John August

Video

I talk with my hands

Film Industry, Follow Up, Resources, Video

Back in March, I was a panelist on a Writers Guild Foundation forum about publicity — specifically, how film and television writers should approach promoting themselves and their work through the media. As I wrote at the time, it seemed to go pretty well.

This afternoon, I was ego-Googling and discovered that clips from the seminar are available on YouTube:

The audio’s not terrific, and so you’ll probably need to turn your speakers up. This is the main section with me; there are two other parts focusing on other panelists, which you can find if you click through to the main YouTube site.

Chris Day, the head of publicity for UTA, references a memo I wrote around the time of Big Fish. You can find a .pdf of that here.

Hello, Residuals

Film Industry, Video

When the Apple iPhone commercial began airing, my first thought was that I wanted one. My second thought: How much will I get in residuals for the one-second clip from the first Charlie’s Angels?

The answer came yesterday in a big green envelope: $86.50.

UPDATE:

Because you asked, here’s the original scene as written:

Her cell phone RINGS. She answers it.

NATALIE

Hello?...Pete, hi! How are you?

INT. HOTEL KITCHEN – DAY

Pete is on break from another catering job.

PETE

I’m good. I just -- You said you wanted me to call.

INT. TOWER OFFICE – DAY

Natalie keeps checking the shelves, looking for a secret switch.

NATALIE

I did. I do. I mean, thank you for calling.

A Thousand Roads lead to this

Video

About a year ago, I took a Final Cut Pro class at UCLA Extension. It was a mixed success. I already knew too much for a beginner class, but wasn’t proficient enough for a more advanced session. So I ended up having a lot of extra time to fiddle around with the test footage that comes with the FCP tutorial — in this case, from A Thousand Roads, which is apparently a movie about the Native American experience.

One lesson I learned from the first Charlie’s Angels: when characters are speaking in foreign languages, the subtitles can say anything.