FOUR WALLING

by Michael Chasin      Screenwriting Mentor, IAFT/Miami   You’ve completed your feature. Your friends and family love it—but film festivals and distributors don’t (yet). Is there a future for your feature? A next-step option could be to four wall your film. Four walling—as the name implies—is the renting of the four walls of a…

THE HERO OF CAPTAIN PHILLIPS

film review by Michael Chasin    Screenwriting Mentor, IAFT/Miami   Movies are about heroes. Heroes—give us reasons to care about them. Heroes—are placed in impossible situations. Heroes—display courage in defeating their more powerful opponents. Captain Phillips is about the 2009 hijacking of an American merchant ship by Somali pirates, with Phillips portrayed by Tom Hanks. Phillips…

An Interview with SEAN AKERS, Part 2

IAFT Producing Mentor Sean Akers served as co-producer on the recent Robert Redford/J.C. Chandor picture, ALL IS LOST.  We sat down with him for a recent talk about how he got his start in the business. IAFT:  You’re from Pennsylvania originally.  What led you to want to be a producer? SA:  I don’t know that…

An Interview with SEAN AKERS, Part 1

IAFT Producing Mentor Sean Akers served as co-producer on the Robert Redford picture, ALL IS LOST.  We sat down with him on October 25 for a talk about the movie, written & directed by J.C. Chandor.   IAFT:  Tell us about ALL IS LOST. SA:  ALL IS LOST was shot for 10 million.  It was…

TITLE TELLS ALL

by Michael Chasin Screenwriting Mentor, IAFT/Miami   As much as it’s movie making, it’s also movie marketing—and as any marketer knows, the success or failure of a product often rests on—its name. Great product names are selected—or invented—to describe what the product is about. PayPal, Post-its, Band Aides, Photoshop, TurboTax—are all names that explain the…

A YEAR IN THE DARK

by Frederick Bailey  Directing Mentor, IAFT/Los Angeles   When I moved to Los Angeles in 1977, I didn’t know many people, so I spent a lot of time in movie theatres.  This was way before the arrival of VCRs and DVD players—not to mention Netflix, Hulu and YouTube.  That means the only way to see…

JUST LIKE WALTER WHITE

by Michael Chasin     Screenwriting Mentor, IAFT/Miami   Stories are about heroes—so the first objective in storytelling is to get the audience to identify with the hero. Identification is the audience seeing themselves in the hero—and after they see how similar they are—they will care about the hero—and once they care—they will follow the hero. Anywhere….

THE EVOLVING PRODUCER IN THE NEW MEDIA

You don’t have to be a young tech guru to understand how new equipment and the internet are upending the way movies and shows get made. Used to be there was only a few folks held the reins and pulled the levers.  Nowadays regular Joes are seizing control.  Scores of self-sufficient media wizards are out…

ALL IS LOST

IAFT mentor Sean Akers has a film coming out this weekend in theatres. ALL IS LOST, written & directed by J.C. Chandor, starring Robert Redford, and co-produced by Sean, made a real splash in a number of festivals and has been getting all kinds of excellent notices.  Chandor’s previous movie was the superb Margin Call in 2011,…

ONLY GOD FORGIVES

a review by Pete Wassell   IAFT/Los Angeles   Before I go into my analysis of Only God Forgives—the latest Nicholas Winding Refn/Ryan Gosling production, the duo’s second venture—I want to give you some context for my viewing of the film. I started it late one night about 3 weeks ago.  It was around 12:30, I…