The Florida Southern College Teaching Through Technology workshop...

Professor Sydney Chalfa of Macon State continues to break new ground in the expanding field of Digital Storytelling. One of the leading proponents of the use video in the telling personal non-narrative stories, her teaching style enlightens non-professional to higher levels of skills and attributes in telling those comprehensive tales.

Recently Sydney joined numbers of Digital Storytelling proponents in Lakeland, Florida in teaching a workshop on the subject. Between July 11-15, Professor Chalfa shared her personal teaching style with educators from across the Southeast. The genre allows even the most inexperienced child, adult, or a storyteller to get their point across in the most personal form. A former student of the groundbreaking Joe Lambert led San Francisco Center for Digital Storytelling, Chalfa has been a pied piper for the genre.

With the increasing tone for not-for-profit budget cuts and the drying up of grants for documentary film-making. Digital storytelling has the possibility of being a gateway or bridge mechanism for filmmakers until economic stability is regained and the documentary genre is stabilized in the not so near future. 

http://www.flsouthern.edu/evening/TeacherWorkshops/

From Theory to the Proof...

The man who put Tarantino on the road to ‘Reservoir Dogs’ keeps plugging his brand of guerilla filmmaking.

I finally took the plunge and signed up for a nearly legendary cult status filmmaking workshop for independent moviemakers: Dov S-S Simens’ “2 Day Hollywood School” while recuperating from nearly a life ending accident in 1996. It had me kicking myself for majoring in television and film production 10 years and $32,000 in tuition, books, and room and board earlier. It changed my outlook on the process.

Over the weekend I revisited Dov’s course and technique by going to Los Angeles and re-enrolling in the class. 15 years ago, I had 5 years, 8 feature films, 2 Emmy nominated TV series, and a major network mini-series under my belt by that time. Therefore, I felt extremely confident in my knowledge of the budget and planning process. There is the “Hollywood Myth” of what a movie cost to make and the reality of what the actual cost truly is in the end. The only good thing about being a low level office PA is that you sooner or later, you get to see the “bible budget” while mass copying it for the need to know executives, producers, and security bondsmen. The most startling revelation aspect in the workshop is just that, the myth far exceeds the truth “above-the-line” and “below-the-line” figures that are nightly bandied about on shows like Entertainment Tonight or Access Hollywood. Simen’s is famed for demystifying the process.

Now, 15 years later with 10 more features, 6 more TV series, and 3 more mini-series in my rear view mirror, I flew to Southern California to see just how relevant his ideas were on the matters that he presented to us.

The process is always 87% cost control, 7% product, and the remaining 6% being the wash of the experience. If you can acquire the property reasonably, sell the idea without ceding to much control, and lastly make the film with reasonable acquisitions of talent, equipment, location, and post-production necessity, then one can generally  stand assured that the final piece: distribution may leave the filmmaker in the position to succeed regardless of the quality of the work. Producer Roger Corman made a career of this formula while at American International films.

Making your first movie of any kind is always the most daunting matter on a beginner's or industry veteran’s plate. Still, as Simen’s finished his 38 steps of production and the avenues of getting the project acquired in some manner for distribution; the premise had not changed over that period of time. It got Quentin Tarentino to the brink of getting a film made with a mostly then D-list performers and one mega star in Harvey Keitel to be in ‘Reservoir Dogs.’