Opportunity For Indie Filmmakers

Emily Hagins, one of Austin’s most well known  independent filmmakers is working on her latest feature film, My Sucky Teen Romance, that will raise the profile of Austin’s independent film industry and give other independent filmmakers an opportunity.

In My Sucky Teen Romance, the characters watch a B horror flick called Killer Roadkill. Emily is offering an opportunity for other filmmakers in Austin to have their work showcased in her film by creating a competition for filmmakers to produce a 3 to 8 minute film called Killer Roadkill that will be used in the movie.

Entries are due by July 27th via upload on YouTube. The winner gets two tickets to the premiere and more importantly to have their film featured in My Sucky Teen Romance.

Emily is working on a distribution deal right now that, if it goes through, could make My Sucky Teen Romance her most successful feature yet. Regardless of any distribution deal, she plans a DVD release and wants to put runner up films on the DVD so there is more than one opportunity here.

For more information and more details on the rules check out Emily’s blog.

http://suckyteenromance.blogspot.com/2010/07/filmmaking-contest.html 

Emily directed her first feature at the age of 12 and was featured in the successful documentary ‘Zombiegirl The Movie’. Emily is now 17 and My Sucky Teen Romance will be her third feature.

In the indie film world, all too often people jump into projects with excitement and forget that they are involving themselves in a business venture. I have seen many people make mistakes with contracts and just want to share some things about basic contract law to help out those of you who have little experience with it. The film business is just that, a business.

What is a contract?
Many people think that a contract has to be written by a lawyer and formally announce itself as a contract. This is not the case. The most basic elements that form a contract are very simple. An offer and an acceptance. In English and English based law (US law is English based) there is a further element called consideration which I will discuss a little later.

So if you ask some one to work on your film, and they say yes, you have a binding contract. It is that simple. If you then ask someone else to do the job, you are in breach of contract. Again very simple. Something to think about when you are enthusiastic about a candidate but have not yet considered all candidates.

Why have formal contracts?
The reason for formal contracts is to clarify the terms of the contract so that everyone has the same understanding of what is expected. If you have a simple offer and acceptance, than you might think there are no terms of the contract but there are. The terms are what are called implied terms. Any area that is not specifically laid out in the contract is ruled by implied terms.

What are implied terms?
Implied terms come from the norms of any given industry. They are essentially derived from the common practice of the industry in question. So for instance if you ask someone to work on your film and they do, there is an implied term that they are legally obligated to sign a release form, giving you the rights to the film.

As long as you are not in breach of contract, they are legally obligated to do this. Another example is that if someone works for you for no fee or a very small fee, you are obligated to give them a copy of their footage so they can use it to promote their work.

Are oral contracts binding?
Yes, they are more difficult to prove but are just as legally binding as any other contract with the exception of oral contracts over the sale of real estate. All other oral contracts are equal to written ones. It is also worth noting that emails back and forth qualify as a written contract and certainly help to serve as proof of an oral one.

What is an offer?
Basically when you ask someone to do something.

What is an acceptance?
Acceptance can be an explicit answer to an offer or can come in the form of performance of the contract. So if I hand you a script, ask you to be a line producer, and you do a script breakdown, you have accepted my offer by performance.

What is consideration?
This sounds more complicated than it is. Consideration came about because English legal systems abolished the action of ‘breach of promise’ which was used in times past to enforce unilateral obligations. Contracts have to benefit both parties, consideration is simply the benefit that each party gets from the contract.

If I ask you to be my DP, lets say for no fee, you get material for your showreel and exposure for your business. I get the photography you produce. We both benefit, this element of the contract is satisfied.

The one area you may run into problems with this element is when you ask a member of the public to do something like answer questions on camera. There may be an argument that they derive no benefit. To avoid that, simply put the words ‘in exchange for $1 and other valuable consideration which I hereby acknowledge the receipt of’ in your contract and there will be no doubt.

You don’t even have to hand over the dollar. It can be theoretical, but when dealing with the public, it is a good idea to carry around some dollars in case someone wants the dollar so you won’t have to lose out on getting a signed release, which is a form of contract by the way.

What is a breach?
A breach of contract is when on party fails or refuses to hold up their part of the contract. In our earlier example, I asked someone to line produce and they accepted by performance. Because we did not cover the fee in the terms of our contract, industry practice would be to pay the line producer her normal fee. If I do not, I am in breech of contract.

While most people in the indie film industry will not go to court over such issues, one thing to consider is that when you breach a contract, the other party is then no longer obligated to fulfil their part of the contract. So would I just find another line producer to start over? I could but that still leaves the question of the release form.

Once someone has put work into the making of your film, they become part owner in that film until which time they sign a release giving you their share of the rights to the film. Unless you have releases from each and everyone person has worked on your film, you do not own it and no distributor or festival will touch it. If you pass it off as something that you do own and then a festival or distributor later finds out about it, you have probably effectively ended your career.

If you refuse to pay someone and therefore are in breach of contract, they are under no obligation to sign that release. So if you want to own your film and you don’t want them to work on your project anymore. Best to pay them what you promised them and get the release. Then move on and pay someone else to start over.

People Skills. What do People Skills have to do with contract law?
Contract breaches happen all the time in every kind of business. I have had line producers send out short emails rather than call sheets, DPs substitute a hastily scribbled shot list for storyboards, people ask to postpone no fee work at the last minute because of a paying gig and various other things that yes, legally speaking are breach of contract.

But business relationships are more important than law. If you are a fair person and get the job done to the best of your ability, no one will care when you breach a contract, I certainly won’t. But when you ask people to work on a film, and then fail to pay money that is promised, refuse to hand over footage, and various other unfair actions that lack basic decency in your business dealings, you might expect people to react in order to protect their rights.

What is the common sense answer to contracts law for those not legally trained?
Basic fairness is a start. Legal rules come about to protect fairness in business dealings. Don’t ask someone to do something that you don’t want them to do, don’t offer money that you are not prepared to pay, and when you do have to go back on an obligation, do it politely and with humility and I think you will find that if you do technically find yourself in breach of contract, no one will care.

This post may contain plot spoilers.

I recently went to see the new Martin Scorcese film, ‘Sutter Island’ in which I have a particular interest because it involves the subjecct of mental illness.

I went expecting to be disappointed becuase the trailer implies that the mentally ill would be used in the film as monsters. Once I saw the film I was pleasantly surpised that this was not the case, however I was dissappointed in how the subject of mental illness was handled generally.

What I specifically take issue with is the lack of care in providing an accurate portrayal of indivuduals with psychiatric and psychological conditions. I have high standards for the portrayal of mental illness and for a film to get my seal of approval it must satisfy several criteria.

The plot itself more than satisfies one of the criteria I expect from films with mentally ill characters, that the audience be put in the position of the mentally ill. This technique was used successfully in such films as ‘A Beautiful Mind’, and ‘Momento’ where the audience is induced into perceiving what a character with a mental defect perceives.

We all interpret the world around us through our perceptions, and when our perception of the world fails us, this is considered mental illness. When the thoughts get disordered enough, this is called psycosis.

But one of the main criteria for determining a particular belief as psychotic is that it be a private belief. In other words, clinically speaking, the only difference between eccentric beliefs and psychotic thinking is the ability to convince others to see it your way.

So when the audience is induced to experience what the mentally ill character experiences, the disordered thinking becomes a shared experience and is no longer seen as frightening or strange.

In this fictional world it ceases to be psychotic until the truth of the plot is finally revealed and by that time the audience has believed the misperception for so long that we find it hard to judge anyone who would believe it.

Another of my criteria is that a film either choose to portray a fictitious mental illness, in this case ‘criminal insanity’, or to take great care to accurately portray an acutal illness or condition.

In ‘Shutter Island’ the character suffering disordered thinking never had a named illness and seemed to display an range of symptoms that don’t really amount to any acutal diagnosis that I am familiar with but served the purposes of the plot.

I was satisfied by this as regards the main character but when it came to one of the supporting characters, the film named her illness as bipolar disorder and attributed behaviour to this condition that at the very least would be atypical of those who live with the condition.

The suposed bipolar character was someone who murdered her children, and the character displayed delusional symptoms which are not characteristic of bipolar disorder.

This brings me to my next criteria an my main point. In my opinion it is tiresome and unacceptable that the entertainment industry continue to foster the stereotype that people with mental conditions are likely to become murderers.

‘Shutter Island’ fails on this point because the main character is considered so dangerous to staff that he is sent off for a barbaric surgery. This is clearly protrayed as plausable and acceptable.

Perhaps one of the most common groups to be treated as murderers in popular culture are those living with schizophrenia to the point where most people believe them to be dangerous. It is my understanding however that those with schizophrenia are statistically the least likely to commit murder.

So why does the entertainment industry continue to create storylines as the expense of a truth that can liberate a significant minority from the pain of misunderstanding?

Because people will do anything for entertainment.

A documentary in France recently recreated the famous Milgram experiment in which people were asked to administer electric shocks to others.

In the orignial experiement 62% of subjects were convinced to administer what they thought were leathal doses of electricity simply because someone they saw as an authority figure asked them to, in the French documentary 82% were convinced to do this.

In the original study the participants were convinced they should go along because they were being asked to do so by someone dressed as a scientist. In the sixties scientists were considered infallable.

In today’s cynical world in which most people are aware of the Milgram study, how could people possibly be lead to believe that someone had the authority to ask them to administer leathal doses of electricity?

The unfortunate answer is that these people believed themselves to be participating in a game show pilot and had signed a contract stating that they would not interfear with the production.

Of these people 82% would rather kill someone than interrupt the filming of a television pilot. And yet by standards of psychiatry this is not considered insanity.

Why not? Because so many people were willing to do it. It is simply considered to be unfortunately normal for people to be willing to kill someone when asked to do so by entertainers.

Perhaps the entertainment industry should wake up to the reality that there is more to fear from sainity than insanity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsgRXRBdExA&feature=related

I am a little bit late on the scene as regards Jeffrey’s and Brian’s exchange about 3D but owing to a busy schedule I just managed to catch Avatar a few days ago.

I have to say I find merit in what Brian says about the 3D in Avatar saving it from a story that left much to be desired but for the most part I have to come down on the side of Jeffrey in that I believe 3D will always be more of a gimick than an artistic device. And honestly, is it really an endorsement for a filmmaking technique to say that it distracted you from a woefully lacking story, certainly this is no endorsement of the film itself.

I will say that the 3D affect was more sucessful with the animated parts of the film than the live action and as I spent the majority of the film whiping the glasses on and off when I found something I liked or did not like regarding the success of the use of 3D I can say that the animated parts seemed to have been animated as 3D more than made 3D by the glasses.

Avatar itself fell victim to the cheesy gimmicky use of 3D that I remember back in the days of red and green glasses when I wanted an old Vincent Price classic (I think it might have been The House of Wax).

This gimmicky use that I refer to is when something comes out in your face and appears to almost hit you in the nose. The reason I find this effect so annoying is that it defeats what I see as the reason for 3D, to look more realistic.

The most successful use of the 3D in the film, I found was when there was ash falling after the big explosion and taking down of the HomeTree. The reason for this is that it looked so beatiful, like the real snow I remember seeing year after year when I lived in Michigan in the ’90′s.

It connected me to something I remember and associated a pleasant emotion with. And as a director, this is the aspect of filmmaking that I feel is the core of filmmaking itself.

In contrast, I have never had a blurry gun whipped past the end of my nose.

And that blurry aspect brings me to my next point. Depth of field and 3D. It seemed to me that there were times when the 3D effects technically failed with objects looking fuzzy and blurry in a way that offends the senses and looks less realistic than 2D film rather than more realistic.

I took note of when this occured, it was not hard because each time it happened I fell sick to my stomach, and I finally realised that it was a shallow depth of field that caused this offensive artifact.

It was especially nauseating, and I do mean this literally, not figuratively, when something was blurred in the foreground owing to shallow depth of field. Blurred objects in the background still looked unsuccessful but caused less of a physical response.

This may also be why the animated parts were more successful because they were more ‘physically’ 2D, using optical illusion to create a 3D effect, and as stated above, relied less on the 3D effect itself.

I think that 3D, if used only in the ways that it was successful in Avatar could be amazing for film if used in small does, it is not right for every film by far. But I think in combination with shallow depth of field it should be avoided until the technology improves.

Unfortunatley from the looks of the trailer I saw for the upcoming release of a new remake of the 1978 monster film, Pirannah, 3D is destined to banish itself to gimmicktry.

Shame.

In the end, what makes a film good is the story, and use of 3D whether successfuly used or not, will never make up for a recycled story.

As I was watching the latest Sherlock Holmes film, I found myself profoundly disappointed for many reasons. The production design was over the top and lacked realism, the new face of Holmes as a tormented genius, got my hopes up but was over played, and the story was weak and too weird for my taste.

Perhaps my standards are too high. Sherlock Holmes is one of my favourite fictional characters of all time and having lived in the UK for many years I think I felt a little disappointed that so many Americans were used in the film to play English characters, including Holmes himself.

Having worked in London frequently I often used the Baker Street tube station where some of the architecture is still Victorian and the platform walls sport tiled silhouettes of the great detective with is signature hat and pipe. Thinking back I always thought of that silhouette as being that of one actor who play Holmes better than anyone in history, Peter Cushing.

Most Americans have seen his work in Star Wars but don’t know his name. Every time I direct a character who is evil, I make Star Wars required homework and I ask my actor to pay special attention to Cushing.

What makes Cushing so great? His use of emotion, or lack thereof. Evil feels but does not emote. Hatred emotes, hatred is warped love, based in actually caring about the object of one’s hatred. Evil is the enjoyment of indifference.

Watch the clip below to see how Cushing delivers the line ‘Charming, to the last.’ And even when his character, Tarkin becomes frustrated and angry, this emotion is held behind a mask of indifference, emotional control, and anticipation of the suffering of others. Also note Cushing’s awareness of his lighting.

That clip shows what I believe to be the best performance of all time by the best actor who ever lived. Every screen actor should study this performance.

Sadly Cushing died in 1994, and there will never be another actor quite like him. As proof that this performance comes from a unique mix of talent and hard work born out of professionalism, take a look at the real Peter Cushing, unlike Tarkin, Cushing was a cute and cuddly old man who emotes genuine kindness. One can hardly believe this is the same person.

Also in this clip notice his awareness of the needs of the studio cameramen as only partially stands to shake hands with Terry Wogan. Cushing is the kind of actor directors dream of.