Come Fly With

Me Nude
THE MOVIE
Made on a Mac

www.comeflywithmenude-movie.com
 Welcome
• Introductions
• What is this all about?
• The Home Production Office
• Pre-Pre-production - The origins of Dom & Bella
• Pre-production
• Production Management
• On the Set
• Post Production
• PR & Press
• Lessons Learned
• The List: Equipment, Software, Hardware et al
 Introductions
• Introductions
• Dan Gomes: Writer/Filmmaker/Photographer
- In 1982, built first computer at age 13
- Made first “video” at 14
- Used UNIX and Macs at Brighton University
- Technology Manager at Film Arts Foundation
- Been writing and taking photos as long as can
remember
• Diane Karagienakos: Filmmaker/Actor
- BS in Marketing
- 1992 first filmmaking class CCSF 1992
- First short film made in Melbourne Australia 1999
- First acting class in Melbourne, Australia 1999
- First stage show (wrote and starred in) wins Best of
- SF Fringe 2004
 What’s This All
About?
Making a film with no money, a
lot of creativity, and a little help
from your friends and Apple
Computers.
In reality:

• About $25,000 cash

• Donations of about $40,000 value
• Every tool Apple and Adobe have to offer
• And lots of help from over 50 friends & family
 The Home
Production Office on a shoe-string

• Home
800 sq ft, 1 bedroom apartment
• What’s it for
Management of all aspects of the production: Cast, crew,
logistics, accounting
• Use what you’ve got
- An old PowerBook G3, an iBook G4 and an PowerBook G4
- Plus “wireless” and wired guest systems

- A USB Canon Scanner

- A USB Canon Bubble-jet Printer
- Airport Base Station
- Phone line
- Comcast Cable Modem
- .Mac: iCal, iDisk & iSync
 The Home
Production Office on a shoe-string

• The SoHo setup

INTERNET
 Pre, Pre
Production
• The Origins of the Idea
- 1992/93: Diane and Todd Pickering start writing “bad” poetry
that spoofs the contemporary neo-beat scene
- 1995/96: Dan, Diane and Todd “self publish” the poems as a
book at City Lights. Supporting photos taken by Dan and
Lance Manderville.
• Publishing the book
- Composed using Apple Works
- Printed on early ink jet printer
- Cut to size and put together by hand
- Shared a stand at the North Beach Festival with Angus Oblong
• Writing the screenplay
- 1999 Dan writes 1st draft of “DomBella” a short comedy for
budding Director Diane. Both inspired by collaborations with
Melbourne based OpenChannel Production Group
- 2002 Diane and Dan decide to make it a feature length comedy
- Script migrated from Apple Works to Final Draft. 120 pages
delivered in early 2004
 Pre, Pre
Production
• A Time Line

Festival
Submissions

Holiday Stage
Show
tasks

Post Production

Shoot

Film Audtions

The "Letters" Written Fringe Stage Show

Write Poems Publish Book Short Film Script Feature Film Script

1992/93 1995/96 1999 2000 2002 2003 2004 2005

time
 Pre-Production

• Funding
- Fiscal sponsorship with Film Arts Foundation
- Fundraising parties arranged
- Creation of Stage Show
- Donations solicited
- Grants applied for: Researched for using online databases, and
library at Film Arts
• Constructing the production team & materials
- Core positions filled by Diane, Dan, Cara
- Postings on Film Arts Forum
- Production forms produced using MS Office
 Pre-Production
• Crew
- Recruited by Dan from people he worked with through Film
Arts Foundation.
- Gaffer & Electrical: Richard Levien & Christian Gainsly
- Production Sound: Patrick Bowsher
• Castings
- Call put out using
- Casting Connection
- Film Arts Forum
- Nancy Hayes Casting
- Auditions held at Film Arts
- Todd Pickering directs casting
- Some auditions recorded for reference
• Post Production Team
- Sound Design: Patrick Bowsher using Pro Tools
- Editor: Jonathan Parra using Final Cut Pro (4.5)
 Production
Management
• The Software Tools
- .Mac’s iSync with iCal to keep everyone’s calendars up to
date
- .Mac’s iDisc to share documents in and out of the office
- iPhoto for all continuity, promotion and production stills
- iTunes for reviewing sound and finding music
- iMovie to review footage and grab stills for publicity
- iDVD & DVD Studio Pro for making DVD materials
- Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator for designing materials
- iDisk for sharing private documents and publishing
roughcuts, trailers, photos, etc
- Microsoft Office for word processing and accounts
- Final Draft for screenplay production, printing sides and
registration with WGA
 Production
Management
• Great Online Services
- PSprint.com for business cards (4x6.com is also good)
- SnapFish for photo prints
Its worth shopping around the services to see which suits you best: oPhoto,
Walmart, Wallgreens, etc.
- WordPress for online publishing
Started with .Mac, then tried Blogger, and finally iBlog
- WGA http://wgareg.org/subreg.html/
Register your work!
- Let Us Copy (let-us.com)
Local business that’s been very flexible and helpful, and offer very
competitive pricing.
 On The Set
• Shot on Panasonic DVX100A in 24p mode at 16:9
(anamorphic)
• Lights, tripod, DAT package, Mic, Grip Package from Film Arts
Foundation
• Production stills taken using consumer digital camera Canon
S520, and loaded into iPhoto each night
• Continuity pictures taken using Polaroid - Old-school, but still
the only way to get images instantaneously, at low-cost
• Day’s pages duplicated and distributed using SoHo setup and
Final Draft to export PDFs of the pages for mailing and
printing
• Call sheet generated using MS Office, and distributed largely
by email
• iCal used to create an maintain shared calendars - PDF copies
mailed to those who can’t access it in other formats
 Post Production
• Editing
• Final Cut Pro HD (4.5) on Quicksilver Power Mac G4
(933 Mhz & 1GB RAM)
• Sony DV Deck
• Dual display
• NTSC Monitor

• Sound
• Pro Tools on DP Power Mac G4 - Mirrored Drive Doors
(1.25 GHz & 512MB RAM)
• Dual display
• Isolation Booth for ADR & Instrumentals

• Storage
• 1.5 Terabytes of hard drive space
• Six 250GB external firewire drives
• Four for editing
• One for Audio/Sound
• One for rendering out final versions in quicktime
 PR & Press
• The Press Kit
This is still your main tool for communication what the project is about, and
to get people excited about it
• Stills from film and “making of”, plus promo stills of key cast and other team
members
• Bios of key team members
• Synopsis and summary
• Full description
• Log and Tag lines
• Contact Details
• Poster Art
• Samples of script-pages
• Both digital and physical copies, on website, CD, etc.
• ALL DOCUMENTS IN PDF FORMAT
• ALL IMAGES IN PRINT READY JPEG & TIFF FORMATS
 PR & Press
• Web Presense
• Hosted by GoDaddy.com
• PHP/MySQL site
• Blogging and content management using Word Press
• Submitted regularly to search engines
• Goes through different phases, as does the production:
• Now getting a visual overhaul for the post production screening phase

• Exposure
• Time to hustle: Magazines, eZines, Blogs, TV, Radio, Forums, etc.
• Merchandizing:
• Used CafePress.com for much “generic” merchandize
• T-Shirts, Bags, Mugs, thongs, clocks, etc.
• Short custom runs done at local stores for specific events
• Potato Boy Printing used for bulk custom run of t-shirts
(PotatoBoyPrinting.com)
 Lessons Learned so far

• Get enough disk space to start with

• A 10 minute DV file can be 8 GB in size.
• When using a DVX100A, make sure you shoot with “advanced”
pulldown turned on
• Firewire is fragile
• Make sure you use the correct power adapters
• Startup in correct order
• Don’t get the connectors the wrong way up
• Don’t force anything
• Don’t breakdown props & locations until you’ve established if you
need to do any pick-ups
• Do as much pre-planning and prep work as possible before going to
shoot
• Use professionals
• Know when The Garbologists (and recyclers) are due
• Be religious about AV logs
• Don’t delete or throw anything out until you are completely
finished
• you’ll probably need to refer to it from time to time
 The List
software hardware other resources

Apple 15” PowerBook G4 Al Film Arts Foundation

- iLife iBook G4 14” - www.filmarts.org
- .Mac PowerBook G3 - 415.552.8760
- OS X Airport Casting Connection
- iWork Canon s520 Printer Writer’s Guild of
- Final Cut Pro HD Canon LiDe Scanner America: wgareg.org
Adobe PowerMac G4 (Quicksilver) PSPrint.com & let-
- Photoshop with ProTools 4.x us.com - Materials
- Illustrator PwerMac G4 (Quicksilver) WordPress.com -
Final Draft with FCP Blogging
Microsoft HD cafePress.com &
- Office: Word & Excel Panasonic DVX100A PotatoBoyPrinting.co
DigiDesign’s Sony DAT deck m - Merchendize
ProTools Polaroid instomatic
OmniGraffle Canon S520 for stills
Assorted lights & grip
package
Panasonic & JVC DV Decks

www.comeflywithmenude-movie.com