Business, economic development - the unofficial Chamber of Commerce

Jeremy Jackson, a student at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, enrolled in a Digital Video Production summer course at iD Tech Camps UCLA location. At this weeklong, hands-on technology summer program for ages 7-17 located at universities nationwide, Jeremy developed an understanding for shooting, editing, and creating special effects using Adobe software.

Jeremy’s father, an animator for Disney, inspired his son at a young age with a passion for filmmaking and CGI (Computer Generated Imagery). Since perfecting his skills at camp, Jeremy attends Hollywood movie premieres as the cinematographer for 16 year-old Fred Medill, the host of “Fred TV.” A series with informative interviews of celebrities in motion pictures and television, and star athletes, “Fred TV” has taken Hollywood by storm. Jeremy can be seen at many Hollywood premieres behind the camera as Fred interviews celebrities.

While having used Adobe® software for school projects, Jeremy never used Adobe Photoshop® and Adobe After Effects® to create special effects for a movie until attending iD Tech Camps. Along with classmates, Jeremy created high-end special effects and learned advanced compositing and cinematography. Many of the effects that they created have been used in popular Hollywood movies. While a completely new program for Jeremy, After Effects quickly became a favorite.

“You can do everything with After Effects, from making it rain to making a guy freeze in mid-air,” said Jeremy while describing his camp movie The Majority Report- A movie about the powers of good vs. evil. Jeremy and his classmates used an effect which caused three fleeing men to freeze in mid-air, before resuming running.

During camp, Jeremy’s movie premiered at Family Showcase. “Everyone watching the movie was very impressed by the quality of the special effects my son’s group was able to create in just one week,” said Jeremy’s mom, Meredith Jackson. “The movie was a hit and I think we’ve watched it 100 times since then!”

Students like Jeremy use digitized footage in Adobe After Effects to add special effects like chroma key. They composited multiple layers of video to give the footage different effects. The software is so user-friendly that even a teenage camper like Jeremy can easily add impressive lasers and fire using plug-ins.

“It’s exciting teaching campers how to composite layers within their digital movie,” said Jeremy’s instructor, Kevin Painchaud, owner of a Hollywood-based production company whose movie “NTV-1″ had a sellout crowd for their screening at the Hollywood Film Festival. “Jeremy’s passion for filmmaking poured out of him each day, inside and outside of the classroom. He just really wanted to learn everything there was to know about filmmaking and caught on very quickly,” said Mr. Painchaud. It looks like the next Steven Spielberg may have just gotten his start!

As for now, Jeremy continues to accompany Fred to Hollywood premieres, getting experience shooting the stars. Someday he hopes to be a Cinematographer for motion pictures, just like his mentor from camp, Mr. Painchaud.

Karen Thurm Safran writes for iD Tech Camps which is the nation’s leading and most recommended summer technology camp. They offer day and overnight camps in weekly and multi-week sessions for kids and teens ages 7-17. They are hosted at premiere universities including Stanford, Princeton and MIT and include video game creation, digital video, programming, robotics, Flash® animation and more. iD Tech Camps website is http://www.internalDrive.com

The daytimes can be boring very often for children, especially in the summertime when they are out of school. At those times parents have to make sure their children are properly entertained. Parents should want their children to have physical activity of course but they should also want their children to have their minds stimulated.

That is a great reason why it is important to have DVDs, videos, and CDs around the house that children can watch and listen to. There are a large amount of studios producing those types of entertainment because they know of their importance for the development of young children.

Another great thing about those types of entertainment is, they are not all cartoons that involve characters running around with mallets. Their are many educational titles that can teach children their ABCs, as well as potty training and other important things.

Another great benefit is that parents can accomplish the things they need to accomplish while their children are sitting in front of an entertaining video learning the things that will be necessary for them to succeed in life. If you do not have those different types of entertainment in your home, you and you children are missing out.

Andre Bias is the owner of http://www.kidfriendlyentertainment.com, an online source for top notch DVD’s for children 10 years old and younger.

Commitment is an independent filmmaker’s most valuable resource. Without a lot of money to grease the wheels of production, a low budget film producer must rely on creativity and determination to get their films made. If a person wants to get their film made badly enough, there is not much in this world that can stop it from happening.

Making a film on your own with your own money is a very daunting task. It can also be very rewarding. When you decide to take on the awesome responsibility of writing, directing, and producing your own independent film, you better know what you are getting into beforehand. Once you set the ball in motion, there is no going back. You either succeed and your film makes to the film festival circuit (which is a major accomplishment in and of itself), or you crash and burn halfway through the film production process and your film vision never sees the light of day.

The next time you watch a movie I suggest that you pay particular attention to the credits at the end of the film. Take a look at how many names scroll across the screen and this will give you an idea of how much work goes into the making of a motion picture. Then take away all of the names on the screen and picture your name in front of every credit for every job and this will give you an idea of how much work YOU will have to do to make your own movie.

When I first graduated from film school I hit the ground running. I landed a decent job as the Director and Animator on an independent film that had Pat Boone’s name attached to it. I was hired to film clay animation stories about The Bible. I worked on that job for about four months and was paid fairly well for my efforts. I decided that the best thing I could do with the money I saved was to make another film. I would take the knowledge and money I gained and use it for my own benefit. I decided to make my own movie with the idea in mind that I would enter it in on the film festival circuit and hopefully win some awards. If that happened it would almost certainly be a boost for my fledgling film career.

I wrote a script for a short film that involved a combination of clay animation and live action, and I was ready to make a film. My plan was to use all of my knowledge and talent and do almost all the work. For the parts that I could not do myself I would hire friends and business associates at a substantially discounted rate. These people agreed to work for cheap in return for a little creative control, a credit for their demo reel, and possibly exposure if the film does well at any major film festivals. I only had to hire them for the filming of the live action scenes and for some of the post production work (like sound design, mixing, foley sound effects, etc…). The animation I would do entirely on my own.

I contacted a couple of friends of mine that managed camera and sound equipment rental houses. They set me up with a 16mm camera package and a DAT (digital audio tape) package to rent at discounted prices. I rented these packages on a weekend (to get the extra 2 days for free) and I started filming the live action part of my film right away.

I worked extremely hard that first weekend. I basically filmed most of the time with only about two to three hours of sleep each day. When I was not filming/acting/directing, I was setting up lights, moving furniture, making meals for everyone, setting up props, distributing and apply makeup, rehearsing with actors, fixing costumes, and performing script rewrites on the set, to name only a few things. By the time Monday morning rolled around, I was mentally and physically exhausted, but I still had to bring back the camera and sound equipment packages by 10:00 am or I would be charged for another day of rental. You do not have that luxury to just sleep in and not worry about it when you are making an independent film on a shoestring budget. There is no rest for the weary when you are making your own movie. Time is money, and you do not have a lot of either one of these resources.

I returned the camera and sound equipment packages just in time on Monday morning. Then I went straight to the film lab and dropped off my film. I then made an appointment for the following week (the soonest date I could get) to see my dailies (developed film), and counted the days until the day of my appointment arrived.

I arrived at the film lab a half hour early for my appointment to see my dailies. As I sat in the lobby waiting for my big moment, I began to get very nervous. Unnerving thoughts began to fill my head. What if one of the rolls of film somehow got damaged in the lab? Maybe the machine that develops the film broke when my film was running through it and all of my film rolls are scratched? What if the cameraman I hired was not as good as his demo reel implied and all my rolls are under or over exposed? What if the guy who took my film at the front desk of the film lab is a disgruntled filmmaker who only took that job so he can ruin other people’s film when they hand it over to him? What if there was a mishap in the film vault involving fire sprinklers and all my rolls of film got ruined? Of course, all of these are irrational thoughts, but nonetheless they are the kind of thoughts that go through the mind of an independent filmmaker as they are quietly waiting in the lobby of a film lab facility prior to their appointment to see the fruits of their efforts.

As it turned out, everything was fine. My dailies looked great and that only inspired me to keep the ball rolling with my film project. I put every ounce of effort that my body and soul possessed into that project, and it paid off. That film (Mike And The Magic Lamp) won several awards at several film contests that year (1998) including a Silver Award at the Houston Worldfest in the same category that had seen past winners with such names as Steven Spielberg, Oliver Stone, and Quentin Tarantino. It was a perfect springboard for my film career. I have made several films since then and all of them have led to bigger and better projects. My latest film is a ninety minute science fiction love story. I already have a couple of distribution offers for this film, and I have yet to enter it in a single film festival. I should be able to make a very decent profit if it does well on the film festival circuit, and I owe it all to my iron resolve to make my film career dream a reality. Where my budget was lacking, my determination picked up the slack.

Copyright 2006. Michael P. Connelly

Michael P. Connelly is an Author and Filmmaker who travels the world making low budget independent films and writing about his enriching exeriences.
His latest book can be purchased at:
http://www.makealowbudgetmovie.com
For photos or additional info send an email to:
measeburl@aol.com

One of the most beloved TV sitcoms in American history, Cheers is the perfect show for anyone who’s ever frequented a place “where everybody knows your name”. The series follows the lives of the workers and patrons who inhabit a friendly neighborhood Boston bar named Cheers. Cheers is operated by a retired Boston Red Sox relief pitcher named Sam Malone (Ted Danson). Sam has three people on his staff: Ernie “Coach” Pantusso (Nicholas Colasanto), Carla Tortelli (Rhea Pearlman), and Diane Chambers (Shelley Long). Regulars Norm Peterson (George Wendt) and Cliff Clavin (John Ratzenberger) round out a strong supporting cast of eccentric characters. Most notably, season three provides viewers with their first glimpse of Dr. Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammar), a psychiatrist who would later have his own series, Frasier…

The Cheers (Season 3) DVD offers a number of hilarious episodes and begins the ascent of Dr. Frasier Crane, imminent psychologist, as a television icon. Notably, Dr. Crane’s stint on Cheers was originally intended to last for only a few episodes until his character became a regular cast member (similar to John Ratzenberger’s ascent on the show). Michael Richards (Kramer from the hit show Seinfeld) makes a notable guest appearance in episode # 62. Following her breakup with Sam and abandonment of Cheers, Diane returns to the bar at the request of Coach who feels it will help Sam end his problem drinking. The Sam-Diane-Frasier love triangle lasts for the entirety of the season, culminating in the final episode where Frasier proposes to Diane while the two are on a trip across the European continent…

Below is a list of episodes included on the Cheers (Season 3) DVD:

Episode 45 (Rebound: Part 1) Air Date: 09-27-1984
Episode 46 (Rebound: Part 2) Air Date: 10-04-1984
Episode 47 (I Call Your Name) Air Date: 10-18-1984
Episode 48 (Fairy Tales Can Come True) Air Date: 10-25-1984
Episode 49 (Sam Turns the Other Cheek) Air Date: 11-01-1984
Episode 50 (Coach in Love: Part 1) Air Date: 11-08-1984
Episode 51 (Coach in Love: Part 2) Air Date: 11-15-1984
Episode 52 (Diane Meets Mom) Air Date: 11-22-1984
Episode 53 (An American Family) Air Date: 11-29-1984
Episode 54 (Diane’s Allergy) Air Date: 12-06-1984
Episode 55 (Peterson Crusoe) Air Date: 12-13-1984
Episode 56 (A Ditch in Time) Air Date: 12-20-1984
Episode 57 (Whodunit?) Air Date: 01-03-1985
Episode 58 (The Heart is a Lonely Snipe Hunter) Air Date: 01-10-1985
Episode 59 (King of the Hill) Air Date: 01-24-1985
Episode 60 (Teacher’s Pet) Air Date: 01-31-1985
Episode 61 (The Mail Goes to Jail) Air Date: 02-07-1985
Episode 62 (Bar Bet) Air Date: 02-14-1985
Episode 63 (Behind Every Great Man) Air Date: 02-21-1985
Episode 64 (If Ever I Would Leave You) Air Date: 02-28-1985
Episode 65 (The Executive’s Executioner) Air Date: 03-07-1985
Episode 66 (Cheerio, Cheers) Air Date: 04-11-1985
Episode 67 (The Bartender’s Tale) Air Date: 04-18-1985
Episode 68 (The Belles of St. Clete’s) Air Date: 05-02-1985
Episode 69 (Rescue Me) Air Date: 05-09-1985

Britt Gillette is author of The DVD Report, a blog where you can find more reviews like this one of the Cheers (Season 3) DVD.

There are few more iconic characters in American movie history as Lois Lane, Clark Kent’s sidekick at the Daily Planet, and Superman’s romantic interest. But 23 year old Kate Bosworth’s performance has earned her a number of excellent reviews in the role in the latest film in the Superman series – ‘Superman Returns’.

Bosworth admits that she was unsure if any actor could pull of a convincing Superman/Clark Kent combination – she remembers the original film with great excitement. However, she is full of praise for Brandon Routh, the unknown actor who plays the title role. She realized how good Routh was going to be as early as an early screen test, before she had got the role, when she discovered she “had become totally lost in just reading with him, in a white, bare, sparse room with the tri-pod video camera and a couple of people sitting around and watching and that’s when I realized he was going to be tremendous in this film”.

Bosworth modelled her Lois Lane performance on Katharine Hepburn. “I watched a lot of Hepburn to prepare for Lois, particularly ‘The Philadelphia Story’ and ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner’. Hepburn is a great model for how I see Lois - strong but fragile.”

Bosworth spent her early childhood moving around the US, from Los Angeles to San Francisco, then to Connecticut and to Massachusetts. It was around the time of the move to Massachusetts in 1998 that she heard of an open audition for Robert Redford’s film ‘The Horse Whisperer’. A horse-lover, she went along for the experience, and won the role of the female lead’s best friend. After “The Horse Whisperer” Bosworth took a break from acting, returning two years later to resume her career which has culminated with her role in ‘Superman Returns’.

Filmography

Superman Returns (2006)
 Bee Season (2005)
 Beyond the Sea (2004)
 Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! (2004)
 Advantage Hart (2003)
 Wonderland (2003)
 The Rules of Attraction (2002)
 Blue Crush (2002)
 Remember the Titans (2000)
 Young Americans (2000) TV Episode
 The Newcomers (2000)
 The Horse Whisperer (1998)

When most people think of cartoons, most likely they think of the short ten minute skits you’re used to seeing on your Saturday morning kids shows like Bugs Bunny, Yogi Bear, Mighty Mouse and a host of others that so many of us have grown up with. But the truth is, cartoons have been just as big and popular on the big screen in full length motion pictures for just as long.

Probably the person most responsible for the big screen success of animated movies was Walt Disney who began in the 1920s by creating such memorable characters as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. One of his first full feature length films was “Steamboat Willie” which starred Mickey Mouse. Disney went on to produce such memorable films as “Cinderella”, “Snow White” “Peter Pan” and the half animated half real person masterpiece “Mary Poppins”, which was unique for the times.

However, Disney studios wasn’t the only production company to make full feature length animated movies, though they are probably the biggest even to this day. Other companies have joined in on what has become an incredibly huge market for children’s animated films. Many of these companies and producers took animation to a new level. Cartoons were no longer the drawn figures that we were used to seeing for the first 50 years of their existence. New forms of animation began to take off with the advances in computer technology.

The most popular of these new forms is what is known as Pixar 3D technology. Pixar, the company, is actually a subsidiary of Disney. The process uses Pixar’s animation software to create the cartoon images. The actual steps involved are quite complex, from the initial drawing of the characters, the layout of each scene, the actual movement of the characters through the scene and finally transporting all of this through the software itself. All this information is then stored in huge data files. These files can then be manipulated in a variety of different ways. Human motion itself has never been so easy to imitate, which is what makes these animated movies so realistic. Some of the most popular of these over the years have been “Toy Story”, “Shrek”, and “Monsters Inc.”, just to name a few.

Another type of animation, which has become very popular of late, is the painstaking stop motion animation. This is done by placing actual figures in place on the set and snapping a picture of them. The figures are then moved, sometimes just a fraction of an inch at a time to work their way to the next action in the scene. These are probably the most difficult animated movies to make and require the patience of a saint. Fortunately, Nick Park has that kind of patience. He has created what is arguably the most popular stop motion animated movies ever made, the Wallace and Gromit series, the most famous of these is probably “The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit”.

Animated movies, today, are big box office and even winners at the Oscars. Just recently, Shrek became the biggest box office smash for an animated movie ever.

As long as there are kids, both young and old, there will always be a market for big budget animated films. And they just keep getting bigger and better.

Michael Russell

Your Independent guide to Cartoons

Nominated for 7 Golden Globes and 6 Emmys, including Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series, Just Shoot Me is among the top cutting-edge situation comedies of the late-1990s and early-2000s. The NBC original series is the brainchild of talented creator Steven Levitan, writer for such celebrated TV shows as Wings (1990), The Larry Sanders Show (1992), and Frasier (1993) - among others. Featuring a multitalented cast with a dearth of experience in the world of show business, Just Shoot Me is one of the funniest and best-written sitcoms of its time…

Just Shoot Me follows the exploits of an eccentric staff of professionals working in the New York offices of the fictional “Blush” magazine (similar to “Cosmo” in real life). The series begins when Maya Gallo (Laura San Giacomo), the only child of Blush magazine owner and editor Jack Gallo (George Segal), gets fired from her job as a serious journalist and picks up as a writer for Blush magazine. Aiming to make the magazine more “cerebral,” Maya is constantly butting heads with her by-the-numbers, give-the-masses-what-they-want father. Maya must also face the incessant sarcasm of Jack’s personal assistant Dennis Finch (David Spade), the constant advances of womanizing photographer Elliott DiMauro (Enrico Colantoni), and the veracious neuroses of ex-model, turned fashion editor Nina Van Horn (Wendie Malick). Together, the strange amalgam of dysfunctional characters forms a charming, witty, and often hilarious setting in which to set the world of fashion on fire…

The Just Shoot Me DVD features a number of hilarious episodes including the series premiere “Back Issues” in which a recently unemployed, broke, and quite desperate Maya Gallo seeks employment from the person and company she’d least like to work for - her father at Blush magazine. Now, Maya must not only contend with her estranged father, but with numerous fellow employees who fear that her presence will diminish their own influence and prospects for advancement within the company… Other notable episodes from Seasons 1 & 2 include “Lemon Wacky Hello” in which Jack returns from China with an exotic candy for everyone in the office to try, but they realize much too late that the candy is laced with a hallucinogenic drug, and “The Kiss” in which a harmless kiss, prompted by their pretending to be married, leads to bigger things for Maya and Elliott’s relationship…

Below is a list of episodes included on the Just Shoot Me (Seasons 1 & 2) DVD:

Episode 1 (Back Issues) Air Date: 03-04-1997
Episode 2 (The Devil and Maya Gallo) Air Date: 03-05-1997
Episode 3 (Secretary’s Day) Air Date: 03-12-1997
Episode 4 (Nina’s Birthday) Air Date: 03-19-1997
Episode 5 (In Your Dreams) Air Date: 03-25-1997
Episode 6 (Lemon Wacky Hello) Air Date: 03-26-1997
Episode 7 (The Experiment) Air Date: 09-23-1997
Episode 8 (The Assistant) Air Date: 09-30-1997
Episode 9 (Old Boyfriends) Air Date: 10-28-1997
Episode 10 (La Cage) Air Date: 11-04-1997
Episode 11 (King Lear Jet) Air Date: 11-11-1997
Episode 12 (My Dinner with Woody) Air Date: 11-18-1997
Episode 13 (Twice Burned) Air Date: 11-25-1997
Episode 14 (Sweet Charity) Air Date: 12-09-1997
Episode 15 (Jesus, It’s Christmas) Air Date: 12-16-1997
Episode 16 (Elliot the Geek) Air Date: 01-06-1998
Episode 17 (Sewer!) Air Date: 01-13-1998
Episode 18 (In the Company of Maya) Air Date: 01-20-1998
Episode 19 (Pass the Salt) Air Date: 01-29-1998
Episode 20 (The Walk) Air Date: 02-03-1998
Episode 21 (Nina in the Cantina) Air Date: 02-24-1998
Episode 22 (College or Collagen) Air Date: 02-26-1998
Episode 23 (Nina’s Bikini) Air Date: 03-03-1998
Episode 24 (The Kiss) Air Date: 03-19-1998
Episode 25 (Bravefinch) Air Date: 03-26-1998
Episode 26 (Jack’s Old Partner) Air Date: 04-09-1998
Episode 27 (Amblushed) Air Date: 04-16-1998
Episode 28 (The Emperor) Air Date: 04-23-1998
Episode 29 (Rescue Me) Air Date: 04-30-1998
Episode 30 (Eve of Destruction) Air Date: 05-05-1998
Episode 31 (War and Sleaze) Air Date: 05-12-1998

About the Author

Britt Gillette is author of The DVD Report, a blog where you can find more reviews like this one of the Just Shoot Me (DVD).