The Indie Film Blog

By: Andrew Seltz

I’m going to be at the Expo.

A few years back I worked as co-producer and director of photography on an indie film called Under Surveillance, directed by Dave Campfield. He just let me know that it will be an opening night feature presentation at the Long Island Internationl Film Expo. Show time is 7pm on July 11, 2006.

There will be a short panel discussion after the movie and Dave and I will be speaking.

Come out and support the cause if you are in the area.

The Go-To Guy

By: Andrew Seltz

I came across a great podcast site today called the VideoGrunt. There are a couple of videos on the site that explain what aspect ratios are, the history of them, and why we use the ones we have. This topic took 2 weeks in the aesthetics class I had at film school and I think you get as much information from these videos as I remember from that class.
I was also impressed with the quality of the video podcast. This guy knows how to produce an excellent video. He also seems to have some instructions for video podcasting (I didn’t explore that, but his work speaks for itself.)

Check it out if you have broadband.

By: Andrew Seltz

Well, at least I’m working on it again! Elevation Due West is the independant feature film I directed and shot back in August 2001. I was deep in the throws of working on it when the Twin Towers fell and I lost my momentum. Once you’ve lost momentum, it’s hard to get going again – particularly when you are mostly working by yourself.

Now, I didn’t shut down after 9-11, I just worked on everything but my movie. I shot another movie, Under Surveillance, for director Dave Campfield, I’ve created a bunch of short promotional videos, traveled all around the country shooting interviews and covering events, I got married, I won a couple of awards, and even designed and built the set for a recent Off-Off Broadway play. But I’m not going to let this movie linger any more!

Today I re-digitized the footage from my camera tapes onto a hardrive in preparation for working with a sound designer. I’ve got a meeting scheduled for Saturday to go over the sound cues. I’ll spend the next few evenings reconstructing the timeline for the project (lost during a recent computer meltdown) and getting all of the sound files together.

I’ve accomplished a lot already toward finishing the movie, but you can read about all of that on the movie website. I plan to resume writing on the producer’s notebook there to get the story going again. But, when I take advantage of new technologies and techniques, I’ll be sure to post about them on this blog.

Wish me luck!

By: Andrew Seltz

Looking for the perfect story for your next movie project (or just looking for a laugh)? Visit Plot-O-Matic. Make a few quick choices from the dropdown lists, press enter, and presto! Out pops the logline for the next hit movie!

I found this while doing a little surfing and got a big kick out of it. It also got me thinking about a possible project.

The May, 2006 issue of PC Magazine has a couple of great articles on digital movie production. The first is Hollywood Reboots and looks at the history of digital technology in the movie production world.

The second is titled Making an Indie Film and cronicals the production of Scott Dacko’s all-digital feature film The Insurgents – a $200,000 political thriller starring Mary Stuart Masterson, Henry Simmons, Juliette Marquis, and John Shea. This article takes a behind-the-scenes look at how this film was put together and what technology was used. It’s very well written, I highly recommend you pick up a copy of the magazine and read it.