Category Archives: Uncategorized

From Struggle to Strength. Learning & Growing Through Life’s Challenges

Category : Life Skills Motivation self-development Uncategorized

By Bonnie McDonald

Life’s challenges are not mere hurdles but pivotal moments that shape our character and direction. Each hardship carries the potential to catalyze profound personal transformation. Confronting and overcoming these trials can fortify resilience, enhance empathy, and inspire significant life shifts. Embracing adversity refines our abilities to handle future problems with increased skill and confidence, setting a foundation for success in various aspects of life.

Cultivating Resilience in the Face of Adversity

When you face difficulties head-on, it doesn’t just test your mettle—it strengthens it. Each challenge you surmount reinforces your ability to cope with future stresses. This process lays a robust foundation for enduring resilience. It equips you with the grit necessary to tackle the unpredictable paths of both personal and professional life, enhancing your capability to manage and rise above future challenges. As resilience builds, so does your assurance in your capacity to navigate life’s unpredictable storms.

Expanding Empathy Through Personal Hardships

Navigating through periods of hardship expands your understanding and sensitivity toward the struggles of others. This enhanced empathy makes you a more compassionate and supportive community member. You start to relate deeply to the pains and challenges others face, which in turn, enriches your interactions and relationships, providing a deeper connection to those around you. Empathy cultivated through personal trials is a profound tool that enriches interpersonal relationships and fosters a supportive network.

Reflection and Realignment During Trials

Challenges often compel you to reflect on your values and priorities. This introspection leads to clearer insights about what is truly significant, guiding more purposeful decisions. By reassessing what matters most, you can realign your life’s goals and actions toward more fulfilling endeavors that resonate with your core values. Such clarity is essential when making decisions that influence both personal growth and professional development, ensuring that your paths align with your deepest convictions.

Inspiring Creativity and Flexibility

When initial plans falter, the necessity to adapt fosters creativity and flexibility. These skills are invaluable in a rapidly evolving professional landscape, helping you to thrive in various circumstances. Learning to pivot and innovate in the face of obstacles not only keeps your projects afloat but also drives you toward finding unique solutions that might have otherwise gone undiscovered. Creativity thus becomes a critical asset, enabling you to navigate through complex challenges with innovative strategies.

Stepping Into Entrepreneurship with Confidence

Overcoming challenges not only prepares you for the uncertainties of starting a new business but also instills the resilience and adaptability necessary for entrepreneurial success. To start a business, you should identify a viable market need, develop a business plan, secure funding, choose a legal structure, register the business, set up financial systems, and market your products or services to attract customers. Establishing a limited liability company (LLC) can be a strategic move, offering benefits like limited liability, tax perks, and operational flexibility. Opting to self-file or using a reputable formation service can ensure your business is set up correctly without incurring excessive legal fees.

Expanding Your Comfort Zone

Being thrust out of familiar confines by adverse events often leads to unexpected personal growth and self-awareness. You discover latent potentials and new passions that may redefine your life’s trajectory. Getting outside of your comfort zone is essential for personal evolution, allowing you to uncover strengths and interests that were previously hidden. Such discoveries can be transformative, opening up new avenues for personal satisfaction and professional opportunities.

Motivation to Act from Adversity

Sometimes, it takes a significant upheaval to disrupt detrimental habits or complacency. Adversity can be a powerful motivator for pursuing new ambitions or making pivotal life alterations. It provides the push needed to explore new avenues and take actions that can lead to substantial changes in both personal and professional domains. This motivation from adversity is a compelling force, driving significant life changes that align with your renewed perspectives and goals.

The journey through life’s challenges is inherently transformative. Embracing these experiences as opportunities for growth prepares you not just for personal advancement but also for entrepreneurial success. As you learn to navigate through trials with grace and resilience, you set the stage for future achievements and new beginnings. The transformative power of adversity should not be underestimated—it is often the catalyst for the most significant changes in our lives.

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7 Ways To Improve Your Communication Skills As A Filmmaker

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Category : Communication Film Production Independent Filmmaking New Era Filmmakers New Projects Uncategorized

How your communication skills can help you land the work of your dream in the film industry?

In the film industry, which is a very small industry, everyone knows everyone: who is good & reliable, and who you want to avoid working with.

This is unspoken, but everyone knows that.

Especially in this industry a good filmmaker’s reputation is a BIG thing. 

If you recommended yourself as a good, skillful filmmaking professional, with great communications skills, everyone will want to hire you. 

You should always keep that in your mind. 

Communication skills is very important. 

If you don’t have good communication skills and consider yourself as a great filmmaker, people will not hire you, simply because in the middle of the long and tiring production, no one wants to deal with person with it whom it is difficult to communicate, who easily gets upset and performs unreliably because of his/her moods.

How can you learn to communicate everything in a quick and efficient, polite and respectful manner, in the middle of long & chaotic production, on the fly, and also tired people?

Here are 7 ways to improve your communication skills:

  1. Learn how to listen to others, without interrupting them. Because people want to know that they are being heard. Really listen to what the other person is saying, instead of formulating your response. The person you are talking to will notice it in your eyes.
  2. Who you are talking to matters. Be polite and respectful to anyone you are talking with: your boss, your family, or a crew member. Use formal language when you are talking to you boss and colleagues.
  1. Body Language is important, it is 55 % of your communication. Keep you gestures open, and remember to maintain eye contact, to show your attention.
  2. Be brief and specific. You have to practice being brief, yet specific enough, that you can provide enough information for the other person to understand what you want to tell him.
  3. Think before you speak. Pause before you speak, and pay close attention to what you say, and how you say it.
  4. Be polite and treat everyone with respect, especially when you are angry, tired or impatient. If you can’t, then take a break and tell them why.
  5. Always have a positive attitude and smile. When you smile and you have a positive attitude, people will respond positively to you.

So, where can you learn and practice all these skills?

Find a Toastmasters Club near you. 

There you will learn and polish all communication skills that will help you to become a better communicator and a successful filmmaker.

This is what veterans think after watching Sam’s Firecracker

Category : Uncategorized

This is what our audience friends, veterans think after watching Sam’s Firecracker.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How Aspiring Filmmakers Can Use Cause Marketing To Connect With Audiences.

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Category : Cause Marketing Film Production New Era Filmmakers Uncategorized

How Aspiring Filmmakers Can Use Cause Marketing To Connect With Audiences. Evolving social values present unlimited opportunities for creative and aspiring filmmakers and video artists. In order to get your voice being heard, it’s no longer just about creating good content — you need to create content that does good! It’s an aspiring filmmakers mission to draw attention to a cause and encouraging people to take an action. causemarketingfilms newerafilmmakers youraudience aspiringfilmmakers newmovements acaproductions filmindustry inspiration life success

but placing your movie into theatres still makes business sense.

Everything is going digital in film distribution.

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Category : Feature Film Film Distribution Film Production Uncategorized

Everything is going digital in film distribution, but placing your movie into theatres still makes business sense.

Recently, theatrical and DVD distribution, have been declining in profits, however the fact that almost 30 new movies open every week in theatres.

Category One: do-it-yourself movies: So, do-it-yourself distribution makes things even more confusing. In the case of DIY movies, a do-it-yourself approach for distribution is definitely the safest one. You can use Quiver Digital, for example, providing for a low upfront fee the submission of your film to the main digital platforms.

Category Two: is the movies that made with some kind of real budget. Before to try to distribute your film, arrange a screening with people you do not know in the audience, without you being present, and have them tell you in writing what they think about your film and its chances. If they like your film, a theatrical opening is still the cheapest way to promote your film. Why? Because, today, 300 hours of content will be uploaded every single minute on YouTube! In the same minute, more than 500 new websites will be created, presenting their own content as well. This is the real issue at hand: No matter how good your movie is, your audience has to know it even exists.

Why is theatrical still the most affordable way to get your movie seen? Because you need to use major media to promote your movie. When you open in New York, the New York Times will review your film, as will other newspapers and magazines, radio stations and maybe some TV stations. In fact, you can open a movie in New York for less than $25,000, in Los Angeles you can do it for less than $20,000. smaller cities might require only a few thousand dollars. In other words, opening theatrically gets the word out that your movie exists at a fairly reasonable cost.

“Every time you open a major city in a state, not only do you create a new market for theatrical exploitation, but—more importantly—you create one for your DVD and streaming market, which will come later on. Pushing even further, releasing in New York and Los Angeles opens your TV and foreign markets as well, seeing that the first questions a foreign buyer asks when offered a movie to buy are: “was it released theatrically in the U.S.?” and “how were the press and the box office?”

Can you pull off this release by yourself? Technically, you can, but practically speaking, it’s not easy. Theater chains will ask you to go through a distributor or an aggregator that they have an account with.

“Working with a distributor is expensive as the distributor will take a fee—around 30 percent—and recoup its own expenses before you see a dime. But it will provide all the people listed above and not charge you for most of them—and the sales force is always included in its fee.”

“Theatrical distribution is still essential to properly reach your audience, and the risk is very minimal, if not totally nonexistent. There’s one last benefit, beyond what I’ve said about theatrical promoting DVD sales and streaming. It’s that theatrical distribution is a weekly business. Say you have planned a 15-city release—it has to start the first week in New York, the second in Los Angeles, and so on. You will know the results of your first week after the opening weekend—less than $5,000 in ticket sales is not great, more than $10,000 is—and you will be able to modify your release.”

“On the other hand, if you had only booked New York and Los Angeles, and the first weekend goes through the roof, other theaters around the country will be calling your distributor—or will at least take your distributor’s call—and offer to expand your release to other cities.”

“Everything is decided and changed on a weekly basis—there’s no real risk. This is why most distributors will book New York and Los Angeles no matter what, in order to create a market for the film and focus all their efforts on these two cities.”

by Philippe Diaz 

Philippe Diaz is a director and producer, and the founder and CEO of Cinema Libre Studio in Burbank.

 

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