It's a new year and with that new plans. Last year saw us struggling to find money for Clombies and looking for another feature script of the low budget persuasion. Well, we still haven't locked down the money we need for Clombies but it's just a matter of time and as most filmmaker will tell you the first script you try to get financing for ends up being the third or fourth film you make. So, Clombies will gets it's chance to shine. On the front of the feature script search, we have gotten a little farther down the road but a change of plan has come about...
As an Independent Filmmaker these changing of plans happens quite often. Driven by one thing or another. My drive? I really am beginning to miss directing, being on set and shooting. So, after a wonderful holiday showing of our previous shorts it lead to an idea. Let us continue to develop our feature projects but why not make a short or two. I love short films and enjoy very much the process. So, I got right on it and before the turn of the new year I finished a 3 minute short script called "Lightnin' Dreams".
It's based on a memory of mine from childhood and from what I understand after sharing the idea with a few friends its more of a universal idea than I would have believed. The short of it is - it's about a little girl who loves to pretend and perform. That's all I'm going to give you at the moment, it is only 3 minutes long.
What I will share is that it's driven by a popular song, so this week I've been learning how to gain permission to use copyrighted music. The process is a lot easier than I thought it would be but still has it's own challenages. We need two clearences. The first from the publisher and second from the record label. The publisher was easily found and they had a request form on their website. So, we're now just waiting to hear back from them. The second has been much more difficult and may take a lot longer to work out. The record label was sold and is now under a much large company. So, we'll see how that pans out. Our fingers are crossed that the fees won't be crazy expensive but in reality they probably will be and we might have to change the song altogether. But that is doable, since we haven't shot it yet. Also since I've never had to do this, license a song, it's a good learning experience, will help down the line with budgetting and understanding the timeline it takes to get it done. Once in feature work this experience will be especially useful and help keep to a tight schedule.
So, we're super excited for the new year and with fingers crossed we'll have a few short films to keep an eye out for and by year end a low budget feature script ready to roll in to Pre-Productions. Thank you for all of your support and please stay tuned.
Comments are always welcome, let us know what you've been up too and share your thoughts on shorts, features, the year 2011, or how last year treated you.
Happy New Years - let's make 2011 a busy year.
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