Make Film Teach Film

Pitching Your BIG project and the tools you should take into the room

When pitching a movie, I find the more tools you have in the room, the better the meeting goes. Of course having a killer title, a great logline and a brilliantly executed pitch in of itself is all great, but sometimes you want a little more. Especially if you are beyond the first pitch, and you are now pitching for further development. The pictures on the blog here are from Genevieve and Andrews BIG pitch to Warner Brothers for their film ‘Absolute Angels’, about which we are running a short evening workshop on Monday September 6th (more info here).

At this point, they had been successful in a number of pitches and had some top named producers onboard (from the Dark Knight etc). But this pitch was the big one, to get Warner Brothers to bite – for the meeting, Gen and Andrew had scoured the web to find images that represented the tone of the film, the characters and the world they had created, and then printed them out on large boards which were placed around the room. They had also found music, a kind of ‘movie pitch mix tape’ which they played during the meeting. From what I heard they also closed the curtains to create a suitable ambience. All of this, along with casting ideas, crewing ideas and long discussions about the story and concept paid off as Warners signed on the dotted line.

The lesson here is to remember that film is a visual and auditory medium. Anything you can find that creates a sense of what you are trying to achieve will always help you. It shows preparation and dedication too. I have been doing this for Rocketboy with some success, you can see some of the concept artwork here.

So what can you use to support your pitch?

Images? Music? Some people even edit together sequences and shots from other movies to give a sense of what they are trying to do – in Hollywood this is called a ‘sizzle reel’.

In my view, pitching is tough enough and you should use whatever you have, so long as it has great quality and communicates clearly an idea, tone and sense of place / characters / etc.

Remember, the evening workshop is about how Gen and Andrew wrote their spec script for the sequel to The Lost Boys, which they called The Lost Girls, and then sold it to Warners, retiled ‘Absolute Angels’. The workshop is on September 6th – you can get tickets and more information here.

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author

www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com

The UK Film Council... a time to embrace evolution and create something EVEN BETTER!

So… much has been said about the closure of the UKFC. Little remains for me to add that has not already been said over and over. It appears to me that people are polarised into two groups.

1. Those who gained something tangible and useful from the UKFC
2. Those how gained little or nothing from the UKFC

It’s clear that these groups also hold broadly opposing views (though not exclusively). They could be charcaterised as…

‘The UKFC is great and the government has made a big mistake’
        or…
‘They never helped me, and I ended up wasting time trying to get their help…Good riddance’
(or as one amusing tweet put it, ‘Oh no! Who’s going to reject my scripts now?’)

The dysfunctional inner child in me did grin when I heard the UKFC was being axed as I have had little or no useful help at all from them. In fact their existence has made my life as a film maker more difficult by helping create and maintain a playing field that is very far from level.

But that is just my experience and I do know that everyone at the UKFC really does want to make a positive difference to UK film. And no matter what action they take, someone will always bleat about it. So if it’s not me bleating, it would be someone else.

Having said all that, I do believe the UKFC really does need to evolve. Left alone, I don’t believe it would change over the next few years, it would remain business as usual.

2010 is VERY different to 2000 when the UKFC was in its infancy. Their own statistics which were released last week show just how much the industry has changed. Link here.

So while I feel the Government has been hasty in its actions (but perhaps tough choices were made in tough times), I also feel that the UKFC needed an overhaul. And it was never going to do this from the ‘inside out’, it needed an external catalyst.

So rather than moan about past transgressions, why don’t we all begin to shape our own NEW UK Film Council dreams and make them a reality?

In years gone by, Government would ask some smart people to give their opinions on what these kinds of bodies should do - the broad stuff like ‘grow the film business’, ‘support culture’, ‘help sustain exports’ etc.

But we live in 2010, with Twitter, social media and blogs now contributing to the debate, with much greater access for all and the ability to mount fast moving, dynamic and vocal campaigns.

We all now have a voice. And by heck, we SHOULD ROAR!

WE should be leading the debate, helping the new government create a focussed, lean and effective NEW organisation. A UKFC for 2010, to represent the new industry. Not the ‘good old days’, but the vibrant future we can all share.

So who exactly is the ‘WE’ I refer to?

Broadly, the 95% of film makers who were never helped by the UKFC. As well as the 5% of film makers who WERE helped by the UKFC. We are all in one boat. Let’s get rowing together.

So what do I think this new entity should do?

In no particular order, here’s my thoughts…

1. Abandon support for any projects that are ‘culture for cultures’ sake. Let the market and consumers be our guide of what British culture is, defined by their choices at the box office. The UK public should celebrate and look forward to new British films, not avoid them like the plague. I know this is an easy thing to say, but we should be feeding the demand, ideally with our own cultural spin, but that spin must NEVER cost us the commercial edge. WE MUST MAKE MONEY. I don’t propose a cookie cutter approach, just a process that celebrates the audience rather than punishes them.

2. Continue the good work the UKFC has done working with bigger productions and bringing US$ into the country, or keeping our GBP£ in the UK. This is essential and one reason why closure of the UKFC is a bit silly. It’s all too easy to throw the baby out with the bath water, and it looks like the Government has done just that.

3. Embrace new models and encourage prolific and sustainable low budget films that deliver quality movies to targeted audiences, all sub £500k in budget. I would argue around £300k is even better. Create small and lean training academies that help new film makers realise their visions for these £300k films

4. Invest in writers. Hugely. In fact if this is all that the new entity did, I would be happy. A good script will usually find money. All too often a bad script gets rushed into production.

5. Invest in sales and distribution outfits in such a way that film makers have safe hands into which they can deliver their completed films. If I had received the money I should have received from the films I made, I would have a sustainable business. There is too much thieving in sales. These organisations should also reach out to writers to help focus their talents on saleability. It’s essential that if a film makes money, that cash MUST flow back to the entrepreneurs who created the product.

6. One day a week, all staff should have a ‘Google’ style blue sky day. For that day they should work on innovation in the industry, spend time with ALL levels of producer, asking questions, answering questions, connecting and creating new relationships. To me, the UKFC was largely a mystery. I gave up asking for meetings. They didn’t care who I was or what I was doing, largely because they didn’t know I existed and so there was no real way for us to connect. And so everything I did, from my own films, to my Guerilla Film Makers books, to the free outreach ideas that I have initiated (like our film production show ‘The Production Office’), all went completely under the UKFC radar. Sadly, they had no idea that my short film ‘Gone Fishing’ was the only UK short to be Oscars shortlisted in 2009 for instance. How is that possible? Did they not read the full page article in Variety and think, goodness, maybe I should drop these guys an email? The current UKFC seems to only look inward and rarely outward to the wider film community. I am sure they would vehemently disagree. The fact that they don’t monitor films in their year book that are budgeted under £500k will tell you that they are completely disconnected from the current micro budget revolution.

7. If a new entity is created, cherry pick the best of the current staff. There are some really, really smart and dedicated people at the UKFC. Honestly? I believe there are more dedicated, experienced and talented people at the UKFC than most of us really acknowledge. I think the current ‘political entity’, complete with its rules and regulations and forms add-infinitum, probably stifled many dynamic and creative voices from within the actual organisation. That’s a real shame. 

I am sure I can add to this list, and I would love to hear your thoughts too, on how you would like the UKFC v 2.0 to reboot. This is our chance to take the reigns guys, let’s make it happen!

UPDATE - I got this email, confidentially, and so have withheld the name...

"Great post Chris. As an ex-employee of UKFC, I often felt frustrated by some of the policy and funding that was present but also didn't think it was too far away from being a really useful organisation. Just a rethink and adjustment was, and will now be, required. Perhaps a more flexible approach to an industry that seems to be shifting constantly, although, as you say any such funding body will always have it's detractors. I particularly like points 3 and 4, as that's something that I feel really could and should be addressed." Name Withheld by Chris

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author

www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com

Cutting Dialogue from your screenplay, a masterclass in minimalism for Screenwriters

As I have been rewriting Rocketboy, I have also been re-reading some of my favourite screenwriting books. I have been looking for tips, tricks, insights and wisdom on the screenwriting concept that writing is rewriting. But it’s also about being tough in those rewrites. Killing your darlings. There are a few very good books on film making around, but among the top five for me is ‘On Film-Making’ by Alexandra MacKendrick. It’s simply brimming with timeless instruction on both direction and writing. Here is an excerpt from the book that is one of my favourite stories about re-writing.

Cutting Dialogue

…I have a story to tell of an early experience. I do so with slight embarrassment, since it probably does me little credit but it does at least illustrate a point. Shortly after 1 had been put under contract, the studio starred developing a story that was meant as a musical of sorts. The storyline was unremarkable, dealing with the marital problems of a very young couple.' To work on these scenes, the producer had hired a well-known British playwright. One scene involved a situation with the young wife who, while shopping, runs into a man with whom she had had an affair before she met her husband. Reminding her that she had left something (a pair of skates, as I recall) in his apartment, he takes be, back there and, with practiced charm, makes an attempt to seduce her. Being rejected, he accepts the situation with grace.

It was not a scene of any great originality, and possibly because of this the writer put a great deal of effort into making it as fresh, sensitive and original as he could. The result was a beautifully crafted piece of work. But it was twenty-five pages long, and the producer and director were much dismayed. They saw it as a one-act play in its own right that would badly interrupt the progression of a film really intended as just a sequence of musical numbers. The playwright, a thorough professional, recognised this problem. But when invited to cut it down, he discovered he was not able to reduce it by more than three or four pages, and even those cuts were painful to him. He gladly agreed to let some other screenwriter tackle the job.

The second writer assigned was much more experienced in writing for film. One of the so-called 'rules' of thumb at our studios in that period was that no scene in a film ought to be much longer than six or eight pages (four or five was what to aim for). This new writer was much impressed with the original scene (unlike most screenwriters who always seem to discover flaws in the work of others) and worked hard on the cuts, even to the point of some drastic alterations of the original scene structure. But when she came back with a scene that was still a dozen pages in length, she had to confess she did not know how it could he further reduced without completely wrecking it. Producer and director felt they were in serious trouble. In some desperation, they remembered that the studio had on its payroll a young man who had been given his first job in the script department not because he was accomplished in writing dialogue, but because he compensated by using certain skills learned when he had been an illustrator and cartoonist. They handed the problem to me.

'How short do you want it?' I asked. 'Just cut it down as much as you can,' they said. I was impressed with the dialogue of both previous versions, well aware that it was better than 1 could ever do. Quite nervous, I spent a whole day in very careful analysis not of the lines of the dialogue but of the structure of the scene. I thought about the characters, I tried to define their feelings and impulses. I marked the beats of the scene, the identifiable moves, the shifts of intention and changes in mood. I also studied the placement of the scene within the story as a whole. Then, still highly insecure, I decided to go out and just forget about the problem. This, in fact, is for me a standard procedure. When a writing dilemma appears insoluble, it is not a bad tactic to push it deliberately out of your consciousness while you go off on other business, or indeed play. Find companions who will talk with you on other matters. Play a game of tennis. Go to a concert. Go for a long walk. Get drunk. Any preoccupation that, by preventing exercise of thought, pushes the problem down into your subconscious, or at least semi-conscious, mind. Then, just before going to sleep, briefly recapitulate the unsolved dilemma in your mind.

What happened to me was what happens to many of us who use this method. I was jogged into wakefulness in the very early hours by an idea that seemed rather preposterous. I got up at dawn and wrote a first draft. Then, after breakfast, I polished it a little and took it in to the studio. With some trepidation I gave it to the typists of the script department. These young ladies are very wise in the politics of the studio and I was not much reassured to hear them in fits of giggles just after I had closed the door on them. An hour later I was summoned to a meeting with the head of the script department. As I approached his room I heard more laughter. All too conscious that my contract was up for renewal, I entered to find that the producer, director and head of the script department were all there, all involved in the hilarity. Sobering up, the director told me that I had solved the problem and that he would shoot the scene precisely as I had written it.

I should describe my apparently brilliant solution and scintillating dialogue. The scene opens in the empty apartment of the would-be seducer. As he enters, he carries the shopping basket of the young wife that he rapidly discards, and moves toward a record player. By the time the young woman has appeared in the doorway, looking round the room that clearly holds some memories for her, music has begun to play, emphasising those recollections. The man moves over to her, saying nothing, and offers to help her with her overcoat. With only the slightest of hesitations, the young wife lets him take it, and he deposits it in a chair next to the side table on which he starts to mix a drink, again without needing to ask her what she wants. Accepting it, she obviously notes he has remembered her tastes. She smiles at him and goes on listening to the gramophone record. But when he joins her, carrying his own drink, he leans close to kiss her lightly on the nape of the neck. She turns quickly, with a small shake of her head.

                                         YOUNG WIFE
                                (negative inflection)
                        Mm-mm.

                                        WOULD-BE SEDUCER
                                (makes face, questioning)
                        Mm-mm?

She looks at him. He looks back at her, and his expression becomes more serious.

                                        YOUNG WIFE
                                (quietly, with tenderness)
                        Mmm-mm.

The seducer accepts the rejection with good grace. He moves away, opens a closet, and after a moment returns to present her with the skates. He is amused but respectful.

                                        YOUNG WIFE
                                (giving the word several meanings)
                        Thank you.

There were two results of this version that consigned to the waste-paper basket the costly efforts of writers with vastly greater talent than my own. The first was that, as played by two actors of considerable ability and naturally appealing personality, the scene worked much better than it may have deserved to, and since the other versions were never seen, nobody could ever tell if they would have played any better. The second was that my contract was renewed and I was privately noted by the Chief Executive of the studio as a youngster who might eventually be better at directing than at writing. (Years later, I read that Raymond Chandler felt that one of the best dialogue scenes he had ever written in a Hollywood movie contained only one word: 'Uh-huh', spoken three times with different intonations. It is the same anecdote.)

It may be worth reminding students that such wordless scenes are, in some respects, just as challenging to the screenwriter as scenes of snappy and clear dialogue, since they depend on very careful examination of the mute behavior of the characters, the use of props, and the staging of the action. Such scenes, of course, must also take into account those situations that have preceded it, as well as the entire dramatic structure underlying the film as a whole, an understanding of which must always precede the invention of dialogue. To a strong degree, in cutting these twenty-five pages of dialogue to three non-verbal noises and a single word, I had remained absolutely faithful to the playwright's original story.

For me this is a wonderful example of a number of concepts.

1. Less is more. Screenwriting is the art of saying the most with the least.

2. Use the audiences ability to make meaning out of very small things. Audiences LOVE interpreting and extracting meaning from subtlety. This is a great example of that, and honestly, it’s the hardest thing in the world to do effectively.

3. If you can tell the story without dialogue, it’s always better.

An inspirational story from an extraordinary book. Buy it.

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author
www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com

Super Shorts International Film Festival - open for entries

Those of you who followed my Gone Fishing journey will know that last year I went to about 30 festivals around the world, and documented the whole process on the blog. I also created a spreadsheet and some very interesting data analysis (you can download the spreadsheet here and use it for your festival campaign).

Over the years, I have been asked by several festivals to blog about their events, but I have resisted as there has not yet been a personal connection – that’s until now. This year I am the head of the jury at the London based Super Shorts film festival. WOW! The organisers just sent out press releases (below).

So finally, I guess I will find out what it’s like on the other side of the process, and I am looking forward to it hugely! Here's their blurb...

The Super Shorts International Film Festival 2010 (www.supershorts.org) is now accepting short film and script entries.

“The world’s best new shorts” Metro newspaper

In the last seven years Super Shorts has awarded over £35,000 worth of prizes to talented filmmakers and scriptwriters.  In that time we've shown around 1,000 incredible short films, from slick 35mm shorts to weird and wonderful experimental films. We've held over 120 events, including seminars, panel discussions and workshops. 

This year is set to be better than ever and we are continuing our tradition of providing cash prizes for the top films and scripts.  

Entries Now Open - We are now accepting films under 20 minutes and short scripts under 20 pages.  Filmmakers and writers can either apply at Withoutabox (www.withoutabox.com/login/6736) or via a printed submission (details at www.supershorts.org).

Short Film Competition - All films under 20 minutes are eligible, including live action, documentary and animation with fourteen award categories including Best Direction, Editing, Script, Sound, Cinematography and Producers' Award. This year sees the addition of the 'Low Budget Award' which celebrates the film which achieves the most on a limited budget.  The top prize is the Grand Prix which has a £1,000 cash prize .

Short Script Competition - Open to all scripts under 20 pages of any genre and with a top prize of £500 cash. All shortlisted scripts will receive feedback and as our Festival Jury will be made up of industry professionals we hope that this competition will be useful in getting your script read by more people. Submitted scripts will remain private at all times everyone involved will be required to sign a non-disclosure agreement to ensure your script remains protected.

Chris Jones, Head of Festival Jury 2010 – Chris Jones is a filmmaker and author of the internationally bestselling "Guerilla Film Makers Handbook" series. In 2009 his short film 'Gone Fishing' was Oscar shortlisted, won the prestigious Producers Guild of America's Best Short Film and collected over 40 international awards.

More information at www.supershorts.org

Blimey!

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author
www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com

What does 'The Stage' say about the new Guerilla Film Makers Pocketbook?

Reviews for the new ‘Guerilla Film Makers Pocketbook’ are now coming in thick and fast, like this one below from the actors newspaper, ‘The Stage’. I have also just completed a microsite on www.guerillafilm.com for anyone who wants to buy a signed copy of the book direct from us – in the UK, USA and internationally. But the book here.

OK so here is what the review in The Stage said…

If you’ve ever had the urge to make a film but don’t know how, this is the perfect companion. Part of the popular Guerilla Film Makers Handbook series, this distils everything you need to know to get started into a guide you can carry around.

The book takes you through the process of making a low-budget movie and is packed with detailed advice, ranging from how to layout a screenplay to choosing a camera, casting, how to handle stunts and how to get your film released. Much of this is in the form of Q&As with experts, which gives you a view from within the industry and makes it easy to read.

The guide also has lists of concise but crucial information – what different equipment is best for, the ten things to spot in a contract, etc – and bullet points on topics such as keeping investors happy, writing dialogue and getting great sound. Case studies offer insight from successful low-budget film makers, such as Paranormal Activity writer and director Oren Peli.

And once you have finished reading, links to www.guerillafilm.com, the Guerilla Film Makers group on Facebook and Chris Jones’ blog lead to more resources, interviews and updates, as well as encouraging you to make connections, giving a sense of community.

Passionately written and entertaining to read, this is a brilliant how-to book that makes you want to start plotting your movie right away.

Lucy Brown

Blimey! Thank you Lucy! Remember you can buy the book direct from us... here.

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author
www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com

How To Customise Your Facebook URL For You and Your Film

Branding, both for you and your projects, is now essential for anyone working the creative industries. Part of that is having an easy to communicate URL that is also Google friendly. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the key to getting rated as high as possible in search engines and one way to help is to make sure that your URL contains the actual keywords people will use when searching for you or your stuff.

For instance, if someone wanted find Gone Fishing on Google so they could buy it, they might search for ‘Buy Gone Fishing’. If they do, we should come up as number one in Google as I own the domain www.buygonefishing.com. It makes sense but not everyone does it.

And your Facebook profile is part of your digital signature now. Until recently my Facebook link was what appeared to be a long series of random letters and characters – a link for sure, but nothing I could write on a piece of paper, easily copy down or put in an email footer. So I recently changed it to…

www.facebook.com/chrisjonesfilmmaker

Nice and easy to remember. Also more attractive for Google. I also changed the Facebook page for the Guerilla Film Makers Handbook to…

http://www.facebook.com/guerillafilm

As well as starting the new Rocketboy Facebook page…

http://www.facebook.com/ProjectRocketboy

So how do you do it? It’s very simple really.

Go to http://www.facebook.com/username and you'll see a drop-down list of the ‘pages’ you've created.  Select the page you want, then enter the username you want for it (that's the bit that will appear after facebook.com/) and click ‘save’. 

You can only select a username once, so make sure you double-check your spelling! You also need 25 people to ‘like’ your page before Facebook will let you change the name. My Rocketboy fan page is brand new and so I invited a just few select people to join and monitored it until I hit 25, then immediately changed the URL from the random characters Facebook assigned to ProjectRocketboy.

It only takes a few minutes to do, provides a much simpler URL that is also Google friendly and well as client / customer / collaborator / financier etc. friendlier… Go do it now!.

Here’s the link to the Facebook tool again…

http://www.facebook.com/username/

Thanks to Oli Lewington for researching this.

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author
www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com

UPDATES....

I've been trying to change the URL for our production group's Facebook page for ages from the huge stream of random nonsense to the incredibly easy to communicate www.facebook.com/cheesemintproductions and thanks to this I have. I can't begin to thank you enough for posting this! Brilliant advice!

• Commenter name: Dave Chapman
• Commenter URL: http://www.cheesemint.com

British Writers and Hollywood $20m Teen Horror Movie... Unique Case Study Event

Here's how the Hollywood Reporter broke the story...

'Genevieve Jolliffe and Andrew Zinnes have set up the spec Absolute Angels at Warner Bros. Pictures, with Jolliffe attached to direct. Mosaic Media's Charles Roven (The Dark Knight) and Alex Gartner (Get Smart) are producing. Karen Walton (Ginger Snaps) will do a quick rewrite on the project.

Angels, described as a female take on 1987's The Lost Boys, centers on a high school outsider who is invited to join the cheerleading squad only to find out the girls are a pack of vampires.'

Needless to say, everyone at Team Living Spirit was very excited that finally, we were making a Hollywood movie!

And we are going to share the whole adventure with you in an amazing script to screen event coming up on September 6th, that’s a Monday night, 7.00pm till 10.00pm, on the making, well nearly making, of our $20m teen horror movie with Warner Brothers, ‘Absolute Angels’.

Price - £12.97 inc VAT (buy with this link or use form at bottom of this post)
Date – September 6th
Venue – Ealing Studios

In 2006, my LA partner Genevieve Jolliffe, with her husband, Andrew Zinnes, wrote a spec script called ‘Absolute Angels’ about a small Midwest town being terrorized by a high school cheerleading band of vampires. It began life as a pitch for ‘The Lost Girls’, the sequel to ‘The Lost Boys’, about biker vampire chicks. And everyone in town wanted to hear THAT pitch!

To cut a long story short, Warner Borthers loved the spec script that Gen and Andrew had written, but they wanted a rewrite to accommodate some ideas of their own – plus they couldn’t make it as a ‘Lost Boys’ sequel, and so that needed changing too.

They brought in a new writer to work with Gen and Andrew and several drafts later, everyone LOVED IT… The team began casting, secured big names for ‘table reads’, budgeting and scheduling, they even began interviewing HOD’s (heads of department, including our own Eddie Hamilton as editor). But literally hours before production began, and after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, Warner Borthers pulled the plug on ‘Absolute Angels’.

One year after the first pitch and the dream was over.

Why? The reasons are complex and completely ‘Hollywood’… and sadly, we cannot print them here. We can only share with you in the room on the night. And what is said in the room, stays in the room.

So this is a unique script to screen in so much as it’s script to ‘nearly’ screen… of how a British writer director got so close to a major Hollywood movie, she could smell success…

OK, what you will get out of it…

• Read the draft that Warners purchased.
• Read the draft that was re-written significantly.
• Learn how spec scripts are bought and sold in Hollywood.
• Learn the key relationships needed to cut the deals.
• Find out how much money can be earned in the spec script market.
• Learn how sizzle reels, table reads and other creative tools help close the deal.
• Watch top secret clips from the 'table read' with named Hollywood actors.
• Learn how to attach named cast to scripts.
• And so much more about Hollywood.
• Get to ask questions to British professional jobbing writers from Hollywood.

As I write this, Gen and Zee are working on a new commission, a monster movie called ‘Mermaid’.

If genre films are your bag and you feel you should be writing for Hollywood, this unique script to screen event is an amazing chance to get the skinny, from writers on the front line, on just how it works, and what you can do to find success.

Not been to any of our past script to screen events? Check out the video here to get a flavour of what you can expect.

See you there!

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author
www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com

We love the Nickel Film Festival

We love the Nickel Film Festival. Why? Not only is it a great festival at the far eastern tip of Canada, but they also send you money. Well they sent me money anyhow. Twice!

Gone Fishing played there last year and as part of the way Canadians do things (they go out of their way to send the creators of the work some Canadian dollars) I ended up with a cheque for a couple of hundred bucks. This was to pay us a share of the festival takings. Really rather nice I thought (in light of the several thousand pounds I had spent on application fees to other festivals where I saw nothing back).

And then just today I got a lovely letter and another checque from Nickel, for the roadshow where they screened the Best Of The Festival – so I ended up with another couple of hundred bucks! Sweet!

Now I know most festivals struggle financially, but Nickel DOES prove that even with short films, it is possible to make enough money to run a festival aswell as send a little something back to the film makers. A few other festivals have sent back similar small amounts of cash (all Canadian because of Government support I assume), but only Nickel has sent TWO!

So when you are considering which festivals to apply for on your next short film, remember Nickel, you could just come out of it ahead financially.

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author
www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com

Help shape Europes' BIGGEST screenwriting event!

TAKE SURVEY HERE

I have been given the incredible opportunity to be the creative director of the all new London Screenwriters Festival, which has taken up the reigns after the long established and much cherished Cheltenham Festival is no more.

So what will the new London Screenwriters Festival actually be? Here’s our vision…

This new festival will be a space where you can learn from the best, be inspired by the successful and network with the powerful.
Three days…
Fifty speakers…
Four hundred writers… (that would by you).

Already I am neck deep in amazing ideas for workshops, seminars, speakers, events…

But I need your help. We have a very short survey which will take you less than two minutes to fill out. We just want to know what YOU would like to see at the festival. This is your opportunity to shape what promises to be three extraordinary days at the end of October.

We are already contacting writers and film makers who most people would consider out of reach… so we want you to dream equally big too. What would be truly awesome for you? And think practically too, what gaps are their in your knowledge or experience? We will do our best to make it happen.

OK, take the survey here and we will see you in 120 seconds…. And thanks in advance.

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author
www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com

PS - if you want to sign up to the festival, you can do it here www.londonscreenwritersfestival.com and use the discount code of livingspirit to get £37 off

How To Distribute Your Film Yourself - Interview with Jon Reiss of Think Outside The Box Office

Earlier this year I filmed this interview with new-distribution-model-guru Jon Reiss, of Think Outstide The Box Office (TOTBO) fame. We ran an amazing workshop with him before we all headed off to Cannes, and that’s when I shot this interview for one of our Production Office Shows (remember you can get them all as RSS feeds or on iTunes as free downloadable podcasts).

The information John shares is soooo good though, I decided to pull the interview from the show and share it as a single clip with everyone. So if you are thinking of making a micro budget film and self distributing, or creating a hybrid distribution model where you work alongside traditional sales agents and distributors, then Jon is your man.

You can get Jons book direct from his site here, and I wholly recommend it. And don’t buy the PDF, you won’t read it, but the hard copy traditional book.

Enjoy!

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author
www.livingspirit.com
mail@livingspirit.com