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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Hmm... the more I think about it, #1 would be better. We could also use the alien video as a marketing tool, releasing bits and fragments, pieces of audio, video, and perhaps some blurry pictures.

Anyone have any ideas for titles?
 
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rats in the walls

the idea being that with the arrival of advanced disinterested aliens, we are no longer the dominate life form on this planet. If you want to survive you have to live like rats on a ship, in the walls and out of sight.

Actually though, I don't like that story idea for this project. I think we need more development of the story before a title can make any sense.
 
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Yes, don't worry about titles for the time being. Once all the technical components are in place, I will try and write a script that utilises all the talent that we have available in cogent and compelling manner.

It seems like #1 is getting a lot of traction, which I like. I think it has the possibility to be really compelling and explore the nature of skepticism versus faith, on a global level.

We would need the supposedly viral footage of the UFO to be quite convincing, which means there is some VFX involved. I remember FrankLad (who hasn't been around these parts for a while) did a UFO test that I thought was pretty damn neat. Let me try and find it...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz3tgRJ0vWY

That video is really well done, in my opinion. We would then want to build a fake YouTube page (I think Ray and/or Dready might have experience of this?) so that we can embed the video there but control things like view count and comments...etc.
 
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Somewhere in Google+ is the ability to create a commercial identity - which has a YouTube account automatically generated when created, so...
Gopherit!
Make a sub account, do some tests, upload, keep on the down-low or tout them from e rooftops (honestly a better route.)
 
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Franks video is fantastic.. but would need to be updated to cell phone not VCR style.. so HD etc.

Lets get a little bit more story, at least enough to know what the viral video actually needs to do.. maybe there is some hidden detail that needs to be revealed at some later time, or there are several videos, not just one..
 
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Faking a youtube page shouldn't be a problem, especially if it just is for the sake of the screen as that's really just a shop job and then composite a video in there. Making a functional one for viral/interactive marketing would be marginally harder, but not out of reach.
 
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Do you guys want invading, probing (military recon, not rectal :rolleyes:), or visiting aliens?
We just doing ships in the sky or are there gonna be little greys peeking about corners at night?


And I apologize for not noticing this until just now, but is all of this global coordination for a short rather than a feature?
Really?
And a rather lengthy ~20min short at that? :weird:
 
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I'm in.
Of the ideas presented, I like #1 the most.
I was thinking that we could do a last day of the Earth collaborative. Imagine you were informed that the Earth will cease to exist tomorrow/next week/whenever soon, what would you do? Now imagine if a group of amateur filmmakers came together from around the world, using an internet forum as a clearing house, to tell the story of the human race and our brief time on this planet in a narrative film. The filmmakers would know that, since the internet is relayed via satellite, the signal would go on long after the Earth was destroyed. You could have the end be either aliens/pre-humans/exo-planetary explorers/whatever viewing the finished film or set it up as if the viewer is the alien.

I also would rather the finished project be feature length if possible.
 
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wheatgrinder said:
Franks video is fantastic.. but would need to be updated to cell phone not VCR style.. so HD etc.

Lets get a little bit more story, at least enough to know what the viral video actually needs to do.. maybe there is some hidden detail that needs to be revealed at some later time, or there are several videos, not just one..
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That's a good point about cell phone style.

You're right, the video should be considered until the story is down. I just wanted to make sure, if that's the storyline we're going with, that someone will be able to create that video. Cos, otherwise, it'll be a bit of a non-starter.

Dreadylocks said:
Faking a youtube page shouldn't be a problem, especially if it just is for the sake of the screen as that's really just a shop job and then composite a video in there. Making a functional one for viral/interactive marketing would be marginally harder, but not out of reach.
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I just meant a fake YouTube page that all the units would have access to and would be a sort of unifying prop across the world.

rayw said:
I apologize for not noticing this until just now, but is all of this global coordination for a short rather than a feature?
And a rather lengthy ~20min short at that? :weird:
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Lucky Hardwood said:
I also would rather the finished project be feature length if possible.
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Let's walk before we can run.

So many community projects have gone bust during my time at Indietalk, that I don't have a great deal of confidence in projects magically happening. My first priority with this one is to produce a completed film made by IT members. Having made a feature film in the last couple of years, I believe the organisation of that length of project to be a different matter altogether. Over-ambition has killed these things in the past, and I want to get this one actually made.

If this project works and we produce a really neat short film, then I'd definitely encourage another group of Indietalkers to try and make a feature film community project. But, for now, this is going to be a short project, and that's all that I, personally, would be willing to undertake in this format.
 
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NickClapper said:
Let's walk before we can run.

... But, for now, this is going to be a short project, and that's all that I, personally, would be willing to undertake in this format.
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Fair enough, and thank you.
Good argument.

May I suggest that, at a minimum, this short project should be designed not only as a stand alone product but also as the prequel to a feature.

Don't make a short that could be fluffed and embellished into a feature, but one that introduces a universe + characters that a shorts audience would want to pursue interest in following further.

Essentially, a four act story with two first acts, the first of which is a complete story itself.

I wish I had some good examples of "complete story"' first act films off the top of my head.
Sadly, the only thing that comes to mind is 'Chronicles of Riddick' (I feel embarrassed) from its opening to Riddick's capture and transportation to the prison planet. All primary story elements have been introduced by then except for the introduction of Riddick pseudo-love interest.

Again, just a construct approach consideration.

Aliens arrive, protag + co-protag + antag + sub-antag introduced, leave love interest as macguffin for the feature.
Perhaps the govt. has captured the love interest and provided her/him to the aliens for purpose X, protag spends this prequel finding her before losing her.
All elements are in place for protag to go find her/him again while achieving a greater goal for many.
SciFi adventure thriller.
 
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Great post Ray.

Am on my phone so can't reply as fully as I'd like but I think that's a go idea. In my head, this short is becoming an origins story about the possibility of extra-terrestrial life on earth. I will definitely design it so that some of the characters in the film could go on to become the protagonists of a feature length version. This will be a complete story, but it will leave off at a place where a feature length sequel could take up.

Think of it as a prologue...
 
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Perhaps we should start off just making videos that hopefully go viral. So each of us will shoot footage in some location we have access to, then (a) VFX artist(s) can do their magic and create some creepy alien videos. Those can get released on one channel, spread it on as many sites as possible, and hope that some gullible schmucks will fall for it and share it around themselves. At the end of the videos, we provide a link to the website for the film, where people can sign up to see either more alien videos, recordings, and so on and so forth. Then we can release a short centered around the video, which we can either post to Youtube, or perhaps we release the alien clips, then they are redirected to the website, where they can view the "mysterious video" by signing up and/or stream it for cheap (which would be the short film). The short film could be a prequel to something bigger.
 
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ChimpPhobiaFilms said:
Perhaps we should start off just making videos that hopefully go viral. So each of us will shoot footage in some location we have access to, then (a) VFX artist(s) can do their magic and create some creepy alien videos. Those can get released on one channel, spread it on as many sites as possible, and hope that some gullible schmucks will fall for it and share it around themselves. At the end of the videos, we provide a link to the website for the film, where people can sign up to see either more alien videos, recordings, and so on and so forth. Then we can release a short centered around the video, which we can either post to Youtube, or perhaps we release the alien clips, then they are redirected to the website, where they can view the "mysterious video" by signing up and/or stream it for cheap (which would be the short film). The short film could be a prequel to something bigger.
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It's the wrong order.
For a few reasons:
- the story isn't written yet, so we don't know yet what footage would fit to gain some buzz
- going viral months in advance is 'peaking too soon': we need a viral when the project is finished and ready to launch.

So when the story is written, we can think of the actual marketing content.

Ofcourse, we can upload something to see whether it gets picked up in an early stage. But putting a lot of efford in making it noticed before we have more to folluw up with, will be to soon.
Any YouTube partner can create up to 50 youtube channels (or at least I can), and can make other Google+ accounts admistrator to upload videos.

ANYWAY:
This is going to be a cool experience :)

At the moment I'm in post for 2 projects and preparing for an exposition a trade fair.
After Easter I'll have my assets list :)
But this week I expect my core team responds :)
 
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Walter is spot on - there are a lot of other elements that we need to work on before we can consider marketing. But it's a good idea for our eventual marketing strategy!

There are another few days for people to sign up, and then I'll start work on a first draft of the script (I'll try and get a first draft out within a week). For those people who are still down as 'Maybe' on the OP, please let me know if you'd like to become a 'Yes'. Otherwise I won't know to write scenes for your shooting unit in the script...
 
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I don't really have a unit or a team to speak of here in Boston; it's just me and a camera with scant resources. If it helps serve the script I do have access to a local state park (link here http://goo.gl/maps/ByAnn) with several miles of wooded trails, a reservoir and an interesting stone tower that overlooks the city. Might be able to get an actor or two out there during daylight hours, assuming the content fits the location and vice versa.

I'll do what I can.

FYI - the reservoir is off limits to swimming, boats and recreation.
 
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ChimpPhobiaFilms said:
Perhaps we should start off just making videos that hopefully go viral. So each of us will shoot footage in some location we have access to, then (a) VFX artist(s) can do their magic and create some creepy alien videos. Those can get released on one channel, spread it on as many sites as possible, and hope that some gullible schmucks will fall for it and share it around themselves. At the end of the videos, we provide a link to the website for the film, where people can sign up to see either more alien videos, recordings, and so on and so forth. Then we can release a short centered around the video, which we can either post to Youtube, or perhaps we release the alien clips, then they are redirected to the website, where they can view the "mysterious video" by signing up and/or stream it for cheap (which would be the short film). The short film could be a prequel to something bigger.
Click to expand...

I like this idea. But if we want to make it really viral marketing, we should come up with some fake non-profit society for whatever phenomenon it is. Complete with really crappy 90's-style website.
 
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Nick, what sort of tone are you thinking for this piece? Something in the vein of X-Files and Millennium? Dark, serious, suspense, intrigue, conspiracy...

Those are just two "aliens cometh" shows that come to mind. There are many others.
 
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