Film News

gordon meyer writes, "First Sundays is a monthly film festival for comedy shorts (under 30 minutes). Blazing new trails for the comedy short film market in New York by providing a 170+ seat movie theater jam packed with audience every month. For submission info and details visit http://www.firstsundays.com."

CineBags Film Production Gear writes, "

CineBags Film Production Gear introduces its Film Production Grant for Student. Any student attending a College Undergraduate and Graduate in Film or Video Production qualifies for the grant. The winner both receive a Production Bag, Tool Pouch, AC Pouch, Canned Air Pouch Script Bag and Gel Roll. Please download and print the application form at http://www.cinebags.com/grant.html The deadline is January 2004."

A UCLA Film School Student writes, "Just out from Peachpit Press is "Real World Digital Video," written by feature director Pete Shaner and screenwriter Gerald Everett Jones. (Best price on Amazon.) It's a comprehensive survey of practical preproduction, equipment selection, shooting, and postproduction techniques, including lots of technical information on achieving film-look. Shaner wrote and directed the first 24p HD feature, "Nicolas," using the Sony CineAlta camera before George Lucas got hold of it. The book comes with a companion DVD that contains two short subjects post-processed for film look, as well as interviews with practitioners, dailies for doing your own editing, trial versions of software, and a sample of a concert music video shot with 10 DV cams. Instructors at UCLA Extension and at LACC have already said they will be adopting it as the textbook for their production courses. There's a Reader Support area for the book at http://www.lapuerta.tv." Sounds cool. Thanks for the tip!

Do you live in LA? Do you constantly struggle to find a creative outlet? Do you wanna meet cool actors and writers in Hollywood? Do you have NOTHING TO DO on a typical Friday night? Well, here's a possible solution to all your problems-- it's called No Shame Theater, and here's how it works: 10PM on Friday night, a bunch of writers and actors show up at this theater on the 4th floor of a building on Hollywood & Cuhangua. The first 15 scripts under 3 pages that show up are in that nights show. They're cast on the spot, and after one hour of hyper-rehearsal, at 11PM, it begins. Sounds like a recipe for disaster, right? Well, of the two shows I've had the pleasure of seeing, the evening was light on suckage and surprisingly packed with entertainment. A great way to meet other creative folks, the best part may be that the entire night is FREE, subsisting entirely on donations, so have a $3 beer while you're there. More details at the website. See you there!

A quick heads up-- two software packages have been added to our Files section that may interest up-and-coming filmmakers on a budget: First, there's OpenOffice.org, version 1.0.1 (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris) -- a *FREE*, full-featured alternative to Microsoft Office, complete with word processor, spreadsheet, presentation software, drawing, etc. Document files can be exchanged with MS Office. A must-have suite, OpenOffice.org is available in beta for Mac OS X. Secondly, check out Abiword (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD, QNX) - Also a free download. Abiword is smaller than OpenOffice.org and is a MS Word compatible word processor only. As of Jan 2003, Mac OS X requires X11 (free installation) to be running for OpenOffice.org (beta version) and Abiword to work. Subsequent versions will eliminate this requirement.