Hello All,

Welcome to another edition (or the first one to all you new members) of the
newsletter. I'm trying to separate the stuff so things pertaining to actors
will be at
the forefront and the crew (producers, writers, directors, makeup etc) will come
later.
However, there are things that kind of fall through the cracks like the apple
trailers
for the Oscar films. However, actors might want to pass on the festival info to
their
directors so they can submit the film to festivals.
Enjoy,
Anup

ACTORS

1. ACTING DICTIONARY
2. AGENT VIA LA CASTING
3. ANOTHER TALENT DATABASE
4. NOWCASTING STATS & SUBMISSIONS
5. SPEEDREELS
6. CSA – CASTING SOCIETY OF AMERICA
7. TALENT MANAGERS ASSOCIATION


PRODUCERS/WRITERS/DIRECTORS/CREW

8. INDEPENDENT EXPOSURE FILM FEST
9. MORE DISTRIBUTION IDEAS (INDIE FLIX, SKY VODKA, IFC)
10. KEVIN SMITH'S FILMMAKER FRIENDLY SITE
11. CLEAN UP SERVICES

12. JUST FOR KICK
13. INDEPENDENT ARTIST REGISTRY (MUSICIANS)
14. MEMBER UPDATES
15. WRITE NOW – WRITER'S RESOURCES
16. ARTICLES

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ACTORS

1. ACTING DICTIONARY

Totem pole of roles – how the credits are ranked from everything I pieced
together. It
seems to be quite a mystery and I can't find a straight answer anywhere. If
anyone
has more pieces to this puzzle, please reply and send.


Film:
Starring - not really used unless you're an actual "star"
Lead
Co-Lead – hardly used
Supporting
Day Player – works only one day, can have lines
Principle - has lines (can be a generic term for all of the above)
Featured – an extra, therefore no lines, but singled out
Extra


TV:
Lead
Recurring – (like the Soup Nazi on Seinfeld)
Co-star – someone who has a key role for that one episode
Guest-star – someone who says a few lines like a clerk or someone secretary
Extra – no lines

Here are a few more terms that are thrown around all the time on the set that
are not
in either of the dictionaries below:

BOOKED – got an acting job

HS/R – Headshot & Resume

LINE-READING – when an inept director who acts out the line instead of coaxing
it out
of the actor by better methods such as saying, `Image how you'd react if your
partner
just beat up your mother'.

OFF-BOOK – having your lines memorized

REPRESENTATION – an agent or manager who represents an actor, writer, director,
etc.

SIDES – a few pages (usually between one and five page) of the script intended
for the
audition process.

SUBMISSION/SUBMIT - sending in your headshot and resume for a casting call

SUBTEXT – a different meaning than what the lines say. For example, a person
holding
a gun and saying `I love you soooooooo much, dear!' just before they're about to
shoot them.

Here's a link to an acting dictionary (it's not that strong):
http://www.vtheatre.net/acting/dict.html

IMDb also has one, a better one:
http://imdb.com/Glossary/

Any more terms that you hear often and wonder about, but are not found anywhere?
Shoot me an email by replying to this post.
-Anup

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2. AGENT VIA LA CASTING

If you sign up for this site ($10/mo or free if you have an agent) and don't
have
representation they will shoot out all the actors on a monthly basis to agents
and
managers. I'm not sure how many agents and managers are on the list, but a
friend
got a good agent that way and has booked several jobs. However, they're still in
the
Pong-age – can't register online.
-Anup

http://www.LACasting.com

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3. ANOTHER TALENT DATABASE

Store your profile into our database for our future projects
http://www.fdmnetworks.com/casting/

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4. NOWCASTING STATS & SUBMISSIONS

I posted a casting call (see member update below) for my project and here are
the
number of submission I got through nowcasting.com:
300 men
466 women
50 boys
88 girls

So imagine how many submission the TV shows get out of the 74127 actors who are
on the site. From the casting directors' point of view when you see a page of
250 1"x1.5" headshots, the ones that stood out had just the head and not the
whole
body. The high-contrast pictures stood out more than the washed out one. This
sounds obvious, but there were many more washed out pix (including some of the
members in this group) than high contrast ones. There is not enough time to
look at
each and every resume, so the ones who put a relevant comment regarding the
project was noticed – such as "comedy/improv training" for a comedy project.
Try
doing a search for actors (you don't have to be registered) on nowcasting.com
and
set the view to 250 per page and see what you learn from it.

http://www.nowcasting.com

-Anup


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5. SPEEDREELS

http://www.speedreels.com - the latest trend of acting demo reels about a minute
in
length

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6. CSA – CASTING SOCIETY OF AMERICA

You're invited to invite us! CSA now allows Actors, Agents and Managers to
submit
online invitations to plays, screenings, showcases and comedy shows by the use
of
Virtual Postcards. We hope this feature will save you time and money by allowing
you
to get the word out on your activities online.
http://www.castingsociety.com/actors

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7. TALENT MANAGERS ASSOCIATION

Check out managers to see if they're (somewhat) legit:

http://www.tbatechnology.com/talentmanagers/v2/


________________________________________________________________________
PRODUCERS/WRITERS/DIRECTORS/CREW
________________________________________________________________________

8. INDEPENDENT EXPOSURE FILM FEST

On-going film festival with only a $5 entry fee.
http://microcinema.com/

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9. MORE DISTRIBUTION IDEAS

INDIEFLIX
Another new Internet film/video distribution model that may be stillborn without
Net
Neutrality. IndieFlix is like iUniverse for film. A filmmaker makes his/her
film and
IndieFlix will stream it to the audience. It makes its money on burning DVDs of
the
film that are ordered from its website, and splitting revenue with the
filmmaker.
Writes the NY Times, IndieFlix represents "a platform to present their work to
an
audience that under normal circumstances wouldn't be available to them," said
the
actress Whoopi Goldberg , who is on the company's advisory board. "As one who
works inside and outside the system, I've come to understand the distribution is
a key
component. And from a purely economical standpoint, if there's a way for folks
to
participate" it would be "a win-win for everybody involved."
http://www.indieflix.com

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SKY VODKA SHORT FILMS

http://www.skyy.com/banner_campaigns/YAHOO/chair/425X600/mail/ad.html


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IFC TO AIR SHORT MOVIES ON ITS WEB SITE

Budding filmmakers will have a new outlet for their work when the Independent
Film
Channel begins airing short movies initially produced for its Web site.

The new IFC Media Lab is envisioned as an online community for independent
filmmakers who want to distinguish their flicks from the growing amount of video
posted on the Internet.

Short films of six minutes or less will be posted on the IFC site, and viewers
can vote
for their favorites. Starting in April, the top five films will air on the IFC
cable TV
channel in-between scheduled programs.

"Media Lab provides a home and a voice for new, original filmmakers all across
the
country and showcases great content that might not otherwise get seen," said
Jennifer
Caserta, IFC's senior vice president of marketing.

The Media Lab was quietly launched late last year and now has almost 4,000
registered members and 400 films submitted.

The site will grow to include Web journals, links and resources for filmmakers.

Anyone can upload a film, create a home page and rank other people's movies.

IFC Companies is a division of Rainbow Media Holdings LLC.
http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/news/ap/20060208/113945544000.html

http://video.google.com/

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10. KEVIN SMITH'S FILMMAKER FRIENDLY SITE

http://viewaskew.com/
http://www.moviesaskew.com/

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11. CLEAN UP SERVICES

Chrysalis StreetWorks - A local independent nonprofit, Chrysalis, has introduced
StreetWorks, a program providing location cleanup services to productions
filming
downtown. Chrysalis is dedicated to assisting the economically disadvantaged
through work opportunities, while offering competitive pricing to its industry
customers. Please contact Chrysalis directly if you have questions about this
program.
An informational flyer is available to get you started.
http://www.eidc.com/ChrysalisFlyer_Final.pdf

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Hollywood Recycles - is a free beverage container recycling program for film
and
television productions filming on stages located off major studio lots within
the Los
Angeles area. more...

http://www.filmla.com/epg/index.htm

________________________________________________________________________

12. JUST FOR KICKS

A few films about filmmaking that you should check out: "Living In Oblivion",
"Ed
Wood", "Chaplin" and this hilarious short on ifilm, "Steal This Film":
http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2677432

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Check out PRIMER which was shot for $6K (which is less than El Mariachi!!!) on
film
and won at Sundance last year.

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MANOJ'S FIRST FEATURE

Looking for M. Night Shyamalan's first NYU feature "Praying With Anger"?
http://www.eurofilmsltd.com/catalog/p/praying_with_anger.html

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2005 ACADEMY AWARDS MOVIES with hi-res trailers

http://www.apple.com/trailers/awards/2005/

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YAHOO MOVIEMAKER

Make your own movies in this playable demo, premiered on Yahoo! Video Games
http://videogames.yahoo.com

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13. INDEPENDENT ARTIST REGISTRY

"Finding the nation's best independent artists is my top priority," said
Atlantic
Records A&R rep Steve Robertson. "When I was approached to be a part of the
Independent Artist Registry, I knew it would be a great way to find artists I
might not
get a chance to hear."
The Independent Artist Registry (IAR) is a US based talent search who's goal is
to find
the nation's best undiscovered artists and promote them to virtually every major
label
A&R rep. Artists are reviewed based on their total package and potential for
success
at the next level. Unlike band competitions, there is no entry fee for the IAR,
but
artists must meet the minimum requirements posted on the IAR website.
Every artist who submits their demo will get a detailed one page summary that
includes a critique of their submission by the music industry pros who reviewed
it.
The 300 West Coast artists selected for induction into the IAR will have their
bio sent
to virtually every major label A&R rep and media outlet, have their booking and
contact info included in a music industry publication read by nearly a quarter
million
music pros and be featured on the IAR's website.
The top artist will get 1,000 of their CD's replicated for free, have an article
written
about them in a national music industry publication, and have their music walked
into
the A&R departments of virtually every major label.
"I especially like the way the IAR is structured," said Atlantic's Robertson.
"Being
entirely artist driven, I know the demos I get will be from serious performers
with
talent. I'm excited to see who the first Indie Award winner will be."

The deadline for the next installment of the IAR is August 31st. If you are an
original
performer and think your developed enough to make it on a national level, visit
Independent Artist Registry now to arrange for your demo to be reviewed.
http://www.IndependentArtistRegistry.com

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14. MEMBER UPDATES
__________________________________________________________

FUNDRAISER WANTED

Cheryl Kanekar is looking for someone to help raise funds (and keep a percentage
of
it for compensation) for her documentary film "Pyramid of Women". A short
documentary featuring the attempt of a group of women to form a human pyramid as
part of the traditional Gokulashtami celebrations.
cherylkanekar@ [no space] yahoo.com

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EXPERIENCE WANTED

Hi, my name is Graham D. I am an aspiring screenwriter/director. I am
looking for experience on sets and possibly some help on my own project
that I am planning to launch over summer.
sundance_5d@ [no space] yahoo.com

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ACTOR LOOKING FOR FEATURE PROJECTS

I just worked Mark Elias on a table reading and he's hungry and looking for more
feature projects. You can find him on nowcasting.com or email him absolutelias@
[no
space] yahoo.com

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ACTOR STRUTTIN' HIS STUFF

Hi friends,

Check out http://www.thegoldbracelet.com

Thanks,
Rajeev Chhibber

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COMPOSER

Hey Anup, It's Michael Patterson, composer. I've been attempting
to drum up work and the last couple of months have not been very
fruitful. As you probably know I'm not one to sit waiting for the phone
to ring. So, I'm attempting to get the word out that I'm looking for work.
Here are a couple of highlights from 2005.

- Limited theatrical release of the film "The Helix: Loaded"
Produced by Stained Iris and Distributed by Romar Entertainment
- "Freeze Out" winner of the Westwood Film Festival (Best Feature)
- Recently completed the score to the comedy "Stone & Ed"
Produced by Three Bird Pictures and Fred Fontana (Vegas Vacation)
- "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" will premier at Sundance 2006
Produced by the 2005 Oscar Nominated creators of "Twist Of Faith"

You might be thinking, "Mike you really need a better agent." That is
part of the problem, I do not have an agent. So, I could use help in the
area as well. But that doesn't change the fact that I'm not right now
working on a indie hopeful or something like that.

I could really use referrals for feature films. I always prefer to work
on straight dramas but would love to work on a horror/suspense film,
sci-fi film or a romantic comedy might be nice. The films do have to
have a music budgets and be within the realistic measures of an indie film
but I'm realistic also.

What I bring to a project is not only experience and creativity, but a
dedication to projects. I take extreme care in my work, not only for my
own sake but for the dozens of others that work on the film.

So, if you know of anything please, please, please forward on my contact
info or let me know. Any help is greatly appreciated!

Thank you,
Michael
mspproductions@ [no space]hotmail.com

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CAST & CREW CALL

I am starting the "Anup Sugunan show". It's going to be super-low budget sketch
comedy like the Ben Stiller show (but even superer-lowerer because he got
network
support. If you haven't submitted via nowcasting, send me a headshot and resume.
I'm also looking for crew, esp DPs.

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15. WRITE NOW – WRITER'S RESOURCES

Internet Movie Script Database
http://www.imsdb.com

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Script O Rama
http://www.script-o-rama.com

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HILARIOUS LOOK AT CLICHΙS

This is a great list of clichιs found too often in films. Avoid `em at all cost
when
writing. Courtesy of Celeste.

1. If being chased through town, you can usually take cover in a passing St
Patrick's
Day parade - at any time of the year.
2. All beds have special L-shaped top sheets that reach up to armpit level on a
woman but only waist level on the man lying beside her.

3. All grocery shopping bags contain at least one stick of French bread.

4. Once applied, lipstick will never rub off - even while scuba diving.

5. The ventilation system of any building is a perfect hiding place. No one will
ever
think of looking for you in there and you can travel to any other part of the
building
without difficulty.

6. Should you wish to pass yourself off as a German officer, it will not be
necessary to
speak the language. A German accent will do.

7. The Eiffel Tower can be seen from any window of any building in Paris.

8. A man will show no pain while taking the most ferocious beating but will
wince
when a woman tries to clean his wounds.

9. When paying for a taxi, never look at your wallet as you take out a note -
just grab
one at random and hand it over. It will always be the exact fare.

10. If you lose a hand, it will cause the stump of your arm to grow by 15cm.

11. Mothers routinely cook eggs, bacon and waffles for their family every
morning,
even though the husband and children never have time to eat them.

12. Cars and trucks that crash will almost always burst into flames.

13. A single match will be sufficient to light up a room the size of a football
stadium.

14. Medieval peasants had perfect teeth.

15. All single women have a cat.

16. Any person waking from a nightmare will sit bolt upright and pant.

17. One man shooting at 20 men has a better chance of killing them all than 20
men
firing at one.

18. Creepy music coming from a graveyard should always be closely investigated.

19. Most people keep a scrapbook of newspaper cuttings - especially if any of
their
family or friends has died in a strange boating accident.

20. It does not matter if you are heavily outnumbered in a fight involved
martial arts -
your enemies will wait patiently to attack you one by one by dancing around in a
threatening manner until you have knocked out their predecessor.

21. During a very emotional confrontation, instead of facing the person you are
speaking to, it is customary to stand behind them and talk to their back.

22. When you turn out the light to go to bed, everything in your room will still
be
clearly visible, just slightly bluish.

23. Dogs always know who's bad and will naturally bark at them.

24. When they are alone, all foreigners prefer to speak English to each other.

25. Rather than wasting bullets, megalomaniacs prefer to kill their arch-enemies
using complicated machinery involving fuses, pulley systems, deadly gases,
lasers
and man eating sharks that will allow their captives at least 20 minutes to
escape.

26. Having a job of any kind will make all fathers forget their son's eighth
birthday.

27. Many musical instruments - especially wind instruments and accordions - can
be
played without moving the fingers.

28. All bombs are fitted with electronic timing devices with large red readouts
so you
know exactly when they're going to go off.

29. It is always possible to park directly outside the building you are
visiting.

30. A detective can only solve a case once he has been suspended from duty.

31. If you decide to start dancing in the street, everyone you bump into will
know all
the steps

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16. ARTICLES
__________________________________________________________

MAGNOLIA AND SHORTS INTERNATIONAL BRINGING OSCAR-NOMINATED SHORTS TO
THEATERS

Magnolia Pictures and Shorts International have announced a partnership to bring
this
year's 10 Oscar-nominated shorts (live-action and animated) to theaters before
the
Academy Award ceremony on March 5. The series will kick off Friday, February 24,
in
New York and Los Angeles. The series will also play in select theaters in San
Francisco, Detroit, Berkeley, Atlanta, Seattle, Denver, Austin, Portland and
Chicago.
The two distribution companies anticipate adding more markets in the coming
weeks.

__________________________________________________________

LA. TOWN TO GET FILM INDUSTRY COMPLEX

Known as "Hollywood South," Louisiana's growing movie industry is set to get the
big-time movie production studio that industry leaders have said it needs.

Just weeks after plans surfaced for a small studio in Baton Rouge, two movie
makers
announced Tuesday a separate, more elaborate venture to construct an entire
movie
complex in the town of Robert, located on Lake Pontchartrain's north shore and
roughly 50 miles northwest of New Orleans.

The complex will include a studio, shops, restaurants, condos and a golf course,
and
be designed to attract more foreign filmmakers to the state by providing them
with a
place to live, work and be entertained, the planners said.

"They'll come from all over, Japan, Germany, Italy," said filmmaker Alfredo
Leone of
Louisiana Entertainment Associates LCC, the company that purchased more than 150
acres of land for the project.

"Louisiana is trying to grow their industry, and some will settle here, some
will not,"
Leone said, who has teamed with fellow filmmaker Robert "Bob" DiMilia in the
venture.

A state Office of Film and Television spokesman said officials have heard of the
project but had no immediate comment Tuesday.

Though New Orleans and Louisiana have steadily attracted film producers since
tax
incentives were introduced in 2002, industry leaders have said that a major
component missing in "Hollywood South" is a big-time production studio.

Plans for a $150 million digital theme park and film studio in New Orleans were
put
on hold after Hurricane Katrina. Last month, plans were unveiled to turn a
partially
completed 30,000-square-foot building in Baton Rouge into a movie studio.

The Robert project, called Louisiana Cinema City Studios, includes a film
laboratory,
production offices and a five-star suite hotel, a day-care center and health
club. It
will also include eight Hollywood-style sound stages and four broadcast stages
that
will cover a combined 250,000 square feet, the planners said.

The project will take three years to complete, but the studio portion may be
finished
before year's end, DiMilia said.

http://asia.news.yahoo.com/060201/ap/d8fg3ke00.html

__________________________________________________________

HOLLYWOOD MARKETING FILMS THROUGH CHURCHES

At some of the largest and most influential Christian churches in the country,
the
lights dim and congregants watch a sneak preview of a new movie about golf.

The Walt Disney Co. is marketing "The Greatest Game Ever Played" to faith-based
groups even though the film, about Francis Ouimet's improbable win in the 1913
U.S.
Open, isn't overtly religious.

"Its themes are about family, about not giving up on your dreams, courage," said
Dennis Rice, head of publicity at the Walt Disney Studios. "They are very
secular
virtues, but they also could potentially be Christian virtues."
Other major studios have undertaken similar marketing for films that aren't
about
God, including the recent father-son story "The Thing About My Folks" and even
the
dark drama "The Exorcism of Emily Rose." Twentieth Century Fox has launched a
Web
site to market family-friendly videos directly to Christian groups.

The approach reflects the next step in Hollywood's attempt to capitalize on the
business lessons of "The Passion of the Christ," a surprising blockbuster last
year
thanks to unprecedented marketing and mobilization in churches. With Congress
cracking down on indecency in television, video games and films, there's a
political
dimension as well.

This year, Congress dealt Hollywood a serious blow by passing legislation
drafted to
help parents keep their children from seeing sex scenes, violence and foul
language
in movie DVDs. The Family Entertainment and Copyright Act gave legal protection
to
fledgling filtering technology that lets users automatically skip or mute
sections of
movies.

Studios said it's hard to quantify potential revenue from the family-values
demographic, but one industry analyst gave a sense of what's at stake. Targeted
marketing of this kind happens only if a studio expects to add $25 million to
$50
million to the box office gross and sell perhaps an extra 5 million DVDs,
according to
Harold Vogel, who heads the New York investment firm Vogel Capital Management.

For their part, churches recognize that just denouncing violent or sexually
explicit
films doesn't influence their content so their members are using buying power to
support films that reflect their values.

Despite its explicit violence, "The Passion of the Christ" grossed more than
$400
million at the worldwide box office and millions more on home video. The success
was largely attributed to intensive marketing within churches, which reserved
entire
theaters for opening day while congregants invited neighbors who skip church to
watch the movie.

"Increasingly, the church realizes that spiritual conversations are happening in
the
culture and we are in danger of being left out of the conversation," said Robert
K.
Johnston, a professor of theology and culture at Fuller Theological Seminary in
Pasadena.

Filmmakers behind smaller movies that otherwise might not command big marketing
dollars say that support from faith-based communities encourages studios to make
similar films.

"If the powers that be see there is a bigger market out there, it will make it
easier for
the next time around," said Paul Reiser, who wrote and co-stars in the family
comedy
"The Things About My Folks." To promote that movie, members of churches,
synagogues and Jewish community centers were invited to more than 30 screenings
in cities including Minneapolis, Cleveland and Chicago.

Disney is counting on Christian audiences to boost its "The Chronicles of
Narnia: The
Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe."

The film, based on the C.S. Lewis book, is a big-budget fantasy epic and the
first in a
series Disney hopes will rival the popularity of "The Lord of the Rings"
trilogy. Some
Christians interpret the book a staple of children's literature as an allegory
in which
the hero, the lion Aslan, represents Jesus Christ.

Disney hired Motive Entertainment, the same group that marketed "The Passion of
the
Christ" to churches, to sell "Narnia" to Christian audiences. Dozens of churches
nationwide will host sneak peeks of parts of the film before its December
opening.

"As good business people, we'd be silly not to tap into every fan of the book
and hope
they will become a fan of the movie," said Disney's Rice. "We don't believe
we're
making a Christian movie. We believe we're following the story of the book
faithfully
and allowing everyone to interpret it how they want depending on how they've
connected to the book."

Twentieth Century Fox, which distributed the video of "The Passion," recently
launched a Web site (http://www.foxfaith.com) to target Christian and
family-based
films directly to a religious audience. The site includes a "church resources"
link,
which lists several movies and includes written guidance suggesting Bible verses
to
discuss in conjunction with scenes from the films.

"We recognize this is an underserved marketplace that was hungry for programming
that mirrored their values," said Steve Feldstein, senior vice president of
marketing at
Fox Home Video.

Fox defines the market broadly. It's distributing such library titles such as
"The Bible"
and "The Sound of Music" but also striking deals to distribute or produce films
based
on top Christian best sellers by Bishop T.D. Jakes and Frank Peretti. "It's not
necessarily who people are and where they live," Feldstein said, "it's how they
think."