D&M brings a new light to the invisible

Digital Artist management in Los Angeles, California is a management company for post artists such as Animators, Visual FX designers, and editors. I find this company interesting because it is dedicated to represent those who usually are never represented. Beyond production crews, post crews are very misrepresented in the world of Hollywood and many of them work through contacts and networks. However, digital artists just starting in the world of entertainment have a lot of problems connecting with companies, which can have the ability to boost their careers.

The website consists of 7 tabs and a resume submission link. Within these two tabs, three are job seekers, client services, and hot jobs. These three links prove to be in deed helpful and informative once you enlist with the company. They will provide current jobs in the California area and further give you their contacts once you join. 

I believe it’s a great opportunity for postproduction crewmembers around the US to connect with high profile companies in the entertainment industry. Moreover, I believe this company is a very good example of an artist management team wanting to do business in unexplored areas. The world is now overpopulated with starving digital artists that need the influence and network of companies such as D&M. D&M is a company that does not only benefit digital artists, but also benefits from clients who wish to join the company’s network and hire new post crews for their upcoming projects.

Overall, I believe Digital Artist Management makes part of our revolutionary way as professionals to connect with each other. Employers are now gradually taking advantage of the Internet and various online systems to connect people with new jobs. D&M makes part of this system; a system which breaks the conventional and overly structured ways of hiring to a faster unconventional way. D&M is now part of the new millennium of online advertisement and personal branding.

THE POTTER LOTTERY

Harry Potter has not only been a phenomenon for both literature and the big screen, but a franchise with ultimate financial success both at the box office, the game world, and has been the king of ancillary media. The last installment of the saga, which has grossed domestically $295,001,070 and $657,240,000 internationally, demonstrates to us the power of a fan base, excellent marketing, unceasing followers of the past 6 films, and an the work results of an incredible team.

http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=harrypotter7.htm

The saga has changed from adventure-fantasy attractions for children to action-thriller magnetisms for adults as the characters grow older and the story becomes more intrinsic. Harry Potter is truly an example not necessarily of a good film, but of a well marketed film whose team understands the impact that its elements have for viewers and society overall:

1.     Executive producers understood that the films would be an immediate success because they already had a fan base, which supported the franchise.

2.     The team knew they were going to have the teen actors grow up as the saga evolved; however, it is established in the books that the characters go from 11 to 17 years old. If it is established in the books, then it is established in the films and the fan base will sustain. It is extremely important to sustain the fan base for it is the core that maintains the franchise running.

3.     The world believes in a better place, magic, fairy tales, and dwarfs. With a repressing economy, the high impact of gas high prices, the middle-east becoming a stronger force, and a stack of uninteresting films made by other studios, Harry Potter is a story to look up to by many people.

4.     Although it relies in a magical world, the story really reflects the adversities of a kid growing up in this world and the ways he confronts them next to his friends who become his real family. BOOM! This is an immediate hook up for all because both adults and children desire deeply in their hearts a process they relate to. Everybody needs to correlate and grow within a system. Harry Potter’s system is unique, the circumstances are magical, but the essence of development, the process of growth, and the overcoming of adversities is as natural and normal as ours.

http://popwatch.ew.com/2011/04/14/this-weeks-cover-harry-potter-summer-movie-preview/

Film Financing

All filmmakers dream in making films and pushing them out there for the public, yet how is that some movies make it to the big screen and are distributed to a larger market and some others don't? Simple. Before distribution and before production, it is important to understand every film needs to be properly financed and have the right funds that takes to deliver your creation into a product.

I did a fast research and found several online choices which served me and can serve you to possibly fund a project. Here are the gold miners: 

1. Funded.com

It is a website designed to connect you to different types of investing options such as angel investors, venture capital, start up funding, and business funding (to expand). Also, it instructs you about certain steps on how to build professional business plans to show, create patents and trademarks, and make an overall impact.

2. Filmunderground.com/EFilmFund

This is a website that on the opposite of IMDB, it literally connects filmmakers by area and interest. Also, it provides several courses which teach how to fund your films, and you never know what investor might be lurking.

3. GoBigNetwork.com

Now this website only connects investors with filmmakers and other business owners. They allow you to create a business plan, even teach you steps on how to do it right, and contact specific investors or just ask for funding in a special post that allow investors interested in your project to come in. This is a great website for people who are starting with a new business or who intend to somehow grow in a market and sell a new product.

Overall, film funding is not an easy task. As a filmmaker, you must attract investors by offering special details in your business plan that show they most certainly will get their money back. Do you plan to have any starts or B-list actors in your film that might attract audiences? Do you have their letters of intent? Do you have any sort of bond with a distributor already? Do you have a business plan for your feature? How do you plan in making revenue out of your film?

This are questions we all should ask ourselves in order to prepare and get the funds we all crave to finance our next big project.

THE MPAA

 
In my research to extend my knowledge about the different networks in the film industry, I was amazed at the format of the new MPAA website. The site is easy to access, comfortable, and easy to understand. The beauty is that it descriptively explains and relates different aspects such as film ratings, content protection, policy and research, and it also provides news and research for parents. These are all distributed in tabs that allow you to easy access other menus.

Also, the website provides with short cuts that highlight as soon as you pass your cursor over them. Options such as film rating search, movies and TV shows online search, copy right information, movies-economy relations, resources for parents, and news which involve press releases, MPAA insider news, and media contacts.

The film ratings section explains it is a designed system to allow parents to decide whether or not they should let their children watch a specific type of content. It further describes that ratings are assigned by an independent board of parents with no past affiliation to the movie business. Their job is to rate each film as they believe a majority of American parents would rate it. It provides menus which you can use to access movies with different ratings, the meaning of such ratings, red carpet ratings, and movie advertising.

It is important to see how the MPAA is designed to respect the audience for it is considered irrevocably important when it comes to motion picture sales. I learned the MPAA is an entity that bridges this industry with its audience. It is a conglomerate of studios interested in connecting with its audience and further expanding their knowledge about ratings, content availability, and copyrights.

The movies online section shows us the different players, legal video playing sites, and emphasizes in information such as content theft, piracy reporting, and its relationship with higher. This leads me to think the MPAA is interested in maintaining more than 2.4 million jobs in the industry by informing people where to watch content online without breaking copyright law. Their mission is also to make young adults in colleges to understand their objective of delivering high quality and legal content they can use for their education and of course stay out of trouble.

The copyright or content protection section emphasizes in their mission to protect artists and creations alike. Their aim is to maintain like I said before those 2.4 industry jobs in the United States and to facilitate people content without having to recur to piracy by allowing distributors to use controlled online resources. This page is pretty much similar to the movies online section. It delves with copyright law but explains in depth their pursuits to create public awareness of the issue.

Also, the MPAA gives you an analysis based on the impact that motion pictures give to the US economy. Here, they distribute the information across tabs which emphasize the state, the gross income, and the amount of people employed within the industry.

Subsequent to that tab, there are the resources for parents and news sections. In these sections, parents have access to resources that help them avoid the dangers of online environment. Furthermore, they have access to global press releases and local news about the MPAA.








These pages are designed to give parents the freedom to choose for themselves and learn about content restriction resources such as webpages and articles which educate in the matter.

THE INTERNET, A DISTRACTION FROM OR A TOOL FOR THE ARTS?

It is outstanding how the internet has changed everything around us. From shopping, to watching films, to social networks, to video games, to dating sites. These have all changed and accustomed us to a faster-immediate world where we can get what we want, when we need it. And the fear of losing the sense of the arts overall is not alienated to this. How can we make a living as artists if a $80-$120 dollar opera ticket will be replaced for $1 on iTunes or even worse for free on Youtube? Massive venues are and will be broadcasted and then be digitally transferred to fit 4MB of streaming video.

Ben Cameron, Arts administrator and live-theater fan at the state of the live arts, asks how can the magic of live theater, live music, live dance compete with the always-on Internet? The answer lies in the following video.



In his speech, Cameron builds trust with his audience by ironically depicting today's reality and facts about how easy it is to get everything we want through the web. He shares his knowledge about the performing arts being democratized through this medium, how he devours e-books, and watches films now at the luxury and comfortability of his own home theater. The audience laughs and he immediately engages with them. He comments on him sharing those passions with them, and he transitions by telling them they most likely also share with him his passion for live performing arts and music. It is here when he raises the question to the main problem or major event: will the live arts, live venues disappear? Should we fear the internet taking away these social gatherings that provide us with our our human needs of expression and cohesion? Cameron's answer to this is no, absolutely not. We have a wired need to fight and work for what we believe in more than for monetary reasons. The power to indulge to the senses and awaken our human emotions comes from a live interaction between human being. We will never, as much as we think we will because of the innovations of this new era, lose the need of human interaction. Quite the opposite, we will now more than ever need it.

At last, he finalizes by making the audience overcome their doubts and fears. He confronts the problem in his speech by clarifying that it is our job to use the arts to unite us all and understand that the web and its innovations are just tools, but are not and will never be the answer to our human co-existence.

EPIC & SCARLET THE NEW RED

 
It is mind blowing how technology has changed the life of many projects in the past few years. The Red One camera excelled by delivering quality, depth, and versatility to projects like Golden Globe winner “The Social Network” and several others like “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides”, “The Book of Eli”, and “District 9”. It is a camera that shoots in digital, but shoots up to 4000 vertical lines in a frame. That is almost 4 times as much as HD and also provides adaptability to better, faster, and longer lenses than many other digital cameras.

Now, Red is ready to take the next step. The company is proud to present the Red Scarlet and the Red Epic. The Red Scarlet will be a camera with basically the same attributes than its predecessor, the Red One, but it will only shoot up to 3K (3 times more than full HD). Also, instead of 20K or 30K dollars it will cost 5K to 10K. This will allow small and independent productions to shoot up to the crispiness and detail of Hollywood. It will reduce or maintain production costs to a minimum and will allow tapeless / filmless workflow in post-production. At the same time, the Red Scarlet will be the size of many prosumer cameras such as the famous HVR-Z1U and will bring portability and speed to projects.

The Red Epic on the contrary will be a slightly more expensive camera than its predecessor. Yet, it will bring portability, which means speed and lower space consumption, and mind-blowing detail quality by stepping up to 5K (5 times more quality than HD). At this point, there is no screen projector or TV that is capable of reproducing this quality. However, its tapeless / filmless workflow, lightweight design, bedazzling crispness, and adaptability to other equipment makes it a new target for many craving filmmakers. Peter Jackson, for example, the director of “Lord of the Rings” plans to shoot his next project “The Hobbit 3D” on the Red Epic. His impression of the Red Epic leaves us in awe as he explains how he plans to mount 30 Epics on 3D rigs to reproduce a whole new experience for audiences. If we though “The Lord of the Rings” blew our minds, we have to wait to see “The Hobbit”.

Ultimately, both the Red Scarlet and Epic cameras have proven how fast technology has evolved to make our lives as filmmakers easier and approachable. They give us the chance to not waste our budget in film while still maintaining or surpassing the quality of 35mm cameras. It is a must-have new baby in the market that we all have to shoot with once in a lifetime.

THIS IS IT

It was always interesting to see Michael Jackson deliver performances worldwide. He was a man who changed music, music videos, and even films with special effects. His career showed us determination, passion, and deliverance. Despite his social circumstances and the conflicts that surrounded him which made people doubt of his moral character, people loved him for what he was… a man who enhanced our perception, a leader, an innovator.

There is much to believe Michael was a man of conviction. He decided where he wanted to go and how. His goals and career where oriented to change and social impact. Thus, he surrounded himself with outstanding talented people who understood his vision. Choreographers, musicians, filmmakers, managers, and live show entertainers opened a path to him that very few even get to dream of. His passion and love for his career and others motivated him to raise the bar and modify everybody’s standards.

This is what you get from watching his last film “This is it” which tells the process in building his next show just before he died. The film depicts Michael worked with his team and motivated everybody in his team to only deliver based on one cause: love. He arrived, prepared, and patiently delivered with everybody what it had to be done to accomplish his new mind blowing show. The film clearly shows his team’s ability to develop a plan, which involved special effects and CGI videos in the background of the show while dancers wearing the same costumes would appear with him and strike the show. It is fascinating to watch this group of people concentrate before each practice and trust him during the show’s simulations. Their admiration for their leader and determination to make him and his cause obtain once again that glory and respect he used to have from the people are exemplary.

I think this film should be an example regardless how much we hated or loved the man of teamwork and project management. It puts a clear message across: the power of people, the power of love. It is passion that drives us and it is people who make things happen. It is never the power of just one man; it is the power of a team concentrated in one same goal. We ought to be aware of this reality and apply this concept to every project we make or help others to build. We ought to remind ourselves it is never a one-man’s show, but a mix of forces empowered by unique talents which make a project complex, unique, and innovating.