FISHTANKABLE

A short film is “Fishtankable” when it can be remixed and assembled with other short films into a long film, called a “Fishtank”. Show me more.

The Story of Czar Of Make Believe

“Czar Of Make Believe” was a personal film: I wrote, shot and cut it. But there was also a real group effort behind me. I could not have made “Czar” without that constant loving support. This film was my own film school, an experiment in search of a way to make movies, a “fly on the wall” imaginary documentary about a splinter of the american dream. I learned how many hours, tools, resources and consultants a young film-maker (I was 27) needs in order to turn a castle of cards into a transformational film, the one that changes your whole relationship with the art and science of making movies.

Angels and angels danced on pins for me as the money ran out and deadlines

I got generous help from my peers Mark Borchardt (American Movie) and Kirill Mikhanovsky (“Dreams of Fish”). I shared the ARRI-SR2 camera with Chris Smith (who was shooting American Movie with Sarah Price). And Dick Blau was my mentor and his enthusiasm for every new solution I played with kept me going. He told me “your little film will make you quite famous.” The russian composer Kostia contributed the soundtrack after asking, at a test screening, if he could have the (unpaid) job. Fotokem Lab in Burbank gave me rock-bottom color correction, printing rates and screening rooms. There were tens of people helping “Czar Of Make Believe” get made over 24 months.

At a festival in Siena, Italy a woman asked me: “This is such a personal film. Who did you make it for?” I had never thought about that. I had made the film so I could get myself lost in it. “I made it for you”  I said. The Q&A session  was moved into a private room after so many questions about my process were asked. It lasted almost 2 hours, in the end. My first workshop, I guess.   

“Where will the intelligence and kindness come from that can save us”?
Stephen Siciliano

how to craft a script?

Stories frame the boundaries of what we believe. Personal story defines the identity of brands as well as individuals, focusing our feelings on the real choices and dilemmas that we face.
There are excellent web sites to learn “how to sell a script” and “how to craft a story like a pro”. They tell you Why your story is not working or What your story needs, but often ignore the objective difficulty of development.  How to conquer the blank pace? How to design a story space that is both structured and flexible, character driven and plot based.

Who?

Cinemaheads are storytellers, film-makers, creatives, imagineers, students and teachers with movies in the making.

Youth cinema?

We see the root of a democratic platform of self-expression and empowerment, films made by young film artists about young people, about the explosive encounters between old and new worlds. Films often produced with available means and great passion in the basements of film schools and workshops all over the world. 

This is Youth Cinema, something to look forward to.

Digital storytelling

The cost of film production has fallen to almost nothing. Digital storytelling is changing the nature of entertainment, redefining hybrid links between what a movie is, what it’s for, and posing the big question: why do so many people want to make a movie these days?

In a mediated culture, we could not live without movies. Not the stars and celebrity bit, btu rather movies that reconnect us to what is. Stories that do so by exploring what ifs.

Here’s more specs:

I am addicted to a good story that makes my POV matter, mixed-in with life as it manifests itself, never still, always changing.

I want to slalom thru characters entangled with each other, rediscover relationships at work, groove on the one of a kind experiences and crack together the surface of indifference, apathy, and self-destructiveness.

I am hungry for the hyper-focus of a limited story-movie world with characters we can get to know. Are three film characters better than 300 facebook friends?

More than what-ifs for sale…

More than what-ifs for sale. Less than the big studio break. Discovering new ways to make, do, distribute, share. I celebrate this week 10 years of working with Youth Cinema as kickstarter of Cinemahead and its workshop, as content provider to film schools, events and festivals. And as a mentor, partner and collaborator to local filmmakers globally. Keep developing stories of all natures. Cinemaheads (as we say) have won over 200 festival films to date. The most recent short was “Hopp”, a co-production with the Molkom filmskola in sweden, directed by Sophia Linn Carlsson and written by the extraordinary Yair Packer. The “Czar of Make Believe” is still on the loose, making cinema less about equipment and funding and more about story content, voice, and crowd echoes. The world is changing form. Recycle the moment into your next story design. 

 

 

Re:Take # 2 action = structure

Let the bodies tell the story. Actions are structure Re:think how much dialogue you need. Besides, this is the age of the social smart crowd & the Cloud. You make an action film, people will drill their own won way to the fine tune.