Joseph Foley admits on Creative Bloq that “I can’t get enough of these incredible Ghanaian film posters.”
Posters advertise movies. Thirty years ago in Ghana, the mobile cinema scene (entrepreneurs with vans, generators, TVs, VCRs and collections of VHS videotapes) needed posters to advertise their screenings. Hence the Ghanaian Film Poster.
Deadly Prey Gallery in Chicago sells prints of these posters. You can also commission the artists.
My take: these posters are fantastic!
The CBC reports that Bill C-11, the Online Streaming Act, was passed and received royal assent on Thursday, April 27, 2023: Controversial bill to regulate online streaming becomes law.
“The bill makes changes to Canada’s Broadcasting Act. The legislation requires streaming services, such as Netflix and Spotify, to pay to support Canadian media content like music and TV shows. It also requires the platforms to promote Canadian content. Specifically, the bill says ‘online undertakings shall clearly promote and recommend Canadian programming, in both official languages as well as in Indigenous languages.’ The changes give the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), Canada’s broadcast regulator, broad powers over digital media companies, including the ability to impose financial penalties for violations of the act. The government says the legislation is necessary to impose the same regulations and requirements in place for traditional broadcasters on online media platforms. Right now, broadcasters are required to spend at least 30 per cent of their revenue on supporting Canadian content.”
The bill doesn’t prescribe how the CRTC should direct undertakings to do this: “But the government is expected to clarify many areas of uncertainty through a policy directive to the CRTC. A Senate amendment that the House of Commons accepted requires the CRTC to hold public consultations on how it will use its new regulatory powers.”
Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, is an outspoken skeptic of the legislation. He speculates that:
“The legislation will head to its next phase including a policy direction consultation that will seek to clean up at least some of the uncertainty in the bill (that Bill C-11 was subject to so much scrutiny yet still leaves so much unanswered is hard to explain), followed by years of CRTC hearings and appeals. Sometime in the future – best guess would be 2025 or 2026 – digital creators will have been forced to make multiple trips to Gatineau to urge a hands-off regulatory approach and the industry will find that the bill generates far less than it expected. Further, those modest benefits will be accompanied by revised Canadian content policies that will leave some doubting whether the trade-off was worth it.”
My take: I worry about the concentration of administrative power in an unelected government-appointed board. And the unintended consequences! For instance, will smaller streamers just forgo Canada if this will increase their operating expenses? Will the definition of Canadian content change so much that the domestic television industry is threatened? Will the government be able to censor Canadian UGC? Cannot predict now.
The new Relight FX in Blackmagic Design‘s DaVinci Resolve Studio is amazing!
“The new Relight FX lets you add virtual light sources into a scene to creatively adjust environmental lighting, fill dark shadows or change the mood. Light sources can be directional to cast a broad light, a point source, or a spotlight and be adjusted for surface softness and specularity control.“
My take: wow! This looks like so much fun. I can see using Relight instead of a power window to punch up illumination on the subject, drawing the eye exactly where you want it to go. This tool brings new meaning to the phrase, “We’ll fix it in Post!”
Telefilm Canada invites the industry to participate in the Canada Media Fund’s newly launched national #CanConDef survey focused on the Canadian audiovisual sector’s views on how the current definition of “Canadian content” could evolve and contribute to the conversation following the passage of Bill C-11, the Online Streaming Act.
The 10-15-minute survey is open to all individuals who work in or aspire to work in Canada’s audiovisual production and broadcasting sectors. It’s designed to be widely accessible, regardless of role, level of experience, or knowledge regarding Canadian content policy.
The survey will close on March 31, 2023. Click HERE to fill out the survey.
My take: please fill out this survey as it has the potential to shake up the film and TV scene in Canada for decades to come. Just ask all the Canadian Music Icons who owe their careers to MAPL, also known as CanCon, established in 1971, over 50 years ago. It’s a long survey so have a drink nearby.
There’s a new streamer in Canada: JustWatchMe.tv
As reported by Jordan Pinto on C21Media, Michael Dobbin‘s Capital Motion Picture Group has launched Canadian streamer JustWatchMe.tv offering indie films.
He quotes Dobbin:
“If big streamers are like a shiny fast-food chain, where you always know what you’re getting, we’re the food truck parked across the street with daily specials and better ingredients. We’re hoping that JustWatchMe.tv can grow to feel like home for Canadian producers and their content, which we all love but rarely get to see.”
Most content on the service will be free. A premium tier will be $4.99 per month.
My take: Hey Michael, let’s talk about doing a web series!
It’s not often that former astronauts will use cinematographic terms to describe their philosophies.
But that’s just what Ron Garan did in this Big Think video. Titled, “I went to space and discovered an enormous lie,” in it Ron describes the “Overview Effect” — the transformative cognitive shift reported by some while viewing the Earth from space.
He then reveals his philosophy and how living a dolly zoomed life helps him achieve it:
“One of the tools that we can use is a term that I borrowed from cinematography called a dolly zoom. And what a dolly zoom is, is where the camera is rolled back, or dollied back, at the same rate as the lens is zoomed in, and it was used in “Jaws” and “Vertigo” and many other films. And what the filmmakers use that technique for is to give altitude to a scene, and as the foreground stays the same and the background stretches. But we could also apply that term to the challenges that we face. If we dolly zoom a situation, that means that we zoom out to the widest geographical area we possibly can, ideally the entire planet, but as we zoom out to that big picture, we don’t lose focus on the worms-eye details on the ground. We don’t zoom out to the point where people become numbers on a spreadsheet or a workforce or a voting block or a consumer block. They maintain their value as valued members of our human society. There’s also a temporal aspect to this. We need to zoom out to the longest time frame possible, ideally multi-generational, but in the process, we can’t lose sight of the short term. The last part of a dolly zoom is to see things from different perspectives, and so we understand the depth of our problem, and that makes our solutions that much more lasting and that much more effective…. What I try and do is to live a constant dolly-zoomed life. I wake up every morning in my bed, but I also wake up on a planet.“
My take: As we start a new year, I love this perspective: Think Globally, Act Locally.
James DeRuvo reports on No Film School that A Film Was Written and Directed by AI—Here’s the How and What You Can Learn.
He posits how AI was used in the workflow makes an interesting case study of how these types of tools can help filmmakers create movies. ChatGPT was utilized to not only generate some ideas for a short film, but to also write the script, create a shot list, and in essence direct the film.
“With the help of ChatGPT of OpenAI, we were able to not only get it to write us a full script, but also have it direct us in the production of this short film. We were able to ask ChatGPT to give us a full shot list, suggest specific instructions for the Director of Photography and camera operators (choice of camera lenses, camera movements and lighting requirements), recommend wardrobe preferences, and even give us specific prompts to let Dall-E 2 create a full storyboard.”
See Aaron Kemmer’s Twitter thread for the whole story.
My take: Looking past the quality of this one film, AI opens up limitless questions. For instance: What are the legal ramifications? What does it mean when everyone can issue prompts for their own personal movies? What happens to the human race if we in effect outsource dreaming to technology?
To celebrate the holiday season, Santa has collected a sack of scripts for your reading pleasure!
Screenwriting is the art and craft of writing scripts for films, television, and other visual media. Screenwriters are responsible for creating the dialogue, plot, and characters for a film or television show. Screenwriting can be a challenging and rewarding career, but it can also be highly competitive. Successful screenwriters often have a strong understanding of storytelling, character development, and the structure of films and television shows, as well as excellent writing skills and the ability to collaborate with others.
They also have to network, constantly promote themselves and be very, very lucky.
Let’s discuss two sources of scripts: The Black List and The Stunt List.
The Black List is an annual compilation of the most popular unproduced screenplays in Hollywood, as determined by a survey of film industry executives. The list is compiled by Franklin Leonard, a former development executive at Warner Bros., and is announced every year in December.
Each year, a group of over 250 film industry executives are invited to participate in the survey, in which they are asked to identify the best unproduced screenplays that they have read in the past year. The screenplays are ranked based on the number of votes they receive, and the top screenplays are included on the Black List.
Scott Myers, of Go Into The Story, provides some excellent analysis of this year’s list:
He also teases out these themes and groupings; well worth exploring:
The Stunt List is a wonderful example of promotion, pitch decks and scripts, collected by Ash Lazer and Eric Moyer.
They list Originals (spec scripts) and Stunts (based on existing IP for entertainment purposes only.) For instance, this stunt script will appeal to fans of SNL and Die Hard: https://www.ericmoyer.com/dielaughing.pdf
My take: reviewing these log lines, pitch decks and scripts is a great education. I really enjoyed Die Laughing — it would make a great group read!
J. Gabriel Ware writes on SlashFilm that Tim Curry Felt ‘Sick’ When Watching The Original Rocky Horror Picture Show.
He quotes a March 1976 Interview Magazine interview of Tim Curry in which he says:
“I can’t really relate to the film very well. I still feel sick when I see it.“
The film he’s referring to is, of course, The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Quoting further:
“For the movie, the producers hired Pierre Laroche, the makeup artist who worked for David Bowie and Mick Jagger and helped pioneer the androgynous glam rock look, to transform Curry into the future horror/musical icon. ‘He kind of adapted the makeup that was already in my case and did a very kind of high fashion version of it,’ Tim Curry told Interview Magazine. Even today, he was not sold on the glam version of Dr. Frank-N-Furter. ‘He got a little more high fashion,’ the actor elaborated. ‘I don’t know whether I like that or not.‘”
He concludes his article with a Bruce Campbell tweet:
While filming Congo, I sat on top of a Volcano talking to Tim Curry about that movie. He said one of the coolest things was that it saved a number of small indie theaters from going under, because they knew that two nights a week Rocky was going to do big business. https://t.co/dvtd6sYm4G
— Bruce Campbell (@GroovyBruce) September 26, 2022
One of those small indie theatres is Victoria’s Vic Theatre, which is playing TRHPS on October 28, 29 and 31, 2022.
In fact, it’s playing in hundreds of cinemas around the world.
Dig into all the B-Movie references in Rocky Horror.
And see how it’s appeared in other movies and TV.
My take: The Rocky Horror Picture Show is one of my favourite cult films. The Big Lebowski is another. Oh, and The Room, of course.
p.s. The Rocky Horror Picture Show is currently on Disney+. Huh?
Rick Castañeda guest posts on No Film School, revealing The 73 Spreadsheets You’ll Need to Finish Your Feature Film.
He kindly shares:
“If you’re thinking about making your own feature film, I’m hoping this gives you an abridged, table-of-contents-style sketch of all the different parts of filmmaking. So many articles and interviews are all about writing, working with actors, camera choice, and the other creative aspects of the film, I thought it might be useful to get into the actual nuts and bolts. We absolutely loved making our film. All these spreadsheets helped us to get there.”
He discusses each one from the perspective of his second feature “All Sorts,” and includes some examples.
I like his advice for Credits:
“Just for keeping track of all the lovely folks who participated on the film. I know you’re thinking this should be in the post-production section, but start this on day one and just add people as they start to come into the life of the film. It’s easier than sitting with a blank slate all the way at the end of the film.”
Here are the titles of most of the spreadsheets Rick used:
Pre-Production Spreadsheets
Production Spreadsheets
Call sheets
Post Spreadsheets
Crowdfunding Spreadsheets
Distribution Spreadsheets
PR/Marketing Spreadsheets
My take: Wow, that’s a lot of spreadsheets! What this actually reveals are the myriad jobs indie filmmakers routinely take on. With more money, each of these activities might be accomplished by a specialist in that one field. When you’re truly indie, you just do it all yourself. No wonder Rick resorted to these spreadsheets to track everything. You should too.