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READ MOREI spent most of last year juggling five production projects. Little by little, I got out from under four of them (one of them is still going). After a hard week, I just realized I’m back up to five again. Four are work-for-hire, but one is one I actually have some agency over for a […]
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READ MOREFor the last few months, I’ve been outlining a new feature script. I was determined to hammer out the outline before doing any actual “writing” of scenes. And I got there! The next step was writing a treatment, and that’s the real hard part. It seems every time I try writing treatments, I get in […]
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READ MOREOne of the many jobs I worked on in the last year is a horror film called Frenzy Moon. My partner John Vincent and I have worked on other indie productions from Buffalo director Greg Lamberson before, but this was our most ambitious. We were tasked with putting together an effects crew, creating a werewolf […]
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READ MOREThe screenwriting software from John August, Highland, got a new version this week. (It’s now called Highland Pro.) Unfortunately, it’s moved to a subscription model. I gladly paid a one-time fee for Highland 2 a few years ago… which I suppose I’ll never be able to install again? Still a fine program with some interesting […]
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READ MOREGetting a team of animation artists to all draw the same is a challenge. Aside from model sheets, a style guide can help with that. I saw excerpts from the King of the Hill style guide posted recently, and it reminded me of the Simpsons one I saw years ago. Here are some links: KING […]
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READ MOREA producer I was talking to online was curious about how to format his screenplay in which 90% of his dialogue was song lyrics. Should it be like the script for Les Miserables or Pink Floyd’s The Wall? I thought the discussion was worth blogging about here. Opera or Music Video? In opera, all dialogue […]
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READ MOREAfter reading Inside Netflix’s bet on advanced video encoding at The Verge, I got to thinking about my early days interacting with video compression. From the time I created my first video clips for the internet, the act of managing quality versus bitrate has been a real challenge. This escalated once I had to author […]
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READ MOREAnother filmmaker recently asked me where he should post his short films. What’s the best way to get them to an audience, perhaps make some money? Vimeo Pro used to be an okay option, but Vimeo has pivoted to being B2B OTT company. (Marketing to businesses, encouraging them to start their own over-the-top streaming services […]
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READ MOREI recently had the chance to see the Mickey Mouse short The Band Concert (1935) with a film festival audience at Rochester’s Nitrate Picture Show. It played like gangbusters! The festival program made mention of two previous films that were an influence on the short, Disney’s Barnyard Concert (1930) and Fliescher’s Tree Saps (1931). I […]
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READ MOREHave you ever seen animation quite like this? I was excited to discuss this fantastic, at times creepy, animated film in a panel from the “virtual” Little Theatre on May 19. I was joined by animators Fred Armstrong and John Vincent, along with moderator Matt DeTurck of The Little Theatre. In this surrealist docu-horror-fairy tale, […]
