Month: September 2017

Bri Castellini: How To GET FIT While Making Your Indie Film – @BrisOwnWorld

by Bri Castellini

Hey you. Yeah, you. The sleep-deprived indie filmmaker who just tried to film 25 script pages in a single day. Things seem bleak, but there’s a silver lining to this whole mess of a process- you could be making your passion project AND getting fit at the same time!

Here’s how!

  1. Don’t eat on set. You don’t have time to stop working anyways!
  2. Insist on setting up all the equipment alone. It’s your project, after all, and people will judge you if you aren’t doing enough to help out.
  3. Take public transportation to and from every shoot. Nothing says “FITNESS” like carrying a 50 pound lighting kit up and down subway stairs while balancing a costume bag on your head.
  4. Only write walk and talk scenes. Not only will this filming style keep the energy up in a scene, but you’ll get to 10,000 steps on your FitBit NO PROBLEM!
  5. Stare into the void. The void doesn’t care that you’re hungry or tired and will offer no sympathy, so you may as well get over it.
  6. Offer actors piggy-back rides to and from holding. Your cast will appreciate the break, plus you’ll really tone those glutes.
  7. Have all of your equipment with you all the time. Sure, it’s inconvenient to drag your lighting kit to the park when there’s nowhere to plug in, but you never know, and your biceps have never looked better!
  8. If you MUST eat on set, only eat fruit snacks. Fruit is good for you.
  9. Buy costumes one size too small for yourself. Nothing says “thinspiration” like constant discomfort and self-loathing!
  10. Always be working. Done with one project? Start another! If you’re a workaholic, you can’t ALSO be a chocoholic! #Logic #Paleo

What are YOUR Get Fit Tips for indie filmmakers? Tell me in the comments! read article

David Perlis: COVER LETTER TIME – Yikes!!!

 

Who needs a button when we have ourselves?

by David Perlis

Last week I applied for a position at BOOM! Studios. Here is my cover letter:

Dear F K, read article

Jenji Kohan’s Hot Provocations

Jenji Kohan, creator of Orange is the New Black and Weeds, plus a ton of other (mostly) TV comedy hits, has a lot to say about TV, the TV biz, and the place of women in that particular workplace. Her story is one we should all know, regardless of gender and all those other diversity, um divergences:

by Emily Nussbaum

Devon Shepard met Jenji Kohan, the creator of “Orange Is the New Black” and “Weeds,” twenty-four years ago, when they were writers for the NBC sitcom “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.” Shepard, a former standup comedian, got into the business serendipitously, after he clowned on a square producer at a black barbershop in Los Angeles. Kohan, who had recently graduated from Columbia, was a rung down from Shepard—a “baby writer,” in Hollywood lingo. But “she was fun, a whole lot of energy, a sponge,” he said. Kohan wanted to learn dominoes—the “loud and outrageous” street version—and they began playing bones in an office they shared, trading stories about growing up black in South Central and Jewish in Beverly Hills. “I made the room cool,” Shepard said. “People were, like, ‘What’s going on in there?’ ”

This was in 1993, a year after the L.A. riots, and at “Fresh Prince,” which starred Will Smith as a Philly street kid sent to live with rich relatives, the writers’ room was a toxic mess. The staff—which included Smith’s bodyguard and his cousin—kept crazy hours and fought non-stop. There were cruel pranks: someone peed in a colleague’s bottle of tequila. Kohan was one of two female writers, and the only white woman. Her nickname was White Devil Jew Bitch. Shepard was one of her few allies. read article

Kim Dotcom Wants K.im to Trigger a “Copyright Revolution”

As the trailer above for a new film about his situation indicates, Kim Dotcom probably has been accused of being the world’s most successful – as in richest – intellectual property pirate and currently is fighting extradition to the U.S. from New Zealand. Which makes the following article about his current plans even more fascinating than it might otherwise have been:

by Ernesto

Kim Dotcom hopes that his new file-sharing service K.im will create a “copyright revolution.” The platform will offer a secure platform for people to share files and get paid for them while offering copyright holders the option to monetize piracy.

For many people Kim Dotcom is synonymous with Megaupload, the file-sharing giant that was taken down by the U.S. Government early 2012. read article

John Ostrander: Should This Man Be Considered A Role Model?

by John Ostrander

“I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me.”

—Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1

Joss Whedon created Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and is credited with writing strong female roles and espousing feminist ideals – but not by his ex-wife, Kai Cole, who on the blog The Wrap accused him of being a serial cheater during their marriage and was a “hypocrite preaching feminist ideals.” This has led to a number of (now ex) fans venting their anger and feelings of betrayal. read article