Shelby F. Elwood's Lounge Discussions

Mario Leone Great question. I've worked with several new directors and certainly often lose sight of story amidst the VFX talk and planning e.g. maybe they don't even need that scene. Also, the impact of VFX including the need to hire a VFX Supervisor like @Bud Myrick early in pre-production to help with these issues.

Excellent advice, Bud Myrick.

Mario Leone , I recently worked with a friend of mine Michael Greenspan) on his short film Seat 23B. We did a presentation at the Simi Valley Film Festival about VFX on an Indi budget. He was able to create an award-winning film on an extremely tight budget. That was possible because I was the first person he reached out to in the pre-production phase. It is all about planning and specificity. He and his producer were very organized, and they reached out to over seas vendors to do most of the work.

Bud Myrick Do you feel sometimes things fall on Deaf ears with Directors?

Mario Leone , not with the directors that I have worked with. I've been fortunate to work with very collaborative directors in my career. They understand that I am there to help them achieve their vision. Now, sometimes producers can create financial hurdles that we have to find creative solutions for. I also direct some myself, so usually they feel confident that I understand their goals.

Ah, this is great! I had this festival on my list, actually, for which the discount is very welcomed!

By the way, if you are searching for script readers for the contest, let me know! I've been working on a couple of contest now, and a horror festival sure would be fun!

Thanks Brian! I just took your offer via FilmFreeway :)

Brian, I found this by accident but it lead me to FF and the long list of festivals specifically for horror shorts, so thanks! I'll be submitting

It was amazing!!

I appreciated the comment about the $7mil cap, that definitely kept things in perspective.

Streaming has become the norm so we are counting on film journalists even more nowadays to sort through "the glut" in order to give us the top 10 or so and lead us to the good ones. As for the "missing data" they were talking about, I do hope that there would be more transparency and that everyone always gets their fair share.

We all miss the social experience of cinema so it's great to have cool alternatives like drive-in's or a private / home theater set up (a luxury, but worth spending on for some people).

Is there a link to this? Was it recorded? Sadly was traveling on production and missed this!