March 2008 Archives

G'day,

Phil here - Production Development guy. My job here at the Institut d'Film et Televisione includes talking about scripts  with writer or writer-director types. Ocassionally, when the moon is full and bright and the wolfsbane is blooming, I will even give notes.

At your benign and not-for-profit FTI, we give artistically supportive notes in a room with a zen garden. tea lights and the sound of water trickling over pebbles. Not sure if I'm bulldusting? Get down to Freo and find out!

We don't give tough-guy bottom-line notes because, 1. That's not our job; 2. We're not that tough; 3. There is rarely a bottom line with short films as they tend not to make money - however that's an argument for another time and place.

Elsewhere on our planet there are people with serious money who are more than happy to give you notes that will treat your sensitive artistic soul with the delicacy of a Chuck Norris kick to your solar plexus. Veteran American television writer Ken Levine (MASH, CHEERS, FRASIER, SIMPSONS) has written on this subject in his blog.

I recently read an entry in which he sets up a the fictional scenario "If A Major Studio Gave Notes On Juno". It's a Mad Magazine style parody (I mean get the title - pure MAD)  but from a Hollywood insider's viewpoint. It assumes that we all loved the movie Juno. I did. But some of my hipster friends hated it. No matter. You will find your brothers and sisters in the comments section of Levine's blog post. You can snark the film with some new friends and possibly create a FaceBook community.

It's worth reading because it points out exactly what the problem is with modern studio pictures. There, I said it.

Check out the blog post here.

Yours Filmically,

Phil Jeng Kane
Production Development Officer

Hail Friends,

Production Support has a new PSM. That's FTI speak for Production Support Manager. Yvette Coyne was once Funding Adminstration Officer at ScreenWest, now she brings her knowledge down to Freo to run our various film funding programs like the Raw Nerve, OOMPF, Link and Hyperlink, She also brings with her an inflatable 'Scream' as in the Munch painting, The Scream. I have to look at this on a daily basis. It's disquieting.

And speaking of funding. In between cracking open chocolate Humpties to scoff the Smarties, you might consider completing your Link or HyperLink application for next Thursday's 27 March Deadline.

Drop these off by 4pm and say hello to the Institute's new PSM.

Yours Filmically,

Phil Jeng Kane
Production Development Officer