Moving!

Video Drone is now located here. Blogger/Blogspot has been giving me far too many issues lately.

Second drafts are the most work

So I've been working on my second draft, including refining the personalities of the principal cast, making scene flow a bit better, revising parts of the plot and cutting/adding a lot of scenes, and let me tell you this is probably the most work I've had to do on the script.

See, I ran into a few problems as I was looking over the first 15 pages or so. First off, while we get a good idea of our protagonist's character, we don't learn anything about his boss (a critical character) as far as personality and even a bit of history is concerned. I actually ran into the same problem with our protagonist's ex-girlfriend, which is a bit of a travesty since she's critically important to the plot and character development.

So naturally I had to take the metaphorical red pen to my script. I actually do all my writing on a computer since, well, I'm terrible for losing physical copies of documents. Plus it makes it a bit more easy to keep track of all my changes and ideas. It does, however, kinda bother me that this takes so long. I know it shouldn't, seeing as a lot of scripts have a huuuuuuge writing time, but hey, I'm allowed to be impatient as long as I'm working instead of complaining about it.

At the end of the second draft I may go into a bit more detail about the movie itself. I'm not keeping it hush-hush because I'm afraid the INTERNET WILL STEAL MY IDEAS (lord knows this blog isn't popular enough for that to be an issue) but more because at this point so much might change that I'd have to do script AND blog revisions and that's just a little silly.

Union regulations and all that.

Discovery is now a non-union production.

After a lot of research into the extra fees that come with unions, specific regulations (a lot of which make sense and DO do a great job of protecting the worker/employer) and various hiring policies, it just ended up being far too much money for an independent production to bare. All in all it looks like union workers add a good 10% to my budget. That's, well, kinda hard to cut when a lot of this might have to be guerilla filmmaking.

I finally got a chance to hear back from ACTRA and was VERY pleased with how much money I could have saved. For the first production it cuts a huge chunk of the union fees of and even cuts 45% off the actor salary. Unfortunately, it also requires me to be CFTPA certified, which requires two recommendations from CFTPA voting members and a lot of money. Money which I'm going to have to used to incorporate so I can get the tax breaks an safeties that come with that.


So now I'm wondering if this is going to cause me any issues, long term. I mean, non-union actors aren't too hard to find, but good ones are. On the plus side, a paycheque promise would probably bring me a better selection of applications. Well, we'll see how it all goes.

BACKUPS! THEY ARE IMPORTANT!

The other day my Macbook suffered a pretty critical hardware failure and I lost all of my script files. It took me about 3 hours to get my files back and that was far too long. In fact, the fact it took any time at ALL was a pretty harsh indicator that I needed to get a proper backup solution.

I started looking around to see what was best for me. I knew that since these were script files I'd need to have the option to revert to an earlier version, I knew I needed to have a solution that would not involve me having to manually backup files, I knew it had to be cross-platform since I work in Windows and OSX,and I knew it had to be free because, well, I'm poor!

Enter Dropbox. This was exactly what I needed and am now using. The 2GB plan is free (and more than ample for backing up your screenplays), it allows me to set up a specific folder to sync so I can just save my scripts there, and I can use it from Windows, OSX and a handful of other platforms if I so desire. It's pretty much the idea solution and since it works from anywhere I can always have a copy of my script on me wherever I have computer access.

But yes, one of the reasons you didn't hear from me was because I was pretty much fighting these computer issues every step of the way. It was a bit annoying.

Kinda sick

Updates are going to be a bit slow since I'm trying to focus my energy more on making sure I don't die and such. Looks like this script is going to possibly require a third draft, though it's more an "edit out" draft so it won't take too long.

Attitude adjustment

I'm probably going to step on a few toes here, but I think that "aspiring filmmaker" is one of the most ridiculous titles anyone can apply to themselves. If you call yourself an "aspiring filmmaker" it strikes me as giving yourself an excuse. If something goes wrong, you didn't lose much; after all, it was just a goal, nothing you were really making a go at. It's a terrible way to think and I've seen it bite people on the ass.

You have to call yourself a "filmmaker." You have to BE a filmmaker. You have to sit down, have your idea and say "I am going to make this if it goddamn kills me." This is a level beyond simply aspiring to be a filmmaker, this is getting yourself into a state of mind where you are going to get shit done. For instance, I am going to make Discovery. It's already way above what I was expecting the budget to end up being and I'm going to have a hell of a time raising the funds, but I WILL make this movie. If I had my old attitude of "I'll get around to it" the damn thing would never get made.

Some people will, of course, tell you that you can't make it. And you know what? Statistically speaking, they're probably right. Try not to listen to them though, they might also just be assholes. If you start hearing things like "you'll never make it in the film industry" or "you'll never be able to make the movie" then you're probably talking to assholes. However, if you start hearing things like "you haven't planned how you're going to shoot this at all" or "this is completely unshootable on your budget" then maybe you should pay some attention to them, since they're at least giving their criticism thought.

Making a film is HARD. I'm not even done getting pre-production organised and I'm pulling my hair out at times. I still need to get some things done, like talking to ACTRA to potentially cut down my actor's wages. I also still need to contact Six Shooter Records about some music licensing costs, get my post-budget ready and make sure I can get my cast and crew on the dates I'll need them. It's hard, it's stressful and I have constant headaches but I'm a filmmaker. It's my job.

POINT PROVEN BY SATIRE NEWS SITE

Wrapping up the production budget!

Okay, we've covered actors, crew, cameras, lights, sound and all that noise, but we're forgetting a couple of miscellaneous bits that usually come up. Thankfully, these things aren't too expensive and shouldn't push our $60,665 budget much higher, so let's take a look at what we're left out until now:

C-Stands: C-Stands are fairly common on sets and really useful if you need to prop up large reflector boards or other such things. They're also REALLY cheap to rent and come with the arms you need. $9 a day and I'll probably want four of them, so that'll be $320.

Hand reflector: These are REALLY handy and also REALLY cheap. They can be collapsed at a whim and are super easy to transport and store. Plus they're basically essential for daytime shooting when you need to soften your actor's shadows and bring them up a stop. I'll probably want about three of these and they cost $65 each, so that's $195.

Sandbags: ALWAYS sandbag your gear if you care about it. I can not stress that enough. Sandbags are essential to making sure things do not get tipped over easily on a shoot. And believe me, the last thing you want to happen is a light stand falling over and ruining not only your light, but somebody's face. Lights get HOT. $25 each for 10. $250. BUY SANDBAGS.

Tripods: Oh, right. This was actually supposed to be included in the update about cameras but somehow got past me. My personal favourite brand for tripods is, like many others, Manfrotto. For this shoot, I'll be using a pair of two-stage aluminium tripod with the 501HDV head. It's a lot cheaper to buy than rent for this length of shoot, so that means $475 for two, which is $950.

Extension cords: Obvious reason for these. Basically you're looking at $20 a cord and you'll probably want about six of them, so that's $120.

Light gels: Gels are CHEAP. Don't let anyone try and rip you off with them. You're looking at $6 or so per gel. For an entire set of gels for each situation we'd encounter? $75 total.

C-Clamps: If you want to hang anything anywhere ever, you need clamps! A good set of C-Clamps and pony clamps will cost you about $15 and you'll want at least two sets. That's $30.

So we've done it. We've got our production budget done and it's... $1,940 plus $60,665 is... $62,605! That's a lot of money! And the worst part? We aren't done yet! We still need to consider our pre and post budgets! I guess I'll be covering those soon too!

Oh right, lights!

Okay, so, we've covered cameras, actors, crew and audio. Now it's time to cover other things people sometimes forget: lights and junk! Lights are important for a lot of reasons. Proper lighting helps set the tone of a scene, helps delineate actors from the background and makes the scene visible. Not much point in a movie you can't actually see.

When we last left off, we had a budget of $58,215 going. Let's jump right into the fun!

Lights are tricky business. The best option I've seen for getting a quick and dirty light setup that'll work for most beginning filmmakers is the Arri fresnel 4-light combo. It's only about $2,450 and comes with its own transport case, which is something you don't normally get with rentals. It is actually SO well featured that I'll break down what it comes with in its entirety:

2x Arri Fresnel 300W lights: Normally $30 a day per light, which means that as a rental this would cost $600 for the shoot.

2x Arri Fresnel 650W lights: Normally $40 a day per light, so that's $800 for the shoot.

4x light stands: These are usually cheap anyway, but they come with the kit. Normally they're $5 a day per stand, so that's $200 for the whole shoot.

4x barn doors: This kind of amuses me because they aren't included in the rental cost but at dirt cheap to rent. $1 a day per door, so $40.

4x filter frames: Just like the barn doors, these are really cheap but not included in rental costs. $40 again!

8x scrims: Wow, lot of tiny little costs in rentals. That's another $80!

2x 300W replacement lamps: these actually cost $40 each and you have to buy them. That's $80

2x 650W replacement lamps. Same deal as above, and another $80.

1x Arri accessory box. This includes a lot of handy stuff you'll need like a pair of leather gloves for handling the lights, wooden clothes pins, a lamp storage case, a 3 outlet extension cord and a carrying bag. This typically costs another $90.

1x Heavy duty location case. This is my favourite thing in the kit. It drastically cuts the amount of worry in transporting your lights over long distances since it's designed to take a hit. It also has built-in wheels so it's a lot easy to move around than it could be. This normally sells for about $430.

So, after all that, getting the same equipment with rentals would be about $2,440. If you REALLY wanted to scrimp and save, then you could rent and save yourself that whole $10, but really, this case is a really great deal if you ever plan on shooting more than once. This is a long article considering all it does is bring our budget up to $60,665 but it's something you REALLY have to consider.

A couple of afterthoughts and notes on today's update:

I'm not a shill, I promise! You'll notice that I usually link to Amazon.com or B&H a lot, but that's because I mostly really trust them with my orders. If Amazon has it in stock you'll usually see it in a day or two but yes, you could easily check your nearest bookstore. B&H is just amazing though and I'd trust them with any order.

Also, on a more personal note, I'm in a new place now, so updates should be more regular and probably a bit lighter in tone now that I'm about 90% less stressed about everything.

Potential delays

I moved to a new temporary lodging, so there may be a couple of delays in posting. On the plus side, for those of you with normal sleep schedules: No more 2-4am updates! Updates will now probably be at either noon or 6pm, give or take a couple hours. I should have the update about the last bits of equipment up tomorrow sometime.

Even MORE equipment.

Once again it's time for a ludicrously late blog post about budgeting! This time I'm going to cover some things that requires rental instead of purchasing. It's also one of the things I dislike because it involves something that can really make or break a film.

I am talking about, of course, audio.

I've had audio go wrong before on a short for school. Either something went wrong with the mic input, the camera settings or somebody wasn't paying attention, but we ended up with absolutely no sound on a bunch of scenes and we had no time to do ADR. I was mortified. The entire project was pretty much ruined and all I could do was take a clip from a scene in the middle of the film, slow it down and set it to Chariots of Fire.

ANYWAY, we last left off with the budget resting at a rather lofty $57,095. Yikes. Now, with audio equipment, it's one of the rare instances I'm finding where it's actually cheaper to rent than it is to buy. Probably because renting out a Senhieser is $45 a day instead of dropping about $1,800. Boom poles are expensive too and I'd rather not risk putting expensive equipment on something homemade.


So let's start breaking down costs!


Boom mics: I really like Senhieser's stereo shotgun mics. They've always offered me good performance when I've used them in the hands of people who know what they're doing. $45 a day and I'll probably want to grab two of them. That brings us to $900 for the shoot, which is about half of what it costs to buy just ONE.


Boom pole: Really, any brand here is good. If they're operated right and you keep them out of the shot, you're golden. Two of them as well at $25 a day. $500.


Mixers: I actually had to ask around about this one since it's outside of my area of expertise. Given that there's no such thing as too many backups, a mixer with a built in recording system seemed best. It came down to the Sound Devices 552. It's a 5-channel mixer with a built in SD card slot for recording. $55 a day, I only need one. $550 for the shoot.


Lavalieres: I'd have to go wireless for this, and if I did, I'd need to take special care to make sure no distortion came through. Plus I'd need three of them if I was to actually use them since they're lapels. I'm going to go with a temporary no-go on these. $0.


XLR cables: These are pretty cheap. 4 20 foot cables, purchased. $80.


XLR to 3.5mm: There's no reason not to get this and it may well be VERY important at some point, so it's best not to leave them. Last thing you want is to not be able to record audio to something you may need to. 3 of them for $60 total.


That... was actually a lot more painless than I thought. Of course, it DOES tack $1,130 to our budget, bringing us to $58,215, which isn't TOO bad of an increase. Tomorrow I'll be moving, but I'll be covering additional video equipment and possibly some other stuff! Stay tuned!

So, equipment.

An update before 2am? Unheard of!

Discovery is being shot on two Canon 7Ds. Bet you didn't know that! While the 7D has its drawbacks (need for stabilization, rolling shutter and other issues) I've come to the conclusion that it has the absolute best cost:performance ratio in my budget range. The array of lens options also help make it an ideal candidate.

It's also only $1800, sans lenses. To put that into perspective, a Panasonic HVX-200 would cost me TWICE as much. Since I'm going to be shooting for more than 4 days, it makes sense to buy two 7Ds instead of renting a higher-end video camera. Plus I'll have two cameras when I'm done shooting!

However, there is still the issue of my budget. Thanks to some awesome people, I got the contact information for ACTRA's low budget incentive person here in Toronto, so I may be able to get a deal on how much I spend on actors. For the sake of continuing the budget talk from this morning, let's assume the old figure of $51,015 for the budget. Well, with the $3600 for the cameras, that brings us to $54,615, but what else do we need? Well...

Batteries: Never, EVER only have one battery per camera. Nothing is worse than being unable to shoot because the batteries went dark. Two battery packs for each camera, so that's an extra $200.

AC adapter: Sometimes you're able to plug in and run off AC, which is fantastic. HOWEVER, the Canon 7D doesn't come stock with an AC adapter. You'll probably want two of these, so that's an extra $360.

Memory cards: The Canon 7D, at 1920x1080 24p has about a 330mb per minute video size. This means that a 12 minute clip (silly) would be just under 4gb. For safety's sake, four high-speed CompactFlash cards should suffice, bringing us to $720.

Lenses: This is a bit tricky. I'm temporarily budgeting $1,200 to lenses (this is a very low number) until I've fully explored my options. $1,200.

Okay, so that brings us to $2,480 for the camera accessories. Put that on top of $54,615 and we get $57,095. This is just for production and cameras. I haven't even STARTED to cover the cost of other equipment rental/purchases such as tripods, c-stands and reflectors. Maybe tomorrow. At 3am.

Something a little different

Today's update is a less instructional one and a more personal account of what's going on with production. Second draft is still in the works and when I'm not writing I'm trying to set up a preliminary budget for things. I'm quickly noticing that union actors are incredibly expensive, even for all the protection I get from hiring them. There are also a lot of costs you aren't really told about. Like the 35% addition that you have to pay if you're going to try for theatrical release. I probably don't have to worry about that, but if through some series of miracles a studio wanted to buy my film... There are also some weird fees I apparently have to pay the union directly? Shouldn't that be technically deducted from them as union dues?

I have to admit though, I feel kinda bad for the starting IATSE rates. A lot of those guys have really tough jobs but they're getting paid pretty much peanuts. Construction coordinators deserve to start at a lot higher than $38.14 an hour for what they have to do. This film doesn't require me to hire anyone like that, but the more I look through things the more I realise I'm going to have to operate with a very skilled, possibly non-union crew to make this budget work.

I don't want to overload people, though, I really don't. Breaking it down, I know I've got some essentials I can't cut:
Writer/Director: Myself
Producer: Unknown
Cinematography: Unknown/Myself (for select scenes)
Cam-ops: Unknown/Myself
Boom-op: Unknown
Sound mixer: Unknown
Gaffer: Unknown/unknown
Key grip: Unknown
Second grip: Unknown

So that's 9 people who, if I hire union, would be about $21,600 for a 10 (super optimistic) day shoot. These people also need to eat, so if I give them the same food allowance as the actors, that's another $5,850. Already the budget is $27,450.

On top of that, I need to pay the actors. Best case scenario with ACTRA? Well, that's $630.50 a day for principal actors, of which I have three. Ten day shoot, not accounting for ACTRA fees and whatnot: $18,915. That brings the new total to $46,365.

Now we have to factor in transport costs. The equipment truck is $4,200 for the rental. I also have to fuel the truck and cars. There are 3 cars. Assuming a 24mpg fuel efficiency from each car with a 15 gallon tank, a $2.75pg gas price and a 3600 travel distance that would mean each car has to fuel 10 times. To fill a 15 gallon tank would cost $41.25. That means $412.50 times 3, or $1,237.50. Let's assume the truck uses the same fuel for the sake of simple math, so $1,650. Now we're at $48,015.

Okay, so, accommodations. Let's assume I can somehow convince the crew to split two bedrooms and get a bedroom for me and the line producer. That's being a bit crazy, but yeah. Now, the two male principal actors can share accommodations, since I can just get them a two bedroom suite. ACTRA requires separate accommodations and change rooms for female cast members and that's a damn good thing. This means that I have to get 5 hotel rooms. Let's be cheap and get $50 a night rooms. 5 times $50 is $250. Now, we're going to need to sleep every night, so that's 10 nights in hotels. that means $2,500 for hotel rooms. Let's toss on another $500 for "just in case" situations. Weather might happen, ya know. So now we're at $3,000, which puts the budget at $51,015.

And THAT'S just the preliminary budget. I still have to get in contact with some people (Many thanks to @YouAreVeryStar on twitter for their help!) to see about music licensing costs. I also need the location rights and potential costs there and getting some generators for some scenes. This also doesn't cover the costs of equipment rentals for things like lights, cameras, C-stands, tripods, gels, reflectors, lenses... Those things are all very negotiable though and I may luck out with.

Film is hard, stressful and despite the fact that I'm pulling my own hair out trying to get a budget together I have never had more fun in my life.

Technical difficulties over!

So for the last few days Blogspot was pretty much denying me the ability to post updates. It's been a bit slow going though, as this is probably one of the toughest bits of writing a script.

The first script rewrite seems to be the one that requires the most work. Reading through your script you start to notice a bunch of things you may say "Well, that could be a bit better" or the dreaded "This is AWFUL!" to. Apparently this is a normal behaviour but I'll be damned if it isn't just a bit disheartening at times.

Most of the issues I'm having are when I notice that the characters don't seem to have their own voice. For a better explanation, in a few scenes, two of the protagonists (Curtis and Wendy) are having a conversation. During this conversation, if I was to take away the names on the script, you would NOT be able to tell who is who. Well, thankfully I remembered that there was a section in Your Screenplay Sucks! about just this and it includes a tip that's been helping me a great deal.

What the book suggests is that you A-B your dialogue. This basically means that first you get into the head of Character A and start to write their dialogue for the scene. After that, do the same with Character B. If you know what the scene is accomplishing and where it has to go, this can actually be notoriously easy. It's also been highly effective. For me, at least.

Take a break, relax.

Today I took most of the day off from working on Discovery.

A few things ended up throwing me off and it began to feel like I was forcing out my progress as I was rewriting a couple of my scenes. The more I tried to write, the more I started to stress myself out and hate what I was doing with the work. So I did something that most people starting out seem to think is a bad idea.

I took a break.

If you try and force too much out or really anything out it's pretty likely that you're not going to enjoy what you write or write your best. In some situations you may not have a choice, but when you do, take a break. It will do you and your writing a world of good. I'm even taking a bit of time off from making a substantial update to Video Drone today.

Instead, have a video I very much enjoy.

A slow news day means a busy work day

So I didn't get to update until really late today, but with good reason. I've been working pretty constantly on getting internal draft 2 done so I can start showing it to people I know to get their impressions of it. That being said, I should probably bring up something everyone should know about their script:

Odds are that somebody, somewhere will tell you that it's not good enough.

You should get used to that and, above all else, think about whether or not their opinion is valid and what you can take from it. Don't immediately shrug them off but don't let them force you to compromise your story. I'll leave out the names for the sake of not raising shit, but here's a story I've got from when I was in school.

One of the people in my class had a pretty interesting idea for a story. It was an interesting little comedy about a guy making a short film. He got some advice from one of the teachers and, eventually, ended up with a film so drastically different from the original that when I watched it it didn't even seem like it was his idea anymore. While I'm certain a lot of the advice he got was probably good, this is a pretty good example of what can happen if you take advice without remembering to stay true to your project.

Well, hopefully I'll remember this when I start getting critiques on my own script.

Workin' hard for the money

Up late, I know. Just a quicky though, I promise!

I was trying to sleep but instead got distracted while reading a few books on film production, including "How Not to Make a Short Film" by Roberta Marie Munroe (I am working on a feature, but it offers great advice) and "The Reel Truth" by Reed Martin. Both of these books have been an invaluable resource to me while I've been not only writing, but taking care of some of the pre-production of Discovery.

They are, however, also very blunt. They do not hold back in saying how unlikely you are to succeed or how likely it is that things could go wrong and ruin the shoot. In spite of this, I'm still confident. Not only in the work I've put in so far, but in my abilities to do everything I need to complete this film and get it seen.

And yes, this film actually being seen is a big deal to me. I did not decide to get into film just because I want to make money. If that were the case I would have stuck with programming. No, I want to make money telling stories. It is about money, yes, but it's also about money doing something I've always loved doing. The fact I'm actually trying to make a living doing something I love is something very few people will ever get to experience and I feel damn lucky I may have the chance.

Good news, everybody!

So today I started getting back some of my clearance authorisation request responses. I'll start listing who I've gotten clearance from when it becomes obvious to me that I'm allowed to do so. Right now, however, I've got one I can probably talk about, since their authorisation just requires me to follow some guidelines.

I now have clearance to use imagery from Bing Maps.

Now, some of you may be wondering "Why Bing Maps? Why not Google Maps? Or Yahoo Maps? Or Mapquest?" and, well, the answer is actually pretty simple. Bing maps, in my tests, has been the easiest to display and remain legible at NTSC resolutions. Since a lot of the time the maps have to be seen on screen, I need to make sure that things like state lines and roads are clearly visible. Bing Maps also provides me with very clearly identifiable route markers.

I'm not a shill or anything, I just need to make sure that the choices I make are the best ones for the film.

Crew woes

One of the things I think will be a particular problem, come production time, is going to be assembling a crew. Because of my budget limitations I have to be really careful in making sure I get the most out of my money. The last thing I'd want is a cinematographer or a line-producer who is technically incompetent. Or worse, a sound tech who doesn't know what he's doing. These are all things that could really jeapordise the production process.

The one that worries me the most (though they all really worry me quite a bit) is the line-producer job. I know who I'd like to have on board for it, though they're likely not available. If I have to get somebody else, I know I'm going to need to get a list of references from them and make sure they get glowing recommendations. I'd hate it if it ended up being like my final project for one of my classes where we erroneously decided to do the entire shoot in a single day and ended up not being able to match colour tones because of the daylight shifts. Since we didn't plan for that, we didn't get the appropriate gels and, well, that ended poorly.

I will openly admit that the majority of that was my fault and is one of the reasons I'm interested in getting a line-producer who not only has scheduling experience, but knows well enough to discuss shot times with the cinematographer so we won't end up with any video problems. A good line producer will also work with the sound techs to make sure everything works out there too. I'm in no way absolving myself of responsibilities in those areas, but as the writer/director I'm going to have a full plate and dumping too much work on a single person, regardless of their position, is a recipe for disaster.

One of the things I loved about my time at Toronto Film and Media is that I learned enough about the various on-set jobs that I know I need to listen to the people who are trying to do their jobs but still know enough to tell when they don't know what they're talking about. I've seen a lot of short films where the sound tech either didn't do his job or the director/line-producer both ignored his advice. Nothing is worse than a movie you can't actually hear when you're watching.

Hopefully I'll be able to crew up without having to worry too much about how much this is going to cost.

The things you have to deal with...

I'd like to talk about clearance.

Now, I'm sure that the last two posts I've made here have given you the impression that I'm a total hot-shot, wheeler and dealer who has everything flowing perfectly smoothly on the way to making a film, but I assure you nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is that, as I am making a small, indie feature, I have to do a lot of work that most studios, even smaller ones, have dedicated departments for. One of those things is getting something known as "clearance."

For those of you unfamiliar, clearance is something you have to do if you want your film to be able to play without you getting sued. Let's say you have a shot where somebody is walking down the street in his brand new shirt, listening to some music on his mp3 player. Well, let's break that down:

1. Does the shirt he's wearing have a logo on it? If so, you'll need clearance. The company that made that shirt is clearly visible.
2. The mp3 player he's listening to, is it an iPod? Do we see the mp3 player in enough detail to see who made it at any time? Well, that'll need clearance too.
3. Can we hear the song? Is the guy whistling or humming the song? Singing it? That's a paddlin'. I mean, uh, that needs clearance.

See, while we'd all love to think that all companies would love what amounts to free publicity, that's just not how the business world works. There may be a lot of factors behind the scenes or in your scene that might cause clearance to be denied. Maybe some companies do not want their product seen alongside another specific product you have in your shot. This is rare, but possible. Also, depending on the context of the scene, maybe it would make placement there undesirable. I doubt Apple would want their product visible as a man walks down the streets of hell, watching people being eternally flayed alive. These are factors you need to consider and get cleared with the companies who you're trying to make use of.

Another factor may be that this clearance may cost money. In the instance of music, there's actually something very interesting about this. You see, a character listening to an mp3 player and wearing a shirt isn't too bad. You can always swap out those brands for something else, even props that don't resemble known brands, if you're so inclined. Music, however, is often used not just to make the scene flow better from a sound standpoint, but may also be used to promote the movie. If the band and importance of music to the film are big enough, this can really drive the cost of licensing the music up. If you do use music in the trailer, that would probably cost you a good deal more.

Right now I'm working on getting clearance from a few companies and bands that I will not name, just in case. A lot of these companies are pretty huge, but their products aren't selling the movie. For example, an mp3 player. This should keep me from having to worry about massive clearance costs. However, I'm also trying to get clearance from a couple of bands I feel whose music I feel would really help bring the movie to another level. The bands I chose are actually a few Canadian indie bands, though, which should keep the cost far below what I'd be spending if I wanted to use, say, Lady Gaga or the Rolling Stones.

Discovery

For most of the people reading this update, this will be your first time reading this blog. If not, congratulations on being one of the rare few who read this blog's single, other update.

I'd like to take a moment or two to discuss the film this blog will actually be covering the development of. "Discovery" is a feature length comedy about Curtis Ragland, a shiftless loser in his mid-twenties who is dragged on a road trip with his boss (Demir) and his ex-girlfriend (Wendy). Wendy is trying to keep a promise she made with Curtis to see the last launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery with him, a promise she made back when they were still dating .

Right now, the script for Discovery is on its second internal draft that, when complete, I will start having reviewed by people I respect the opinions of. After however many drafts that takes, I will be having the script reviewed professionally, at which point I will enter the final draft stage and start seeking financing. Keep your eyes open for the link to the IndieGoGo page when that happens, as I'll be trying to raise some of the money through them. This fundraising method will involve providing some donation incentives, so keep an eye out.

Also, if you could click on the ads that appear between posts you could totally be my best friend forever. They're one of the ways I'm trying to supplement the financing this is going to take.

Introductions!

Good morning, afternoon or evening (timezone and time of reading dependent) everyone! Welcome to my blog "Video Drone" where I will be chronicling the development of my first feature film "Discovery", a film about relationships, spaceships and road trips.

So, a few things about me and this blog! I'm a 26 year old writer-director living in Toronto, Ontario. I graduated from Toronto Film and Media College in 2009 with a diploma in Film Arts and Production. My favourite movies include, but aren't limited to, Back to the Future 1 and 2; Fritz Lang's Metropolis; The Good, The Bad and the Ugly; Groundhog Day; Ghostbusters and How to Train Your Dragon. I like long walks on the beach, cuddling and making career choices that rely heavily on me convincing people I'm cooler than I really am.

As for this blog... well, it's mostly a vessel for me to discuss my experiences in getting this film complete, raising money, planning production, casting and post-production. You know, all the stuff that goes into making a movie. The name is an obvious joke-take on the title of the movie Videodrome, a very interesting Canadian science-fiction film. This blog won't be as well proofread or edited as my script or official documents, so try not to take anything here as too indicative of my writing habits. I'll be putting a lot of things like production stills, maybe some video updates, maybe even interviews with crew members up here. Something to keep this from being "yet another blog."

When we've got some test footage done I'll be doing part of the financing through IndieGoGo, so keep your eyes peeled for links to that where I can pester you endlessly for money!