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Ask a Studio Head How To Get Into the Movie Business
Larry Meistrich started making movies with next to no money. He's the founder and chairman of NEHST Studios, "a diversified film production, financing and distribution company" that opened its doors in May, 2007. As the above links show, Larry is a serious expert on the inner workings of the movie and TV production business, with a long string of production successes on his resume. Ask him whatever you like. Usual interview rules apply. And who knows? Maybe NEHST will finance your next movie.
Whenever I've read biographies of folks who have gone on to become movie makers, the basic answer always seems to be the same: the way to get into the movie business is to start making movies.
Grab your friends, find a camcorder, write a script, download some software, make a movie.
Then make another.
And another.
Keep doing it until you get good at it. It take an incredible amount of time and determination. You spend a lot of money.
Somewhere along the way you become part of the "movie making community." Profit!
I hope that after I die the one word people use to describe me is "resurrected."
Like anything else, it's not as much 'what' you know as 'who' you know.
The question I would have is this: How do you get your demo in front of the right people? Persistence? Dumb luck? A little of both perhaps?
My blog
I have tried that, seemed to get them to remember me pretty well. Although the next day sucked once my brain returned to its former position in my skull I had a whole list of new contacts in my phone and was actually on the "will answer your call" list.
Like arts? Like cheesy little Indie mags? Check out www.artwerkmag.com, and don't laugh at the bad coding please.
With respect to your film's score, how do you handle an allegation that the composer plagiarized part of the score from something he had heard a decade ago on the radio? Or how do you prevent such cases from occurring?
As a distributor. ;D
What about my immortal soul? Do I need to contact the devil directly, or will the studios arrange the transaction for me?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Thanks for taking some questions.
;-)
The Internet has a number of plays out there for self-distribution and self-promotion. A lot of these avenues are relatively fresh, so it is hard to tell, but by your judgment, are there any self-promotion or self-distribution avenues that are absolutely must-have for an indie movie maker? I'm thinking perhaps of things like the Withoutabox system, or Massify.
Is it prudent to publish on YouTube before making any other distribution deals to get the word out? Or does this put you in an unattractive bargaining position with potential distributors, online or off, such that your content is already out there, even though in lo-res quality?
As for "And who knows? Maybe NEHST will finance your next movie." see my site.
And thanks again.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The movie industry is notorious for being a heavily unionized, "closed shop" industry, with all the overhead and deatherbedding that implies. Is it possible for an independent studio to make a profit while obeying Hollywood's labyrinth, payroll-padding union rules?
It's about a killer robot driving instructor, who travels back in time for some reason.
Did I mention his best friend's a talking pie?
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
How do you sell a script? I don't mean monetarily, but how does one pitch an idea for a script without getting it shot down?
I have lots of ideas for screenplays, and I realize that the chance of anyone important ever reading them is about a million to one. But even my best scripts sound like crap in an 'elevator pitch.' How does one work around this?
Sigs are for Terrorists.
A) What's up with Hollywood accounting?
B) And how can I apply it to my tax returns?
I'd love to be able to show that I've never made a profit even after taking in millions.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
How does Uwe Boll keep finding people to pump money into his trash?
I mean, let's be honest here. That guy didn't make a single movie worth the time it takes to watch it, let's not talk about money. His movies are invariably in every "worst. movies. ever." list there is. And even trash movie fans won't touch his junk with a ten foot pole.
Can anyone explain the miracle of where he gets his funding? I mean, if you can solve that mystery, it should be trivial to get money just the same way. I mean, people who are willing to pump money into a movie that you know will bomb might actually finance a movie that has a slim chance to be gold.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It seems that with independent film making, the common path is: 1) get small to medium budget, 2) produce movie, 3) show movie at film festival, 4) sell rights to big producer. Is there way to get your movie to "go big" without doing this fourth step and not starting with a big budget?
I can say that I've never pirated one of your films. Never even heard of you until this article. I have no idea whether I'd want to see one, and probably am not going to trouble finding out.
As one who is in the same business as the MAFIAA, what have you to say about piracy and copyright, and the lawsuits by your fellow entertainment providers?
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
how very useful his insights must be!
i could live a little longer in this prison
Best bet is to start your studio in a right-to-work state where Union rules don't apply. Texas and Oregon are both places that have fostered feature film studios outside of the Hollywood system. And it's not as hard to get people there as you might think - a lot of people in the industry are looking for any opportunity they can to get the hell out of LA. ;)
First of all, he's a "studio head" that has two movies, and a "studio" that's been around for about 1 year. http://www.nehst.com/index.php?page=news
... We are funding pictures in the 2 to 50 million dollar range. We are also pursuing co-production opportunities, distributing completed projects, gap financing, and finishing projects in need of completion.....
Let's get down to the brass tacks...
Which means someone is providing production seed money and he's the face in front of the money.
Here's a the how-to for you sysadmins that want to become Directors.
1. Have a great premise. Remake one of shakespere's plays. (again) Keep the story happening in one or two places you can film in for 8-10 hours at a time without interruption or legal overhead.
2. Have a great script. You've got to turn your re-hashed Classic into a _great_ script.
---Pause to Decide----
You know you are doing a good job if it has been hard work getting this far. This is where you decide if you want to make it yourself or try to shop the script taking the very real risk that a good script from a nobody will probably get knocked off with no financial recourse available.
---I want the Whole Enchilada---
3. Shop your script to every dentist, lawyer, bigwig in town. You need ~$50-100,000 to get a decent-looking production. They get some control, so when they want a cameo or their granddaughter to have a role, the answer is "yes." Believe me, this is how it's done everywhere.
4. Production planning marathon during every waking hour you are not working your day job.
5. Hire filming staff. Make sure your lighting person understands working digital.
6. Take a two-week vacation from your day job in which you will shoot your film.
7. Edit a rough cut. Show to your backers and ask for more money for a good editing, foley, etc.
8. Sell! Sell! Sell! Film festivals, cable tv, independent movie houses. Sell! Sell!
That should be about 2-5 years work for the average fully-employed sysadmin. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
You will have earned your movie-making stripes and can call yourself a director!!
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
With the internet, does it matter where the film production takes place? I think not.
== First cross river, then insult alligator.
I know for a fact this happens with startling regularity.
At very high levels that, coincidentally, are difficult to reach this does not happen as much. Before one gets their "big break" there's LOTS of plagarism.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
"2.5 - get a good DP for free."
In my experience, a good DP costs at least four times your companions usual hourly rate.
Yes, it is possible for an independent film to make a profit. Directors have to start somewhere and many of them start by making their own films and selling distribution rights. You must do it yourself.
Don't blame the creative and production unions for everything. They continue to be a response to the unreasonable demands that Producers put on them. The creative and production sides have worked for decades to protect the value and safety of their work.
Now, Joe Schmoe indie studio guy won't put it to you like that, but he knows the game and you should learn it too before maintaining uninformed opinions.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Pitch it to a studio (who will most likely say no) then when the studio gets bought out a short time later, come back and claim they said yes the first time.
Its how Lucas got his first film (THX 1138) made. (he pitched it to Warner Bros who said no, then Warner Bros was brought out by someone else, then Lucas went back and said that Warner had said yes pre-buyout and got enough money to make his film)
For a person who is interested in the film industry, what is the best way to get a little camera time? In particular how does a person (in Boston, MA) find out where and when a movies are going to be recorded so they be a stand-in? Perhaps even interview for a small role? Thank you
NO! NO! Please don't mod me, I'm too young to die a troll. *click* Oh the pain, the pain...
Q: Would making documentaries offer a superior risk/reward ratio compared to feature films, especially if someone is just starting out? What suggestions would you offer to succeed in documentaries?
The question is ... do you go to the writers guild and pay them $35 bucks or whatever, first? Do you go to an agent?
If you have a killer script, that you can't film, where do you go first?
Since most of us on Slashdot are technical in some way:
When working on a movie set, are IT professionals involved?
If so, are they hired "in-house" or contracted from local IT consulting firms? What tasks are they involved in (i.e. pc support, networking, digital storage, etc)?
I had the unique opportunity to watch a portion of the filming of the movie "This Side of the Truth" (a comedy coming in 2009). They were filming at the apartment complex across the street. I noticed that there was a lot of A/V equipment (of course) and a number of LCD displays. However, there didn't seem to be any network gear, digital storage, or PC/Mac/Laptops in use. My guess is that this is because of the type of film (i.e. lower budget, no special effects, etc.).
David
If you have developed a fairly detailed idea for a movie, perhaps even an entire script, but you haven't actually tried to film your ideas, is it possible to get your idea picked up based on a script alone? What is the best way to get some attention to your script from people in the industry?
The job you're talking about is a visual effects artist.
;)
Special effects are on set, visual effects are post production. A visual effects editor is an editor whose job is not to edit the movie, but to edit the VFX shots from different post houses into the cut. On a big budget effects driven flick, you might have multiple houses (ILM, DD, and 5 smaller houses) working on the same movie. These houses will be sending editorial updated composites all the time, and it's the job of a VFX editor to manage the cut, and place in all the updated version of these shots into the cut in a timely manner so that the director and the effects supervisor can review the cut with the effects in place, and send notes back to the effects houses on the effects shots (IE, too blue. Explosion bigger. Needs less asslike work).
A visual effects artist can be multiple things. The two most common things are a compositor or a 3d artist.
A compositor will take things (green screen elements, CGI, background plates, etc) and composite them to form a seamless shot that ideally looks as real as possible. They work in After Effects, Shake, Nuke, Fusion or Flame.
A 3d artist can be further specialized in a bunch of categories (are you a rigger, a texturer/lighter?, a modeler?) but you're usually creating CGI to be used by the compositors. They work in 3ds Max, Lightwave, Cineon 4d, Vue (really more of a matte painting tool though), and Maya.
It sounds like you're doing the work of a compositor and the work of a 3d artist, in which case it IS very hard to generate realistic looking footage because it's almost impossible to be pros in both of these fields.
It is very hard to get many of the things you've mentioned to look clean and professional without the support of a qualified 3d team. If you were looking to get into compositing effects, I would recommend doing more simple things as professional as possible. These would include muzzle flashes (you can make these look perfect even in After Effects), green screens, reflection elements, removing people/items from shots using clean plates, etc. Show you have a working knowledge of the job, and you could get hired doing rotoscoping for a while, then get bumped up to basic compositing, etc.
A possible way to get demo reel stuff is to sign up for fxphd (www.fxphd.com) they're train you, and give you tons of stuff to use on your demo reel that was professional shot, and CG elements professional done. Fxphd is the training division of the site fxguide, which is a great resource for any VFX artist- there's a ton of tips, tricks and tutorials at www.fxguide.com too
Hope this was helpful.
www.GrenadeHop.com