Archive for the 'The Movie' Category

e 13 Netflix streaming to PlayStation 3
Starting next month, you can watch instantly through Netflix on your PS3.
e 6 New interview up
I did an interview this afternoon with Sam Heer at BlogTalkRadio’s 123Film station, in which we talked about Go, The Nines, the Burton movies and screenwriting in general.
e 4 Principles of Hybrid Distribution
A new article by Peter Broderick articulates a lot of the points I try to make to filmmakers with truly indie films.
e 13 The Nines on SciFi
The Nines will be airing on Britain’s SciFi channel several times this month — not to be confused with the U.S. SyFy channel, or the other international outlets with similar names.
e 24 Per-screen average
Indies have high per-screen averages because they’re on so few screens, not despite it.
e 55 A hard time to be an indie
As a counterpoint to the utopian bliss of the Sundance Filmmakers Lab, I’ll direct your attention a speech given by James D. Stern] last week on the present and future of indie film.
e 7 Crowdediting The Nines
Norman Hollyn, head of the editing track at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, has a blog post up about “crowd-editing,” the post-production equivalent of crowdsourcing.

Right now, the Advanced Editing class at USC is made up of 11 students who have each taken the dailies of the feature film THE NINES (the really [...]
e 10 Fansubbing
It’s time for the studios to meet the demands of the international audience and avoid piracy at the same time.
e 26 Which project should I write?
I’d recommend writing the one that has the best ending.
e 8 10 Sundance shorts on iTunes
Ten of the 80 short films featured this week at the Sundance Film Festival are available free on iTunes until January 25th. It’s a great way to see some work you’d almost certainly never catch.

Visit itunes.com/Sundance to check out trailers and download. (Link opens in iTunes store.)

I’m happy to see shorts featured this way, and [...]
e 36 The Visitor
On Wednesday morning, we came into the kitchen to find an orange slice on the stove and a tomato that seemed to have exploded. This was obviously troubling.

My initial thought was that one of us had sleepwalked, and acted out some rage issue against fruit. I realize this is a strange explanation to [...]
e 4 The Nines on Netflix
Several readers wrote in this morning to point out that The Nines is suddenly now available on Netflix’s “Watch Instantly” feature. If you have a Netflix account, that means free streaming in roughly two clicks.

I’m not sure how the Netflix streaming gets accounted for in terms of residuals, but I’m glad to see another legal [...]
e 18 The Nines on Amazon VOD
The Nines is now available through Amazon’s video-on-demand, with options for download or streaming within the browser window. It’s very straightforward, and I’m always happy for another outlet.

But it costs $14.99. That’s simply too much.

Amazon sells the physical DVD with all the special features for the same price, at considerably more cost to the [...]
e 19 The Nines, recut
An editing class will recut The Nines from scratch. Final film unseen.
e 8 Indie film, cont’d
How some are navigating distribution of indie fare.
e 14 Packing light
I’m headed to Seattle tonight for a quick screening of The Nines. I’m packing almost nothing: my iPhone, my Kindle, toiletries and a change of undies. Over the past year, I’ve found I am packing less and less, to the point that it’s become a sport to see how little I can get by with. [...]
e 81 Sundance, The Nines, and the death of independent film
A long hard look at distributing independent films.
e 7 The Nines on iTunes
Just noticed that The Nines is now available for rental on iTunes.
e 5 Shot an indie pilot. What’s next?
How to expose, fund and distribute your pilot appropriately.
e 14 Test screening questionnaires
DIY audience screenings help your product and save you money. Here’s what to ask.
e 15 Saturn Award nomination
Matt Venne emailed me this morning to point out something I would have otherwise missed: The Nines just got a Saturn Award nomination for its DVD.

It’s a clichÃ© to say, “It’s an honor just to be nominated,” but really, it is. And surprising, too. The Nines isn’t an obvious choice at all.

The Saturn Awards are [...]
e 29 Pack-saddles to listen
After reading this Italian blog review of The Nines, I’m convinced that the translation technology behind Babelfish is actually Icelandic singer BjÃ¶rk.

I confess. They are remained struck by lightning from the film The Nines, of which for other I do not have news regarding the distribution in Italy. To the foreign country it is already [...]
e 24 Facebook, a hive mind question
Once upon a time, I had a MySpace page, to which I happily added anyone as a friend. But right around hitting the 1,000 friend mark, I realized my patience for the site’s embedded idiocy — the 1998-style formatting, cheesy graphics, junior high demographics — was finite. I left it sitting fallow,1 even while recognizing [...]
e 12 The Nines drinking game
Saw a link to this in the comments section at IMDb.

1 drink â€“ every time someone drinks 1 drink â€“ every time someone says â€œNineâ€? 1 drink â€“ every time you see the number nine or can make the number nine from something on screen 1 drink â€“ every time you see a pug dog or a [...]
e 7 Shucks
“Every now and then itâ€™s nice to encounter a movie that just cracks open your skull and has rough intercourse with your brain.” — Jason Adams on The Nines, via JoBlo.
e 36 The Nines on DVD
In North America, The Nines is now available on DVD. So I thought I’d explain what’s on the disc and why, and the process behind it.

The cover art

The original one-sheet for the movie featured Ryan Reynolds tying the green string around his wrist. Even as we were preparing for the theatrical release, we [...]
e 6 The Nines, Unboxed
I’ve never tried Amazon’s Unbox service, which works with PCs and TiVos. But as I was checking the stats this morning, I noticed a few readers had clicked through and purchased the Unbox version of The Nines.

I’m assuming the $14.99 gets you just the movie, without any of the special features or alternate languages/subtitles. But [...]
e 9 Upswing
IMDbPro’s MOVIEmeter charts how often people are looking for a specific film. This week, The Nines climbed from 1539 to 11 on the charts. Since we’re not the only DVD coming out this week, I have to assume that means a lot of people saw the torrent and wondered what the hell the movie [...]
e 7 The Nines quiz on Facebook
How awkward is this: I got a 93%. It’s full of spoilers, so if you haven’t seen the movie, you might want to bookmark this for later.

The Nines quiz

Based on the syntax, I think it’s made by a non-native speaker. And I’m still not clear what the final (and missed) question is referring to: the [...]
e 11 Mysteries of Pittsburgh
The story behind former assistant Rawson Thurber’s second feature.
e 64 More on the torrents
There’s been a lot of feedback and reaction on this site and others about my c’est la vie attitude towards The Nines showing up on BitTorrent. Some felt I was tacitly endorsing piracy (no), while others wondered if I’d feel the same if I had financed the movie, rather than writing and directing it. So [...]
e 69 The Nines on BitTorrent
Since well before our Sundance debut last year, I’ve been curious-slash-paranoid about when The Nines would start showing up on the BitTorrent trackers, the online repository of pirated movies and a few legitimate wares.

It was inevitable that the movie would get bootlegged at some point. The timing was the delicate issue. If it showed up [...]
e 17 For Your Consideration
How some scripts get an awards push.
e 16 The Nines, as planned

Digging through the files this afternoon, I came across this document I’d written for The Nines three years ago, which outlines a lot of my production philosophies at the time. To complete my process-geekery, I thought I’d annotate it to show what we did versus what we planned.

You can download it here (.pdf). Note: Attentive [...]
e 19 The Nines, U.K.
I spent the morning doing phone interviews for The Nines, which gets its theatrical release in the U.K. this Friday. We’re playing at three locations in London…

West India Quay Cineworld Cineworld Chelsea Cineworld Shaftesbury Avenue at The Trocadero

…plus other screens throughout the country. It’s a bit frustrating that in this age of Google, it’s so difficult to [...]
e 18 The Nines, scripted
I promised that as soon as The Nines had reached its widest U.S. opening, I’d be putting the script up in the Downloads section. That time has come.

You can find a .pdf of the screenplay here.
e 23 Summing up The Nines
We have a bunch of overseas dates coming up for The Nines (starting with the U.K. on November 30th), but in terms of North America, we’re basically done. There are some one-off screenings on the books, but nothing resembling a true expansion.

We ended up playing in Los Angeles, New York and Austin.

Am I bummed? Yes. [...]
e 21 Easter Eggs for Halloween
Although we’re still in theaters, we’re busy at work on the DVD for The Nines, which should hit store shelves sometime after the New Year.1 There are going to be quite a few special features on the disc, but it’s the Easter Eggs that have me blogging today.

My question for the DVD gurus out there: [...]
e 4 The Nines in the U.K.
The U.K. release date for The Nines is apparently November 30th. More info when I have it.
e 5 Remembering the Alamo
The Alamo Drafthouse is what you wish every movie theater could be: laid-back, but on its game, and run by people who genuinely give a shit about movies. Plus beer! My thanks to them for hosting The Nines last night. (And every night onward, as long as people keep coming to see it.)
e 29 Trailer Competition: The Winners
We had 57 official entries. That’s a lot, and it’s about the most I could handle without my eyeballs exploding.1 I’m happy to report that many of the entries were quite good, and it was genuinely a pleasure to watch them. Most of them.

I feel like I should pad this opening bit with [...]
e 8 Trailer competition judging in progress
Wow, that’s a lot of entries. I’ll be announcing the winners tomorrow morning.

Erik Beeson, who so generously helped with the hosting and torrenting, sent along stats:

total torrent file downloads for both torrents combined: 808 (includes search engine crawlers) dv torrent: 162 completed downloads mpeg4 torrent: 79 completed downloads mpeg4.zip: 242 (the direct download) total completed (torrents+direct): 483

Thanks [...]
e 22 T-Minus one day
The trailer competition is nearing its end, and entries are starting to stream in. Some are quite good.

If I have one general observation, it’s that many of the trailers are trying to be respectful to the (supposed) tone of the movie. That’s fine, but it’s hard to distinguish yourself when aiming for the same [...]
e 1 Reminder: The Nines in Austin
If you’re in the Austin area, be sure to check out The Nines when it begins its run at the Alamo Drafthouse this Friday. Ryan and I will be on hand for a Q&A after the 7 p.m. screening on opening day.

Since Austin is sort of ground zero for film geekdom, we’re both figuring [...]
e 21 Trailer competition FAQ
What should the tone of the trailer be?

Whatever you prefer. It can be funny, scary, dramatic or simply weird.

How long should the trailer be?

Most trailers are between one and three minutes, but if you feel like cutting a 30-second spot, or a half hour masterpiece, go for it. I reserve the right to [...]
e 22 Trailer competition details
Call in sick, ignore your loved ones, and put on a pot of coffee: the trailer competition for The Nines begins today.

The delay in staging the competition has probably led to some over-thinking: What about people who haven’t seen the movie? What about film school students? What about people who are [...]
e 13 Trailer competition, teaser
Tomorrow, full details of the long-gestating trailer competition will be announced here (and at the lookforthenines site). You’ll have two versions of footage to choose from: DV and MPEG-4. The DV is big and beautiful. The MPEG-4 is small and nimble — and not as bad as you’d think.

To get ready, Erik Beeson [...]
e 12 String theory
While in Venice, I had dinner with several journalists, buyers, and Gabriele Veneziano, who is the father of our international sales rep.

Veneziano, a physicist, is one of the pioneers of string theory — which is ironic, considering some of the related issues in The Nines. In fact, there used to be a scene [...]
e 20 The Nines expands
We did well on our opening weekend, racking up a per-screen average of $14,586, the highest of any movie in the country. That, along with some really good reviews, is allowing us to expand to new theaters for week two.

For Los Angeles:

Laemmle’s Sunset 5 in West Hollywood Landmark’s NuWilshire in Santa Monica Laemmle’s One Colorado in [...]
e 9 Back from Venice
I’m back from the Venice Film Festival, where The Nines had its international premiere.

The movie screened three times, but the main public debut was 2:30 p.m. on Monday. At lunch that day, both the sales agent and the publicist separately pulled me aside to say, “So, John, you should know that if the audience [...]
e 8 The Nines soundtrack
Since Sundance, we’ve had a lot of questions (and compliments) about the music in The Nines. We didn’t end up making a conventional soundtrack deal, mostly because the film distribution situation was complicated enough. But you can find most of the music online. Alex Wurman has a lot of the score available for [...]
e 27 Nines news, reviews and updates
Briefly, because there’s a lot going on and I haven’t started packing for Venice.

1. Sellout at the Nuart

The 7:30 p.m. Q&A tonight with me and Melissa (and others) apparently sold out yesterday afternoon. But there’s also a 10 p.m. show that I’ll be introducing. I haven’t gotten an update about the NY screening at [...]
e 19 The Nines audio commentary
If you’re going to see The Nines this long weekend, you’ll be in a movie theater. You’ll have the benefit of a giant screen, good sound, and fellow patrons with which to partake (and debate) the film. There’s nothing like watching a movie with a crowd: it’s participatory and immediate.

One of my [...]
e 51 The Nines opens Friday
I feel like I’ve done so much publicity on it that everyone probably sick of me talking about it, but here’s the direct appeal:

My movie THE NINES opens this Friday, August 31st, in Los Angeles and New York.

Please come see it. And if you can’t, keep reading to find out how to get it [...]
e 20 The Nines trailer, HD
The super-deluxe HD version of the trailer is now up at Apple. Me like.

Check it out.

It’s not showing up on AppleTV yet, for whatever reason. I don’t know what subset makes it through, but I presume it’s coming at some point.
e 12 Trailer competition, second update
Just so you know, the radio silence around the trailer competition is not for lack of interest or intent. Stuff got very crazy, very quickly, and we had a hard enough time getting the real trailer finished up. (Plus there was other stuff going on.)

We have all the clips ready to go, but we’re [...]
e 18 Press Day
Today was press day for The Nines, which meant six solid hours of talking about the movie. And it was fine. I conducted all of my interviews sitting next to Melissa McCarthy, so it was a good excuse to exercise our pact of mutual appreciation.1

The event was held at The Four Seasons. [...]
e 21 The Nines in Austin
I’m happy to announce our first expansion outside of New York and Los Angeles: Austin. The Nines will be starting at the Alamo Drafthouse (South Lamar) on September 28th. There’s a Q&A in the works for that weekend with me and Ryan — most likely on the 28th — so be sure to [...]
e 7 Cannibals in canoes
Honestly, I feel like I’m cheating on all of you when I guest-blog for EW.com. But I did it again.

And then there are the non-Nines variables: babysitting grandparents, geriatric pugs, and the Tim Burton retrospective I want to attend. Plus eight more lessons of Pimsleur Italian, so I can politely explain why I’m throwing [...]
e 23 Me in Men’s Health
I have a long essay in this month’s Men’s Health, the one with Jamie Foxx on the cover. It’s not specifically about The Nines, but that’s the main reason I agreed to do it. To buy a single-page ad in the magazine would be more than our entire marketing budget. But for a [...]
e 16 The Advocate
Ryan and I did an interview for The Advocate about the movie, the business, and our trip to Malawi. It should be on stands now (or soon), with Ryan on the cover.

Yes, the headline reads, “Hollywood’s hottest young star runs off with his gay director.” They conveniently left off, “…to help paint an [...]
e 8 The Nines at the Nuart
Wow. That was quick. Tickets are now available for the exclusive LA premiere of The Nines at the Nuart.

It’s three weeks away, but when you’re playing on one screen in a city of four million people, there’s a fair chance some of those screenings are going to sell out. So if you’re keen on [...]
e 24 The One-Sheet

At last. There’s a long blog post to be written about how this all came to be, but I’ll save it for a future edition.
e 43 Technical details on The Nines
As promised-slash-threatened, here’s a not-brief write-up of some of the technical aspects of making The Nines.

The movie is made up of three distinct sections, each of which was shot in a different format. That was always part of the plan. The movie is really like three short films back-to-back, and each of them [...]
e 62 The trailer for The Nines
It’s up. IGN has an exclusive first look. Stop reading and…

Click Here

Then come back and tell us what you thought. Or better yet, check out the Forum at lookforthenines.com.

Update

There’s a YouTube version as well. Not as big or sharp, but handier.
e Comments Off Getting shot
I have another post up at EW.com, this time about being photographed for the New York Times, and the parental decisions therein. You can check it out here.
e 29 Look out! He is a Spider-Pig
MPAA carries water for The Simpsons movie.
e 11 Location scouting vs. reality
Looking through my YouTube account, I realized that I’d actually posted (and blogged about) our location scouting footage more than a year ago, shortly after we’d wrapped shooting.

I thought I’d go back and grab screencaps from the movie to show you what some of these places looked like as shot. (The following are in [...]
e Comments Off Guest-blogging on EW.com
Because I’m just not busy enough, I’ve started guest-blogging on EW.com’s PopWatch blog, detailing some of the madness related to launching The Nines. You can read the first of these entries today.

One observation so far: I’m snarkier on other people’s blogs than my own.
e 11 Three from The Nines
In preparation for the trailer competition, I wanted to see how footage from the movie would hold up when subjected to the Flash compression of YouTube and the other video-sharing sites. So I uploaded three clips in various formats to experiment.

The results? Two clips look surprisingly great. The third looks like ass.

The difference [...]
e 22 The Nines goes to Venice
A reader alluded to it in the comments of an earlier post, but today we can officially announce that The Nines was chosen to play the Venice Film Festival as part of Critics’ Week.

(At least, I assume we can announce it. We were sworn to double-super secrecy, which is presumably now over, since it [...]
e 5 Changes while directing
When the shoot begins, the real world comes to play.
e 13 Trailer competition update
Thanks to many readers, I think there’s a pretty clear game plan emerging for how to do The Nines Trailer Challenge. Several people have offered specific help, both advice and hosting. Bless you. Your email addresses have been duly noted for future follow-up.

Here are the questions I asked, and the answers I [...]
e 87 Calling on the hive mind
One advantage of having a brilliant and devoted readership like mine is that I can occasionally reverse the Q&A process and appeal for your insight. Here’s the situation…

At Sundance, I talked about my plan-slash-pipe-dream of releasing the underlying footage of The Nines simultaneously to its DVD release. Essentially, you could load it into [...]
e 18 The Nines at Cannes
In case you’re wandering La Croisette, wondering where all the interlocking three-part dramas with unexpected science-fiction elements are, you might want to check out The Nines, which has three market screenings scheduled this week:

Wednesday, May 16th at 12:00pm – Palais K (Market) Friday, May 18th at 8:00pm – Palais K (Market) [...]
e 33 The Nines gets all domestic
Ever since Sundance, when I announced that GreeneStreet scooped up international rights to The Nines, I’ve been faced with many questions. I knew the answer to the big one but couldn’t say. The answer to all the others depended on the first. So I’ve been sitting patiently, feigning detached acceptance, when I [...]
e 9 Renumbering when moving a scene
It takes both a letter and an omit.
e 25 The Week in Review
It’s been a busy week, and the next few days promise to be equally action-packed. So I thought I’d do a quick recap before two weeks go by without any real updates.

Boulder

I gave a lecture on screenwriting at the Boulder International Film Festival. It’s always weird going back to your home town, and even [...]
e 25 GreeneStreet acquires The Nines
At the Berlin Film Festival this morning, GreeneStreet Films International announced that they’d picked up the movie for all markets outside North America. It’s news I’ve been sitting on since basically the day after the Sundance premiere. The company really dug the movie and were very aggressive about getting it, so I’m happy [...]
e 25 Music of The Nines
Alex Wurman, the composer for The Nines (as well as many other great scores, including March of the Penguins and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind) has posted five tracks from the movie on his website.

Of them, “Cold Turkey” is probably the most interesting without a visual to go with it. The “Knowing Theme” is [...]
e 20 MTV Overdrive on The Nines
Josh Horowitz from MTV News wrote in to point out that The Flash business wasn’t the only thing they ran from our Sundance interview. In fact, the full version, now up on MTV Overdrive, succeeds in making both Ryan and me sound coherent, which is no small feat.

Here’s what you can’t see in the [...]
e 31 Sundance, expanded edition
Throughout the week, I’ve been trying to convey the Sundance experience with the Twitter feed, but there’s only so much one can communicate in a sentence or two. So I thought I’d fatten out a few entries to give a better sense of how Sundance really went.

Checking through the itineraries and packing lists. Do [...]
e 6 Best editors
In this morning’s Oscar nominations, I was delighted (but not surprised) to see Doug Crise and Stephen Mirrione nominated for Babel. Stephen Mirrione cut Go, and Doug Crise followed up his work on Babel with a little movie called The Nines.

Huge congrats to both of them.
e 26 Some of The Nines
As promised, here’s your first look at The Nines, as scripted. The following represents roughly the first three pages of each section.

Part One: The Prisoner

A MANâ€™S HAND unwinds a short length of green string. Weâ€™re extremely close, with a shallow, blurry focus. Itâ€™s like the first moments after a dream — just fragments. Scissors [...]
e 17 The Nines, in script form
Since some most readers won’t be able to catch the premiere in Park City, I’ve decided to give you the literary equivalent by posting the script online. Not the whole script, mind you, but enough of it so that you’ll get a sense of what you’re not seeing.

The script will be available on this [...]
e 4 That’s one expensive paper clip
Sundance frowns upon selling festival tickets on Ebay. But looking through the ads, I’m heartened to find that most sellers are technically selling “Sundance guides.” And when you buy the guide, you get one free ticket!

The best disclaimer, however, was this one:

Note: These tickets are free with the purchase of the paper [...]
e 7 Forums are fun!*
*Unless you have to moderate them.

Over at Look For The Nines, the official-for-now site for The Nines, I set up a forum to handle discussion about the movie. I had deep ambivalence about doing this.

Forums pre-date blogs, instant messaging, and even email as we understand it. Stretching back to their BBS roots, forums [...]
e 12 Sell out
No, that’s not my advice to aspiring screenwriters.

The Nines sold out its first three screenings at Sundance, including the 1300-seat premiere. As of this morning, the only tickets available are for the final screening on Sunday, January 28th at the Rose Wagner.

Keep in mind, everything sells out at Sundance. That Ukrainian documentary about [...]
e Comments Off MTV News on The Nines
As we get closer to Sundance, I promise not to besiege you with blurbs about The Movie–that’s what the other site is for. But here’s one. From MTV’s “Ten Most Anticipated” list:

6. “The Nines” Ryan Reynolds and Hope Davis star in this “Magnolia”-like drama, praised by some Hollywood insiders as the best script [...]
e 12 Found
e 8 Sundance catalog is out
The catalog for this year’s Sundance Film Festival came this week, which was my first chance to see what everyone else’s first impression of The Nines would be. The festival organizers write the descriptions for the films, so you’re sort of at their mercy. Fortunately, John Cooper wrote up a very nice blurb [...]
e 14 Seeing The Nines at Sundance
I’m not going to suggest that devoted readers fly thousands of miles to see The Nines at Sundance. But I’m not going to not suggest it.

I’ve long been of the mindset that there’s no reason to go to Sundance unless you have a movie there. I haven’t been since Go debuted there in 1999. [...]
e 20 I heart WriteRoom
For the past few weeks, Iâ€™ve been working on the production notes for The Nines. The document will end up being about 20 pages, detailing the backstory of how the movie got made, from inspiration through editing, along with everyoneâ€™s bios. Itâ€™s part of the press kit for the film, helping the journalists [...]
e 6 The Nines screening schedule at Sundance
The good folks at Sundance just sent out the screening times and locations for The Nines. Their website doesn’t show the schedule yet, but I presume it will be up soon.

Sun. Jan 21, 9:30 pm Eccles, Park City

Mon. Jan 22, 8:30 am Prospector, Park City

Tue. Jan 23, 9:00 pm Sundance Village

Sun. Jan 28, 3:30 pm Rose Wagner, Salt [...]
e 4 Why isn’t The Nines in competition at Sundance?
I was wondering if you could explain the difference/reason for competitive and non-competitive categories at Sundance and why you chose the latter?

– Steve Lakeland, FL

It’s the Festival’s call. They decide whether or not they want to show the movie, then which category they’re going to put it in. They don’t explain their logic, but [...]
e 31 The Movie is premiering at Sundance
After months of vague hints, I can finally reveal information about The Movie I wrote and directed this summer.

It’s called The Nines.1 It stars Ryan Reynolds, Hope Davis and Melissa McCarthy. It’s a drama. Funny in places, suspenseful in places, but basically a drama. It will be premiering at the Sundance Film Festival.

This last point was the [...]
e 5 When do you walk away?
Often, the only power a screenwriter has is to walk away, and the decision whether to do it is almost never straightforward.
e 15 Is the Slamdance script competition a bad idea?
No. But getting a movie made is worth a lot more than any award.
e 24 Movies look nothing like reality
The disorienting effects of movie magic.
e 51 As it turns out, I could care less
And both the film and I were better for it.
e 21 Previewing score with GarageBand
Alex Wurman is busy writing the music for The Movie, which in this digital age means a lot of files shuttling back and forth. Rather than tapes, we have QuickTimes for each reel, with timecode burned in for reference. When Alex wants us to listen to a cue, he sends an mp3 with [...]
e 13 Helicopter day
Today was the first and only day of aerial photography for The Movie. We rented a helicopter, a Wescam mount, a pilot, an operator, a camera and burned two thousand feet of film. Minute for minute, it was the most expensive part of the entire production.

How was it, you ask?

Pretty effin’ cool.

I’d been [...]
e 27 Additional photography
In Hollywood parlance, “additional photography” is the polite term for what used to be called reshoots. It’s a rare case where the new word is better. Most of the time, you’re not reshooting anything. You’re getting new things you didn’t know you needed the first time around.

Woody Allen is famous for [...]
e 89 Test screening The Movie
Test screening is important but potentially dangerous in the internet age.
e 33 Temp Music
This week’s work on the The Movie is largely about music. Our composer, Alex Wurman, has already composed one piece that plays on-camera, but most of the music at this point is temp — stuff grabbed from other soundtracks that roughly approximates what we’re going for.

There’s one piece of temp music that works really [...]
e 24 Monovision
About halfway through shooting The Movie, the propmaster asked, “Hey, where are your glasses?” I had taken them off to check my email, and left them sitting on the dining room table. It’s part of his job to recognize continuity issues, so it’s natural he noticed something was off.

But it was only his [...]
e 7 Because really, he should drive a Chrysler LeBaron
Clearing (and not worrying about) brands, artwork and monikers for your movie.
e 4 Update on the promiscuous player problem
My plea for a DVD player with loose morals and low standards was answered by many thoughtful readers. I ended up picking the Philips DVP-642 ($49 at Amazon), which not only zips through questionably-recorded dailies, but even Peixe Grande e Suas HistÃ³rias Maravilhosas, the Portuguese version of Big Fish.

Thanks again.
e 11 Location scouting
One of the first tasks in getting The Movie on its feet was picking locations. We spent about three weeks scouting — almost as long as we shot.

I didn’t think I’d written a very location-driven movie, but it ended up being a bit of a monster. Part of that was budget — if [...]
e 22 What’s it like being the writer and director?
There’s little time or room on set for the writer in me once the director in me takes over, but he’s good to have around.
e 44 So I made a movie
My extended absence from johnaugust.com can now be explained: I’ve just finished shooting a movie, an honest-to-God feature film. A tiny film, to be certain, more likely to be seen at festivals than fourteen-plexes, but a movie nonetheless.

Officially, it’s my directing debut, but it hasn’t really felt like it.

As screenwriters go, I’ve always [...]

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