Prioritize joy, perspective, posters, & why does it look good but feel so wrong?
FSDD #75 will take you up, down, and all around...
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This is where it all begins… your love, your devotion, and our revolution and evolution.
Paris Zarcilla’s post hit me hard, and I suspect it will do the same for many of you. You can do all that they recommend and you can do it extremely well. You make your work and you make it extremely well. You win prizes. Get agents. Build a body of work across multiple forms. But it still doesn’t take hold. It doesn’t get easier. Your career is not where it wants to be, and you feel like shit. You feel no joy.
We lost the plot. We are supposed to do what we love. If the process is terrible, the result is likely to not be much better. Yes, the system should be aligned with our goals — and it is no longer. Why? Because TheFKATheFilmBiz has been abducted by the Tech Cos. All the cultural industries have become empty vessels that those demons of data and efficiency inhabit.
Paris’ tale is the sane one. We need to abandon ship and prioritize our joy. And it requires saying I am stepping out of your sandbox; it is filled with kitty litter now anyways.
(TH)
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It’s all in the details. Everything is a metaphor. Get a new perspective.
We can look at the small and see the whole. We can gaze upon the world and find ourselves. Nicolas Saada is able to gaze upon how we look at things and see so much more, and in doing so takes us to one of my bucket list festivals and finds many a takeaway.
(TH)
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How To Cast A Movie, Regardless Of Budget
As a filmmaker who was once very intimidated by casting - especially on modestly budgeted projects that might require the use of (gasp) non-professional actors - I find Adam Kritzer’s latest essay on the topic helpful. Kritzer lucidly chronicles the casting journey for his upcoming NonDē film, Lost Cause, while guiding us through the trade-offs of union versus non-union performers, the value of casting directors, and the delicate decision of when to seek trained professionals, and when to trust amateurs.
(ARB)
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Your Film Summed Up in One Image…
A poster is a very important part of your movie marketing — maybe it’s printed, maybe it’s shared online, but wherever it is, you want it to make people stop in their tracks and think, “oooh this movie looks great!”
So, it just has to be….well perfect, but you know….no pressure.
Thankfully, Abigail Horton shares the process of doing just that for her feature film, “Blow Up My Life”. Shedding some light on things to think about, places to look for inspiration, and some recommendations on who to go to.
(AS)
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“This is what happens when an entire generation learns cinema from streamers”…
When you ask many people what is means for something to be cinematic, they’ll often answer something to the effect of it being a “beautiful” shot. Think vast wide landscape shot from like Lawrence of Arabia or something. But what being cinematic really boils down to is intentional visual storytelling. When the filmmaker uses all of the visual elements at their command, for example: lighting, camera, and blocking to name a few, to elicit an emotional response from the viewer. This is cinema. And this is an art form that is becoming harder and harder to find, and Jose Zambrano Cassella breaks down why in this post.
(AS)
BONUS: Shout out to FilmStack
Who’s sharing what, you ask?
ARB= Alex Rollins Berg AS= Amanda Sweikow Avi= Avi Setton CR= Courtney Romano SS= Sara's Soliloquies TH= Ted Hope
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We are not breaking down the walls in NonDe, we are ignoring them, to build own structures with materials that those that built the walls could never have even imagined.