Welcome to the Footage Firm

Well, we've got a great new sponsor for our filmmaker prize packages. They are giving us their royalty-free stock footage DVDs to pass along to our winning filmmakers. In addition to the DVDs they sell, they have launched a new website: StockFootageForFREE.com where video editors can download stock footage clips from around the world absolutely free. Here's the info Joel at Footage Firm sent me on the site.

StockFootageForFREE.com provides completely free stock footage from around the world that can be downloaded instantly and incorporated into any type of video editing project (commercial use is okay!). There are absolutely no fees-just register for free and start downloading an unlimited amount of footage! http://www.stockfootageforfree.com

This is a great deal, folks. Check it out.

J.J. Abrams' Mystery Box

Browsing the TED archives, I came across this video of J.J. Abrams talking about his love of mystery. Along the way, there are some fantastic lessons about story and narrative, as well as a powerful challenge to filmmakers near the end. Watch it here.

Susan Emshwiller - A Winning Broad!

Susan Emshwiller, an alumna of Broad Humor Film Festival whose film, "In the Land of Milk and Money" opened the very first festival, has just won an award from the Environmental Defense Action Fund for her film, "Cap It." We all give her a huge cheer for her work.

2009 Festival Call for Submissions

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Comedies by women? You must be joking!

THE BROAD HUMOR FILM FESTIVAL PUTS OUT THE CALL

Los Angeles, California, Jan. 24, 2009 - The Broad Humor Film Festival (BHFF) gears up for its fourth annual weekend of fun with a call to all women with a sense of humor and a camera. Film submissions are now open for the festival taking place June 12-14, 2009 at the Electric Lodge Performing Arts Center in Venice, California. Comedy screenplays written by women are also being accepted for the writing competition.

Brainchild of Susan diRende, the Broad Humor Film Festival began in response to the lack of attention given to women-generated comedy and is today he only festival in the world to put the spotlight on women's onscreen humor.

"As our broads in the trenches of the indie world have been demonstrating for years, women are suddenly being recognized for being, yes, funny." Today, high-profile funny women are getting attention and accolades, but it is still an uphill battle for most.

BHFF accepts entries of films and screenplays in three length categories: under 20 minutes/pages; 20-60 minutes/pages; over 60 minutes/pages. Documentary, narrative and web films are all welcome so long as all writers and directors are female and humor is an important part of the story. But it doesn’t need to be the whole story.

“We love the ways that women create humor,” says diRende. “We’ve found that women prefer to create ‘blended genres.’ If a serious movie has lots of laughs or plenty of smile moments important to the story, we want to see it.”

Competition categories exist for both experienced filmmakers and for no-budget novices working on a shoestring.

The June festival will have screenings of selected films and scene readings for screenplay finalists. Participants become a permanent part of the BHFF community with a free invitational screening for alumnae every year thereafter.

go to festival website

Social Networking Works for You - Yes, YOU

Broad Julia Camara wrote to share some thoughts on how the internet and social networking are changing how we do business. A lot of our participants are internet shy, can list all the reasons why the connections made there are not 'real' and why they do not believe it will help them. Julia, clearly, is not one of those.

I just had a fun dinner with a friend who’s an actress and as we talked about the amount of progress we were making with our careers, she mentioned how she’s constantly meeting producers and agents at her day job, and how they started saying they’re going to look her up online and see what kind of clips of projects they could find.

It occurred to me how even casting is changing these days. When I went to film school casting our projects was done by placing an ad in backstage west, getting a million head shots, sorting through them, and then calling the people you thought had the right look.

Nowadays you can put an ad on craigslist, or myspace, or facebook and not spend a dime in ad costs. Actors can submit electronically, which takes a whole five seconds; you don’t have to wait for the submissions to be delivered via snail mail. (Sometimes I’m surprised the US Post Office is still in business.)

When I first started submitting screenplays to whoever would accept them, competitions, production companies, agents and managers, you had to mail them. There was no other option. Email was around, I’m not that old, but it just wasn’t heard of to email a script. I know writers who refuse to send anything but a hard copy, but I’m not one of them. Having read hundreds of scripts on my computer screen, I’m glad to save space in my tiny overpriced condo, and some trees.

So, this little trip down nostalgia lane made me think about how important for all of us artists it is to have an online profile that is accurate and portrays us in the best possible light. Myspace and facebook aren’t just for kids or people looking to hook up, we should never post drunk photos of ourselves or anything we wouldn’t want our work community to see. I can’t tell you how many potential collaborators I’ve met through social networking.

I realize some of this might be common knowledge since these days employers are looking at job applicants myspace profiles so you should always have your best side out there. You never know who’s looking.

Check out Julia's website here.

Gia Milani's New Film

Gia Milani ('06) has a trailer for her new short film up on YouTube. Not a comedy, but we still like to give a shout out to alumnae. Watch it - Dark Radius.

Netflix Film Grant Competition

Netflix has a competition for a film grant of $350,000. You have to have a script, a vision, and a budget. Deadline is Feb. 9 or when the applications reach 2,000. If you've got a project ready, the process is easy and free.

Netflix FIND Your Voice Film Competition
(310) 432-1275 (voice)
Web: www.netflixfindyourvoice.com
Email: filmmakerlabs@filmindependent.org