The Blog and Wiki sites

2007.03.29 13.08


The wiki, http://filmcoop.schtuff.com is migrating to pbwiki. They had a lot more space and free zip backups, things which costs more money than we can spend at present monthly at pbwiki. But the free account is pretty darn good now that I've had some time to play with it.

It only has 10Mb, but after playing around with my own pbwiki, http://cainmark.pbwiki.com
, I've found a way to use offsite links to my works in conjunction with my freemind created html files. Since we'rre mostly going ot have outlinkks to members of the workshops own pages and works, this should suit us well. Take a look at it, and change what you feel you should and/or can on the filmcoop workshop wiki.


This is now the wiki page at pbwiki.

http://filmcoopworkshop.pbwiki.com/

The password is: alabama

With that you can change anything about the page. You do NOT have to be a pbwiki user with a pbwikiIdentity. You just have to know the password.

The blog is now only the livejournal one at:

http://community.livejournal.com/filmcoop_work/

Wiki for the Alabama Filmmaker's Workshop created

At our last meeting, I explained how the upgrade on Blogger basically froze others besides me from entering. I'd long thought a wiki would be a good way to go for the workshop aspect.



I experimented with several. (I really like pb wiki http://www.pbwiki.com but it had only 10 meg of space. fine for personal stuff, but I think we'll have used more than that by a couple of years.)



After learning what I could about them, this site seemed to be the best compromise:



http://filmcoop.schtuff.com/



The rules are the same as here, it's just at schtuff instead of blogspot now:



http://www.filmcoop.org/filmmakers.html#blog



I picked schtuff since it has blog features as well as wiki features, and tagging.

 

Saturday, Jan. 27 -- Sierra Club Film Festival

From the film co-op e-mail. Cross-posting encouraged

Saturday, Jan. 27 -- Sierra Club Film Festival. The festival will
start at 4, with the last movie starting around 9. It will be broken up into
three parts: the 4 o'clock, the 7 o'clock, and the 9 o'clock.

The 4 o'clock showings: 'French Fries to Go'. An award winning film
by Howard Donner (Telluride Mountain Film Festival and Mountain
Film's "Best Environmental Film Award")
telling the story of Charris Ford, "The Granola Ayatolla of Canola."
This humorous yet educational film shows Ford as he travels and
educates folks about
biodiesel in his truck that runs on recycled french fry grease.
(grassolean.com)

'The Vineyard Energy Project'. Tells of one island community's (Martha's
Vineyard) use of solar power. (vineyardenergyproject.org)
'Storm in the Gulf'. When this episode of The Sierra Club Chronicles was
being filmed, Hurricane Katrina was days away from hitting the Gulf
Coast. The episode focuses on the folks who oppose drilling in Gulf
Islands National Seashore.
An eclectic group of people speak out to expose and shame the
Governor (Haley Barbour)
for paving the way for oil and natural gas companies. In addition to
these movies, the audience will also be treated to cartoons by Mark
Fiore. These cartoons will be shown between movies at the 4 o'clock
showing as well as the 7.

The 7 o'clock showings:
'Kilowatt Ours'. Opening with a speech by Dick Cheney, this film by Jeff
Barrie looks at the current energy problems and solutions. He
journeys from West
Virginia coal mines to solar panel fields in Florida and discusses
conservation at home and the use of clean renewable energy.
(kilowattours.org)

Narrated by Cameron Diaz, 'Powershift' discusses how energy affects
the lives of people across the world. Architect William McDonough
(who was named "Hero
for the Planet" by Time Magazine) discusses global warming and steps
that people
can take personally to help reduce it.

The 9 o'clock showing:
'Earth to America'. A star-studded comedy aired on TBS in 2005 as a telethon.
This special was part of The Comedy Festival in Las Vegas. It
features Steve Martin,
Robin Williams, Tom Hanks, Ben Stiller, and Jack Black, among others.
There are sketches, music, and even stand-up comedy. The special,
though humorous, covers
a very serious subject: global warming. Donations accepted.
Credits: Tina Leach
Flying Monkey Arts Center, 2211 Seminole Dr., Huntsville.

 

Film and Video Tutorials. Cross posting encouraged

Found this neat site

“Detonation Films is dedicated to putting the fun back in filmmaking
by establishing a new paradigm between digital media and online entertainment.

And also by blowing stuff up.”

http://detonationfilms.com/missionstatement.htm

Nifty tutorials

http://www.matthawkins.co.uk/index.php?module=pagesetter&tid=5&topic=3

“Movie Making Equipment you can make easily at home”
http://www.softweigh.com/video/diy.html

“The Skypod
A Camera Boom”

http://www.ee0r.com/proj/skypod.html

This is a good concise book

Film Directing Shot by Shot, Stephen Katz.

http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?work=100384&mode=card

This looks pretty cool.

http://www.arclightcinemas.com/(i5fw3zru43q1xhi43vocgkf0)/arclight/about.html



 

Film Co-op_Lost in Light and Dreamworks short film competition. Cross posting encouraged

This is a cool idea.

"Lost in Light is a project devoted to preserving, showcasing, and celebrating films created on the small-gauge 8mm film format.

To that end, we provide free Super 8 and 8mm to video transfers to anyone who asks, in exchange for posting their video to the Lost in Light site and on the Internet Archive with their choice of Creative Commons licenses. In addition, Lost in Light includes articles and features by members of the filmmaking and film preservation communities, video tutorials for making 8mm films, as well as creative work, all with the goal of preserving and championing this important film format."

http://lostinlight.org/about/

"Welcome to your chance to win a ONE MILLION DOLLAR DEVELOPMENT DEAL with DREAMWORKS. Anybody from anywhere around the world can enter (13 and older please), but you’ve got to do it no later than February 16th, 2007."

http://nalts.wordpress.com/2007/01/18/burnett-spielberg-offer-1-million-development-deal-to-undiscovered-fimmakers/

http://www.thelot.com/

Six word story opportunity

Recently a "youtuber" issued a challenge to create a "six word story", I've got two posted you may want to view. Check out some of the other folks stories too, some are very good. Search "Six Word". I found this gives a creative writing challenge as well as a short video production challenge.

I found some "free music" on OpSound.com (Thanks to Jim R. - I learned about the user license music site at a Alabama Filmmakers Co-op Workshop - the workshops are a valuable tool for learning techniques and sparking ideas - DON'T MISS THEM.)

Here's my two SIX WORD STORIES:

"The Too Close Encounter" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqnPUrijRUA

Video Truth With A Twist http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VppSqnfe0_E

Special Announcement - The local Government Access TV channel

From Don's e-mail



"Special Announcement -

The local Government Access TV channel (Ch 16 on Comcast, Ch 42 on Knology) has extended a generous offer to the Film Co-op. They will provide an opportunity to show some of your short films as part of a special 1 or 2 hour broadcast program. The films must be 20 minutes or less and be the equivalent of a G or PG rating (no curse words, no nudity or implied sex or violence) and can contain no political messages or images. If you had a film accepted into the Rocket City Short Film Festival in the "Family" category, please let us know if you'd like to take advantage of this opportunity. Members with other or newer short films, please contact us as soon as possible. Quality of the images, sound and editing will be important criteria for selection. The authors (director or producer) may also include a very short intro before their film. The city maintains a music license that covers broadcast of your film locally. Don Tingle will be working out the details (format, length, potential broadcast dates, etc.) starting next week. If this first attempt is successful, we may have additional opportunities in the near future. Please contact: Don Tingle, Film Co-op workshop coordinator, at 256-837-4359 (leave a message) or e-mail at DonJTingle@aol.com by December 20."

 

Next Meeting-look for a sign on the door when you get there. Sunday, December10th from 2 to 4 pm

Next Meeting-look for a sign on the door when you get there. Sunday, December10th from 2 to 4 pm

From Don's e-mail:

"EDITING. This coming
Sunday, December 10th from 2 to 4 pm at the Flying Monkey Arts Center.
Sponsored by the Alabama Filmmakers Cooperative. www.filmcoop.org

Among the topics we'll discuss:
1) What is "Editing"? I tell the kids in the summer workshop that
there are only 3 things you can do to a movie clip: Trim it, Cut in
into 2 or more smaller clips, or Throw it Away. After that you
assemble the clips in the proper order to tell the story. Simple rules
but applying them requires as artists eye and a master storytellers
sense of timing.
2) Editing trends in movies - from silent movies that had one shot for
several minutes to MTV-imitating 3sec cuts. If you have a favorite
scene in a DVD that illustrates an editing technique, please bring it
along. I'll bring a few examples. If you have a favorite editor,
bring a list of their notable films as suggested viewing. I have
enjoyed reading Walter Murch's "In the Blink of an Eye" and certainly
Murch is no slouch in the editing room.
3) In Camera Editing techniques - you don't normally think about doing
that any more but there was a time (in my miserable experience as a
wedding videographer) that you would do most of yout editing In Camera.
When everyone has a computer (with iMovie or Final Cut?) why would you
want to edit in camera? Let's talk about it. Obviously for weddings
its great - you go in with a "Shot List" and the day is scripted down
to the minute. But for a "movie"? Can you really use this technique?
How about a Documentary?
4) I'd still like to set up a couple of computers and break into teams
to see what different groups come up with when editing the same footage
without a script. unfortunately I only have one iBook. If anyone has
another laptop on which you can edit some footage, please let me know
and bring it along. I'll have some clips on mini-DV, with camcorder
and firewire cable to load onto your laptop. If you need something
other than a standard VGA connector to hook up to an external monitor,
let me know. If we don't have another computer, we'll project the one
on the screen and work together to examine options for creating a scene
from raw video clips.

And as always, if you have a work in progress that you can show us - up
to 10min worth, please bring that. My daughter completed a documentary
on the homeless and I'll twist her arm to show her opening montage.

Also, we'll be following up on last months discussion about getting
started on a Movie Makers Skills and Availability Matrix to access via
our web site and plans for next year's film festival. Does anyone know
any local movie makers who are entering the UNA/George Lindsey film
competition? If so, please invite them to come to the meeting and tell
us about their entry. Maybe we can gather a small crowd to carpool
over for the festival (I believe it is March 1-4).

The Film Co-op Board will be meeting immediately after out workshop -
it is open to the public and always in need of your support. I don't
know if our workshop will be upstairs on still be downstairs. So look
for a sign on the door when you get there. Sunday, December10th from 2
to 4 pm See you there.

Any questions, feel free to e-mail to call me (home: 837-4359)
Don"