I want you to invest in my movie.

More specifically, I want you to invest in the future of movies.

I'm making a feature film (Your Friends Close) about video games and the people behind the scenes who are busy shaping not only the development of future generations, but changing the landscape of human interaction. It's a small, indie comedy/drama/thriller, aspiring to the filmic likes of Hitchcock's Rope, the tone of Philip K. Dick's subtlest sci-fi, the off-beat humor of Tim Schafer, and a dash of Jane McGonigal's critical theory. Add a comment

Read more: Kickstart the Future

The No-Discipline Screenwriter: Part 2

Written by Kevin K Shah Thursday, June 02, 2011, 12:00 AM 0digg

Ideas on how to write & finish your screenplay when you have almost no discipline.

PART 2

In Part 1 of this series, I explored various aspects about how to get around yourself if you're a no-discipline screenwriter. In part two, I offer more solutions and expand on the idea of a personal writers retreat and exactly what kind of environment to seek in helping you to get that screenplay done.

Add a comment

Read more: The No-Discipline Screenwriter: Part 2 The No-Discipline Screenwriter: Part 1

Written by Kevin K Shah Wednesday, May 25, 2011, 8:36 PM 0digg

Ideas on how to write & finish your screenplay when you have almost no discipline.

PART 1

Weve all heard that you need to chip away at it everyday, a set time, a set place, a page a day, a constant pushing forward to get the story done. Just a few hours a day! If we were getting paid properly for our efforts, of course we would have the discipline -- but were busy people, and often we write on spec and sometimes life gets in they way. And even if we had a few hours to spare - that time is generally spent planning, strategizing, pitching, promoting, decompressing, relaxing, procrastinating, avoiding, etc. Plus, if youre like me, you have other projects and many collaborations that need your attention, not to mention your job, your social life (outside of media), your family, your in-house productions, etc. So full stops and false starts and putting it away on the shelf and picking it up again periodically... is more what were used to than day in and day out writing. And discipline just may not work for you during the script phase or the outline phase. So how then do you get a script done? Add a comment

Read more: The No-Discipline Screenwriter: Part 1

Naturalistic Cinema: A New American Cinematic Movement Emerges

Written by Kevin K Shah Thursday, July 01, 2010, 12:38 PM 0digg

How to achieve Naturalism in Cinema with regards to the sound, image and performance.

TOPIC ONE: Collaborative Filmmaking DRAMATIC IMPROVISATION

Dramatic Improvisation in feature films entails a process of Interdependent Filmmaking that could in many ways be called collaborative filmmaking for the purposes of capturing and exploring dramatic improvisation with Camera and Cast. The entire purpose of using improvisation in film is to achieve a more naturalistic tone in the story, a style that feels real or unrehearsed. Of course, to achieve a naturalistic film, there are many careful things to take into consideration. Its not just the performances that have to go deeper into the truth through this process of improvisation, but the visual and audio as well. It defeats the purpose in my estimation to have naturalistic performances but a stilted, fixed, rigid approach to capturing them. Add a comment

Read more: Naturalistic Cinema: A New American Cinematic Movement Emerges Nano Budget Filmmaking: The New Sustainable Cinema

Written by Kevin K Shah Wednesday, March 24, 2010, 12:00 PM 0digg

INTERDEPENDENT FILMMAKING: THE NANO-BUDGET ENDEAVOR

How does one define themselves in the new and constantly updating market? How does one grasp the needs of the audience and provide what they want (as their wants are shifting because of costlier needs)? How does one set themselves above 95% of the content that is available to everyone else and their sister on the internet? How does a film, or series, or show, or company brand themselves in such a way that first time audiences are retained (and become long-time audiences), and new relationships are built through wordof-mouth and social networking?

ADVERTISING, MONEY, AVAILABILITY: NOT THE ANSWER.

With instant availability on a number of devices, and everything on the internet using these three items (Ads, $, Saturation) to carve their headspace in your mind for their hot new thing there will be in our common future aprofound struggle for cinema as art to survive. Exacerbating the situation is the growing (& willing) mass delusion of giving/getting something for free on the internet. Sure, Art (and the creation of it) has always needed benefactors to support the artist (be it a motion picture studio or Van Goghs brother), and IMHO truly great art has come out of struggle as well as support. But there has always been (since man began to appreciate creative forms of expression long ago) a historical struggle for art to survive in the marketplace, to become self-sustaining. The future will be no exception. Add a comment

Read more: Nano Budget Filmmaking: The New Sustainable Cinema

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The Emergence of the Nano-Budget Art Film

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