Howdy Filmmakers! Last night we had the largest turnout ever: 9 people, which is a healthy representation of our budding group.

The biggest news is that we voted on a name with the provision that we can change it anytime we want. There was discussion about still being early in our formation so another name might emerge as we develop as a group. With that caveat in mind, the name with the most votes is

Pioneer Valley Films

Hiya! Last night we had another productive meeting of our short “pull a film out of a hat” group. Here is a summary:

• Discussed
  • Script: multiple read throughs, general agreement it’s in great shape with just one bit of dialogue needing work (and some other changes that we will do via email).
  • Shooting timeframe: script can be shot in 2 or 3 sections on separate days; start with easiest section (likely the Twilight Zone spoof scene) and end with most difficult after we have some experience together (the first scene which is )
  • A working agreement: as in, we need one before starting production (and that means deciding on a name)
  • Actors needed: a minimum of 8
  • Money: we need to have a way to pool together some money and someone to manage that…we need someone to step up to be a Producer and make this happen.

Hiya! The past two days have been amazing. Over the weekend we had two meetings starting with the fourth meeting at Russell’s animation studio in the Eastworks building in Easthampton, MA. Luis, Mike, Russell, Rowan, and first-time attendee Casey, met to discuss our little group’s name (more on that in a separate update) and to develop Sound Staged further.

Most of our three-hour meeting was a nonstop idea fest of how to make the script tell a compelling and whimsical story about filmmaking that will put us on the map. (I don’t know which map, but a definitely somewhere important, for sure!)

Tonight at the 2nd production group meeting we had six people (see photo) and a rocking good development session on the Sound Staged script. We bounced around multiple ideas to make the story more interesting and compelling. Mike and Luis will do a rewrite based on our meeting. They will send another draft within the next week for people to read and think about. It’s really taking shape.

We had our first meeting on May 1st with seven people interested in making a short film.
From that meeting and for the next one this Wednesday, these are the highlights:
Currently we are working to make a 100 second film that Mike Absous wrote titled Sound Staged. This script has lots of good elements for a short film.This is being formatted and this Wednesday we’ll discuss aspects of development and pre-production.You can see an early version in one of the other topics. I’ll post a revision once it has been properly formatted.

Other topics we are discussing in the meetings are:

• A good name to call the group and hopefully have a webpage we can put with it.
• Generating more interest.
• A simple agreement for those who do participate in making the film(s) so everyone can be in agreement (credits, contributions, use, and all the glory that comes from making short films).
• Scheduling and availability for those who want to work on the current project.
• More Important: Finish the development of the script.

Hope to see you Wednesday!Rowan