The Indie Filmmaking Scene (REPRINTED)

Note: The following is reprinted from it's original post in its entirety.

Last week I was the Program Director for the Blank Stage Shorts Film Festival whose mandate was to promote local Georgia filmmakers.   The event was free for the public as it not only wanted to promote Georgia filmmakers but the venue that the event was taking place at as well (the Artisan Resource Center of Marietta, Georgia).

Watching the many films that had been submitted by local filmmakers I started to see a pattern.  The pattern was that many of the films were from the horror genre or made by filmmakers who mostly do horror films.  I found this fascinating as that many of the actors that I know personally are looking for more “meaty” roles of which are few and far in between in the horror genre.

Ron McLellen, director of JACK O’LANTERN, was on hand to unveil 3 films from Southlan-Films – THE VAIL, DER SOLDAT, and THE SPIDER & THE FLY, whereas as producer & director Dave R. Watkins (director of THE STRAGGLERS) had four – APPARITION POINT, DEAD JUSTICE, DEAD VENGEANCE, and ZOMBIEWEEN.  Sam Drog (director of ZOMBEAK!) had two films with SIXTY SECONDS and BLOOD SCRUB, and director Gary Lynch had CASTING CALL and the non-horror film I WILL HURT YOU.  There were several others but the point is that between the 23 films screened a huge chunk of them were horror.

I’m amazed at how horror has infected the indie scene (but let’s not forget that all other genres were represented as well).  I’ve worked with and spoken with many of the filmmakers behind some of the festival’s films and many of them had the same thing to say – whether low budget or no budget horror films are some of the most fun to make and can be made quickly.  Another good point to mention is that horror films usually have larger than normal casts (the more people to kill the better) and have more action. (and less dialogue – although I’m adding this one in myself).

As an independent producer and director I love making horror films.  They’re fun and entertaining and there is always a lot of fake blood going everywhere.

Now the most important thing to remember about low and no budget horror films is that audiences are the most forgiving in terms of almost all technical aspects of filmmaking with the exception that the film must be entertaining.  The film can have a bad script and bad acting but as long as someone is getting killed in a unique way every ten minutes then you’re not going to completely fail.  It’s almost “good” to be “bad” with a indie horror film whereas with a comedy or drama most audiences are unforgiving in these aspects (it’s all or nothing at all).

Having been a part of three previous film festivals. I’ve seen a lot of bad films but I have to say that as long as there are indie filmmakers out there trying their best to entertain me than I’ll keep watching them (no matter how bad the script or acting may be).

So if there are a few good (or bad) horror shorts out there that you want me to see and review feel free to send them to me.  I’m all EYES.

Kevin L. Powers

PO Box 2684, Forest Park, GA 30298

Are Writer's Groups Good?

Over the past several months I've joined the Blank Page Writer's Group based out of Marietta, Georgia (and hosted by The Blank Stage).  It is a bi-monthly group in which screenwriters get together to not only discuss their screenplays but to also discuss the business and craft and screenwriting.  In the last couple months the Blank Stage, through the Blank Page Writer's Group, have started to actually produce some of the short films written by some of the group members.

Although I cannot discuss the specific screenplays being written by the members of the group I do want to address that some of the writter's (through the group) are writing their fisrt screenplay while others are old pros at it.  I took my screenplay THE NOCTURNAL inmto the group to try and help me fix some of the problems I was having with the story.  In this regards, the group has helped me tremendously.

The format of the group's take on reading screenplays is that we will read pages from 2 different screenplays each meeting and then address what problems or potential problems the screenplay might have.  Although I am not partial to this format of reading a screenplay (I prefer reading the whole thing in one sitting and then allow the time for discussion),

Regardless, this is a small price to pay in terms of the tremendous support and atmosphere of the group which has helped the group expand and become a very group atmosphere for writers.

The group has helped me see some of the problems in THE NOCTURNAL which is a good thing considering I needed that feedback in order to help the re-write process and hopefully get the screenplay into a better selling (or perhaps filmable) place.

Now all I have to do is get the re-writers done using the notes generated from the writer's group.