Community Project

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]

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.

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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Hmm, it's tricky because Wix is fine, so long as it doesn't have those glaring ads...

The domain's not the issue, but the web design is. Unless anyone is going to code us a Wordpress design (which I'm happy to host, as I'm sure are others) then we're going to have to go with something like Wix.

Would be keen to hear what the other unit directors think – y'all have an investment in this!
 
Wordpress is easy tbh using templates i used godaddy in the past cost about £20 or something for the year. You could try moonfruit however. Its super easy drag and drop stuff, can drag in own artwork etc. Can be free with a bit of minor advertisment down the side, tho i would say getting a domain at least is worth it. Mabe tumblr is worth a mention too? not a website as such but would be ok to promote
 
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I think the social media bits and pieces should work in conjunction with a blog page. So maybe Wordpress is ok – I recently set up one where I just tailored the banner to work with one of the white templates and it looks pretty ok (VeryApt.co.uk).

Wheat: When are you planning to complete your shooting? I think we have everything else now, so I guess CF can start editing the first 3/4 of the film.
 
I feel like I keep showing up just to apologize. But yeah, had a rough week nursing and ultimately losing a feline member of our family (RIP Jacques), so I haven't had time to really work on anything.

However, I hit it hard again today. Based on some suggestions here I decided to make a last-ditch effort to mold a wordpress theme to our purposes.
http://threads.sammigirl.com/

The site is empty for the moment, but from a design standpoint, what does everyone think? It's definitely a modern, clean look. But is it too hipstery?

So yeah, if we go with this, then it will be incredibly easy to buy a domain for like 7-14 bucks and host it on my server. No ads, no redirects, all good.

Also, and I'm not sure if we would have been able to do this with wix, with this setup I can create a login for each IT member involved and give you author permissions. Meaning the blog posts, press announcements, and updates can come directly from you and it will show as such.

Oh, and I still need this stuff as mentioned before:
  • Unit Location
  • Team Leader (IT member) name & role on set
  • Crew list w/positions
  • Cast list
  • Short paragraph about your team. Filmmaking background? Some words of enthusiasm about the project? Press release-style quotations? Up to you, but get me sumpthin.
 
RIP Jaques – Never an easy thing to do, but, ultimately, the right thing.

Site looks great. I love the new Threads logo, and the whiskey vibe (especially the Est. 2014 bit). All looks good to me. If we settle on a domain we want, I'm happy to pay for that as I haven't had any shoot expenditures.
 
Site looks good! Perhaps a touch "hipstery", making it a little hard to distinguish from the crowd. But overall it's really nice. If you wanted/had the time, you could maybe make it a little more low-fi to suit the project (unsure how exactly you'd do that though).

I'll get back to you soon re: that info.
 
- > busy, busy, busy
Since we missed the IFFR deadline for this year, I'm no longer in a big rush to shoot stuff for the opening. :P
Besides that I'm in the middle of a couple of paid projects that take up my time for now.
So, it's really about available time.
 
Ok, Im failing, but dont give up on me! Is this preventing editing, or is CF able to make progress anyway?

That's ok Wheat – I don't know whether it's a scheduling issue or whether you're just lacking the excitement, but we won't give up! The vast majority has been shot now, so I think that CF can certainly start work on the edit (please chime in here!) and wait for the rest of your footage.

That said, it would be really good for us to set a date for that footage to be shot and then stick to it 100%. I note that when you start posting stuff on Facebook about a production, that's when you seem to be really committed to filming it, so why not start posting on FB again? ;)

Could we get it all shot in the next 2 weeks?
 
Really need some updates from people, otherwise I'm going to start badgering via email.

Wheat: ETA on your shoot dates?

CF: Have you received all the footage? I know you said that you were hitting a busy period, but will we still be able to get a cut from you in reasonable time?
 
I'm in deadline paradise now...
tonight I'm doing a presentation myself plus 2 projects in post that need to be done asap.

I need to do:
- send dready info, pictures, etc.
- shoot a little interview with me
- edit some BTS stuff
- shoot and record some stuff for the opening

I want to get:
- some stuff for the opening
- more or less precise locations of the scenes to make a google earth animation while I still can.

CF has all my footage :)
 
I'm in deadline paradise now...
tonight I'm doing a presentation myself plus 2 projects in post that need to be done asap.

I need to do:
- send dready info, pictures, etc.
- shoot a little interview with me
- edit some BTS stuff
- shoot and record some stuff for the opening

I want to get:
- some stuff for the opening
- more or less precise locations of the scenes to make a google earth animation while I still can.

CF has all my footage :)

You've been very punctual Walter, so you can relax a bit for the next few weeks.

But we really need to get the remaining scenes filmed, because otherwise everyone's work has to sit on a shelf. I know Wheat will be on it, it'd just be good to know when.
 
You are right: it would be nice to know when Wheat can continue.
He has a lot on his plate as well, I guess.

Time to relax? Me?
No yet :P
After my deadlines I'll be editing stuff for a TV show.
And I need to practise with my new gear:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRoNebAtFeM

Too bad Wheatis so far away, otherwise I could help him out: the final scene could use some camera movement :)
 
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