Posted by: Matt Watterworth
The NSI Features First experience continued in Toronto this month as the “producer” members of each team gathered at The Fairmont Royal York (who took amazing care of us, by the way) to learn from innumerable industry professionals about the ins and outs of film financing, logistics, insurance, casting and, most importantly, networking and relationships.
Today is the day! The Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo begins again and I’m pumped! Also, when I see a title like “10 Tricks to Buying a Car” and “7 of The Best Movies You’ve Never Seen” I really hate it when the first paragraph goes on and on about the subject and tries to add something witty to get the audience interested. I’m already interested! I wouldn’t have clicked it if I wasn’t interested, am I right?
Just wrapped up phase one of the NSI Features First program and I wanted to share some of my thoughts.
Posted by: Matt Watterworth
When you’re about to embark on something immense, something that you’ve never done before, it’s always a treat to get to pick the brain of someone who’s been there and done that. Today at #FeaturesFirst, we got to meet with agent Linda Saint and then producer Martin Katz. But later in the day we got about an hour and a half with filmmaker Casey Walker. Casey has completed his feature film, A LITTLE BIT ZOMBIE and came in to speak with us about the process.
It’s day two here at #FeaturesFirst and time flies when you’re having fun. We covered plenty of things today so don’t just read this post, make sure to check out our Features First Index Post to see everything we were up to today and the rest of the week.
Once we completed a marathon script note session on our first day at The NSI Features First Program (which you can read all about in Scott’s post), we hopped in a convoy of taxis and made our way to Deluxe Toronto, just a few blocks away from our hotel.
“Content is King” right? Right. If you’re creating something — anything — it’s got to be quality if you want to attract an audience. And while the rise of the internet has brought many positives into our lives, there are some serious negatives to be dealt with as well. When it comes to building your audience, the chief challenge is noise. The internet and every social network is already swimming with content begging for eyeballs. Case in point, right now, 100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. And that number keeps going up.
So how can you cut through the noise and access your audience more directly? Here are some tips that can help:
If you’re considering making your way into the Calgary Film Industry now may be a good time to start. The long-awaited announcement for a southern Alberta film studio took place this morning and it comes not a moment too soon. With three different television series likely to be shooting in and around Calgary this year, the industry is hungry for a reliable, quiet, indoor studio area to call home.
Posted by: Matt Watterworth
This is part 1 of a series.
On Saturday, Christopher Nolan addressed the Slamdance Film Festival. He said something incredibly important:
“What Slamdance teaches you is that while it’s wonderful to have a great community of filmmakers around you, you have to be prepared to do everything yourself”
