Attention any actors or aspiring actors! Paul Ben-Victor will be teaching an acting master class workshop this Saturday, November 21, 2009, from 12:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. at the Hayworth Theatre in Los Angeles, California.
Here’s a chance to learn from someone who has worked consistently in TV and film for over 20 years. Currently, Paul appears in the hit TV series In Plain Sight, but his career boasts a long list of roles in various films and TV series including our own beloved The Invisible Man for which he won an audience award for his role as Bobby Hobbes. Paul has had the kind of career that many actors only dream about, so it would behoove you to take advantage of this opportunity to learn from one of the best!
This workshop is sponsored by the International Academy of Film and Television. The cost is $179 or $49 to audit. Click on the link below to reserve your place in the class. Space is limited!
A couple of years ago I was approached by author/journalist Mark Phillips who, along with his writing partner Frank Garcia, was writing the second in a series of books on science fiction TV series. Their first book, Science Fiction Television Series, was published in 2006 and covered TV series from 1959 to 1989. Their second book was to cover series from 1990 to 2004. So guess which series that we all know and love fits into that date range? Yep, The Invisible Man.
When Mark approached me asking for help on an Invisible Man chapter that he was writing for the book, I was happy to help. Hey, I’m a fan. How could I resist? So I provided information about the show and helped edit the chapter, as well as arranged interviews with Vince and Paul.
Now, after all this time, the book has finally been published! Mark did a really nice job with the chapter. There are maybe one or two errors that crept into the chapter, but for the most part, it’s pretty accurate.
Mark starts out with a quote from writer Leslie Stevens who said, “Invisibility sucks.” Leslie wasn’t referring to the power of invisibility but, instead, was complaining about the difficulty in creating a successful series about invisibility. Is it any wonder? Virtually every invisible man series created before our invisible man series has performed poorly. But when you consider that film is a visual medium and invisibility is, well, invisible, you can begin to see the difficulties that filmmakers have making invisibility work.
This makes me appreciate the brilliance of Matt Greenberg even more. Not only did he not skimp on the invisibility aspects, but he created a way to do invisibility that we hadn’t seen before, what with the gland and Quicksilver. However, he wisely didn’t put the focus on the invisibility. Instead, he created fun, flawed, and fascinating characters that we could fall in love with and care about. In fact, it was the “show’s emphasis on characterization” that attracted Vince to the part of Darien.
Mark writes about several of the episodes such as the pilot (good choice), “Catevari,” and “Legends.” In hindsight, I probably should have suggested that he include something about a few of the stronger episodes. I would have liked to have seen something in the chapter about “Flowers for Hobbes,” ”Brother’s Keeper,” or “The Other Invisible Man.”
Subjects Mark writes about in the chapter include the casting process, the chemistry between Vince and Paul, the visual effects, the addition of agent Alex Monroe, and the cancellation. There’s some interesting stuff there that you may or may not know about.
The book is definitely a must have for I-Man fans, as well as lovers of science fiction TV shows. You can purchase a copy for yourself by clicking on the link below. That will take you to a website filled with all kinds of information about both books as well as ordering info. (I bought my copy from Amazon.)
Note: I’m not making any money plugging this book. My only rewards have been being able to help with promoting I-Man to more people and getting a very nice acknowledgment in the Acknowledgments section of the book.
I first met Jeffrey about a year ago. We attended the same seminar given by a venture capitalist. I blogged about it in a post I wrote last March entitled Film Financing From a VC’s Perspective. For the afternoon group assignment, Jeffrey was on the same team as I was. It was great to have someone with his experience on our team. We ended up beating all the other teams with our project.
Jeffrey makes the best argument I’ve ever heard for why films are not necessarily the poor investment that they are commonly painted to be. Yes, he admits that most films don’t recoup the investor’s initial investment. However, when you compare films to the typical Silicon Valley startup, there are some noteworthy differences. Many startups have nothing to show after 18 to 24 months and, if they fail, the most that an investor can often get is whatever the fixtures sell for at auction. In other words, pretty much nothing. However, when it comes to films, if you are able to raise the full production budget, which will enable you to complete the film and get it in the can, you now have a real asset…something that is worth far more than used furniture. If the film is a big hit, there can be big rewards; but at the very least, an investor will receive back a significant portion of his or her investment. There won’t be fire sale. That can’t be said for most Silicon Valley startups. Following that line of reasoning, this makes film an investment that is very worthy of consideration.
If the business of filmmaking interests you, you might want to take the time to watch the following 41 minute preview video. In it, Jeffrey gives us small taste of his upcoming workshop.
A little over a week ago I was in San Francisco twice. Thursday night it was for the monthly IIFF (Institute for International Film Financing) meeting held at the Academy of Art University.
For anyone interested in learning about film financing, I highly recommend IIFF’s meetings as well as their workshops. If you’re not near the Bay Area, meetings are occasionally held in other areas. Just keep an eye on the IIFF website.
I knew four out of the five speakers Thursday night: an executive producer through whom I hired one of my story analysts; a lawyer who is also a distributor, producer, and investor; the director of IIFF; and my own lawyer. The fifth speaker was an accomplished screenwriter (has sold over 20 features), novelist, and producer, and I made a point of briefly talking to him and getting his contact info.
To give you an idea of the kind of information you can expect from IIFF meetings, the program was as follows:
BLENDING ART & COMMERCE: Crafting Movie Deals That
Really Work
THE REEL DEAL: Getting Your Indie Financed, Produced &
Distributed Without Getting Ripped Off
FILM BUDGETING & SCHEDULING: Key to Success for
Filmmakers & Financiers
STARTING ON THE RIGHT FOOT: Legal Documents Any Film
Entrepreneur Needs
HOLLYWOOD PROFITS: Quantitative Drivers of Motion
Picture Profitability
Some of the information I’ve heard before, but I usually pick up some new tidbits at every meeting I attend and I consider them well worth my time.
Have you ever been in the embarrassing situation of walking right by someone you know and not even recognizing them? Well, that’s what happened to me at the IIFF meeting. I smiled and walked right by a bearded man in the hallway and it wasn’t until I heard my name and recognized the voice that I realized the man was my lawyer. You would think I would know my own lawyer if I saw him, right? Well, I haven’t seen him since last May. We communicate primarily by email and phone. So even though I knew he would be speaking that night, I had no idea that he had grown a beard and I didn’t recognize him. Amazing how much a beard can change some people’s appearance.
WonderCon
Last weekend was WonderCon. WonderCon is the smaller sister convention to Comic-Con and is run by the same organization. At 29,000 attendees, one would hardly call it small. In fact, it is the second largest comics convention on the West Coast. But when you compare it to Comic-Con’s 125,000+ attendees, it is dwarfed by comparison.
By the way, if you are planning on attending Comic-Con this July, you’ll want to hurry and get your tickets. It’s only March, but can you believe the four-day passes are almost sold out already?
WonderCon was held at Moscone Center South, just south of Market Street, in San Francisco. If the con ever grows to the size of Comic-Con, there’s plenty of room to expand as Moscone Center North wasn’t even used. I knew I was getting close to the convention center when I saw a storm trooper standing on a busy street corner…not your everyday sight in San Francisco. By the way, crowd control into the convention center was done by Darth Vader and some storm troopers. I found it rather amusing when a storm trooper told us to “move along.”
WonderCon is only three days long compared to Comic-Con’s four days plus preview night, but it has a lot of what you would find at the bigger convention. The big panels are there, although not as many. This year they had panels for Watchmen, Star Trek, Terminator Salvation, Chuck, and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, among others.
I was there for only one day (Saturday), so I didn’t attend any of the big panels. I came close to attending the Star Trek panel, but then decided against waiting in the long line and decided to check out the exhibition hall instead. It’s a big room filled with row after row of exhibitors’ booths, much like Comic-Con. The biggest difference was the noticable lack of big studio booths. I think Capcom had the biggest booth and it was pretty tame compared to the ones you find at Comic-Con.
I walked right by a booth where Adam Baldwin was signing autographs, but I didn’t get in line to meet him. The line to meet Mark Hamill was even longer and there were so many people crowding the booth, I couldn’t even catch a glimpse of him. However, I did get to chat briefly with Charlott Stewart, who I remember from Little House on the Prairie…a really nice woman. I, also, could have sworn that I walked right by big-time producer Jeffrey Katzenberg in the crowd. He was wearing a baseball cap, but it sure looked like him.
I attended a few smaller panels that were more industry oriented. One was a special effects makeup panel that was pretty cool. The special effects makeup artist gave some interesting demonstrations using some victims…er, volunteers. By the time he was done one girl had a bloody hole in her neck with raw flesh hanging down and the rest had a various assortment of smaller scars. Pretty gross, but fun to watch it being done.
I also attended a writing workshop by David Gerrold. He writes primarily science fiction, but, really, his advice could work for most other genres. One tip he gave that really stuck with me is that if you want to make your characters likeable, make them fun.
I ended up walking out of the last panel. It was supposed to be about how to do full-time creative work on a part-time schedule…something I’m all too familiar with. I figured I could pick up some tips, but the panel turned out to be more of an advertisement for the company’s website than truly instructional. It was poorly put together and very unprofessional. I wasn’t the only one who walked out. They were starting to have a serious leakage of audience members.
There was one area where WonderCon beat Comic-Con and that was with the food. It was just as ridiculously overpriced as it was at Comic-Con, but it was much better. I had the pizza and, wow, what a difference from the cardboard stuff they try to pass off as pizza at Comic-Con.
Now, I’ve attended comics/popular arts conventions as a regular attendee and as an exhibitor, but this was the first time I’ve attended one as a professional. I was able to get my paperwork together in time to qualify as one. What’s cool about attending as a professional is that you get in absolutely free. Can’t beat that price! Also, there’s no waiting in those long lines that everyone else has to wait in…just had to pick up my badge at the professional registration booth and I was good to go. For some reason WonderCon publishes a list of attending professionals on its website. I don’t remember giving permission to have my name published, but somehow I ended up on the list. Not sure that really means much because, seriously, does anyone know who all those people are?
I didn’t take pictures because I still have pictures from last year’s visit to Comic-Con in my camera that I need to download. My bad. I apologize for not sharing those with you yet. I’ve really got to try to get those up soon.
Well, folks, I apologize for being away so long. My screenwriting class sucked up all my time and I was forced to put my nose to the grindstone to catch up and get my homework and outline done. The good news is that I now have a complete first draft of my outline done! I also got an A in the class.
In addition to the outline, I have the first 15 pages written. The teacher had us outline one act of the story and then write a few pages of the script each week (starting with week four). So an unexpected bonus is to have a first draft of the first 15 pages done. I found that alternating between writing the outline and the script is a great way to develop a story. They feed off each other and it really helps the process. And the cool thing is that if this is the story we end up developing, I can just hand over the pages I’ve already written to the writer and she can take it from there.
I was interested to see what kind of reactions I would get from people who had no idea that I was writing for a specific cast and project. Nope, I didn’t divulge that info to them. I just went in as a student with a story I wanted to get outlined. I wanted to see if the story would stand on its own terms. The story is still a bit rough, but the overall response I got was good. One classmate in particular was very enthusiastic about it.
So I’m feeling pretty good about the story. However, it’s only the first draft. I need to continue working on it, but I’m going to take a break from it for now and tend to other pressing matters.
I’m still negotiating an agreement with the writer. Yep, still. We would have been finished with it by now if her lawyer hadn’t been called to jury duty and then immediately following that took off on vacation. But we’re back working on it and it looks like we’re getting close to wrapping it up. In addition, I have unanswered emails that are piling up. If you’re reading this and I haven’t answered your email yet, I apologize. I’m working my way through them and hope to get caught up soon. I also have story submissions from two other writers that I really need to give feedback on. And now I can finally get back to blogging regularly. I’ve got a bunch of news that is piling up.
