Online Film School Blog

Click here to learn more about The Complete Music Video Production Package.

www.musicvideotrainingcenter.com/freefilmschool.html

Don’t read this …

unless you’d like to become a successful music video director.

A few days ago I posted about how doing music videos was a great way to break into filmmaking. There are musicians everywhere who’ll pay you to make short, creative films to promote their careers. You can get paid to have fun while you gain experience and build your portfolio.

Since then I’ve met a very nice young man who HAS become a successful music video director. His name is Jag Johnson and he’s put together a very awesome training package that will teach you just about everything you need to know to break into directing music videos. He’s even offering a significant price break to anyone who orders it through freefilmschool.org.

I you think you might have ANY interest in shooting music videos then click on the link below on my blog, or go to the link you see in this video, and check it out.

I recommend this product.

So get the course, then go make a music video.

Click here to learn more about The Complete Music Video Production Package.

www.musicvideotrainingcenter.com/freefilmschool.html

So get the course, then go make a music video.

Tags: entertainment business, film directing, film marketing, filmmaking tips by Jerry the Prof
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This week we lost one of the truly great indie filmmakers.

Stan Winston died this weekend at the young age of 62. Many would argue that Mr. Winston was not an indie filmmaker because of the many big-budget blockbusters he worked on. But the fact is he was a true indie filmmaker at heart, from his early days tinkering in his garage learning how to create horror and creature effects, right up to the end.

His early efforts were wasted on terrible films. His big break didn’t come until he met a struggling young filmmaker, with an idea for a Science Fiction film about a killer robot, that time travels back from the future.

The name of the project was The Terminator, and young James Cameron had ridiculously little financing, considering what he was trying to accomplish. Despite the budget limitations, Stan Winston and James Cameron created special effects that rivaled Hollywood’s best, while creating a timeless genre masterpiece.

Two years later they did it again with Aliens. On both projects they worked with then mostly unknown actors and tiny budgets, but made up for it with Cameron’s imaginative storytelling, and Winston’s spectacular special effects.

Stan Winston’s special gift was for creating effects and creatures that were at the same time imaginative, futuristic and completely believable.

Although he worked on many big, well financed films - everything from Jurassic Park and Predator right up to this summer’s Iron Man, and won four Oscars in the process - he never lost his love of the challenge of creating clever low budget effects, for cash strapped productions.

He showed how far you can get with the simplest materials, and a lot of imagination and craftsmanship. If you need someone to emulate on your own road to success you could do a lot worse than pick Stan Winston.

Now go make a film. Do it for Stan.

Tags: entertainment business by Jerry the Prof
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The entertainment business is not the easiest way to make a living but if you want to understand the route to success you only need to study the name of the industry for a minute.

The entertainment business is the “Business of Entertaining”. So you need to create something entertaining through some combination of a compelling story and awesome spectacle that people are going to want to see and will tell their friends to go see. At the same time you need to understand and follow all the time-tested rules of good business practices which include marketing and professional relationships.

Every time I hear a beginning filmmaker telling me about their cool movie idea, that is almost completely lacking in any entertainment aspects with a broad appeal, I want to grab them by the neck and try to shake some sense into them.

Most of the ideas are a bland rehash of the latest summer comic book flick. Perhaps it would be interesting to five of their nerdy friends but a significant segment of the general population would find nothing original or interesting.

It’s also clear that these would-be moguls haven’t the first concept of how the business world operates. They have no understanding of basic business law, of how to find and nurture useful relationships in the industry or how to go about marketing a film.

If you want to succeed in “show biz” start by learning how the business world operates and, at the same time, learn what makes great storytelling. With those skills under your belt you just might be unstoppable.

Tags: entertainment business by Jerry the Prof
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