John

John turns Carl's pack upside down, dumping the contents in the bed of the truck

           CARL
JOHN! 

John drops the pack and walks to Carl, he looks in the window. 
John sees the keys hanging from the ignition.

           JOHN
shhhi.. ah fu.. dont you say nothin

Carl resists the laugh and reaches to open the door.  
It is locked. John reaches his arm in through the gap between
the window and the door frame.  John wiggles his fingers.
The lock button is just out of reach.  
Carl laughs and backs away from the truck, he pulls out his phone.

      CARL
ah man, I gotta get this on facebook

John suddenly stops moving and looks over Carl's head.

      JOHN
what the hell is that

Carl turns with his phone and is engulfed in bright white light  

JOHN (O.S.)
are you gettin this on your phone?

Carl nods his head.  

-------------------------------------------------------------------- end 

......  <show someone watching the cell phone footage on the web>  continue the story as writ..
 
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rayw said:
And you might wanna creatively skirt all the derision and outright hate that "found footage" films provoke.

Just attempting to fake off viewers just shoves them away beyond reach.

Make it clearly entertainment.
Not a pretend documentary.

Interest viewers, not insult them.
Click to expand...

I think this is an over simplification.

It's not 'a pretend documentary' if there's 30 seconds of verité style footage, it's just an interesting way of opening a film I think. Think of all the movies that start with news footage, for example, the opening of Watchmen presenting iconic images with added Watchmen. There's no deceit there, the filmmaker is not trying to make the audience think they were watching a documentary, they're just introducing them to the narrative in a submersing way.

In my opinion, the film's opening would lose something by not attempting to directly replicate the 'feel' that a good, enjoyable hoax video has. It's a campy, sort of dated, fun, and not something that anyone takes too seriously.

And let's face it, if we 'release' the video to the world, people aren't going to think it's real. It might be a neat promotional trick, but the UFO video is clearly going to be a work of fiction which exists within the world of the film.
 
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Since it appears that my shooting unit won't be needed, I'm going to take some time away from the site to focus on the massive influx of still photography work that I have and building the website for it. I look forward to seeing what you guys end up with.
 
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NickClapper said:
I think this is an over simplification.

It's not 'a pretend documentary' if there's 30 seconds of verité style footage, it's just an interesting way of opening a film I think. Think of all the movies that start with news footage, for example, the opening of Watchmen presenting iconic images with added Watchmen. There's no deceit there, the filmmaker is not trying to make the audience think they were watching a documentary, they're just introducing them to the narrative in a submersing way.

In my opinion, the film's opening would lose something by not attempting to directly replicate the 'feel' that a good, enjoyable hoax video has. It's a campy, sort of dated, fun, and not something that anyone takes too seriously.

And let's face it, if we 'release' the video to the world, people aren't going to think it's real. It might be a neat promotional trick, but the UFO video is clearly going to be a work of fiction which exists within the world of the film.
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See, this is why its your project and not mine. I appreciate your vision. Keeping your vision coherent in the midst of a bunch of creative idea generating folks is no small job. keep it up. There are so many great ideas that Id just follow along and end up no where..
 
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Hey, slightly overdue feedback here. We really like where this is going, but we've got some notes.

Mark's dialogue regarding the aliens comes off as terribly cliche. Not even people who think that way sound like that. Our director is happy to help tune that into something more naturalistic but he'd like more info on the characters.

A minor detail, but literally no one in that age group wears tie dye around here. That's standard tourist and AARP eligible hippie gear.

There are plenty of reasons to leave a beach in the morning. Surfing the early shift, overnight trip, abalone diving, digging clams, etc. Easy to write around that one.

Love the ominous phone call. We might be willing to take on more pages if you want to expand on that.
 
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David.rhsc said:
Mark's dialogue regarding the aliens comes off as terribly cliche. Not even people who think that way sound like that. Our director is happy to help tune that into something more naturalistic but he'd like more info on the characters.
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Yeah, I've reworked the dialogue in that opening scene. The exposition needs to be there in order to set up the rest of the film, but I agree with everyone here that it just clunks. Dead fish.

I'll post an update as soon as I finish my tinkering, but, as ever, I'd encourage people to workshop the script and make any changes they like (so long as it doesn't impact on other people's shooting).

A minor detail, but literally no one in that age group wears tie dye around here. That's standard tourist and AARP eligible hippie gear.
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You're missing the post-ironic thrift store culture ;) Only the trendiest kids would dare to wear tye-dye over here.

Of course, costume choices are entirely up to each unit - as is the physical representation of each character.

We might be willing to take on more pages if you want to expand on that.
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Kind of depends on what everyone else's thinking.

I know that it might feel frustratingly brief at the moment – and I get that each unit's story is kind of fleeting and maybe unsatisfying on a narrative level – but the film is already looking at being 12-15 minutes long. I'm not sure how much longer we'd want to go.

Of course, the ending does set Mark up to be a potentially key play if anyone ever wanted to tackle expanding this project.
 
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Ha! Oh we definitely have the haute/thrift culture here but it's all skinny jeans and old plaid patterns amongst the SF fashion elite. Well, those and the "my jeans cost more than your monthly rent" crowd.

I think it's just regional backlash against the crusty stereotype. :lol:

Minor details, looking forward to the next revision.

Regarding length, I don't think it's frustratingly short, on the contrary it's a great length for a "pilot" as it were. Maybe a couple of added scenes to tease an Ep2 should we find an audience.

I'd like to think that we'd all be involved in finishing the story should to the opportunity arise.

For now though, let's knock this bad boy out!

Contemplating starting a cinematography thread similar to APE's audio thread. Style is going to go a long way to unify things- even with differing tools and with the goal of creating looks for each unit there are ways to bring it all together.
 
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NickClapper said:
There's no deceit there, the filmmaker is not trying to make the audience think they were watching a documentary, they're just introducing them to the narrative in a submersing way.
Click to expand...

I agree. My point as far as the video being pre-released before the full short, it might attract some attention. Not that people are going to fall for it, but a "real alien sighting!" will attract the attention of people, even though they know it will be fake. I can't help but click on videos that are obviously fake yet have thumbnails and titles that are appealing... and seeing the massive amounts of views that some of the videos get, that could be possible with this video. Not that that's going to happen for sure, but why not try? Not to mention people might want to find the actual Youtube video.
 
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Hey guys! Just wanted to check in and let you know that I'm still on-board. I saw the rough draft that Nick wrote, and I like it. I'm not able to spend much time on IT right now, because I'm knee-deep in a very labor-intensive music video, and that is the only reason I haven't been contributing to this conversation. Since Nick wrote my scene to be about a minute long, that definitely makes it possible for me to stay involved.

I see that separate threads have been started for both sound design and cinematography, and that's awesome! I can't contribute in pre-production, but you guys tell me what to do in production, and I'll do it!
 
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Oh no. I'm sure you're needed, Lucky. I'm sure it's no problem for Nick to write your unit into his screenplay. Right, Nick? A New Orleans location would only enrich the film, I'm sure. Please stand by, Lucky.
 
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richy said:
Oh no. I'm sure you're needed, Lucky. I'm sure it's no problem for Nick to write your unit into his screenplay. Right, Nick? A New Orleans location would only enrich the film, I'm sure. Please stand by, Lucky.
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Yes, sorry, I'm absolutely happy to!

The scenes that are set in America I wrote so that they could be interchangeable between those Americans who had signed up – all you'd need is a forest.

The difficulty, for me, was when people were unsure whether they are going to be able to record sound, because it became very hard to integrate silent parts into the film when there was dialogue in all the others. But I'd be happy to write a New Orleans part, if you can get the sound (I think your form said working on it, or something..?).

Also, we need someone to film the image for the 'viral video', so maybe that task could fall to a specific unit..?
 
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Nick

Do you want to set up a new social media network for this project or can we use the shell of the generally agreed defunct 'Social Brain Wave' FB and YT accounts until the project fabricates a proper organizational name?

And I'm still interested in knowing if this will be shopped around to short film festivals? Fall/winter of 2014/early 2015?

And to bring up yet a third troublesome question, while credits and copies may be a fine perk to give contributors, who will rights ownership go to with finished film and its intellectual property rights, esspecially characters?
If a potential feature can be fabricated from positive results this short film probably should not be released into the public domain in an attempt to simplify ownership decisions.
Will fan fic spin-offs be given with written permission?
Do the collective "we" want to retain exclusive rights to the entirety of the project's rights?
Are contributors free to make our own spin offs and derivative works?
Etc.

And you're the de facto producer of this, so it's kinda your call to make on these things.
 
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NickClapper said:
Yes, sorry, I'm absolutely happy to!
Also, we need someone to film the image for the 'viral video', so maybe that task could fall to a specific unit..?
Click to expand...

I was thinking that sort of thing might be good for several folks who have limited gear access. I think the idea of people reacting to a "viral" alien sighting would carry more weight if there were multiple, simultaneous sightings from around the world.

4-5 different cell-phone/handy-cam/go-pro style plates from different locations would sell the reactions in the various vignettes better than just a single video - imho and all that. :D

Wheaty started the next thread, so I'll pipe in over there with thoughts later today.
 
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I was thinking that the ufo sighting viral video needed to be shot in and around Mt Hood, but it would be easy enough to account for other sighting locations in the scene where the kid shows how he tracked its vector\trajectory path to where it LANDS in Oregon. So yeah, have the sighting anywhere, in fact we could make it a little contest..

Ownership is interesting.

I think that all remote unit producers should retain 100% ownership of the footage they create, however, in order to have your footage included in the film, you must grant NON EXCLUSIVE, NON TRANSFERAL, ROYALTY FREE copyrights to all the other remote unit producers in the project of which the Nick Clapper is one. Any use of the footage must include 100% accreditation. This also extends to the script, Nick will have to grant each of the remote unit producers the same non exclusive, non-transferable copyright to the script.

The spirit of this agreement is that anybody who participates can do anything they want with the final movie, submit to festivals, create their own edit, etc, while simultaneously allowing them to OWN what they produced for any off shoot, sequels or whatever. The non-transferable nature requires that anyone wishing to sell\transfer copyright of some or all of the movie would need to negotiate with those OWNERS of the copyright material directly. So its almost a creative commons license with the commons being defined as just the project participants.

Thoughts?
 
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