I got mentioned on Twitter recently by tor_twop_1000. They informed me that I had been on Twitter for two years! I had no idea but I was happy to learn of the milestone.
I first started @17west to help promote our films but it eventually led to so much more. My Twitter account is still used primarily to promote 17 West Productions and this blog but it’s also become a fantastic news feed as well as my connection to other filmmakers and artists.
There are so many people who haven’t caught on to Twitter yet and it’s understandable. It took me a while to learn just how powerful it can be. Truthfully, the more you put into Twitter, the more it gives back.
Shortly after starting the account, I found myself following hundreds of people who love movies and screenwriting. I followed screenwriters, directors, production companies, graphic artists, actors and anyone else who tweets about my interests.
My feed is always packed with original blogs written by passionate people. It’s constantly overflowing with links, videos and inspirational thoughts. Discussions erupt in an instant and breaking news is just a quick search away. It’s addicting. Then I started contributing. I started reaching out and joining the conversations. I started promoting other peoples work. For example, it’s so easy to retweet other people’s funding campaigns in the hopes it will gain them more contributions. Why not?
WILL KEVIN SMITH CHANGE INDEPENDENT FILMMAKING FOREVER?
Kevin Smith is right. He definitely generated a ton of hype for the world premiere of Red State at Sundance this year with basically no cost at all. Movie sites, bloggers, fans and critics were all talking about his plan to auction off the distribution rights after the screening.
It was a ballsy move for sure. What if the movie didn’t connect to the audience? Would it blow up in his face?
Little did we know, selling the rights to distribute and market his film was never his intention at all.
Here is his speech after the screening:
His intention was to prove that you could make and distribute a film for far less than the studios spend on films these days. So he bid $20 bucks on his own movie in a symbolic gesture to prove that times are changing in the independent film world.
His plan is simple. Instead of selling a 4 million dollar film to a studio who would then spend 20 million to market the flick, he would distribute the film as part of a cross country tour leading to a theatrical release he would orchestrate himself.
“It’s too much ****ing horse **it, I just want to tell ****ing stories.”
“Why would anyone outside of Hollywood be upset if he found a way to beat the studios at their own game? But the idea that what Smith is trying to do is somehow applicable to small, independent filmmakers is complete nonsense.” Screen Junkies
“Amidst your overlong monologue of self-gratification, you mentioned that instead of having the studios pay to release your film, you were going to have us, the audience, pay you out of our pockets to fund it. Then, in passing, you quickly alluded to a crucial financial figure; for this ‘privilege’ of seeing your flick, we’d each have to pay “six, seven, ten times the price of a normal movie ticket”. (Pre-sale pricing released today confirms ticketing starts at $68.25 for nosebleeds, up to $142.70)You then defended this by adding that you’d follow the screening with a Q&A. What fanboy should (or could) drop that kind of coin to see a film? And now the question that must be asked…would Dante or Randal be able to afford that?” Joblo
Personally, I think HE can pull it off but I’m not entirely sure how that will translate to filmmakers like me who don’t have 1.7 million followers to draw attention to our films.
In all honesty, I think it’s a great idea. I think if it works it will open a lot of doors for him. What he is doing is creating an alternative to the studio system. Can you make a movie without spending ridiculous amounts of money on marketing?
I think it depends on who you ask. Take Christopher Nolan’s Inception. That movie received a ton of marketing cash in addition to the $160 million dollar production budget. The film went on to make more than $800 million world wide. (Boxofficemojo)
Will he ever see those kinds of numbers with his new strategy? Does it even matter? Again, it depends on who you ask. Honestly, I’m looking forward to seeing how well Red State does. He is putting a lot on the line for his first Horror film.
If people do pay large amounts of money, is it because of the film or the Q&A that will follow? What if the film fails? Will his tour have a positive or negative effect once the film reaches theaters?
On the other hand, what if the plan works and he opens a few doors by creating a new distribution model. He could position himself to help and inspire a lot of filmmakers out there. Perhaps other people will follow his lead and start championing lower budget films as well. Perhaps indie filmmakers will be more willing to release their own films as well.
A lot of people complain about the lack of originality in Hollywood these days. Everything depends on the bottom line. Kevin Smith’s new adventure could lead to more and more originality on the big screen thanks to the visions of countless indie filmmakers out there that don’t have access to the studio distribution system. He’s potentially giving aspiring filmmakers another avenue to reach an audience.
I’m pretty pumped to see where this road leads. I hope the tour stops in Toronto eventually because I would definitely pay to see Red State before it’s proposed theatrical run in the fall.
“True independence isn’t making a film and selling it to some jack ass.”
It can be difficult sometimes to get a short film project off the ground. There are thousands of elements that have to fall into place. Crew, Locations, Actors, Schedules, Budgets, Equipment…
Above all else, you need to possess a high level of dedication to a project. You have to believe in the film you are producing. You have to be passionate.
Screenwriter and director David Spies has that passion and used it to produce a brand new short film.
A Musing
Synopsis: Pete Matthews is a writer that hasn’t penned a word in three years. He’s under the pressure of his deadline-driven literary agent Bill Skinner to make a change for the better, or else… Pete sets out on a local journey to find the “muse” that will unlock his once-prevalent creativity. As his panic builds, he wanders through the streets of everyday life in Seattle and discovers that the key to reviving his imagination may just rest with a local liquor mart cashier. After several unsuccessful attempts to find personal inspiration through music, art and nature, Pete is forced to take a second look at the wisdom of this quirky character.
It begins with a screenplay.
“I spent several years living in Northern California, skiing just about every resort in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. I couldn’t tell you how many movie ideas I would brainstorm while riding a chair lift…”
David’s screenwriting journey literally took him to the mountains and back in a process he refers to as ‘self applied therapy’. (I quite like that terminology.) The Seattle based author enjoys writing horror and comedy with ‘A Musing’ being the latter.
“These were my two favorite genres when I was a kid. I figured the best course of action to fuel my creativity would be; write about what scares me and write about what makes me laugh.”
What fascinates me about other screenwriters is learning about their process. Many stick to strict routines while others write only when the mood hits. It all depends on what inspires you.
A Typical Screenwriting Day
“Most days start very early for me. I fire up the espresso machine and brew a triple grande mocha to get my morning started. My wife and kids are off to work and school and I take our dog Mazzy out for her morning walk. It’s during our walk that I brainstorm my current writing project and come up with several ideas around format, plot, characters and dialog. Once we return from our walk, I get on the computer and browse through news articles, local and current events. Believe it or not… I spend a great amount of time on twitter. I like to find those nuggets of information on screenwriting and filmmaking and share them with the world. In between tweets is usually when I start writing. I always write pen to paper until I have written several pages, then I type in Final Draft. A couple days out of the week I make a morning or afternoon trip to my local Starbucks and write for several hours. I like to people watch and pick up on conversations. This usually leads me to creating new characters and fielding ideas for fresh dialog.”
The Muse That Sparked… The Muse
What inspires a screenwriter? It can truly be anything. A casual glance with a stranger on the street or a moment of clarity while you stare at your ceiling before falling asleep. When it came to ‘A Musing’, David found inspiration on a plane.
“I wrote the first draft of “A Musing” while in-flight from Seattle to Phoenix the first week of June 2010. Inspiration is a funny thing; you never know when it’s going to strike. That was the first thought I had while seated in the plane heading to Phoenix. I built off that thought by imagining the most unobvious place that one might find inspiration; a convenience store. Everyone has passed through a convenience store multiple times, but does inspiration strike while inside one? Probably not… What if the clerk at a convenience store was some kind of oracle of knowledge but he really wasn’t… it was at this point, I had the ending for the story before I had even begun to write. I knew I had something worthy to see on film.”
A Musing: The Film
David partnered with cinematographer and editor Phil Seneker. The two combined forces to start gathering all the elements needed to get the film made. The team took their project to Kickstarter hoping to leverage large twitter followings and savvy social media skills to secure the funding they needed.
It’s truly incredible what you can do when you use social media sites like Twitter to your advantage. The filmmaking community online is extremely helpful and through many contacts, websites and other sources of traffic, they reached their goal.
“I built our website www.amusingfilm.com. We received so much support from the filmmaking community on our project, we moved forward with “plan A” the entire duration of our campaign. Julie Keck and Jessica King provided outstanding support for ‘A Musing’ by creating a video just for us! Additional support came from being featured on Rex Sikes Movie Beat. During our radio interview with Rex, we met and exceeded our Kickstarter goal! It was awesome!”
Every film set is different yet they all share many similarities when it comes to scheduling, locations and various unforeseen challenges. True, there are some nightmares every now and then but I truly believe if you surround yourself with passionate and dedicated people, the experience is unforgettable.
It’s what makes filmmaking so much fun.
The one thing that was clear from the beginning is how much David loved the experience of making ‘A Musing’. It’s evident in the amount of detail he offered on the day to day adventures on set.
“I was very impressed with the punctuality and professionalism of the cast and crew every day on set. However, scheduling of scenes was heavily condensed on the first day. Thursday Sept 30th – Our call time was 6:30am at the Sloop Tavern on Market Street. This shoot was seamless and we captured a lot of great takes. Andrew McMasters, Stephanie Hilbert and Mark Carr were great! We wrapped just after 11:00am and had lunch. The cast and crew then made their way over to Greenlake Park for a 12:00pm call time. The backdrop of the park on this warm sunny day made for the perfect shoot. Andrew McMasters and Andy Tribolini were the perfect combination for the park bench scene. We wrapped about 4:00pm then a break for dinner.
Our next location was the Locks Deli & Grocery on Market Street. We had a 9:30pm call time. This is when it started getting interesting… After being up all day and night, we stretched our production into the following morning. Things were getting a little fuzzy… washing down Baklava from the display case with convenience store drip coffee is what kept most of us going… There were multiple takes due to framing, blocking and lighting. The lighting technicians did a fantastic job on toning down the hard fluorescent light with a mix of incandescent bulbs and filters. By the end of this shoot, I did learn that one aspect of the AD’s position is like a parrot with a stopwatch. It always followed me around… We wrapped an hour over schedule at 3:30am.
Our next location was 1 Union downtown Seattle for the office scenes. We had a 10:00am call time. I recognized some little issues while on set, such as improvising scene shots due to location space, lighting and props. During an office scene an actor’s RF MIC disconnected. There were about 10 of us in a 12×14 office. The audio tech was picking up the ambient as well as the direct sound from the other actors MIC, so we didn’t notice until well after the shoot. It wasn’t anything that couldn’t be fixed later in post. Paul Eenhoorn and Andrew McMasters performed exceptionally well during the office scenes. They really seemed to hit it off and that created a perfect dynamic for the scenes.
My favorite of all scenes was at Art Forte in Pioneer Square, downtown Seattle. The lighting was warm and inviting and the artwork was perfect for our shoot. Andrew McMasters and Tonya Yorke were the perfect match for the art gallery scene. You could feel the chemistry in the air. We wrapped our final scene about 10:00pm. It was a wonderful experience working with the entire cast and crew of A Musing.”
The Finished Film
“Phil and his sound team have been working on editing and music for some time. It became a long process as there were several changes to the film edit and music along the way. In addition to editing A Musing, Phil also dedicated his time to color correction and has indicated that A Musing Film is complete as of Feb 2, 2011!”
‘A Musing’ will now take on the festival circuit.
What’s Next?
“I’ve written another short and currently laying the groundwork to fund this project. I plan to cast two of the main roles prior to releasing any details.”
What’s Your Muse?
“My muse is all around me. It’s a collection of thoughts, ideas and experiences that I come into contact with on a daily basis. It’s when serendipity strikes that my muse is born. It’s being in the right place at the right time, developing your thoughts and building off experience. It’s a matter of recognizing those unique moments in life and capturing them, writing them down on paper before they are lost.”
Finding your muse can be difficult for some and easy for others. No matter which category you fall into, what really counts is the incredible rush of creative energy you feel when inspiration hits. It’s all built on a foundation of passion and belief that you can create anything you want. You just have to do it!
Special thanks to David Spies and the ‘A Musing’ cast and crew.
I’ve been developing my newest feature screenplay and even though I haven’t got the story ironed out yet, I’m still happy with the progress I’m making.
While I’m working on that, I’m also picking away at three short film concepts that I’m hoping to wrap up before I move in a few months.
There is a lot of planning to do in both the screenwriting world and my personal life but I’m not complaining.
Either way it’s exciting.
While I develop these new stories, I decided to re-read my old screenwriting books. It’s been a fantastic exercise as the tips found in my favorite books are a big help while I build my new tales.
The next few months should be interesting. Let’s hope I reach my goals.
This blog began in September of 2009 and since then, I’ve written a lot about my favorite passion. Screenwriting will always be my favorite pass time.
I’m addicted to it.
Throughout the last year, I’ve been sharing my experiences in the screenwriting world including everything from finding time to write, to software reviews.
I decided to gather all of those articles and truly get a sense of how productive I was over the last year.
I’ve been blogging long enough to proudly call myself a blogger. It’s a strange statement to make but think of how many people start blogging with the best intentions and then stop after a short period of time.
People lose interest.
People get bored.
People run out of things to write about.
I haven’t. I’m still interested and I definitely have more to write about. This blog won’t be slowing down any time soon.
There is a difference between someone who blogs and a blogger.
It takes a lot of effort, planning and dedication to build a site into a place people actually visit. I’ve seen my traffic increase from 23 unique visitors in an entire month to more than 10,000 and rising within a year.
It’s not enough. This site can be so much better. I have to work harder.
I use WordPress and I couldn’t be happier with it. Writing is easy and I can do it anywhere thanks to the iPhone app. Yet what amazes me is how much time I spend working on my blog without typing a word.
Content comes first as always but there is a lot more to blogging than some people realize.
Each day, I wake up and post my daily article. Usually, I’m about one week ahead so I never have to worry about writing the day of. I don’t like rushing posts.
Most posts then get linked to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn (Through Twitter), Stumbleupon, Digg, Zimbio and a few others.
I try to spend as much time as possible promoting my daily posts. I do this at different times throughout the day.
Next up there are a wide variety of sites I visit to stay up to date on my site’s performance and such:
I check both my personal and 17 West email accounts.
Comments and updates in WordPress
Stats on Google Analytics
Clicks on Goo.gl
RSS Subscribers on Feedburner
Authority changes on Technorati
Google Webmaster Tools
Google Keyword Generator Research
I don’t even have a mailing list yet. Not sure I’m going to soon but that would be another one that’s highly recommended by Probloggers out there. (I’m certainly not a pro. I still consider myself new at this.)
The next step is all about social networking. I like to spend at least 30 minutes a day reading other posts and interacting with other blogs, twitter etc…
For the last few weeks, I’ve been experimenting with ADs on the site so I’m also checking:
Google Adsense
Google Affiliate Network
Amazon Associates
Other Affiliate Sites and Promotions
Each of these site requires a certain level of analysis and maintenance. I do this before breakfast.
Next on my list of daily activities is to complete any Photoshop graphics I have on my list. I like to create new banners for each type of post I create. I think it’s vital to have a unique visual style especially because I’m using an unmodified default WordPress Theme.
Finally, I pull up my post schedule and update it with new post ideas and get a sense of what I have to catch up on for that day.
Now it’s time to really think about the CONTENT.
Every single site on I mentioned means nothing if you aren’t producing interesting content.
I set aside time 2-3 times a week to write new posts and usually write a few at once.
It depends on what I have written for that particular week but you have to plan ahead.
This is the number ONE thing I’ve learned as a blogger.
You’ll sink very quickly if you don’t plan ahead and stay on top of the work load. It’s a lot easier to take a day off when you have 6-7 posts banked.
Likewise, you never want to be in a position where you rush to upload a sub par post.
Writing posts, performing maintenance and promoting your blog is a lot of work. The Athletic Nerd would have died long ago had I not found a routine that worked for me.
Luckily, I find blogging to be a fantastic way to be creative on a daily basis. I love being able to write about movies, screenwriting and independent film.
