Home Posts tagged "Jason Brubaker"

Dear Moviemakers, Make Movies!

Published on June 24, 2009

Jason Brubaker (Filmmaking Stuff) – A few years back, with limited experience, and by scraping together a little money, my buddy wrote, produced and directed a short film. Forgoing the festival route, he decided to reach a global audience by uploading his movie to the internet. And within days, to his utter astonishment, thousands of people flooded his website to check out the movie. In the mix was a very wealthy gentleman who enjoyed the movie so much, he offered my friend a million dollars to make a feature.

While this sort of thing doesn’t happen every day, I share this story as a tale of inspiration. If you want to make movies, make movies. Put blinders on. And don’t let anyone discourage you from telling the story you want to tell. You just never know what sorts of opportunities might materialize.

—

Jason Brubaker is a Hollywood-based independent producer. You can find more of his filmmaking tips at www.FilmmakingStuff.com

ShareShare on TumblrSubmit to StumbleUpon
 

Movie Production Management System Saves The Day

Published on June 8, 2009

Jason Brubaker (Filmmaking Stuff) – Almost 10 years ago, while working for an indie producer in New York City, I learned that making a movie happens in various stages.  Assuming we found a screenplay that got us excited, the first step we took towards producing the movie involved creating an initial breakdown and schedule. Once we knew the schedule and the big ticket items (explosions, special FX, Stunts, etc) then we would work out a budget and use the information when pitching to potential investors.

To break down a script, I was given a bunch of different colored highlighters and a ruler. I then found each slug line, underlined it and numbered the scene. I also measured each scene by 1/8ths. Then I utilized the highlighters to highlight every element. For example, anything related to wardrobe would be a different color than a prop. I did this through the whole screenplay. And once complete, I then

entered the information into a popular filmmaking software program.

So you can imagine my excitement last month when I started working with Scenechronize, an online production management system that significantly reduces the time takes to schedule a movie. Simply upload a screenplay in PDF, and in 60 seconds the system completes the pain-in-the-butt stuff that used to take me an entire day. More than that, this system allows all departments to stay in sync during the course of a production. And if you’re making a short, it only costs

about 50 dollars to use. Check them out here: Scenechronize.com

While making movies will always require creative human collaboration, it’s nice to know there are tools out there to help make things more efficient.

—-

Jason Brubaker is a Hollywood-based independent producer. You can find more of his filmmaking tips at www.FilmmakingStuff.com

ShareShare on TumblrSubmit to StumbleUpon
 

Filmmaking Success Strategies: Are You Prepared?

Published on May 27, 2009

Jason Brubaker – I was talking with some of my filmmaking friends over the weekend. Between beers and BBQ, the topic of success came up. We spent the next few hours chatting about why some filmmakers actually make movies and why some filmmakers don’t end up making anything. And we came up with a general consensus.

Basically we figured out that most of our accomplished filmmaker friends became successful because they took it upon themselves to create their first movie. And if their first movie wasn’t good enough, these ambitious and persistent filmmakers went out and made a second movie. And if that movie failed to generate attention, these

filmmakers made another. They went the distance. They never gave up.

The not-yet-successful filmmakers we bump into follow different rules. They have lots of ideas and talk. But they never take the initial action to realize their dreams. To them, having ideas and waiting to be discovered is more important than the first step.

—-

Jason Brubaker is a Hollywood-based independent producer. You can find more of his filmmaking tips at www.FilmmakingStuff.com

ShareShare on TumblrSubmit to StumbleUpon