Hong Kong (Screen)
Writers Circle Newsletter
September 2nd 2009
CONTENTS:
·
ROTTEN
TO THE CORE
·
LUMINA
LAUNCH
·
STILL
GET PRODUCED
·
SCRIVENER
If you wish to
tell us about your Hong Kong film projects, please send your information to lwgray@netvigator.com
_______________________________________________
* ROTTEN TO THE
CORE
I decided to
upgrade my Final Cut Studio 2 to Studio 3 in the hope that all those niggling
performance issues that plague the software will go away. One hopes that it will
be less prone to sudden catastrophic shut downs, and that famous round tripping
between Soundtrack, Color, Motion and FCP will finally be a smooth process
instead of a dangerous maneuver that may or may not crash everything. One also
hopes that the peculiarly sluggish file opening that plagues my Mac Pro and
seemingly nobody else’s will miraculously disappear - yes, I’ve had the
engineers in. They told me that although it is odd, it is acceptable as far as
Apple is concerned because it is a software issue.
So my hopes were
high. The first copy of the upgrade came and refused to upload and so I got on
the phone and after two hours, yes, two hours, finally got hold of someone who
could order a replacement. They had to collect the faulty one and then re-issue
a replacement.
Two weeks later
a replacement arrived. I loaded in the first disk but none of the others would
work. This means the applications upgraded but none of the “content” did. And
so after another series of phone calls Apple promised me replacements for the replacements.
In the meantime
I set to checking out what the latest upgrade does. At first, the peculiarly
sluggish opening of files on my computer seemed cured! Everything went zip and
zap as a Mac Pro should go. And then a security update turned up and put my
computer back into its sleepy mode again. I love these updates, don’t you?
Then I opened up
the project I was working on and found it would not render out into Apple Pro
Res. However it rendered out into XD Cam, which in theory it was already, and
then I could render it into Apple Pro Res. Something about Motion content
seemed to cause the problem, though what I am not sure.
Motion behaved
as sluggish and unusable as ever. I know it works on your iMac, but for some
reason not on my Mac Pro. So no change there. And Soundtrack Pro, with a very
promising Noise Cleaning function, immediately crashed just like it always used
to. Color on the other hand, worked a treat and round tripped nicely.
Two weeks later,
the replacement replacement disks arrived. I noticed that two of them were
labeled Audio Content 1. That didn’t look too promising. I put Audio Content 1
in the machine and it loaded in Motion Content 1. Motion Content 2 however was
an empty disk and so were all the rest of the pack. So I got some free
recordable DVDs but no Content updates.
Considering that
one is paying real money for this and not downloading a twenty-dollar gizmo
from a Russian web site, one would expect someone to have actually checked the
disks before bothering to send them. Once again I had a long conversation with
several nice people who listened to my explanation of what had happened. And they
said they would send me replacements for the replacement replacement disks. I
await the outcome with a sort of morbid fascination.
I know this is
not personal. Nobody is picking on me. And therefore I know that most of the
upgrades they are shipping must have the same problem! So here is my handy tip:
do not phone up Apple’s helpline on your mobile unless your battery is charged
right up. You’ll be on hold for a long long time.
Lawrence Gray
_______________________________________________
* LUMINA LAUNCH
We were all
wondering what happened to Jennifer Thym’s Lumina and wondering if the hype in
July was a tad too early and that something horrible had happened to Jenifer’s hard
drive. However, here it is,
starting on September 8th. http://www.luminaseries.com/
For
those of you who do not know what the fuss is all about. Lumina is a high
production value web series designed to launch Jennifer Thym’s directorial
career. Normally the director’s career starts with some shorts, which they use as
show reels to get attached to a respectable script. But nowadays quite a few
people are using the web series as a launch pad.
What
people are looking closely at is how this sort of product can recoup its costs.
Some people have gone for DVD sales and some have hoped for advertising
revenue. I have heard of some reasonable DVD sales for certain products and I
have heard that some of the popular Webisode concepts, in particularly those
from Performer/Writers, have helped them gain TV contracts in the US. But
mostly I have heard doom and gloom and very low hit rates.
Fingers
crossed because if this works, this is an arena in which Hong Kong’s
independents can participate on equal terms with anyone else and it is much
less hassle that trying to get accepted in various film festivals for exposure.
If
you wish to know more about the Lumina project, then head off to the Launch Party
and press conference:
Tuesday,
08 September 2009
17:00
- 22:00
At:
The Scirocco
1/F,
10-12 Staunton’s Street
lwgray@netvigator.com
_______________________________________________
* STILL GET PRODUCED
I’m still
looking for that script about the Hong Kong Writers’ Circle! It should be
somewhere between 3 to 10 minutes long – though mostly 3 - so that it can fit
on Youtube, be capable of being shot with next to no budget, and be
entertaining and informative.
You can write it
as a documentary, or a sit-com, or an opera or whatever you like! It must be
shootable though and it must make me laugh! And I mean laugh in a good way. And
it should make you want to be part of the Writers’ Circle and consume all the
creative output of the membership… or at least some of if!
ALL ENTRANTS
will get Three Months free membership of the Writers Circle and the winner will
get a full twelve months free membership and the pleasure of having their
script produced and shot in Hong Kong.
The deadline is
the end of October.
Hint: with a
short film, the concept is everything! A good, clever idea taking advantage of
the nature of the medium has more impact than something that is no more than
talking heads, no matter how witty their dialogue.
I am the judge,
jury and executioner of this, so you have to suck up to me and pander to my
taste for beautiful actresses and heavy doses of irony. And please, write it as
a script and not a piece of masterly prose. (If you’re not sure how, check out
the videos based upon my old friend Ray Frensham’s Teach Yourself Screenwriting
Book – links below.)
Even better if
you can also Story Board the idea!
Want a sample of
good piece of You Tube promo? Head off to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmXi2-SjkOQ
Send your
entries to lwgray@netvigator.com
_______________________________________________
* SCRIVENER
If you want a cheap piece of software that will help you write
screenplays, Scrivener is quite useful. It’s only available for those with a
Mac unfortunately. It does cost some money, about $35 but it has a number of
very nice outlining functions. The screenplay formatter is a bit basic and is
nowhere near as user friendly as Movie Magic’s Screenwriter, but its outlining
functions are very cool and force you to think in terms of well structured
units.
This may or may not be a good thing. Some times you just
have to write the whole thing as it comes, but mostly anything that makes you
build a screenplay systematically is a good thing.
http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.html
JOIN THE HONG
KONG WRITERS' CIRCLE
HK$490 per
annum.
If you wish to
join, download the membership form at http://www.hkwriterscircle.com/form.html
