Paul Ben-Victor Interview By Aaron Stipkovich

Paul Ben-Victor’s friend, Aaron Stipkovich, sat down and talked to Paul recently about his film Should’ve Been Romeo.  It’s a wonderful interview and in it Aaron sings Paul’s praises about what a great guy he is.  For those of you who have ever met Paul, you’ll wholeheartedly agree.  The interview is about 30 minutes long and you can watch it below.  You can also read the accompanying article on And Magazine.


 

Craig Silverstein Named One of the Top 50 Power Showrunners for 2011!

We Invisible Man fans have always recognized the incredible talent of Craig Silverstein.  The I-Man episodes he wrote are always among our favorites.  He was even described as a young savant by one of the cast members (I forget which one.  Vince, I think?).  It’s been exciting to see Craig’s career skyrocket, although I have to admit that I would love to see Craig writing more I-Man.

Now Craig has been named one of the “Top 50 Power Showrunners 2011” by the Hollywood Reporter!  How cool is that?  It couldn’t happen to nicer or more talented guy.  Check out the write up in the Hollywood Reporter:

 http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/craig-silverstein-247420

It’s hard enough to get one show on TV but, impressively, Craig has two shows currently on the air:  Nikita and Terra Nova!  Here’s a little bit of info about each of them.

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Nikita

The second season of Nikita is already underway. Craig is executive producer of the show and he’s been pretty active promoting the show.  He started giving us tidbits of info about the new season this summer during Comic-Con and the info keeps on coming. I’ve compiled a bunch of these recent videos from around the web of our favorite I-Man writer himself talking about Nikita.

Comic-Con Interviews

Comic-Con Panel

Craig Silverstein and Shane West

Episode Previews

Nikita airs Fridays at 8 p.m./7 p.m. Central on the CW.  Be sure to check your local listings for the time and channel in your area.

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Terra Nova 

Craig also is an executive producer on the new sci-fi series, Terra Nova.  According to the Hollywood Reporter, he is credited with being one of the co-creators, although I’m not sure how much actual hands on day-to-day involvement he has with the series.

The sci-fi lover in me is really starting to enjoy this series.  Have any of you been watching it?  If not, you might want to give it a try.  It airs on Mondays at 8 p.m./7 p.m. Central on FOX (again, check your local listings).

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2011 has turned into a very good year for Craig with two successful series concurrently on the air and being named one of the Top 50 Power Showrunners.

Congratulations, Craig!



“In Plain Sight” Season 4 Starts Tomorrow!

Starting tomorrow, we get to enjoy watching Paul Ben-Victor back in the role of Stan McQueen on In Plain Sight!  Can you believe it’s already the fourth season?

To watch, tune in to the USA Network Sunday, May 1, at 10/9C.  Be sure to check your local listings for the channel and time in your area.

While you’re waiting, check out what Paul has to say about his character and the new season in this interview:

Paul Ben-Victor Interview


Contest Wrap Up

The NAME THE MOVIE CHARACTERS CONTEST has now come a close after a run of eight weeks.  My does time fly!  I hope you all had fun! I want to give a big congratulations to our winners:

Rochelle Ramos for naming Eddie Jone’s character Sam Weber
Cheryl Johnson
for naming the antagonist Sebastian Grey
Rochelle Ramos
for naming Mike McCafferty’s character Lester
Carol Ward
for naming Vincent Ventresca’s character Ethan

It’s not often that the opportunity to name characters in a movie comes along and now our winners will have those bragging rights; and Rochelle Ramos gets those bragging rights times two!  And if your friends and family don’t believe that you named that character, just show them your name in the credits.  That’ll vindicate you!  I’ll be contacting each of you winners in the very near future to sign a release form, so keep your eyes open for an email from me.

To everyone else who participated, thank you for your support and enthusiasm!  If you didn’t win this time, don’t fret.  There will be other opportunities in the future for you to participate and support the project.  I’m cooking up ideas all the time!

I, also, want to give my appreciation to my fellow judges:  Shawna Buchanan, Joyce Harrell, and Joan McCartney.  I couldn’t have done it without these wonderful ladies giving me a hand.  To keep it fair we each got an equal vote, which means that they had the power to outvote me.  But, we were actually pretty much in agreement most of the time.  (You think it might be because we are all fans of the same show? 🙂 ) 

A little about the voting process:  I first listed all the submitted names in an email to the  judges. (Towards the end that got to be quite laborious with the large number of entries that were submitted!)  Then everyone gave their opinions about the names.  That afforded us all an opportunity to get each other’s viewpoints, which was really useful because many times someone would make a point that the others hadn’t thought of yet.  Finally, I created a voting form (Again quite laborious with all those names!) and each of the judges voted for their favorites.  It was always majority rules with each name needing at least three votes to go to the next round, which is where all of you would make the final decision based on your votes.

So, Shannon Kenny’s character’s name, Tara, remains the same because of a tie that left the final decision with the judges.  But, not surprisingly, the question has been asked, what about Paul Ben-Victor’s character?  Don’t worry.  I didn’t forget about Paul’s character.  I just didn’t include his character in the contest because he already has a name that fits him perfectly and I think it would be a crime to change it.  Sorry to disappoint anyone who may have been  looking forward to naming Paul’s character!

Next Steps

So what’s next?  Well, I need to get some computer problems solved first before I’m completely without a computer.  Then I’ll be getting right back to work getting the story finished.  This means I need to finish the story bible.  After that I’ll be giving the treatment a very thorough going over and have my screenwriter make the changes.  Hopefully that will be the final edit before I send it to the story analyst(s).  

I’m, also, going to do some research in preparation for my series of interviews of distribution companies for the United Filmmakers Association.  That keeps getting pushed back, but once my computer problems are solved, I’ll be able to move forward with that.  

I’m looking forward to a productive year and really making some progress with this project!

 

What I Learned This Year

No matter what obstacles life throws in front of you, it’s important to keep persevering.  This past year has been an incredibly frustrating and stressful year for me.  My auto accident back in February kept me sidelined most of the year and I was unable to make any real progress on the film project.  Then my cat got sick and died.  When I finally got back to the project and decided to hold the NAME THE MOVIE CHARACTERS CONTEST, it took far longer than I anticipated to get the contest started due to circumstances out of my control.  I look back on the year and wonder what the heck I accomplished and it, unfortunately, wasn’t much.  This year has really tested my patience.  But I learned that I can get through those tough times and keep going.  I’m as determined as ever to get our wonderful cast together again and I look forward to actually making progress in the new year!

It’s important to start audience building as early as possible.  This past summer I attended a Jon Reiss workshop, sponsored by the San Francisco Film Society, entitled Think Outside the Box Office.  This workshop was named after Jon’s book of the same name.  While I had always thought that it’s important to build an audience early, Jon’s workshop was the first time I had ever heard anyone else say it.  Jon advocates starting to think about the distributing and marketing of one’s film from as early as inception.  A vital part of this is reaching out and growing the audience. 

It may seem counterintuitive to start at inception, especially when, traditionally, most filmmakers wait until after they finish the film to think about distribution and marketing.  But it really makes a lot of sense if you think about it.  Independent filmmakers don’t have the huge marketing budgets that the studios have to reach their audience, so anything indies can do reach and build an audience as early as possible will only help down the road when it comes time to market and distribute the film. 

Many of you have followed me from The Invisible Man Online website over here to Shoom Zone.  If there is anyone who wants to see our beloved cast together again, I know it will be I-Man fans!  So far, a small group averaging about 1,000 readers a month visit this site; and so many of you have been openly supportive and encouraging.  I can’t thank you enough for hanging in here after all this time.  But I, also, can’t assume that all of the audience of 10 million people around the world who watched I-Man will easily find out about this project or even be interested in it.  I’ve got my work cut out for me to reach all those fans and to even try to extend the audience to the general sci-fi/superhero audience.  I need to prove to investors and distributors that there is a big enough audience to justify the cost of making this movie.  But I can’t do it alone.  I’ll need your help to spread the word about this project.  In the future, I’ll be expounding more about ways you can help, but for now please check out the How Fans Can Help page for some ideas you can do that are absolutely free.  I recently updated it with new ways you can help out. 

Interviewing is a great way to learn about subjects.  I’ve already done one interview for the United Filmmakers Association and will be starting an interview series in the near future on distribution companies for them.  Prepping for the interviews is forcing me to start learning about the distribution process (a good thing) and then getting my questions answered means learning about the distribution companies.  It’s a fantastic education!

I already have my first interview lined up.  I’m just waiting to resolve some computer issues right now which are preventing me from downloading video.  Yes, I said video.  I recently bought myself a little Flip video camera which will allow me to shoot the interview.  So look forward to seeing more video in the future!  Now I need to learn to edit!

Don’t compromise on quality.  I’m a huge admirer of Pixar and was privileged to be able to visit the studio this past summer.  So what is it about this studio that makes them so successful?  I think the answer is in this quote I recently found:

“There is a crucial rule: no compromises. No compromises on quality – regardless of production constraints, cost constraints, or a deadline. If you get a better idea, and this means that you have to start again from scratch, then that’s what you have to do.” — John Lasseter, Pixar

A good thing to keep in mind as I develop this project!

Twists and Turns in the Road

Sometimes life can take unexpected twists and turns and that can especially be said about the film development process.   Back in January I told you that I was going to start writing a story reference guide (also called a story bible).  I estimated that I could get it done in a couple of weeks.  What I didn’t imagine is that I would still be writing it ten months later.  Boy, was my estimate off!  See, what I didn’t count on was getting into a seven-car pileup in February.  I couldn’t have imagined back then how much that would affect my life.  I know I already mentioned this back in March, but while the pain was starting to decrease, I didn’t know then that my sleep issues would continue all the way into July.  I’ve had six long months of feeling like a zombie.  Yeah, I felt like the walking dead…barely able to function and stay awake during the day because of being unable to stay asleep at night.  Let me tell you, being a zombie is highly overrated.  I don’t recommend it.  Needless to say, the film project came to a screeching halt.  I managed to attend some cool workshops and meetings, but that’s about it.  I can’t tell you how frustrated that made me feel.  But that was then and now I’m relieved to be feeling much better, and my energy is returning.  I’m getting back on track with the project.  Finally!  

Project Update

So let me catch you up on what’s going on.  I’m working on the story bible again and have most of the character bios and psuedoscience done.  As I make progress with it I’m seeing things that need be fixed in the treatment, so we’ll need to give the treatment another once over before it goes to the story analyst.  

Contest

I’m also working on something that will involve all of you—a contest!  Yep, I’ve got a cool little contest coming that I think you will like.  It involves you getting to name some of the characters in the movie!  Australian fan Kristy Seddon has created some darling artwork for the contest that I can’t wait to show you.   I’m editing the contest rules and my lawyer is just about finished with the Terms and Conditions section.  After I review everything and make sure that everything is correct, I’ll be posting it up on the blog.  So put your thinking cap on and start thinking of names!   

I-Manicon Update

As of the date of this posting, there are 16 people so far who want to see another I-Manicon happen.  One of them is Mike McCafferty (Eberts).  Mike wants to see another I-Manicon happen!  How about you?  If you support this idea, please go to the I-Manicon 2011 Facebook Page and hit the “Like” button.  Okay, I know the economy is tough right now, but I think we can do better than 16 people!  

Distribution Series

I have a series of articles coming up that I’m going to be writing for the United Filmmakers Association.  I’m going to be interviewing distribution companies.  This was supposed to start this month but, tragically, one of the sweetest little cats in the world fell ill and passed away suddenly.  I feel like I’ve lost a child.  It’s been a rough few weeks and I’m still not completely over it, but they say that time heals all wounds.  So this project has been pushed back a bit.  I have a lot of homework to do, in the form of studying the distribution process, before I can begin to ask distributors the right questions.  But I’m looking forward to the challenge.  Distribution is one of toughest and important challenges that producers face.

Facebook

Shoom Zone Productions now has a Facebook page!  So how about giving my page some love by hitting the “Like” button?
 
 
 
This blog is going to be getting busier in the future because there is a bunch of news that needs to be announced, so stay tuned!
 

Leila 2000 - 9/25/10. Taken from me too soon. I miss my sweet little girl.

An Interview with ReelClever.com

Recently I had the opportunity to talk via email with David White, CEO of ReelClever.com – a new online film production management and promotion website. David was kind enough to answer my questions and give us more insight into this new tool for filmmakers.

How did ReelClever.com get started and when? What was the inspiration behind it?

ReelClever kicked off as an idea after seeing the frustration that indie filmmakers had when trying to promote and manage their films. Filmmakers are a creative bunch and usually hate the marketing and management side of things, so our aim was to create something that made this side suck that little bit less. We were also seeing most filmmakers waiting until after the screening of their films at festivals before doing any marketing. So we saw the need for easy to use tools that helped leverage social media in order to allow filmmakers to attract and engage with fans right from concept/early pre-production. We came out of our beta stage in July so it is a hectic and exciting time at the moment.

Describe your company. How many employees do you have? What are their backgrounds and positions? Are all of you located in New Zealand?

We have a team of eight, based in Hamilton and Wellington, New Zealand, along with an office in India. Our team is very diverse and we have a great mix of filmmakers, marketers, designers and developers. This allows us to look at things from every perspective when we develop and plan out new features.

Being a start up business has not hindered us in anyway when it has come to attracting staff. It is an exciting space to work in and we are lucky enough to have ex Adobe and Yahoo developers working full time with us. We tried to look at all the areas of filmmaking and brought in experts in each area. Though not necessarily from a film background, we wanted people who were not influenced by the current or supposedly right way of doing things. We think this is starting to pay off for us.

The great thing about having a presence in New Zealand and India is our time zones work perfectly. When we start in the morning, the team in India is just heading home and, when we finish, their day is just beginning. So we are able to have a 24-hour non-stop development and support process in place. Basically, ReelClever never sleeps and we are developing around the clock.

We are also in the process of creating our advisory board and we have some very influential filmmakers in the U.S. that we are speaking with. All going to plan, we will have some exciting announcements soon.

What were some of the challenges faced in starting ReelClever.com? How did you overcome them?

Our biggest challenge was letting filmmakers know we exist. We were lucky that word of mouth has allowed us to grow so fast. We, also, like to think we are good at social media marketing and have been able to spread the word and attract over ten thousand filmmakers into our beta program.

Another issue we faced was how to identify if what we are creating is what filmmakers want or need. We had to make sure we listened to our users. Going hand in hand with that is often they did not know what they needed. So we had to assume the roles of both leader and follower, taking user ideas but also expanding on these and introducing new and easier ways to do things.

We thought that being in New Zealand may have been a geographical issue for us, but we have found it has actually helped. The amazing things that people like Peter Jackson and companies like Weta Workshop have been doing out of New Zealand has really put us on the map as a filmmaking country and destination. The fact that filmmaking itself really transcends culture and geographical boundaries has helped. Maybe if we were in another industry it would have proved a challenge for us. We are hoping that some of our users come and visit us “down under” sometime soon.

What do you feel are the advantages of managing a film’s production online?

Filmmaking is a very collaborative process it is not easy getting all your cast and crew in one room. So the beauty of an online system is that everyone has access at anytime regardless of the location. If all resources are on one laptop or amongst a bunch of emails then things get messy and, worst case, lost or stolen. Having all your files, images, documents, ideas, communication, schedules, locations, etc. in one central place makes sense.

What makes ReelClever.com stand out from the competition (if there is any competition)?

It is quite a new space that we are in. We have noticed a few other sites popping up that are trying to do part of the process. I think in the long run it will be our focus on technology that really differentiates us. We have developed all our tools from scratch and we are working on some very exciting player tools that we think will change the way that studios create web video.

Describe the main features of ReelClever.com.

ReelClever is a suite of project management and promotional tools for filmmakers. From a promotional perspective, we provide filmmakers with the ability to create a very cool online portfolio, along with film promotion tools that help filmmakers promote their film right from concept. Our Facebook app is almost ready to launch and it will provide filmmakers with a new and unique way to promote their film and grow fans.

The project management area of the site features web-based workspaces that include, storyboarding, scheduling, cast & crew management, discussions, file storage, video draft room, and film promo tools.

We are just launching our marketplace. The aim of this is to help filmmakers find paid work—we all want to make films but we also have to eat.

What kinds of projects are being developed by users on ReelClever.com?

The use is really varied. We have everything from large feature films through to music videos and short films. We are also noticing that a large number of studios and freelancers are using our project tools to manage client ad projects. Currently, 68% of projects are films.

Can anyone around the world sign up for your services? How does one go about signing up?

Absolutely. ReelClever is well and truly a global site. Although the majority of our users are in America, we have filmmakers spanning over 110 different countries. Simply visit http://www.reelclever.com/ and click the Sign-Up button, you can be up and running in 60 seconds. We have various plans that filmmakers can sign up to, including a free plan so there are no barriers.

What are your plans/goals for ReelClever.com, both the company and the website?

We want to be the first point of call when a film project is conceptualized. By default, you will jump on ReelClever, set up a project, and start planning and promoting as soon as you begin working on a new film concept.

We see distribution as a potential avenue we want to investigate—through on demand and digital platforms—allowing filmmakers to take control of a more hybrid distribution model so they can actually make money from filmmaking.

In terms of the site, we are in a constant state of evolution and iteration. We try not to plan too far ahead and try to be very agile. We have three exciting announcements planned between now and December, so stay tuned.

Anything else you would like to share with readers?

On a personal level, I would like to say – just keep creating. The entire industry is going through an amazing time of change and turmoil and I think it is exciting. Try and disrupt the old way of making a film, embrace new ideas and remember to put on your marketing hat from day one.

This interview can also be found on the United Filmmakers Association’s website.

Paul Ben-Victor Interview

Paul Ben-Victor

Paul Ben-Victor

Here’s a great interview that Paul recently did for Media Blvd Magazine.  In it he gives a real nice shout out to The Invisible Man and its fans. 

He, also, talks about his new movie Should’ve Been Romeo.  After years of development, it’s great to hear that Paul has secured financing for the movie, so it’s a go!  Awesome!

Actor Paul Ben-Victor discusses his role on
“In Plain Sight” and his upcoming projects