Shoot to Thrill

Filmfreeway Search Tools to Maximize the Festival Budget

noreply@blogger.com (Arnon Z. Shorr) — Wed, 17 May 2017 15:08:00 +0000

I can't imagine I'm the first to figure this out. The FilmFreeway.com advanced search has a feature that allows you to limit your search to a specific range of submission fees!

Here's the problem I had: my film, "The Pirate Captain Toledano," had limited festival funds. With festival submission fees as high as $90, I couldn't submit the film to very many festivals. The film is a short, so festivals are the only chance it has to reach a non-internet audience.

I knew that there are a few festivals out there with $0 submission fees for shorts (Cannes is the most noteworthy) but internet searches yielded less-than-helpful results.

Then, I thought to investigate the advanced search features of the festival submission websites that I had been using. Withoutabox.com allows you to limit searches to festivals with submission fees below $25, but that still leaves a huge range of fests to sort through.

Withoutabox.com has a search filter for submission fees in specific (and not very helpful) ranges

Filmfreeway.com, on the other hand, allows you to limit your search to a price range that you specify, and it's customizable in increments of $1.

The search filter on filmfreeway.com. You can set the slider to any range of submission fees, in $1 increments.

I set the maximum submission fee to "$0" and hit "search". Dozens of festivals turned up on the screen, all with $0 submission fees!

After submitting my film to nearly 50 of them, I decided to try a variation of this search. I set the price range to "$1-$5" and hit "search".

Hundreds of festivals appeared in the list, but this time, the search wasn't as clean. Some of the fests did have submission fees under $5, but only for their earlybird deadlines, or for a specific class of submitter (student, for example, or local filmmaker). That said, I was still able to find roughly 50 festivals with submission fees at or below $5 to which I could submit my film. For less than $200, I submitted my film to nearly 100 film festivals in the last couple of days.

What's interesting to me about these festivals is that they're not all tiny middle-of-nowhere fests. Most are not in the United States, and are funded by tourist boards or film commissions. Some are so well-funded that they can offer cash prizes to winning films.

In some cases the festivals are in countries where a dollar goes a long way - so a $2 submission fee might pay a festival staffer's salary for a week.

Sure, there are some tiny fests, too, but if the goal is to get the film seen, even little middle-of-nowhere film festivals will achieve that goal.

Have you tried this film festival submission method? How did it work for you?

-Arnon

Reclaiming a Jewish Narrative in the Face of anti-Semitism

noreply@blogger.com (Arnon Z. Shorr) — Mon, 14 Nov 2016 05:35:00 +0000

I originally wrote this blog post with the intention of publishing it here... but in the interest of finding a broader audience, I submitted it to several places, and eventually found my way to the Times of Israel... Now I'm a blogger there, which is exciting. Check out my first post:

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/reclaiming-a-jewish-narrative-in-the-face-of-anti-semitism/

Closed Captions and Amazon Prime

noreply@blogger.com (Arnon Z. Shorr) — Mon, 26 Sep 2016 04:20:00 +0000

Earlier this month, I got an email from CreateSpace, the service through which we self-distributed "A Modest Suggestion" five years ago. They are owned by Amazon.com, and reported that Amazon was changing the way they handled streaming titles. If I wanted "A Modest Suggestion" to continue streaming on Amazon, I had to update a few things, including providing a new element that I had never provided before: closed caption titles!

It wasn't too hard to caption the film using open-source freeware that I found online (I used "MagPie" to do the captioning, but ultimately, only "Subtitle Edit" was capable of exporting a file that Amazon Video Direct was capable of interpreting). So, when I had the stuff ready for "A Modest Suggestion", I decided to try prepping "Man of Action!" and "End of the Story" for Amazon as well.

All three are now streaming on Amazon sites in the US, UK, Germany and Japan, and I'm considering adding "Johnny's Rocket" to the mix, as well.

It felt very empowering to tackle this process on my own. Most films hire captioning services to take this step (and I understand why! It's extremely tedious!). But that extra challenge of putting captions on a video makes the availability of my films on Amazon.com feel a little more special, a little more "elite". It's not YouTube, where anyone can upload anything, regardless of time or energy or effort or money put into its creation.

-Arnon

And in case you'd like to see them, here are my films on Amazon!

The Latest Blog Post at Studiobinder.com: On opening and end credits order

noreply@blogger.com (Arnon Z. Shorr) — Wed, 14 Sep 2016 03:06:00 +0000

Here's the article I wrote for Studiobinder.com about opening and end credits! https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/where-credit-is-due-film-credits-order-hierarchy-with-free-film-credits-template/

New Blog Post at Studiobinder.com

noreply@blogger.com (Arnon Z. Shorr) — Tue, 26 Jul 2016 16:46:00 +0000

I was recently hired to write blog posts for Studiobinder.com. Here's the latest one:

"The Complete Pre-Production Gameplan"
https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/the-complete-pre-production-gameplan/

I'm particularly impressed by the amazing graphics they created to accompany my post. Really kicks the whole article up a notch to have these graphics.

-Arnon

The MFA Question: Some Film School Statistics

noreply@blogger.com (Arnon Z. Shorr) — Fri, 22 Jul 2016 17:16:00 +0000

For years, I dismissed the very thought of film school. The attitude that I adopted (after hearing this repeated often) was as follows:

Film school is no guarantee of success, but it costs a lot. Why not take that same money and apply it to a feature film, get on the map that way?

There was a time when this made a lot of sense. In the '90s and early 2000s, small independent films really were a reliable ticket to a filmmaking career. The method worked for a few reasons:

1) The tools required to make a marketable feature were hard to access, so fewer people were making them. If you made a feature film, you stood out.
2) There were reasonable stepping-stones between micro-budget and Hollywood. If you made a great movie for $100,000, you could get hired to make a movie for $500,000, and a $1M movie after that, and a $3M movie after that...
3) Film schools churned out MFAs, but they didn't necessarily get the work because there was less of it - Sure, Hollywood was making more movies back then, but TV was tiny compared to what it is now, so unless you got lucky and landed on your feet in the movie business, there wasn't as much for you to do.

Today, the situation is somewhat flipped.

1) The tools required to make a feature are ubiquitous. The talent is not. You can make a $100,000 feature, but it's much harder to make that feature stand out in the crowd. For that, you need real talent (and not just your own talent - other people's talent, which usually costs more than you can afford, and is hard to find).
2) There aren't any stepping-stones between the indie feature and the Hollywood blockbuster. Colin Trevorrow made "Safety Not Guaranteed" for $750k (he was a TV writer, so he knew the people who could give the project credibility to raise that kind of money), then was hired to direct "Jurassic World" at $150M. He had to be trustworthy enough that the studios could take that big a risk, and he didn't have a bunch of mid-sized films with which to earn that trust because mid-sized films aren't being made much these days. He doesn't have an MFA, but he did study at NYU's Tisch School for the Arts (a top-tier, world-class film school). It's something the studios could point to and say 'look! credibility!'
3) The statistics are much better for film schools these days, particularly the top-tier schools. I recently heard a statistic (and I can't find its source - can anyone help me locate it?) that only 4% of people who call themselves "filmmakers" are actually earning a living as filmmakers. Of those, something like 96% have degrees from USC, UCLA, AFI or NYU. This means that if you want to be a working filmmaker, a degree from one of these schools is almost a requirement. Now, this statistic doesn't actually tell you how many of these graduates are working in the industry. I had to do some of my own research for that.

I did a rough statistical analysis on LinkedIN for three LA-area schools. I wanted to find out how well people with MFAs are doing - are they working in the industry, or did they have to find work elsewhere?

I limited the search to people who attended these schools between 2008 and 2015. The pre-recession industry was very different.

Here's what I found:

SCHOOL: USC School of Cinematic Arts
SEARCH TERM: "MFA Film Television"
TOTAL LINKEDIN PROFILES: 862
WHERE THEY WORK:

INDUSTRY	#	%
Media & Communication	457	53%
Arts & design	133	15%
Entrepreneurship	75	9%
Operations	70	8%
Education	66	8%
Administrative	65	8%
Marketing	35	4%
Consulting	20	2%

Media, Comm, Art, Design total		68%

SCHOOL: AFI Conservatory

SEARCH TERM: "MFA"

TOTAL LINKEDIN PROFILES: 569

INDUSTRY	#	%
Media & Communication	304	53%
Arts & design	76	13%
Operations	29	5%
Entrepreneurship	29	5%
Education	28	5%
Administrative	18	3%
Marketing	16	3%
Program and Project Management	12	2%

Media, Comm, Art, Design total		67%

SCHOOL: UCLA

SEARCH TERM: "MFA Film"

TOTAL LINKEDIN PROFILES: 796

INDUSTRY	#	%
Media & Communication	320	40%
Arts & design	211	27%
Education	137	17%
Entrepreneurship	76	10%
Operations	49	6%
Marketing	42	5%
Consulting	34	4%
Administrative	31	4%

Media, Comm, Art, Design total		67%

The take-away from all of this? For each of these top-tier MFA programs, at least 67% of students indicate on LinkedIN that they're working in Media, Communications, Arts or Design. To my mind, that's a surprisingly favorable statistic for the film schools. These folks might not be directing movies, but they're working in the industry, and that, in and of itself, can be a difficult feat to accomplish.

These statistics are very un-scientific. It's possible that people's profiles are inaccurate or out-of-date. It's possible that these folks are working but not earning enough. It's also possible that people who get snapped up by the big studios and agencies right out of film school don't bother updating their LinkedIN profiles because they're already working and don't need LinkedIN. Finally, it's also possible that jobs in operations, marketing, consulting, administrative, etc. are also industry jobs - the percentages could be much better than we're currently seeing.

My attitude about film school has changed dramatically as I've researched the subject. I've actually begun the process of preparing applications and researching financial aid options. If you went to a top-tier film school in the last eight years, I'd love to hear from you. What was it like? How have you been finding the post-MFA experience? Is the network helpful? Are you finding better work than you had before the MFA? It's a huge investment, so the more we know about it, the better.

If I do get in, you can be sure I'll write about the experience here!

-Arnon

The Narrative VR Rulebook: An Academic Approach to the Language of VR Storytelling - PART TWO

noreply@blogger.com (Arnon Z. Shorr) — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 20:16:00 +0000

What follows is part 2 of a two-part article on the aesthetic potential of Virtual Reality (VR) storytelling, as extrapolated from what we already know about cinema. Part One can be found here: http://arnonshorr.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-narrative-vr-rulebook-academic.html

Part 2: Creating the Virtual Dream

In part 1 of this article, we explored the striking parallels between the development of VR cinema and the early history of movies. Now, it’s time to dive into the heavy stuff: using film theory to develop the new language, syntax and grammar of virtual cinema.

For a filmmaker, the most vital thing to understand about movies is their effect on the audience. Film theory has approached this topic from many angles, but I’d like to begin with one particular idea: a good movie is like a dream. Films (at their best) induce a sort of dissociative state in the viewer, a dream-like experience where the viewer gets to identify with another character in another character’s narrative. When the shark attacks Quint’s boat, I know that Chief Brody is scared, but I’m scared, too. Elision of time is another dream-like characteristic of cinema: we’re in one place and time in one scene, then there’s a cut or transition, and suddenly it’s a day later, or a different place. Only in dreams do we have that experience.

But some movies don’t achieve this dream-like effect. Really bad movies, or films that shun the traditional cinematic techniques that we’ve come to expect, throw us out of that dream-like state. Cinema doesn’t automatically hypnotize us - it requires something on the filmmaker’s part to achieve that effect.

The movie-as-dream experience isn’t purely passive. When we’re watching a movie, we have the freedom to look around at anything on the screen. To be drawn into the story, we require expert filmmaking to craft images and sequences that guide and maintain our attention to the narrative. When done right, this keeps us engaged in the dream for the duration of the movie. You might think that this is easier in VR - after all, VR offers an almost automatic immersive experience! In fact, the opposite is true. The more we have to look at, the harder the filmmaker needs to work to shepherd our attention.

For VR cinema to work, it must match or exceed traditional cinema’s ability to capture and guide our dream-like attention. Today, many VR films fail in this regard. We’re in a room with the characters, and they’re doing something, but there’s so much to look at, and there’s so little done by the filmmakers to guide our attention! We may feel like we’re “in the room”, but we don’t feel that we’re “in the story”. Let’s look at some of cinema’s traditional tools, and see how VR pioneers might apply them in a virtual space:

In “flat” movies, the filmmaker’s tools are varied, but include: The Cut (to skip over the less engaging parts of the story); The Close-Up (to make sure the viewer attends to the important detail); Depth of Field (to bring the important detail into focus, or to exclude unimportant details by keeping them out-of-focus); Framing, Staging and Lighting (to draw attention to the important detail); Music and Sound (to help carry us through transitions, to isolate and identify what’s important to hear).

The Cut: A straightforward cut from one VR shot to another can be disorienting if the viewer isn’t guided by the filmmaker as to where to look. A “bad” cut can throw the viewer out of the semi-dream state. Concepts of traditional “invisible” editing are harder to apply in VR, but it’s worth considering what they accomplish: match-on-action (where the end of one shot and the beginning of the next shot show the same moment of the same event) and continuity editing (wherein screen orientation is preserved across cuts) are techniques that prevent our disorientation. In VR, if cuts are necessary, it’s important to keep the viewer’s orientation in mind. If the subject of the viewer’s attention is in one position (we’ll call it “north”) before the cut, the next subject of the viewer’s attention should be within the same field of view after the cut. The last thing you want is for the viewer to have to look around after the cut, to feel ‘lost’ and unsure of what to look at. Some VR pioneers have been employing transitional elements to help guide viewers through a cut. A recent promotional VR video for Disney World utilizes “fairy dust” as a transition guide: the sparkling stuff fills the screen, and when it dissipates, we’re elsewhere, transported, and the pattern of dissipation guides our eyes towards the next thing that we should see. (see: “How to use 360 Starring Goofy”, Dekker Dreyer, Clever Fox). Fades, wipes and other transition techniques might emerge as common pieces of the new VR vocabulary.

The Close-Up: This, in VR, might not be possible. There are technologies emerging that allow viewers to “zoom in” on an object within a scene, but there’s no tool in the VR filmmaker’s toolkit at the moment to “force” the viewer’s attention in this way. If the viewer is “in the space”, that might be all we’ve got to work with, angle-wise. It’s possible that some clever VR pioneer might implement picture-in-picture techniques to highlight a detail, but aside from that, the filmmaker needs to draw the viewer’s attention using other tools. (Interestingly, we do have an interesting lesson in what doesn’t work as a VR equivalent to the close-up. In crafting the animated short “Henry” for Oculus Story Studio, director Ramiro Lopez Dau discovered that placing his character close to the camera doesn’t actually help us emote with that character in the way that it would if it were a close-up in a “flat” film. On the contrary, it feels “too close”, emotionally uncomfortable. He found that sad, intimate moments seem to play best at a bit of a distance. It’ll take more experimentation to figure out what that distance should be, what it means, and how to utilize it to the greatest emotional effect).

Depth of Field: There may be ways to utilize shallow depth of field, or a sort of selective focus, to draw attention within the VR field of view. If the “sides” of the image get blurry, for example, and the “front” remains in focus, it’s a way to force the audience to look forward. It’ll be interesting to see how VR pioneers implement this tool, as I imagine it could backfire if used improperly (it could be annoying, and snap viewers out of their semi-dream, rather than focusing their attention).

Framing, Staging and Lighting: Traditionally, filmmakers staged their characters with either planar (proscenium) staging (where the characters are all equidistant from the camera) or, more commonly, depth staging (where some characters are closer, some farther away.) With 3D production, some filmmakers have experimented with a variant of depth staging that I’ve called “portal staging”, where characters are viewed through a window or doorway, capitalizing on the sense of depth we get with 3D, and narrowing our visual field to guide our attention. Portal staging also draws on elements of traditional framing (wherein foreground objects are placed to “frame” an object or character to draw our attention to it). Traditional framing requires some tweaking before it can work properly in VR, and some consideration has to be paid to whether or not the VR film is 2D or 3D (foreground objects in 2D guide our attention to what’s beyond them, whereas those same objects in 3D become the objects of our attention!) Regardless of the technique, staging and framing are essential components of VR filmmaking, because it’s so much harder to capture and maintain the viewer’s attention. In a VR environment, the arrangement of objects and people is one of the first and most powerful indicators of where we should look.

Lighting in VR is particularly tricky, mostly because the 360 degree virtual space doesn’t allow us to hide our lights! That doesn’t excuse us from paying particular attention to lighting, as it’s probably the best tool in the arsenal for guiding the viewer’s attention in a virtual environment. Constructed sets will benefit here from the possibility of installed “practical” lighting elements. Wall sconces, chandeliers, recessed lighting and other elements will all become important parts of the VR lighting scheme.

On the subject of lighting and framing, a radical strategy presents itself. I draw once again from film history: D.W. Griffith once got in trouble with studio brass for shooting a close-up of his leading lady. Their complaint: ‘we’re paying for the whole actress, not just her face!’ As the story’s told, Griffith leaned in very close and said “can you see my feet?” Of course, they couldn’t. “I’m using what the eyes can see” Griffith explained. Using that reasoning, why not “use what the eyes can see”, and crop the virtual space?

Most people, when they settle down for entertainment (especially for a movie), they sit down, either in a chair, or on their sofa. Sometimes they’re even in bed. They look straight ahead. If they’re in a big movie theater, seated near the screen, they might look a little to the left, a little to the right… but never behind them. In fact, looking back can be an inconvenience - it can snap the viewer out of the dream-like state, can break, rather than preserve, the viewer’s narrative attention! When viewers watch Justin Lin’s “Help”, they tend to look “forward” most of the time, watching characters running away from a monster, or, if they’re standing, or sitting in a swivel-chair, they look “backward” most of the time, watching the monster approach. The constant swiveling back-and-forth doesn’t allow viewers to relax into the narrative, so they pick a side and stick with it.

To solve this problem (as well as a few other technical ones), VR cinema can get rid of that rear-facing camera, can fade the world to black around the edges. For the audience, this provides the immersive experience without uncomfortable effort. A 300 degree field of view feels the same as a 360 degree field of view if the audience never looks at the 60 degrees behind them. Furthermore, if we never have to turn around, we can settle more comfortably into the story. From a production standpoint, it allows a place to hide lights, to place a director, to position camera support and rigging. One of the VR hits from Sundance this year, "Sonar" (Philipp Maas, Dominik Stockhausen, Alexander Maas) already intuited this experience - when you look back, you see their company website - they tacitly acknowledge that there's nothing of the story worth putting there. There’s natural opposition to this idea, of course. The technology gives us 360 degrees to work with - why not use all of it? We’ve hired the whole actress, why just show her face?

Music and Sound: Much like in movie history, VR’s audio technology is a little behind the visual. Eventually, once it catches up, similar techniques to those used in movies will be used by VR pioneers to employ sound as a storytelling tool. Music might be used - much like it is in movies - as a unifying tool, making the pieces of a scene feel like a cohesive whole. Sound, of course, is a critical attention-management tool in movies, and should be used similarly in VR cinema. Eventually, “placed” sounds will be used to draw the viewer’s attention to a particular direction (a sound from the “east” might cause us to look in that direction, for example). If the VR environment is cropped, such that there’s nothing to see behind the viewer, including an ambient soundscape from behind might help solidify the sense of immersion.

The language of VR cinema is still emerging, and there are many questions that we have yet to ask. There are many more elements that can deeply affect and move an audience to either engage or disengage with the dream/story. And there are cinematic concepts that still need to be translated to the VR space. Can there be a “point of view” experience in VR without a shot of the character whose POV we’re about to experience? Should the audience be a “character” in the story, or a sort of disembodied observer? Whether it’s through physical production or academic analysis, I’m looking forward to seeing how these questions are answered, and to answering more of them, myself. We’re creating a new language, developing the syntax and grammar of a new way of telling stories. It’s an exciting time to be a storyteller.

The Narrative VR Rulebook: An Academic Approach to the Language of VR Storytelling - PART ONE

noreply@blogger.com (Arnon Z. Shorr) — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 19:34:00 +0000

What follows is the first part of a a two-part article in which I explore the aesthetic potential of virtual reality (VR) storytelling, as extrapolated from what we already know about cinema.

VR is here! Hooray! Now what? We’ve been telling stories on-screen for a century - how do we extend that cinematic tradition into the virtual experience? There are intrepid filmmakers out there – pioneers – who are seeking first-hand answers to these questions. They’re experimenting, and the results of their work will shape the course of VR storytelling. But we don’t need to experiment blindly. I’d like to suggest an approach to VR storytelling that begins with what we already know, and that extrapolates, almost academically, a new set of parameters to guide us through the VR cinema frontier.

Let’s face it: Typically, Film Studies has very little to say about the actual craft of making films. The academic study of films is the study of the result of filmmaking, not of the process. But I contend that film studies has a lot to offer filmmaking. We’ve seen this in action when the first generation of film school filmmakers arrived in Hollywood in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. The results of their work still inform and inspire us today.

So, let’s see what we can learn about VR cinema from a typical film studies course.

Part 1: History Repeats Itself

The very first movies (especially those of the Lumiere Brothers in France) were observational. For these “actualities”, a camera was plunked down someplace interesting, and audiences were shown that interesting place. Sound familiar? The vast majority of VR video content today does exactly the same thing. We’re invited to look around at a place, and that’s it. No story, no message, no meaning beyond the novelty of the immersive observational experience.

Next in the course of cinema’s early history, a few innovators came along and saw the potential for storytelling. In the US, Thomas Edison’s company filmed scenes from famous stage plays (see: “The Kiss” d. William Heise for Edison, 1896).

These early narrative films are “stagey”, with much of the action presented on a sort of proscenium, as if the camera (the viewer) is in the audience of a play. Within a few years, filmmakers such as Edwin S. Porter figured out how to string staged scenes together to tell a more complete narrative, and to place the camera in places that no longer mirrored the audience’s theater experience (see: “The Great Train Robbery” d. Porter for Edison, 1903 - the camera is placed on a moving train for some scenes!)

Across the Atlantic, Georges Melies saw in the technology opportunities to achieve effects that could not be achieved on stage. Using jump-cuts and other tricks, he pioneered the use of special and visual effects in narrative cinema for “Voyage to the Moon”.

This is the innovative moment where most VR storytellers find themselves today. VR production is still technically limited except in the most sophisticated (and expensive) scenarios. VR cameras usually don’t move, so the action that they record is typically staged around a fixed point (much like a play is staged assuming a fixed audience perspective.) When VR cameras do move, it’s because they’re affixed to a moving object (such as a car or motorcycle… or train!) In addition, the language of editing in VR is still in its infancy, so most scenes are played out without a cut. Multiple scenes might be strung together, but each scene is typically a one-shot experience - just like so many of those early movies eleven decades ago.

Of course, the use of visual effects plays heavily in the VR world. Unlike the early days of cinema, VR’s infancy includes a vast array of gaming and practical applications for the technology. There seems to be more digital/interactive VR (not to mention everything that’s happening with augmented reality) than “cinematic” VR. So it’s not surprising that there’s overlap and interplay between these worlds. Some of the highest-profile VR movies today (See: “Help” d. Justin Linn for Bullitt) feature mostly computer-generated worlds and plenty of computer-generated magic. Just like early filmmakers who applied what they knew from the stage to the new cinematic experience, VR pioneers are applying the techniques of cinema to the new virtual medium. The incorporation of cutting-edge visual effects is part of that adaptive process.

But there’s something else happening here – something a little subtler. The great early filmmakers posed a specific question with their work: What could movies do that theater couldn’t? Melies explored innovative effects in “Voyage to the Moon” - his moon creatures disappeared in puffs of smoke, a purely cinematic effect, impossible to achieve on stage. Porter did it with new perspective choices in “The Great Train Robbery” - he put the camera (and thus, the audience) on a moving train, and later used a close-up to surprising and dramatic effect. VR filmmakers are doing the same thing. They aren’t just adapting old techniques - they’re searching for the special thing that makes VR different – the thing that “flat” or even 3D movies can’t achieve.

So, what is the purely virtual effect? What sort of magic can be accomplished in VR that simply can’t be done in traditional cinema? That is the ultimate question for the new medium!

Once again, history’s repetitive nature offers clues. After the early pioneers established the use of cinema as an observational and then as a narrative tool, and once they determined what “magic” cinema could accomplish, a second wave of innovators emerged. They began to synthesize all the bits and pieces to create a “cinematic language”. The German Expressionists (Murnau, Lang) learned how to employ non-literal depictions to evoke mood (with stylized sets, evocative lighting, etc.)

Scene from Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" (1927)

The Russians (Vertov, Eisenstein) learned how to use editorial juxtaposition to convey meaning (it’s the sequence, not just the shot, that brings richness to narrative).

Images from the Odessa Steps sequence in
Sergei Eisenstein's "Battleship Potemkin" (1925)
(via www.futurecine.com)

The Americans (Griffith, De Mille) learned to orchestrate and guide the viewer’s attention to such an extent that the viewer forgets that the flickering images aren’t real.

A close-up from D.W. Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation" (1915)

The American “invisible aesthetic” soon emerged as the dominant aesthetic in cinema around the world. That’s when we learned to edit so nobody notices the cuts, to shoot so nobody notices the camera angle, and all the while, to evoke emotion using the very tools we’re camouflaging. This is the direction that cinematic VR will take in the coming years: a synthesis of tools, and a development of language, syntax and grammar that is altogether unique to the virtual experience, and that allows the viewer to “get lost” in the virtual narrative.

How do we create narrative VR experiences that transcend the cinematic? How do we allow the audience to settle into the virtual story (without them feeling us yanking the marionette strings)? Some of the answers may only emerge from the discoveries of today’s VR pioneers, but we can also extrapolate guidelines for cinematic VR by looking closely at how and why “old-fashioned” cinema works. Using film theory, we can develop the new language, syntax and grammar of virtual cinema.

What’s a good movie article without a sequel? We’ll tackle the rest in Part 2, here: http://arnonshorr.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-narrative-vr-rulebook-academic_17.html

Screenwriting for Virtual Reality

noreply@blogger.com (Arnon Z. Shorr) — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 00:23:00 +0000

Virtual reality (or VR in the trades) is a relatively new media format that places the viewer at the center of a 360-degree environment. Using a headset (like the Occulus Rift) or even just a smart phone, you can "look around" an environment as if you were physically there.

There's an entirely new visual language being developed for this format. Most VR productions can't rely on the familiar tools of editing, camera movement or multiple angles to tell a story (and in fact, most VR productions today don't tell a story - they're observational, like the earliest films of the Lumiere Brothers). But narrative VR production is inevitable. Since it's all so new, we find ourselves in the unique position of having to invent methodologies for it.

I recently had an opportunity to develop a narrative VR concept. I can't tell you much about it, except that it called for a script, which I wrote earlier today.

At first, the script looked much like any narrative script I've written: A slug-line at the top of the scene, action descriptions down the left side of the page, dialog in the middle. After all, this thing is a movie, even if it's presented in an unusual way. But something about the format bugged me.

VR is subjective entertainment in a way that "traditional" cinema is not. Sure, with cinema, each camera angle is subjective, but the combination of angles is meant to spread that subjectivity around, so that we absorb a scene not as individuals, but as a sort of multiplicity of identities. The moviegoing experience multiplies that further, as each person in a movie theater (or on a living room couch) observes the screen from a slightly different angle. But VR is viewed by an individual, from just that one vantage point. The viewer can "look around" a VR environment, but there is only one vantage point, and it belongs to (and - this is the illusion - is controlled by) the individual viewer.

As a result of this necessary subjectivity, it became hard to write the screenplay without acknowledging the viewer's position in the space. I wrote sentences such as "we are seated at the table" - something I'd never do in a traditional script.

But even that didn't quite sit well. Who is this "we" of which I write? There's no "we" in the individual VR experience. The viewer is emphatically individual - just one person wearing a headset.

So I went back and changed all those first-person-plural sentences to first-person-singular: "I am seated at the table". Suddenly, the entire script transformed. Reading it, I felt that it captured much more precisely the subjectivity and personal-presence of the virtual reality experience.

So, to a brave new world of narrative VR production, I humbly offer my own contribution: When you write for VR, remember that you're writing for a single viewer who is at the center of whatever universe you're creating. In other words, write in first-person-singular.

-Arnon

A Lesson from Idyllwild: Give Voice to your Dreams

noreply@blogger.com (Arnon Z. Shorr) — Mon, 11 Jan 2016 19:09:00 +0000

Last night, "Man of Action" picked up two awards at the Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema. One of the awards, the Mary Austin Award for Excellence in Producing by a Woman, went to a very surprised and grateful Karri Miles.

Karri Miles wins the Mary Austin Award
for Excellence in Producing by a Woman at the
Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema

There's a story behind this that is worth telling.

I've known Karri for almost five years. We met on my first job in California - I was a production manager on an indie feature called "Benjamin Troubles", and Karri did something or other in the art department. She eventually migrated into the production office and took on additional roles to help the film along, but I knew her primarily as an art department person.

In the years that followed, I brought Karri aboard some of my own projects as an art director and production designer. Since she knew about casting as well, I hired her to cast a few things here and there, too.

At one point, about a year and a half ago, Karri and I were talking on the phone. I don't remember what the immediate purpose of the call was, but something compelled me to ask: "what are your goals in the industry? What do you ultimately want to do?" I was surprised by the answer: Karri wanted to be a producer, with a particular focus on physical production.

At the time, I was in prep for an indie feature ("Glimpse") so I suggested that Karri come aboard as a line producer. She did a fabulous job.

"Man of Action" came along right around when "Glimpse" was completed. We needed someone who could handle physical production, so Karri was the obvious first phone call.

I don't want to suggest that I "made" Karri the producer she is - that would be ridiculous, and would undervalue the years of hard work that she has put into her career. Also, there was nothing charitable about offering Karri those jobs. I had seen her work, knew her to be bright and diligent, and so it was for the benefit of these productions that I brought her aboard.

But I bring up this story for one particular detail: none of this would have happened if Karri hadn't given voice to her aspirations. If she hadn't said "I want to produce", I wouldn't have thought to employ her in that capacity.

This is an important lesson for all of us with big dreams in Hollywood. We've got to give voice to those dreams, to define them and express them to the people around us.

I'm excited to see Karri's career shoot forward from here. I'm sure there will be many more productions that benefit from her producing, just as mine did.

-Arnon

Story Conferences

noreply@blogger.com (Arnon Z. Shorr) — Thu, 19 Nov 2015 04:49:00 +0000

For the last several days, I've been very fortunate to participate in story conferences with writer/producer Ramy DuBrow and producer Karri Miles. I'm working with both of them to develop my next feature, a horror film (the details of which I'm not yet at liberty to divulge!)

The story conference process has been fun, but it has also taught me a lot about the process and discipline of creating a narrative. I've written some screenplays, but have never gone through as thorough a story-construction process as this, where every twist and turn of the narrative is vetted, tested, challenged and tempered. If I didn't enjoy it so much, it would be grueling!

We began on Monday at Ramy's office in Hollywood, sitting on the floor and bouncing ideas back and forth. Ramy, who leads this process, encouraged us to begin with the end of the story, which we're pretty clear on, and work our way back to the beginning. By beginning at the end, we discover not just who our characters are, but who they need to become, and we can use that to create contrasting starting-points for them, to give them a meaningful journey.

By the start of Tuesday's meeting, we pretty much knew where the story ended, and we had some ideas about where it would begin, but the middle (always the hardest part!) proved challenging. It took us roughly six hours (and a lot of sushi, delivered from the nearest Kosher joint) to wrestle the second act into some sort of coherence. Ramy introduced a technique that got us through several difficult situations: He asks a basic question for which we know the answer: "Why does our hero do this thing?" We answer that question, and Ramy follows up with "why is that?" We answer, and then, another "Why". It's like we're writing with a two-year-old, but the amazing thing is that the farther down these rabbit-holes we jumped, the more clearly we understood our characters, their motivations, and where the story had to begin.

With the story mostly assembled, we spent today's meeting ironing out some of the bigger details. Is the creature scary enough? Is the lead character's arc clear enough? How do we smooth out the transition from the first to the second act? There are loose ends to tie up, and plenty of details to flesh out, but much of that will happen when Ramy writes his draft of the script. The immensely satisfying thing is that after these three days, we have a really carefully-crafted, compelling, resonant story, outlined and ready to be scripted.

I know I won't be involved in the story-creation process on every film I direct, but I hope to repeat the experience as much as I can. It was really a joy, and reminded me a lot of another story conference, the transcript of which is available online: http://maddogmovies.com/almost/scripts/raidersstoryconference1978.pdf
I can imagine Spielberg, Lucas and Kasdan sitting in a room (perhaps even on the floor), hashing out the details of this story (a story that, at the time, only existed in their minds, or in the conscious space in that room, somewhere between the three of them).

-Arnon

So Old it's New Again

noreply@blogger.com (Arnon Z. Shorr) — Mon, 19 Oct 2015 21:40:00 +0000

I've just returned from the Laughlin International Film Festival in Laughlin, Nevada, where my feature, "Glimpse" had its world premiere.

At Saturday night's awards show, I was surprised and flattered to hear the film's title announced as the winner in the fest's "Best Experimental Work" category. As I went up to accept the award (with writer/producer/star Reid Taylor), I wondered "what was experimental about it?"

The truth is, the answer is fairly obvious. The film was shot in both black-and-white and in "Academy ratio" - the nearly-square aspect ratio seen most commonly in early Hollywood and on TV until TVs got wide in the mid-'00s.

What struck me, though, is that this wasn't an experiment so much as a willingness to use the tools in the toolbox, even though they're not as commonly used these days (there have been several notable black-and-white films recently, including "Nebraska" and "Ida", but only one recent film that I know of made use of Academy ratio, and that is "The Artist" ("The Grand Budapest Hotel" used the ratio intermittently.)

For us these aesthetic choices were determined by the needs of the story (whereas most "experimental" work is about the experiment). The film is black and white to serve the melodramatic tone of the narrative. The black-and-white makes the whole story feel more Noir, and gives permission for the drama to be a little over-the-top. It ties the film to a specific cinematic tradition.

As for the aspect ratio, this was also a purely narrative choice. The film takes place almost entirely in a house - a house that becomes increasingly confining as the story unfolds. To tell a story about a guy who's literally and figuratively boxing himself in, trapping himself in his own paranoia (represented visually by the house itself), I needed a narrower frame. The wider images that have become traditional these days simply wouldn't have given me the opportunity to put my character in that box.

So, to my mind, there was no experiment here. I had a story to tell, and these were the tools I needed in order to tell it. But then, there's the important recognition that the film is also a product, an item made to be sold to distributors, consumed by the public. There is still (despite Oscars for "The Artist" and nominations for other films) a sense that black-and-white doesn't sell. And for people with widescreen TVs, the black bars that surround an Academy ratio image are off-putting (and I remember when letterboxing used to irritate people - the black bars above and below a widescreen movie image when it's shrunk to fit those old square-ish TVs). These considerations made the aesthetic decision gutsy.

In fact, we were so nervous about presenting our film the way we initially envisioned it, that we initially cropped it down to a 1:85 (wider than modern TVs) aspect ratio, and had the footage color-corrected. We screened the color/widescreen version in February, and for a short while, that was the only version of the movie that existed. Truth be told, we liked it, and were willing to leave the original vision behind us. I credit Scott Baker, our cinematographer, for taking the initiative and putting together a version of the film the way we originally intended it, just to see what it looked like, to see if it could also work. On his own time, Scott made the footage black-and-white, cropped it down to Academy ratio, adjusted the framing shot-by-shot, and sent it to us. Reid and I were delighted with it, of course, and it became the primary version that Reid submitted to festivals. It's the version Laughlin received, and the rest (as they say) is history.

The nice thing about this, of course, is that now we've got both versions available: Black-and-white and Academy ratio for those who want it, color and widescreen for everyone else.

At the end of the day, I'm very proud of our award at Laughlin. For me, it validates the creative decision to use those old-fashioned tools. It validates Scott's insistence that we give our original vision a chance. And it validates Reid's gutsy move of bringing such an unusual-looking film out to the world. But in my mind, it still wasn't an experiment. It was just storytelling.

-Arnon

For more about "Glimpse", including updates on upcoming screenings, visit and "like" the Facebook page: www.facebook.com/movieglimpse

"Man of Action!" completed!

noreply@blogger.com (Arnon Z. Shorr) — Fri, 07 Aug 2015 19:36:00 +0000

This morning, post-production on "Man of Action!" officially came to a close!

The short (which clocks in at precisely ten minutes) is an action piece starring Matt Raimo and Sophie Cooper. It was written by The Joe Kramer, produced by Joe Kramer and Karri Miles, and directed/edited by me.

The project's origins speak to the advice I've often heard (and started to internalize): If you don't declare your wishes, no one knows to make them come true for you.

The first snowflake that would become the snowball that would become the avalanche came from Hauk Heimdallsman, a composer, musician and post-sound guy who did the audio post on "Glimpse", the feature I directed last summer.

Hauk and I belong to a networking group called "The Table" - the group meets regularly, but much of the productive networking happens through a robust and active email list. On December 29, 2014, Hauk sent out an email announcing that he had just concluded post-production on "Glimpse", and that he was looking to expand his work as a film composer. He asked for scenes in certain genres that he could score and then use as part of his demo reel. One of the scenes he was hoping to compose for: "A good kick ass action scene".

I emailed Hauk back on 12/30: "I'd love to direct an action short! If we can get our hands on a (relatively easy-to-shoot) script and find ourselves some actors who want action on their reels, maybe we can pull something together in January?"

Hauk agreed, and offered to throw in post-production audio work for the opportunity to score an action short. But where to find a good action short?

January 22, at a Thursday night meeting of The Table, I introduced myself to the group and announced that I'm looking for something with action content to direct. Joe Kramer (who I hadn't met before) put his hand in the air and said "I've got something for you".

Joe is a writer with strong producing instincts. He has a certain east-coast-intellectualism and get-it-done attitude that I liked immediately. He was looking for opportunities to get his writing produced (and if he had to produce it himself, then that's what he was gonna do!)

Joe had a friend, Matt Raimo, a successful model in the midst of a promising career transition to acting. Matt's modeling portfolio is very impressive, but it wasn't getting him enough acting work. His agency got him through the door for countless auditions, and he auditioned well, but without a demo reel, few casting directors were willing to hire him. So Matt and Joe got to talking. Matt was being groomed for action/superhero work, so they hatched a scheme to shoot some action scenes. Joe would write and produce, Matt would star, and they'd both have some material to show off their skills.

They were crafting an action piece, I wanted to direct action - it was an obvious match.

With these pieces in place, it was just a matter of guiding the snowball as it rolled downhill. The important pieces that got it started were the declarations. Hauk wanted to score an action scene, and he didn't keep that to himself. He put it out there, which allowed me to bring him aboard. I wanted to direct an action scene, and because I stated that to a roomful of filmmakers, Joe knew to flag me down and talk about his project. In just over eight months, we went from Hauk's wish to score an action scene to submitting an awesome action short to its first film festival.

So get out there, know what you want, and give voice to it. Give people access to your dreams - it's the only way they'll be able to help you achieve them.

-Arnon Shorr

At Long Last, "Johnny's Rocket" is Online!

noreply@blogger.com (Arnon Z. Shorr) — Mon, 03 Aug 2015 21:02:00 +0000

I don't normally wait this long before posting short films to the web, but "Johnny's Rocket" took a long time to finish. Before you read on, you should see the short, here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u21P40SGaFE

If I got a good laugh out of you, I've accomplished my goal!

Well, that's not entirely true. I set out to make "Johnny's Rocket" with more than one goal in mind. Sure, it was important to create some good entertainment, but there was an element of professional development in the decision to make the film. The kinds of movies I want to direct will likely involve all sorts of visual effects. I won't get to make those movies if I don't demonstrate that I can handle effects in my storytelling. So, I set out to make a short film to demonstrate that visual effects are a tool in my cinematic toolkit that I know how to use.

I learned a lot from the process, which was mostly a demystification of VFX for me. Stuff that I once found a little intimidating to tackle became almost second nature after the time I spent working on this film. I didn't create the effects, of course, but I spent a lot of time in post "massaging" them, tweaking them, making fine adjustments (mostly to color) to bring everything together just so. In a way, demonstrating my comfort-level with VFX made me more comfortable with them, so that I'm actually pretty eager to tackle some new VFX-heavy storytelling.

This career-focused directing strategy (where I choose or initiate projects to help bulk up my credentials in certain genres or styles, or with certain types of content) has led me to other interesting projects. Most recently, I directed an action short called "Man of Action!" (written by The Joe Kramer, produced by Joe Kramer and Karri Miles (who art-directed "Johnny's Rocket") and starring Matt Raimo). I got to direct that short after announcing at a networking event that I was looking for some action material to work on. It's in the last few days of post-production, and should start making the festival rounds shortly after that.

I should probably tackle some science-fiction next, since the last real sci-fi I directed was a short I made back in high school! But even before that happens, I should probably add some "Man of Action" content to my demo reel.

-Arnon

"End of the Story" Lands Another Festival!

noreply@blogger.com (Arnon Z. Shorr) — Thu, 23 Jul 2015 18:03:00 +0000

I'm very thrilled about this one. "End of the Story" has made it into another festival!

I attended a screening at the Burbank International Film Festival last year (to see a short film starring Cameron Gordon, a fellow Brandeis alumnus.) I was impressed by the fest, and particularly by the emphasis placed on short films (their opening night was a short film series -- they don't do this every year, but any festival that honors shorts in that way is worthy of praise!)

Later in the year, I had an opportunity to speak with festival director Jeff Rector, who's also a member of The Table, a networking group to which I belong. We discussed the treacherous world of short film distribution (I had been made a shady offer and consulted with peers in my network to confirm my suspicions). At the end of the conversation, Jeff invited me to do something I had been considering anyway: to submit some short films to the fest.

I did so, and found out a few weeks ago that one of them made it in! I'm very proud to show "End of the Story" in such a storied movie town as Burbank. It'll be the short's first appearance in a real movie theater (the Beverly Hills Shorts Festival screening was in a bar - hardly the ideal screening venue).

If you'd like to see "End of the Story" or any of the other films at this year's Burbank International Film Festival, check out their website: www.burbankfilmfest.org

The festival schedule: http://www.burbankfilmfest.org/2015-festival-screening-schedule/

Order tickets to see "End of the Story": http://www.itsmyseat.com/events/382689.html

And if you go, let me know! I look forward to seeing you there!

-Arnon

When Entertainment and Ideology Clash

noreply@blogger.com (Arnon Z. Shorr) — Mon, 15 Jun 2015 20:37:00 +0000

Today is a happy day, the rare moment, even for an active filmmaker, when a new work "goes live". The premiere of the moment is "Miiad: A Fight to Unite", which is also my first music video as a director. With nearly 3000 views in its first day on YouTube, I'd say the launch is going fairly well.

There has been a healthy response to the video so far. Many of the comments on YouTube and Twitter are positive. But quite a few also agonize over the role women play in the video. "SabaCorps" says it best in a YouTube comment:

"Powerful message of inclusion. It's especially powerful in the way that it leaves women on the sidelines. Being inclusive should not be exclusive to men."

I accept this criticism, and can't say I'm surprised by it. In fact, broadly speaking, I agree. The challenge I faced with this video is a challenge faced by any attempt at Jewish unity: how do we unite Jews whose ideologies are deeply contradictory?

First, some background on the project: Several months ago, songwriter Katia Bolotin approached Mendy Pellin Media for a music video.

Our assignment: To create a fun, compelling music video that captures her song's message of Jewish unity, and to find a way to do it so the message can reach as deeply as possible into the Orthodox community that is Mendy's primary audience, while remaining as inclusive and broadly representative of Judaism as a whole. Not easy.

On top of that, we were specifically tasked with including women in the video, but had to find a way to include them without alienating the video's primary audience. In other words, the challenge was to produce a video that would be so inclusive that even those at the divisive extremes could enjoy it.

This was shaping up to be a classic case of ideology clashing with audience. Our audience, predominantly deep in the heart of Orthodoxy, demanded something that, ideologically, I have a hard time accepting. What's wrong with dancing women? Why can't we feature "secular" women (in tank tops, let's say, to differentiate them from the "religious" women in more modest apparel)? If we're painting a picture of Judaism's diversity, why can't we show it?

But I had to tackle these questions very quickly. Mendy, after all, was supposed to direct the video, but due to some last-minute family emergencies, the directing fell to me. With only three days to prepare for production, the last thing I could do was spend time philosophizing about the message.

I directed as best I could, focusing not on the exclusions, but on the positive message we're trying to express. When the dust settled, I had some time to think through what we did, and to try to come to terms with my participation in it.

First of all, the unity message is extremely important. It's something I'm passionate about, that has been a part of my life since I was a kid. I grew up in a "mixed" home - one Orthodox parent, the other anti-religious (they're still married!) I attended a pluralistic Jewish high school, enjoy friendships across the religious spectrum, and pursue a life outside of the cultural boundaries defined by sect or movement.

But what about the women issue? Was I "selling out" by limiting the involvement of women in the story I was telling? Or was I simply adapting a story for the particular preferences of a specific audience?

I don't have a clear or satisfying answer to that question. At the end of the day, the importance of the unity message trumps other ideologies in this video. I couldn't reach the far-left without alienating the far-right, and I couldn't reach the far-right without alienating the far left. To reach the most people, I had to find a spot in that awkward middle ground where I could reach as far left and as far right as possible without splitting apart completely.

That said, even the way the video is presented, there are Jewish groups that won't condone it (they're the same groups that would blur out the faces of female heads of state in their news publications, or the groups that insist that anything short of absolute gender equality is deeply offensive). Jewish unity needs to include them, too, but I couldn't figure out how to do it without losing the women entirely (which seemed like a worse step to take) or losing much of the Orthodox audience (also too big a loss).

All this is to say that Jewish unity isn't as simple as all of us dancing together (much as I wish it were!) It's incredibly complicated, almost to the point of impossibility.

But the video had to be made, the message (incomplete as it is) has to be put out there. The difficulty of this challenge doesn't excuse us from the obligation to tackle it.

לא עליך המלאכה לגמור ואין אתה בן חורין להיבטל ממנה

Ultimately, if this video helps inspire Jews towards unity, even if it's a small step, and even if it's towards an incomplete unity that needs more work, I feel that I've done something right.

-Arnon

A Real Audience

noreply@blogger.com (Arnon Z. Shorr) — Wed, 11 Mar 2015 21:23:00 +0000

Short videos that I directed have been seen by tens of thousands of people online in recent years, but it has been a very long time since my work was screened to a real audience.

This past weekend, my short, End of the Story, was screened at the Beverly Hills Shorts Festival. I attended the screening, and was particularly interested in hearing the audience response. The short (all 160-seconds of it) has the setup-and-punchline structure of a comedy, superimposed on a thriller-type narrative. It's a very short study in tension-and-release.

And it worked! The audience gave the short a very warm reception -- they laughed when I intended for them to laugh, and seemed to appreciate the journey for both its clarity and brevity. BHSF is the film's first festival -- we're still waiting to hear from a number of others -- but now that I've seen an audience respond to it, I feel quite satisfied that we've done a good job, and quite confident that it'll screen elsewhere in the coming months.

-Arnon

"End of the Story" Screening Info for the Beverly Hills Shorts Fest

noreply@blogger.com (Arnon Z. Shorr) — Thu, 19 Feb 2015 22:45:00 +0000

As I've written before, "End of the Story" is an official selection of the "Beverly Hills Shorts Festival"!

I invite you to follow the film’s progress on Facebook: www.facebook.com/EOTSfilm

The screening is scheduled for Saturday, March 7 at 4pm, as part of the festival’s “Horror/Thriller” series.

Tickets ($7.50 in advance – a bargain!) can be purchased on the festival website: http://beverlyhillsshortsfestival.com/schedule.html

See you there!

-Arnon

On Screening a Feature for the First Time

noreply@blogger.com (Arnon Z. Shorr) — Mon, 09 Feb 2015 19:49:00 +0000

Yesterday, I attended a screening of the feature I directed last summer, "Glimpse".

The screening was held in a beautiful screening room at the headquarters of "RealD", a company that specializes in 3D movies. I was anxious before the screening, and strangely, that anxiety didn't really dissipate after the end-credits rolled. I'm still feeling it a little, an awkward knot in the pit of my stomach.

We didn't show the film to "the public" -- just to the cast and crew, and to a select handful of friends in the industry. I don't know what they thought of the film, and I'm too scared to ask. I enjoyed seeing it on a big screen, and took a lot of pride in some of the scenes that really accomplished what I wanted them to accomplish. On the whole, I think I did a good job with the thing, but until it gets evaluated by someone uninvolved (that is to say, until it's reviewed, or until it's screened at a festival), I have a hard time trusting my own response to it, or the responses of friends and family (who, more often than not, choose to say nice things). So the knot in my stomach remains.

Last night, I asked my wife to be candid with me, specifically about what she thought of my directing. She admitted, bravely, that she didn't really know what to look for. She liked some of the performances, and attributed that to the actors. She liked some of the shots, and attributed that to the DP. I found her observation fascinating. To me, the film is completely covered with my "fingerprints". From the extreme camera angles to the way some shots linger for a while to the function of music in the tonality of a scene... there are thousands of little details that I had a hand in creating, or that I pushed my collaborators to create. But to my wife (who, perhaps, is much more like a typical viewer), those are all simply bits and pieces of the story, impossible to separate from the story itself. The conversation was a reminder of the invisibility of the apparatus in Hollywood-style filmmaking, the notion that the filmmaker tell a story without being seen or heard or felt. It's difficult, to think that my own wife couldn't recognize my own work in the film, but it's also something I'm a little proud of. It means I told the story without getting in its way.

-Arnon

"End of the Story" Begins a Festival Run!

noreply@blogger.com (Arnon Z. Shorr) — Tue, 03 Feb 2015 16:59:00 +0000

The short that I wrote and directed a few months ago got in to its first festival! "End of the Story" will screen at the Beverly Hills Shorts Fest in early March! I'm very excited about this - it's the first time in a while that my work has been screened in a theatrical venue. Last time was in Texas last year, with some episodes of "Jewbellish: The Show" - I wasn't able to attend that event, though I participated (with Mendy Pellin and Jeffrey Lampert) in a Q&A via Skype. The last time I actually attended a screening of my work was at a Jewish film festival in Madison, Wisconsin, back in 2008 (where I won a nice cash prize for "Widow's Meal").

"End of the Story" is really short - all of 160 seconds - but it packs a punch. I'm really looking forward to feeling the audience reaction when they see it!

-Arnon

Working with Composers

noreply@blogger.com (Arnon Z. Shorr) — Mon, 08 Dec 2014 18:18:00 +0000

I'm having a lot of fun. "Glimpse" (the feature I directed in August) is in the final stages of post-production, which means I'm busy discussing color with the colorist, sound with the sound editor, and music with the composer. The music meetings, in particular, have been thrilling for me because I finally get to work with my friend, Aaron Symonds.

Aaron is a musician, of course, but he's also a storyteller. When we discuss music cues, he keeps the conversation sharply focused on the narrative, and on the role music can play in the narrative process. Most of our conversations aren't about the music itself, but about the emotional and narrative beats of a scene. What's happening here? What is that character thinking right now? What are we supposed to remember at this moment?

Over the course of the last couple of years, I've had some rougher interactions with composers. Usually, the friction came about as a result of my trying to talk in the composer's language, addressing issues with the music by talking about the music. I have enough of a musical background to have a basic music conversation, so I assumed that would be the best way to communicate what I needed. Turns out most composers (or, at least, the ones I've worked with) don't respond well to suggestions about the music itself. They're looking for the director's vision of the story, and technical musicspeak doesn't provide them with that.

By the time I got to work with Aaron, I had learned to adjust the way I talk about music. Although we do talk about the music itself sometimes, most of our conversations are in the director's language rather than the composer's. I've discovered that this new approach suits me very well, since I think about other aspects of the filmmaking process in very narrative terms, too. Cinematography, to me, is all about how the camera's position and movement best serve the story. The props, the costumes, the pace of the edit, they are all actively engaged in the storytelling process. Nicole Wittman, one of my favorite makeup artists to work with, always starts by asking "what's happening in this scene?" She understands that even the makeup can serve a narrative purpose.

"Glimpse" will be finished in a few weeks, and looks like it'll be screened to an industry audience in early January. That's when I'll find out if my technical/narrative focus pays off. Until then, I get to have more creative meetings with my post-production team!

-Arnon Shorr

From Development to Post and Everything In-Between

noreply@blogger.com (Arnon Z. Shorr) — Thu, 20 Nov 2014 20:00:00 +0000

I've been told many times that it's good in this business to keep many irons in the fire. I take this advice to heart.

At the moment, I have active projects in just about every stage of the production lifecycle. "Wayfarers" is in active development (I hope to announce some very exciting news about that project soon!)
Two shorts ("Johnny's Rocket" and "End of the Story") are finished and submitted to festivals.
"A Glimpse of the Soul" (which I think we're re-titling as simply "Glimpse") is in the later stages of post-production.
I've been hired to produce a season of "Jewbellish the News" for my good friend, Mendy Pellin. Since we're tackling this as a weekly comedy news show, we're constantly in a state of pre-production, production and post-production simultaneously. We shot the first episode of the season yesterday, and while I'm in post on that, I'm prepping for the next episode, which shoots in a few days.

I'm really happy with the way these projects are moving. The spotting sessions with the composer for "Glimpse" were really fun, and the small bits of music I've heard so far are incredible. "Wayfarers" remains an adventure, though it's one I can't really discuss yet. My shorts (especially "End of the Story") have been getting really strong reactions from the folks who've seen them. I'm hoping that translates to some festival love in the coming months, too.

Aside from the aforementioned secret good news about "Wayfarers", I've had some not-so-secret good news about the project. The WildSound Festival performed the first ten pages of the script and posted the video here: http://wildsoundfestivalreview.com/2014/11/14/writer-arnon-z-shorr/

There's also nice Jewbellish-related news: The Wall Street Journal published a front page story about Mendy and Jewbellish on Friday. The article doesn't mention me by name, but it singles-out episodes of the web series that I directed (such as the first "Mad Mentsch" episode). I'm very proud of that.

The idea behind having lots of irons in the fire is that if something fails, it's not too heartbreaking because there's so much else that might hold promise. At the moment, with all these irons in all these fires, it doesn't feel like anything is failing. It's a good feeling.

-Arnon

"Wayfarers" gets the WILDsound treatment!

noreply@blogger.com (Arnon Z. Shorr) — Thu, 02 Oct 2014 16:47:00 +0000

My post-Apocalyptic Exodus screenplay, "Wayfarers", has been selected by the WILDsound Writing Festival! They will set up and record a staged reading of the first few pages of the screenplay, which they call "vivid, well-written" and "exciting".

I'll post more when I know more. For now, you can see what WILDsound does at their website, www.wildsound.ca

-Arnon

The Little Things (Between the Big Things)

noreply@blogger.com (Arnon Z. Shorr) — Thu, 02 Oct 2014 16:43:00 +0000

I've been waiting (patiently, I think) for the editors to assemble a first cut of "A Glimpse of the Soul". It hasn't been easy, but I've tried to busy myself with other projects in the meantime.

I directed an episode of "Jewbellish the News" for my friend, Mendy Pellin.

With over 14,000 views so far, I consider it a moderate success!

I really enjoy working with Mendy -- he's creative, energetic, and a generous collaborator.

I'm also working with Scott Baker again (he was the DP on "Glimpse"). This time, he's directing (and shooting) and I'm AD/UPM on a trailer shoot for a sci-fi novel called "Rymyny". We shot our first day yesterday, and if all goes well, we'll wrap this evening.

Next week, I'll direct a short film with Lauren Byrnes, an actress I've been hoping to work with for a while. I wrote this short script for her months ago, but we never found the time to pull the production together. Scott will shoot, and Jason Moran (sound guy from "Glimpse") will make sure it sounds good.

And of course, I'm still pushing "Wayfarers" forward...

Nothing like having a bunch of irons in the fire. It feels good to be busy like this, even if it can get a little tricky juggling it all. It's going to get especially exciting when the assembly cut of "Glimpse" is ready!

-Arnon

The Morning After

noreply@blogger.com (Arnon Z. Shorr) — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 21:06:00 +0000

We wrapped production on "A Glimpse of the Soul" almost a week and a half ago. It was a spectacular shoot, full of the sorts of surprises a director can only dream of: shots that made me jump for joy, performances that made the crew shed tears, days when we were so far ahead of schedule that we could add entire pages to our afternoons without going overtime.

But now, we've wrapped, everyone has gone on to other things, and the footage is on its way to the editors to get (further) transformed in to a movie. I've been trying to take it easy, to 'recover' a little from the bustle of production, but the momentum feels too good. I've got to get back in to a director's chair soon.

I've talked to some friends about pulling a couple of shorts together, just for fun, and I'm working to build up momentum again for an old project that hasn't moved much in a while. I might step in to AD another sci-fi feature in a few months, and I've thrown my hat in to the ring for another feature directing gig... but of all these irons in the fire, there's simply no way to know which will heat up first.

I like this period of time, just after a big project wraps. When I reach out to people about new projects, I get to lead my emails with "I just wrapped a feature film!" It feels very validating.

-Arnon