Pump the brakes. Am I to understand that George A. Romero, the MAN behind ZOMBIES, wrote a Resident Evil screenplay in 1998, complete with the original game characters and settings, and it DIDN’T get greenlit?
No, instead we have to suffer through the fourth installment of this:
Just stop, Paul W.S. Anderson. You are butchering my beloved franchise.
Saw this coming. Pun intended.
The song lyric “I’m so 2008” in this “All New User Experience” BlackBerry commercial is pretty ironic.
Congrats, RIM. Welcome to 2008.
Punishment for losing a game of Crossfire? Banishment to some terrible alternate dimension. Little extreme, in my opinion.
Scattered about my bedroom are roughly a dozen books on filmmaking, all of which I can proudly say I have not read. These books are purchased by film students like myself in hopes that reading them cover-to-cover will magically make them a rockstar director; the odds of them or me doing so are about the same as them actually finishing the book, which is often thicker than a phonebook and about as obsolete.
As I near the end of shooting on my first actual production, My Sixties Girl, I can almost assure you that these books will provide virtually zero knowledge on how to be a filmmaker. Practically everything I garnered from the casual skimming of these books rarely applied on my film, save for one quote that I read, a quote that I will impart to you now:
“A director who can edit is an empowered director.”
The quote followed a half-page discussing the ubiquity of modern video editing technology, and suggested that independent filmmakers need not despair if they do not have an editor lined up, but embrace it as an opportunity to invest in non-linear editing software and take a stab at editing their own film.
The quote stuck with me, and led to my decision to edit my own senior thesis film, something that other Senior Project members have opted against, be it lack of desire, equipment, or capability. After editing about half the film so far, (on Temple’s beautiful new Mac Pro workstations, no less) I can say that this statement has never rung more true to me. If a film is truly made in the editing room, then I want to be at the helm. This has been observed by friends as “control freak.” I prefer the term “creative authority.”
This, of course, doesn’t negate the fact that you should always let several sets of eyes peek through your scenes before declaring final cut; a fresh pair of peepers will assuredly catch something you have missed in your Red Bull-fueled wee hours of the morning. Post a rough cut to Vimeo and don’t make a final cut until you’ve gotten plenty of feedback.
One of my favorite producers and personal idol, J.J. Abrams, closed a speech at TED in March 2007 discussing the “democratization” of the creation of media. Like the half-page before the quote, Abrams points out that the technology necessary to make films - cameras, lights, edit suites - is now ubiquitous, and that “no community is best served when only the elite have control.” Check that speech out here:
Then grab a computer and start editing. =)
At a Facebook status’s request, I looked up my first name in Urban Dictionary. Fairly pleased with all results.
A little sneak peek at a scene from my first upcoming short, My Sixties Girl. The color still needs a bit of correcting, but I am otherwise thrilled with the hard work done by my cast and crew.
Give them a follow on Twitter or buy ‘em a beer if you know them. Because after this film is completed, I’ll be too broke to.
My sister was just accepted into the University of Miami.
And Mom was just looking for an excuse to loudly warble the lyrics to Will Smith’s “Miami.”
Philadelphia-based writer and producer.
