Welcome indies and others!

This is the first issue of our new, bi-weekly e-newsletter, indieOpolis, the official e-newsletter of CiAO, The Consortium of indies, Artistes & Others. We will attempt to deliver this e-newsletter the Wednesday before each CiAO meeting. There will be an announcement of the meeting and other (hopefully) interesting tidbits of information, news, updates, and articles about film, filmmaking, and filmmakers, both indie and non-indie, local (Chico/NorCal-area) and global.

Read more in the extended Introduction.

  Introduction
  Fray Premiere A Success!
  Openfilm's 2nd Get It Made Competition
  2 Days Later Film Contest - Update
  Promoting CiAO: Spreading the Word
  CiAO Web Series In Development
  ZombieOpolis

View Printable e-Newsletter – View w/o Visible Links

Introduction
More About CiAO and indieOpolis
–Editor–

We have decided to use the term "nano-budget" in our descriptive sub-text to represent the efforts of most (truly) independent filmmakers, whose film budgets are usually well-less than $1000, and often more along the lines of a few hundred dollars per film. Therefore, "The World of Nano-Budget Independent Film, Filmmakers, & Filmmaking" is very descriptive of what most of us are doing. (by design, desire, and/or necessity — see chart below for further qualification and information)

CiAO has two meetings per month, on the first and third Mondays of each month. The first meeting is our 'official' Monthly Meeting. The second meeting is our Mid-Month Meeting.

Additionally, we sometimes hold 'extra' and impromptu meetings when warranted, or people want to get together. These meetings are also sometimes used as 'production meetings' for people involved in projects, especially projects that are CiAO-group sponsored, coordinated, and/or associated. The two monthly meetings are currently held at the offices of Not Quite Hollywood. (NQH)

[[ http://nqh1.com/ ]]

Thank you to the owners, Shawn Dyer and James Smith, for allowing us to hold the meetings there. The meeting announcements are in the column to the right.

If you have interesting info-items, please send them to us. (things you hear about, or see while surfing the web) Or if you would like to write an article or news item, or perhaps a regular column, we are interested in hearing from you. Our contact e-mail address is:
 

 
Or, you can use our Contact Us e-mail form on the website: Contact indieOpolis

We will also occasionally send out CiAO Alerts to let people know what is happening, both locally and globally. This could include contests and competitions, new local film projects, other projects, and other items that have a time-critical aspect. So keep an eye out for those. We will try to make them very occasional and only as warranted.

•• Indie Film Definitions and Qualifications

For discussion's and definition's sake, here is a suggested rough breakdown of where an "independent film" would fall within the additional qualification of "size". Because of the new (-ish) trend of "Hollywood Independent Films", as well as "big budget" indie films, and what has been occurring at film festivals like Sundance, where films are accepted that some would consider beyond the realm of "true indie films", it makes sense to qualify what kind of an indie film you are talking about. Definitions are loose, approximate, and subjective, of course.
 
• Hollywood Independent Film   —   $1,000,000+
• Independent Film   —   $100,000 to $500,000 ("big budget")
• Small-Budget Indie Film   —   $10,000 to $50,000
• Micro-Budget Indie Film   —   $1,000 to $5,000
• Nano-Budget Indie Film   —   < $500 (+/-)

Fray Premiere A Success!
SOLD OUT! Standing Room Only

The July 17 Fray premiere at The Pageant Theatre

[[ http://www.pageantchico.com/ ]]

was a resounding success by any definition or measure. (thanks to Tim at TPT for working with us) Attendance was sold out with over 100 people and standing room only seating. Not bad for a local, indie, short film. (the cast and crew accounted for about 15 people) Thank you to everyone who attended for your support of local indie film, filmmakers and filmmaking.

Congratulations to filmmakers Shawn Dyer (writer/director) and James Smith (producer) of Not Quite Hollywood

[[ http://nqh1.com/ ]]

(production company), as well as the cast and crew. The film was very-well received by the audience, with glowing comments during post-viewing discussions. Most people seem to agree that this is Dyer's best film to date.

The film is a PG-13 psychological thriller. Running time approx. 20 minutes. First-time actors Russell Johnson and Kira Boese shined in their starring-role performances. Supporting actor James Wilkerson also put in a fine performance as the doctor. There were, unfortunately, some projection issues which caused the viewing quality to not be as good as the films actually look. It is unknown what the actual technical problems were, or if they have been corrected, or if it was in the DVD being played, etc. When the films were played at Chico State last year, they were much better quality overall, so something is amiss. And generally, the films shown at The Pageant seem to be of nice viewing quality.

Good job, people. Let's hope this is the first (most recently) of many more to come, from all of our local indie filmmakers and associated actors and crew.

Along with Fray, three other short indie films Shawn worked on were shown: Ralphie (directed by James Smith), The List (directed by Shawn Dyer), and Rasche Rd. (directed by Joe Batt), all filmed in the Chico area.

Check out the Fray teaser and facebook page.

[[ http://www.youtube.com/ watch ?v=sTAe8DwQ5pU ]]

[[ http://www.facebook.com/ event.php ?eid=138724762810935 &ref=mf ]]

Openfilm's 2nd Get It Made Competition
End of September deadline!

A reminder that the deadline for the second competition is coming very soon. If no one wants to create their own film for this contest, perhaps a CiAO Group Project Film can be created and entered. (Zombies? Vampires? Sci-Fi? Horror? An old-style B&W B-movie tribute/homage? A re-imagining of a Poe classic? — the possibilities are endless and wide open...) Let us know if you are interested and we will coordinate. If enough of our talented members join in, a group-film might have a better chance of winning. (NOTE: Since this contest has a monetary prize, decisions will have to be made as to how to deal with that, should the film win)

From the website: "Do you have a great short film? If so, submit it to Openfilm’s 2nd Get It Made competition! You could win the opportunity to develop it into a feature with Openfilm Studios." So this could be an opportunity to get the financing to make a feature-length film by creating a short film version of it.

How It Works: Submit a short film to the competition. Your fans, and other Openfilm members, view and vote on the films. The top 6 films by vote will be sent to the Openfilm Advisory Board (James Caan, Robert Duvall, Mark Rydell, Scott Caan) who selects one winner. (the opposite voting method of the Vimeo TSBTS contest)

Prizes: $50,000 cash and $200,000 financing contract. ($45 to enter/submit a film)

Criteria: A live-action or animation that is 40 minutes or less, and based on a feature length concept.

Submission dates: July 1 – September 30, 2010
View and Vote: October 1 – 31, 2010

Also, check out their other competitions:
   http://www.openfilm.com/contests/

[[ http://www.openfilm.com/ contests/ ]]

2 Days Later Film Contest - Update
UK Horror Film Contest Deadline Draws Nigh

This contest was mentioned in a prior e-newsletter and was discussed at the last meeting. There was some general interest in creating a short film to enter into the contest, created as a group and possibly as a CiAO Group Project Film. Anyone who is interested should contact us and let us know so we can start work on this. Right now it is in the discussion and decision and planning stage.

This is a 48-hour film project contest, but, unlike the well-known 48-Hour Film Project, the rules are more lax, and they take your word that you created the film in 48 hours. So we would like to honor that concept. It was discussed that we could start the film on a Friday at 6:00 pm, or so, and end it on Sunday at 6:00. That would allow Friday evening to create the idea and concept for the film, flesh it out, and write the script. We could then shoot it on Saturday during the day and/or evening, and use the rest of Saturday and all day Sunday to edit it and finish the film.

The closing date for entries is 5.00 pm, Wednesday, September 29th. (BST?) So we will need to choose a weekend where the majority of the people interested in working on this project are available. There are about six (6) weekends left, so we should be able to find a weekend that works best for most people. The general idea is for the short film to be a maximum of ten (10) minutes in length and to be horror and/or zombie -oriented in theme, a la their namesake, the film 28 Days Later. We can do this. They have been contacted to make sure that Americans can enter the contest.

One of the issues that needs to be discussed and resolved is, who will be the owner of the film? If an Executive Producer steps forward, then, theoretically, they would be the owner. Otherwise, some form of group ownership needs to be instituted, or some other idea needs to be thought up. It would be a waste to create a film and not be able to display it or submit it to other film festivals. So, "control" is a primary issue that needs to be resolved. And, although it probably will not make money, if by chance it does, then that needs to be addressed as well.

And who will be the Director? And Producer? And perform in the other roles? As a "group project", it might work out having a "Primary Director" with one or more "Asst. Directors", and do things similarly in some of the other roles. This might work well and could possibly increase the chances of having a good end result. These are issues that can be resolved and ironed out. So there will probably be a special meeting to discuss where to go from here.

Promoting CiAO: Spreading the Word
Thur. Night Market & Sat. Farmers Market

We discussed promotion of CiAO at the last meeting, with ideas of doing some grassroots-like tabling at the Thursday Night Market and the Saturday Farmers Market. These tables need manning (personing?) and some form of information to distribute. Mostly you stand there and talk to anyone who stops and is interested. It helps if you have some sort of a display to catch people's attention, and a banner or some form of signage. We also talked about helping out local filmmakers by selling their DVD's for them.

The Thursday night market costs $35 per night. There is a $50 sign-up fee, which we might be able to have waived if we piggy-back on Not Quite Hollywood, who is a member of the Downtown Chico Business Association. (DCBA) So that would be double-promotion. The cost is a potential problem, since that would be about $150 per month. Maybe we can make a deal with NQH to help lessen the costs. The TNM runs from about 5:00 to 10:00. If people can't stay the whole time, we can do shifts. But there should be at least two people at the table at all times, and probably not more than four, or so. Although it's not technically 100% kosher, there is the possibility of asking for donations to help pay for the expenses. (at some point we will probably make CiAO a true nonprofit organization)

The Saturday Farmers Market is "free" because you can set up a table on the sidewalk outside of the market. It is very difficult to get a table inside the market, anyway. So it really is more like grassroots tabling. The market starts very early, but it is usually quite difficult to get people to get up early on Saturday morning to do something like this. 9:00 is ideal, but 10:00 is okay, and the latest you would want to arrive. The market lasts until about 1:00 pm. Usually people will leave you alone, but you can always sign people up for voting and there is nothing they can do. The public sidewalks, speech, expression and assembly are still pretty free.

This is another project we need help with. If you would like to help out with either or both of these, please let us know. It can be fun, especially if you like people and/or like to talk about indie films and filmmaking. We really need to start doing stuff like this to get more people to know about CiAO and the local indie filmmaking community. (and let's please try to not have just a few people take on the full "burden" of doing this)

CiAO Web Series In Development
A New CiAO Group Project: Working Group Needed

Another discussion topic at the last meeting was continued interest in creating a web series as a CiAO Group Project. This has been discussed off and on for many months. Since web series are becoming very popular (if they are 'good'), time grows short for getting in on the ground floor before they become commonplace. And that is particularly true for (truly) indie web series. Not that it couldn't still be done, but being "first" can be helpful in many ways. (interest, promotion, marketing, etc.)

Those who showed the most interest in doing a web series in months past thought a zombie web series would be unique and fresh, and the thought was that it had never done before, and would be fairly easy to do. If you can be "first", that can often give extra oomph to the project. (sorry if I'm being too technical) However, the uniqueness and freshness factor is not entirely the case for this idea. (a zombie TV series / web series) See the article about that in this issue. (below) However, since "everything has already been done", it doesn't matter if you do your own thing, especially if it is different-ish and better.

One idea that was proffered was a vampire-zombie series. That is, zombies who are also vampires. That idea is still unique. (afaict) But there are other options. Science Fiction. Horror. Steam Punk-themed content is very popular. And you can always mix and match. Throw in some fantasy, or weird tales, or "dungeons and dragons", or Time Travel, and you might just have something. The possibilities are endless. And these are areas that have been mentioned by interested people, so it might be wise to go in that direction.

We need to create a Working Group of people interested in working on this project. Anyone who is interested should contact us and let us know so we can start work on this ASAP. Right now it is in the discussion and decision and planning stage. Take note that this project is potentially and ideally a long-term committment, especially for the primary actors.

ZombieOpolis
Zombies to the Left of Me, Zombies to the Right...

Zombies are still very popular, and big business for those who are taking advantage of that popularity. How long this will last, who knows. The genre has always had quite a bit of popularity even in the valleys of the ups and downs of popularity over the years. Here is some zombie information for those who have the craving.

• This just in: As we were going to press, an actual zombie web series was discovered. It's a comedy series called Woke Up Dead that premiered in 2009. File this under, you snooze, you lose. It looks indie, and might be indie (-ish), although it is either professionally or semi-professionally produced. It also stars actual actors. Created by John Fasano, starring Jon Heder (Napolean Dynamite), Josh Gad (Back to You), and Krysten Ritter (Breaking Bad, Gravity, 'Til Death), with Wayne Night (Newman from Seinfeld) It's not bad, especially if you like the type of comedy it is. It looks like there are about twenty-four (24) 5-minute episodes. Viewable online. (the sound is bad in some of the fake video logs, but production is generally good) They also do some heavy promotion of the Kodak video camera they used, which either got them sponsorship from Kodak, like they claim, or it's all part of the 'gag'.

[[ http://www.wokeupdead.tv/ ]]

[[ http://www.imdb.com/ title/ tt1222663/ ]]

[[ http://www.facebook.com/ nonzombiematt ]]

• This Fall, an actual zombie TV series is premiering on AMC, The Walking Dead. If the quality of the show is like that of other AMC series, like Breaking Bad, Mad Men, and RubiCON, then it should be pretty good. The first season only has six (6) episodes, but it has been reported that season two has been ordered for sixteen (16) more episodes. (2011) It is apparently based on the comic book series of the same name written by Robert Kirkman and published by Image Comics.

The plot line at IMDB currently says, "Police officer Rick Grimes leads a group of survivors in a world overrun by zombies." Starring Jon Bernthal (Eastwick, The Class), Jeffrey DeMunn (well-known character actor), Laurie Holden, Michael Rooker (W-KCA), and Sarah Wayne Callies (Prison Break). The creator is Frank Darabont, a fairly well-known Hollywood writer, director and producer. Look for a review later this year.

[[ http://www.amctv.com/ originals/ The-Walking-Dead/ ]]

[[ http://www.imdb.com/ title/ tt1520211/ ]]

• It has been reported that MTV has just announced plans to develop a new TV series based on George A. Romero's classic 1978 movie Dawn of the Dead. There isn't much information about this project yet, so stay tuned for more info when it becomes available.

• There was a very-short-lived "series" about zombies done in 2008 called Lifeless, created by David Sasich with Eli Sasich, in the Salt Lake City, UT area. It looks like it was semi-professionally done (or that attempt was made, perhaps money-wise if nothing else), and it was probably shopped around, but failed. Finally, three (3) long-short episodes were created and they ended up on FearNet.com and the FearNet TV channel. See links below.

The series is okay, but not what one might call good. The acting is mediocre, the pacing is too slow, it looks like it might have been shot on wide SD, so the image isn't great. (although that could be a problem with the online conversion and similar technical issues) There was a nice usage of desaturation near to the point of B&W that gave it a certain starkness, with the flashbacks being more saturated. (assuming that was a decided choice) The cinematography and dialogue and overall execution left something to be desired. Each episode is 15 to 20 minutes long. (probably not a good idea to have them be different running times) It is minimally watchable, but that's about it. A good attempt. But they seem to have given up on it. You can watch the three extant episodes online at FearNet.

We often talk about "flavors (types) of zombies". The type they chose to use in Lifeless were plague-generated, arisen-from-the-dead, slow, clumsy, shambling, brain-dead zombies. So that can cause issues with making it 'realistic' and action-oriented, since they are fairly easy to beat away, kill, and run away from. They tried to compensate by having droves of them. Which can work if it is done correctly. But that also greatly increases the number of extras (we're supposed to call them "background actors" now), makeup effects and costuming.

[[ http://lifelesstheseries.com/ ]]

[[ http://www.imdb.com/ title/ tt1278090/ ]]

[[ http://www.fearnet.com/ videos/ b19124_lifeless_episode_1.html ]]

[[ http://www.facebook.com/ group.php ?gid=24366969206 &v=wall ]]

• In 2007, CBS aired a pilot for a zombie TV series called Babylon Fields that was not picked up. You can watch it online. (low quality) Starring and with Kathy Baker (Picket Fences), Amber Tamblyn (Joan of Arcadia), David Patrick Kelly (W-KCA), and Jamey Sheridan (Law & Order: Criminal Intent, The Stand). "They missed it by that much", since the current zombie popularity boom started in about 2008/2009, or thereabouts. Below find a somewhat bitter spew by the originator in a revealing and informative e-zine article.

[[ http://video.google.com/ videoplay ?docid=3315295143249630002 &hl=en ]]

[[ http://www.imdb.com/ title/ tt0955219/ ]]

    Zombieology Bitteritis Realityectomy

[[ http://www.lostmag.com/ issue35/ zombieology.php ]]

• An interactive promotional zombie short film-like commercial was created for the New Zealand pizza franchise Hell Pizza. It is an extended online commercial that gives you two links at the end of each approx. 2-minute episode to go one way, or the other. If you choose incorrectly, the main character dies, and it points you in the correct direction to continue on. Very creative and it's not a bad watch. Approx. 10 minutes long overall. Over 1 million views to date in one month.

[[ http://hellpizza.co.nz/ ]]

[[ http://www.youtube.com/ user/ HellPizzaNZ ]]

The Consortium is a varied group of people interested in independent film and other related areas. Including all areas of indie film production, film in general, other productions of various kinds, multimedia, watching and appreciation. There tends to be an emphasis on indie films and filmmaking, particularly nano-budget, micro-budget, and small-budget filmmaking. All are welcome to join us, whether you are a writer, director, producer, actor, crew person, cinephile, or any other interested party. (suggested age range: mature teen through adult)

Learn more about us.       Contact us if you have questions or comments.

 
Please forward and distribute widely!   Thank you.

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