Tag Archive for Unwelcome Guests

The Haunting of Sunshine Girl: Or How A Northwest Trio Hooked The Weinsteins

“Nobody knows anything…” William Goldman’s famous quote about Hollywood, may very well apply to the publishing industry as well; especially during this time of digital expansion and the resulting democratization of creative expression. The tools of production and marketing are available to everyone now, not just studios and publishing houses. What the long term net…

Making a Web Series is Like Being on Survivor

Word to All the Content Creators A couple weeks ago, a few of us surrounding the FiLMLaB project this past year at the Willamette Writers Conference got together to talk shop about the ups and downs of FiLMLaB 2014. After a couple beers, we might have summoned up enough group juju to determine what came…

The Grand Experiment: Experience from the FiLMLaB

  There are very few jobs in the world where, when you walk into a room, anyone can say they do without some sort of validation. If you walk into a party, and someone asks if you are a doctor or a police officer or a car mechanic, these titles will instigate follow up questions…

FiLMLaB Celebrates Portland Film Festival

Welcome writers, screenwriters and film lovers of all stripes to the final week before the Portland Film Festival kickoff. There is still plenty of time to review the seven day schedule of films, classes and music, and tailor an experience that uniquely fits where you are as a writer/filmmaker right now. Start every day with…

2014 FiLMLaB: Special Thanks

Are you recovered from the Willamette Writers Conference? Recovered is not the right word, at least not for attendees. Attendees usually finish the three day conference, tired, but elated, full of creative energy and invigorating possibility. If you are a conference organizer or volunteer, recovered is exactly the right word. This year was a particular…

The Benefits of Being A Ghost: A Writer On Set At FiLMLaB

Being the screenwriter on set is fun as long as you know what you’re in for. If this was a Mozart symphony production, the screenwriter would be the composer and the director would be the conductor. It’s up to the conductor to translate Mozart’s scribbles on paper into music for the ears, music created by…

Quiet on the Set!

I was on the set yesterday of FiLMLaB’s “Unwelcome Guests” by Jon Dragt. It was my first FiLMLaB film set—actually, my first film set ever, and it was amazing. Fantastic. Fun! Quite honestly? I loved it. Granted, I wasn’t hauling any equipment, dealing with the drastic changes in sunlight, the rain, stressing over prop malfunctions…

Serendipity and Synchronicity at FiLMLaB 2014

How has the FiLMLaB 2014 experience been so far? The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of serendipity and synchronicity. One of the first things I was told at the first production meeting was that now that I’d won the contest, we can pretty much do whatever we want to make as good a…