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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rayw said:
As far as genres go: the cheapest SciFi to make are clone and time travel stories, the cheapest horror stories are ghost stories.
Thrillers, especially crime thrillers, also market well. Something like 'Snatch' might be good.
Action and adventure are gonna cost too much, but if you insist - gun fights are cheaper than fist fights.
For the love of God, don't waste time on a drama.
And don't waste non-existant budget on period pieces and super-set building. :rolleyes:
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Thriller sounds like the easiest of these to incorporate a range of filmmakers' styles. It could be cool to have the story include a a group of people from all over meeting on the internet planning "attacks" to get across some message. I imagine what Project Mayhem would have been into had Fight Club been written during this inflated social media era. Just a thought. Since the project will definitely have a hard time being cohesive maybe the story line could play off of that.
 
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One possible idea.. something like V for Vendetta with a mask or Darkman.
We could have the same character in every one of our episodes if we just had him in a mask, different actors could play him and then use one actor to redo all the dialogue
 
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I think instead of trying hide the fact that it is made in several countries with several crews and actors, we should play on the uniqueness of the situation. Not that intertwining stories haven't been done before. But trying to make it seem as if its the same character across a number of scenes takes that away (and potentially is hard to find the exact same mask/costume/body types of actors). Although a character that has several bodies/forms could be interesting (as long as we don't get bogged down in the sci-fi/fantasy side of that).
 
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NickClapper said:
Your evaluations are good but I do wonder whether they're slightly skewed by the fact that you're looking at profit-making films. I wonder, if you analysed shorts that have been successful at festivals and online, whether you'd get the same generic distinctions.
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Slightly, my eye!
My evaluations are whole heartedly and unabashedly skewed at proft-making films! :yes:

No, I've not done any legit homework on either shorts or the festival circuit. (Which is truly unfortunate because I'm currently engaged in planning both: a short FOR the festival circuit!)

I know traditional one-off shorts make no direct return on investment - BUT - have the potential to showcase a director/producer/team's abilities leading to actual paying gigs.

And I know that even the rare air of major festival showings does not guarantee economically worthwhile distribution deals.

I think there's so much available content of "good enough" quality that serious distributors largely pass over film festivals of all calibers.

However, if we can all agree that all this collective time effort and energy is going to be a fiscal wash from the get go perhaps people such as myself can be free of the shackles of our ROI hopes.

Will we be doing this community project with confidence that we're doing this just to be doing it?
Confident enough to just give/sign away the rights to the final product for almost a song? :contract:

Or is there some occult belief the final film product + accouterments will have some meaningful value?


time2focus said:
Thriller sounds like the easiest of these to incorporate a range of filmmakers' styles. It could be cool to have the story include a a group of people from all over meeting on the internet planning "attacks" to get across some message. I imagine what Project Mayhem would have been into had Fight Club been written during this inflated social media era. Just a thought. Since the project will definitely have a hard time being cohesive maybe the story line could play off of that.
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You know... that's not a bad idea at all. It's actually pretty good. :yes:

I listen to public radio (NPR/PRI) almost exclusively and they're fairly keen on these stories about cyber security and hactivists like 'Annonymous.'

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group)
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacktivism

I've no idea who's in the current project screenwriter brain trust but this should be a viable techo-thriller option.

If some SciFi horror angle can be worked into it that'd be cherry gold.
 
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If I may offer a suggestion...

Do a documentary from the future - "How People Survived After the Apocalypse" or something like that. This resolves the issue of different shooting styles from all over the world as some of it can become "found" footage. It also allows some of our financially challenged members to work within their gear, so the project doesn't become an "IndieTalk Elite" project.


Just my two ducats...

Peace,

Uncle Bob
 
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I'm in there like swimwear! In Richmond, I can definitely gather a few cats together for a short. People in their 20s, that's who I can reliably wrangle. For something of this nature, I'd say the cast on my end would top out at 4 people.

If any of you East-Coast cats wanna meet somewhere central, I'd be overjoyed to join an IT production team. sfoster and IDOM, how would you feel about shooting in either Baltimore or DC? Philly would be a bit too far for me to make a day-trip (or even a two-day trip for this). I'd actually prefer that, instead of shooting on my own in RVA. (note - if I were to travel to Baltimore or DC for a one or two day shoot, it'd have to not be on the weekend)

Of course I can also lend my editing skills. Around the same time-frame, I've got my first actual paid filmmaking gig, so of course that comes first, but it sounds like this would not be too huge a commitment.

Hey, all you MAYBES -- peer pressure, peer pressure, all the cool kids are doing it, peer pressure!
 
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Baltimore wouldn't be a problem for me, 30 minute drive.
I also have access to a nice pool and woods where I'm at.. in baltimore i have a friend that owns a sushi restaurant

A weekday shoot may be harder for some of my crew but not an issue for me. This seems to be more about IT regulars anyway, if my usual people are busy that doesn't bother me.
 
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AudioPostExpert said:
Exactly! Although, I'm not sure a BTS doc is the best or most practical format. For example, I don't own a decent video camera and even if I did, I work in a darkened room (with the film being projected) and seeing the actual detail of the precise tools I'm using and how I'm using them would be boring to watch and not applicable to most no budget indie filmmakers anyway. I believe it's the process which would be invaluable......

G
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A video diary could be cool: venting your frustration about the poor sound or strange language from the Dutch Division :P

If it will become a longer BTS documentary, some frustrations, errors and problems will keep things interested ;)

About marketing:
at least in every area a team is working the local/national press should be informed when shooting starts (so they can send someone for an interview and a picture), when it's shot (we send our own picture(s) ), when it's finished and when it's released. Local press like local news, but since it's an international project it could attract 'larger coverage'.
We can send published articles with the second, third and fourth press release.

And don't forget blogs and magazines.

A dedicated Twitter account to share pictures, messages, short (BTS) clips from a dedicated YT channel (I could make a channel and make a few people administrator, but I guess I'm not the only YT-partner here who can manage up to 50 channels).


About genre:
something needs to connect all the locations.
I'm going to send Nick a (weird?) suggestion :P
And it's a little bit of sci-fi, hopefully it can be done without leaning too much on VFX.
 
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A lot of really good suggestions coming through, both in terms of the project's nature (don't worry, I've taken them all onboard) and also marketing/BTS stuff.

My personal opinion is that an open thread detailing the process will inevitably come about, but it can't be regulated for quality and may become unruly (this thread is already 4 pages long) which makes it hard for prospective filmmakers to digest. The benefit of doing a BTS video is that A) filmmakers tend to prefer to watch a video than read a long rambling thread, and B) it presents the project in its intended arena.

I'd suggest that those without access to cameras record an audio track which can be laid over footage from the film, BTS stuff, script annotations...etc, to give it a visual edge. I don't think not having a camera would necessarily be a problem. There are plenty of good documentaries (I'm thinking things like Senna) where you never see the talking heads, just hear their voices.

@WalterB: You certainly seem to have some great ideas for marketing. I'm thinking that we should perhaps come up with a name for the project (not the film itself) so that we can start thinking about how to promote it. Because we're going to be chronicling the process from start to finish, there's no reason we can't kick off straight away. Any ideas?
 
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I will certainly contribute to the project in whatever way I can be of use -- hopefully in a useful capacity -- assuming it can done on a shoestring. :)

* meant to add that I'm still new to the Boston area so I don't know that many (hardly any) actors yet. Working on that...
 
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There definitely seem to be a good number of people who want to participate in this which is great. I'm going to start thinking more practically about the script in the next couple of days. Those people who are down for taking part in the project, I'd like you to fill out this form (this is only for shooting units, I will do another form for post-production) to facilitate crafting the script to our resources:

Community Project Form!
 
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Just read the form. Hadn't thought about the mockumentary (comedy of course) genre, but that seems like it might be the most forgiving in terms of production quality as well as collecting a disparate mix of footage from all over the globe, which lends itself to a documentary feel. #thumbsupforthat

The "found footage" genre plays into this, too.
 
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'Global Movie Experience' is the first 'project name' that pops into my mind.

About the marketing ideas: after 7 years running my own company I should have collected some knowledge and ideas, I guess ;)
A lot is common sense, but people tend to overlook things like local press. Everyone seems focussed on social media alone nowadays, while there is a partly different audience to reach out to as well. Besides that: TV shows still read papers to find subjects. :P

From a marketing perspective it could be cool to make a promo / trailer with shots from previous projects of different teams to announce the project while writing isn't even finished yet. Maybe even some very short quotes from 'interviews' with different directors.
However this marketing effort will be intereting and educational we all must bear in mind this will take time to do as well. It's not something I can do all by myself: I have a business to run as well.
 
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I'm loving where this thread is going. Personally I'm still mulling over what resources I could guarantee filming wise.

However, if we want to have a more controlled and cohesive thing to follow (besides a thread on here) I have some passable skills in web design and could set up and take care of the technical side of the blog. I've got plenty of server space.

I'm not much of a copy writer but I can collate posts from the different units (off the top of my head I think it would be good to "name" the units even if it's just Unit A or Team New England, something straight forward), and get stuff streamlined in format and posted on the site.

As far as the project goes I definitely think the nature of the project should be self-evident in the name. So, world, global, united, film, indie, collective, etc. My first thought was something along the lines of 'Worldwide Film Cooperative' ... idk, just shooting ideas in the dark.
 
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Just to confirm, met with my core team and we're definitely on board. Answered your Google doc survey as specifically as I could. Truth is we have a wealth of exterior location options, and sourcing interiors may also be possible. Similarly we are spoiled for choice when it comes to actors in this area. ;)
 
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Flicker Pictures said:
Just read the form. Hadn't thought about the mockumentary (comedy of course) genre, but that seems like it might be the most forgiving in terms of production quality as well as collecting a disparate mix of footage from all over the globe, which lends itself to a documentary feel. #thumbsupforthat

The "found footage" genre plays into this, too.
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I agree that this is perhaps the easiest route to go, but I think that it's, in a way, a bit lazy. Obviously, it's a great way of making sure that footage matching isn't a problem, and of reconciling differences in quality, but at the same time it's not a very good test of filmmaking on a practical level. FrankLad did a great mockumentary 'Hickory Never Bleeds' because it was really consistent in its aesthetic, but I've seen some crowd sourced documentary work which is just all over the place and a little lazy.

WalterB said:
Just to stay ahead of 'pirates':
tweeps can follow the project's Twitter: http://twitter.com/@GlobalMovieXp
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Ha, great, we can broadcast to our three followers!

Thanks to those who have already filled in the form, it's really useful to me. Would be great if more of you would fill it in as it also contains information about people's genre preferences and how much they feel is realistic to shoot.

Tomorrow, I will pitch a couple of loglines in order to get feedback and responses about them before I develop anything further. And, obviously, there's still plenty more time for people to sign up, and for those Maybes to turn into big ol' Yeses!
 
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NickClapper said:
..................

Ha, great, we can broadcast to our three followers!
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Of which 2 of them are you and I :P
It's just a start, I hope...

NickClapper said:
Thanks to those who have already filled in the form, it's really useful to me. Would be great if more of you would fill it in as it also contains information about people's genre preferences and how much they feel is realistic to shoot.

Tomorrow, I will pitch a couple of loglines in order to get feedback and responses about them before I develop anything further. And, obviously, there's still plenty more time for people to sign up, and for those Maybes to turn into big ol' Yeses!
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I'm curious!

I still need to contact my 'resources': it's busy with work in here.
 
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NickClapper said:
I agree that this is perhaps the easiest route to go, but I think that it's, in a way, a bit lazy. Obviously, it's a great way of making sure that footage matching isn't a problem, and of reconciling differences in quality, but at the same time it's not a very good test of filmmaking on a practical level. FrankLad did a great mockumentary 'Hickory Never Bleeds' because it was really consistent in its aesthetic, but I've seen some crowd sourced documentary work which is just all over the place and a little lazy.
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If I may ... :)

I totally agree with this. I don't think we should try to explain away the differences in <resources/experience> by conforming to a genre where that necessarily makes sense. Think of it not so much as "what gear/experience" a given unit is working with, but "what look" can that unit create and how can that work within a given part of the larger narrative.

We're always telling folks around here to not get so caught up in gear obsessions, focus on storytelling, and work with what's best suited to their available resources. Without trying to derail this conversation into that one (there are plenty of copies of it in the camera section for those who want a recap, lol) maybe we should put our money where our mouth is and not worry about it so much?

Sound, Prod Design, and Lighting differences will be the most notable anyway, but I'm not sure the differences will be wide enough to warrant constraining ourselves into "explaining" it away with genre.

Just a thought.
 
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