"Corrado" - A production blog

Status
Not open for further replies.
Very cool story Adam. Its been really interesting to read the thread from the beginning and see how your choices along the way have played out for you. I'd say, so far so good. Congrats!

Getting to watch Tom make a comeback from an insider's perspective as well. I never realized how much of a community Hollywood really was. Very Cool.
 
Hi Adam,

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I've read it all and found it very educational -- a huge reality check for those who have never gone through the entire process.

I was wondering if you could explain a little bit what your writing process is? Do you simply come up with the basic concept and just go from there? Do you establish your key points/scenes/acts and then fill in the missing pieces? Do you sacrifice chickens? Read tea leaves?

cheers,
Denis
 
Hey Guys, I just wanted to say that i have been following this thread and reading it in 4 days!
ADAM you are my hero... I am an aspiring filmmaker from NY with 2 shorts under my belt 20 minutes and 45 minutes... both financed by yours truly and both cost me approx 45k.
My next project is to go at it just like you did and I am so thankfull to have bumped into this here thread.... best of luck to you...
MY first post ever in this forum...
 
The pics have started trickling in. I just ordered two of them that had me in them (I was standing beside Candace). This one was shot a little tighter than the rest and I was able to download it.
 

Attachments

  • 5287775.jpg
    5287775.jpg
    82.4 KB · Views: 0
Denis Haineault said:
Hi Adam,

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I've read it all and found it very educational -- a huge reality check for those who have never gone through the entire process.

I was wondering if you could explain a little bit what your writing process is? Do you simply come up with the basic concept and just go from there? Do you establish your key points/scenes/acts and then fill in the missing pieces? Do you sacrifice chickens? Read tea leaves?

cheers,
Denis
Click to expand...

I start by sacrificing my neighbor's children.....

No, seriously, I think my writing process is different than most.

I will usually have the basic premise and the first act in my head before I start writing. For me it's all about the hook, the inciting incident. I typically will not know the ending of the story until I'm on about page 50. I know it's odd, but that's how it works out.
 
pixhershko said:
Hey Guys, I just wanted to say that i have been following this thread and reading it in 4 days!
ADAM you are my hero... I am an aspiring filmmaker from NY with 2 shorts under my belt 20 minutes and 45 minutes... both financed by yours truly and both cost me approx 45k.
My next project is to go at it just like you did and I am so thankfull to have bumped into this here thread.... best of luck to you...
MY first post ever in this forum...
Click to expand...

I'm honored!
 
taormina said:
I start by sacrificing my neighbor's children.....

No, seriously, I think my writing process is different than most.

I will usually have the basic premise and the first act in my head before I start writing. For me it's all about the hook, the inciting incident. I typically will not know the ending of the story until I'm on about page 50. I know it's odd, but that's how it works out.
Click to expand...

That's very interesting, actually. I was under the impression it was nearly impossible to come up with a coherent story without drawing up an outline of the full plot beforehand. But with the reviews your script's gotten, I guess you've shown otherwise.
 
Well the problem with the way I do it is you sometimes have to go back to the beginning and make some changes, but it's how I roll. Also, I've been writing most of my life and it works for me.

Another pic from the event:
 

Attachments

  • candace.jpg
    candace.jpg
    186.9 KB · Views: 0
yea i write the same way basically. ive been writing for about 15 years. i do the middle first, all the events and important sht, then i write the end. the last thing i do is the opening, which to me is the most important. when i do screenplays i cut it up to 9 chapters at 10 minutes each, give or take. i then add a begining and end to the 9 chapters. (beginin, chapter 1, 2, 3, exc., end)

Adam, what do you usually write with? i remember being a kid going from typewriter to pen and paper, now i write with qwerty keyed cell phone and when transfered to word i format it by hand. kinda crazy how the options have changed growing up. i believe the harry potter author wrote the first harry potter book on napkings in a coffee house lol beats lugging around a 15 inch laptop i guess
 
i do it different almost everytime (writing screenplays). i used to start off with the ending and work that way, but it all really just depends on how the ideas flow onto the page.

cool pics man.
 
I like the way Federico Fellini worked. He'd ask his actors to count, one two three and shoot MOS. Then he dubbed the lines in after picture was edited. The story worked better that way. The visuals were more important for him, and the dialog ended up expressing his way of thinking better. He liked dubbing. I think he was a great director. He was very unique, a real artist.

Of course, he didn't work in the US. I wonder what the AFM distributors would say to him if he told them he didn't even have a script for 8 and a 1/2 :-)
 
taormina said:
Which gives me an idea, slim - I could just call the cast and do BTS. I wouldn't have to pay for a half hour worth of interviews - I know these guys too well now.

Egypt - I actually have no idea what BTS costs - Paging Dan Brockett - he could tell us.
Click to expand...

Hi all:

Sorry, have been having stupid Time Warner cable problems with my Internet access. We are really talking about two different things here, EPK and DVD Bonus Features. EPK is simply shot for publicity purposes and is sent out to basically anyone that the studio is trying to market the film to. Every film is different, it just depends on how big the film is, what kind of crew needs to cover it and how many days they need to be on set. On big films, like the Harry Potter films, there may be an EPK crew on set for a total of 20 or 30 days. On most of the small features that I have provided EPK for, we are usually on set for about a week, usually spread out over two to three different trips to set. We always want to be on set when the biggest stars are shooting or for stunts, big scenes, etc. The crew usually has a day rate, then there is a post production budget, depending on how much footage the editor will have to wade through. EPK is done very simply usually but occasionally we do see more elaborate EPK packages done with lots of cams, etc. It helps to know and be trusted by the filmmakers, that way they don't get pissed at you when you are there recording internal conflicts (usually the studios won't let any of that be sent out anyway) or are in the wrong place at the wrong time. It really helps to be a filmmaker so that you don't get in the way of the crew and director but you need access to what is happening.

DVD Bonus Material can be anything. A lot of the best bonus material doesn't have a too much to do with the actual film. Honestly, BTS pieces are the most generic and uncreative because they are essentially all the same. Filmmaking is filmmaking, there is rarely anything new, interesting or unique in BTS pieces. Adam's situation in pulling his film together was unique but the actual set was totally like every other film set that I have been on, just filmmakers making a movie. I find the best bonus material is related to the film, but separate. For instance, on Corrado, if we would have been doing bonus material, I would have made a film about Adam, his process, journey and struggle. How he had the balls to get his project made, his realtionship with Tom, etc. For a second featurette, I probably would have done a piece on Gibbons Armory and Bill Davis, Adam's weapons master because the guns, Bill, Gibbons, how Adam selected the weapons used, etc. would have made a tight little 12 minute piece. We would have used some set footage but we also would have staged the shoot at Gibbons, probably going to a firing range, Bill's war stories, etc. Related to the film but not just about what happened on set.

Some of the best featurettes are totally standalone. Of course, as a filmmaker, I enjoy creating those because I essentially get to create my own film to support the main film. One of these that I was one of the DPs for aired on TCM last year, it was called, "The Dawn of Sound: When Movies Learned To Talk". The doc was made for the DVD release of "The Jazz Singer" but was good enough that TCM decided to air it as a stand alone film, which was cool. Pretty much only slightly related to The Jazz Singer.

EPK packages might be in the $15k to $25k range for a smaller scope film. DVD Bonus features on a mid level film, probably $100k for three featurettes totaling an hour to ninety minutes or perhaps $50k for two featurettes totaling 40 minutes? There are so many variables though, I have worked on bonus features that had close to a million dollar budget and I have worked on some that were almost no budget. But honestly, watch DVD bonus material, most of it is really bad and most of it was made really cheaply by companies that crank it out, boring interviews, stills and clips. There are some good ones but I would say 90% of it is rubbish. That is the unfortunate part about doing DVD bonus material, most of the studios don't care if it's really well done, they just are looking for bullet points for the back of the DVD box. They care about stars, the more stars we can get to appear in the bonus material, the better, but the stars could almost just be reading the phone book, if you know what I mean?

Also, the other factors that people have no idea about are legal and licensing. Until you have dealt with them, you have no idea how difficult it can be to license stills and clips and how much the copyright holders want to charge for obscure, hard to find assets. You need to hire a rights and clearances person or team and you need a fact checker. Plus writer, researcher, AP, producer, crew, etc. On a newer project, you can cut down on a lot of this cost but I do a lot of classic titles where we HAVE to use a lot of third party material and the legal is a Byzantine nightmare. It's always super time consuming, expensive and a hassle. This portion along with post (good editors are not cheap) eats up most of the budget.

Dan
 
Last edited:
Are EPKs only needed for bigger stuff (i.e. studio) or could the presence of a strong EPK/BTS content make a movie more attractive to be picked up for distribution?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top