So you have an idea for a movie or a video? But you don’t know the first thing about how to make a movie or even make a video for YourTube?

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How to start making movies

We’re less than two weeks before the start of production on our next project and a lot is happening, as you might guess. The new film, In-World War , is a smart and quirky sci-fi feature about a bankrupt beta-tester trapped in a virtual reality simulation of the “war on terror”. It’s a big departure from our last film, Quality of Life , both in terms of story (futuristic sci-fi vs.

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9 Steps for smarter indie film distribution

Every DIY indie film project wants to cut production costs and get everything for free. However, sometimes, free is too expensive: you pay for it with poor quality, flaky team-members and film that is not watchable (or really expensive to fix in post). I’m a cheapskate by nature (what DIY filmmaker isn’t?) but some things you need to find the money to do right.

More here:
Four things you must include in your indie film budget

IndieGoGo’s blog has a helpful interview with Eric Ernst and Danny Daneau of The Attic Door (which is showing at the Florida Film fest). These are the three great ideas I got out of the interview: – Hire a small documentary crew to follow you around during production (and before/after) and have them create webisodes to stoke interest in the film

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Three smart DIY filmmaking ideas

Roy Misael Trejo is bringing DIY filmmaking to South Texas.

Roy Misael Trejo, of the Alice, Texas Trejos, is a producer, writer, performer, and entrepeneur based in Corpus Christi.  There, he is actively involved in the art, music, and independent film scenes.

Roy was one of the driving forces behind the writing and creation of El Segundo.  When Hank Jacobs told Roy about a screenplay he was writing set in Texas, Roy opened up his history, his family, and his creativity to become a part of the project.  Roy brought his creative spirit, his poetic gifts, and a knowledge of Tejano music and culture to the project that grounded an ethereal story in a real time and place.

Roy has a wealth of knowledge of local ghost stories and legends, family tales of the bizarre, and a sense of the magic of the land, all of which made it into the script, and, in turn, the movie.¬† Roy also opened up the family ranches, what came to be known as “Trejo Studios”.¬† These served as the backdrop and locations for the movie.

He is currently involved in a new video store venture in Corpus Christi called “Aim For The Head”.¬† Last year, he ran a successful music video contest at the Executive Surf Club on Water Street in downtown Corpus Christi.¬† Roy is involved in numerous projects with the local community, including a series of initiatives to bring the Do It Yourself filmmaking methods to youth in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas.

Roy Misael Trejo: getting things done in and for the South Texas community.  Bringing that madcap creative spirit to a part of the world not known for it.  Living on the creative edge, so the rest of us can stay cozy, secure in the knowledge that the poetic dimensions continue to be explored for all of our benefit.

Hank Jacobs: Director, Co-Writer, Co-editor, Actor

Mr. Jacobs was born in Minneapolis, MN. His formal training, as an actor, took place at the Duke Ellington School for the Arts in Washington, DC, and at the Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama.

In 1998, Mr. Jacobs co-created, with Brian Osborne, and directed a circus called Delicious Vaudeville. This show was an instant cult hit, and with little more than word of mouth to advertise it, this show ran at three different venues for the next ten months.

Around this time, he became involved with a group in Brooklyn, NY called the Reel Sweet Betty Film Group. Reel Sweet Betty is a collective of talented movie makers at the forefront of the burgeoning digital movement. Within this group, the members learn all of the facets of digital movie making, from producing and organizing a production, to lighting, shooting, and directing, to sound recording, to script writing and supervision.

From 1999-2003, Reel Sweet Betty made over 35 shorts, and Mr. Jacobs worked on almost all of them

As a director, Hank Jacobs has made four short movies: Babe, Are You Out There (1999-8 minutes), Moped (2001-15 minutes), a twenty minute documentary called Day (2002-20 minutes), and The Absent Minded Suicide Bomber (2004-4 minutes).

Moped has been screened at film festivals in New York and San Francisco. Day has yet to receive a major screening,

Mr. Jacobs is currently living in the Los Angeles area with his wife two children. El Segundo is his first feature.

Mr. Trejo is originally from Alice, Texas, and is a graduate of Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas.

He is the founder of Coyatl Works, a New York City based theater company, which has been doing innovative work all over New York for almost 10 years.

As a director and producer, his work includes Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist at the Medicine Show Theater, and
Sam Shepard‚Äôs Geography of a Horse Dreamer at Soho Rep. As a writer of bi-lingual theater, his plays include: Ballad of a blue guitar, Sincere Desires, The Final Sun, Jovenal’s Roof.

Mr. Trejo is currently working to open a series of art house theaters in the South Texas region. El Segundo is his first feature.