September 14, 2021It’s your first day as AD (Assistant Director) and everyone is ready to shoot. The director just looks at you and tells you to “call the shot”. What do you do? “Picture’s Up!” or “Quiet on Set!” This is your first step. Loudly, without screaming, let everyone know they’re about to go into an actual […]
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August 30, 2021“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results” – Rita Mae Brown (not Einstein, I checked) Everything around us is constantly changing, and that’s never been more true. I’ll throw another quote at you: “For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled” – Bob Dylan The best […]
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July 28, 2021The Wall Street Journal recently published an article titled “Financially Hobbled for Life” in which they talk about film school graduates who leave their programs $100K – $300k in debt. Now these were master’s degrees, but this problem impacts graduates at all levels. It’s. Not. Worth. It. No one in the film and media industry […]
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July 20, 2021“But it ain’t about how hard you hit; it’s about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. How much you can take, and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done.” – Rocky Balboa I used to think that the difference between the successful and unsuccessful was that successful people didn’t fail. […]
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May 13, 2021Summer is almost here! And even if it’s true that ‘rough winds do shake the darling buds of May’, after a whole year of COVID 19 and pandemic we’ll take it. Life was on pause before. Now is the time to unpause and launch your plan for world domination in media production and film! And […]
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May 5, 2021When you’re just starting out and you’ve got a tight budget, it’s difficult to know what expenses are essential and which can be cut. It’s easy to try and save yourself time, money, and effort by leaving out things you don’t know you’ll need. But that can come back to bite you in the rear […]
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April 19, 2021Spring in-person classes “When are you going to be back in-person?”. That’s by far the most asked question from aspiring filmmakers that are interested in attending DFA. We get it – and we heard you! We are finally back with selected classes on our NYC facility. While the COVID pandemic isn’t quite over yet, there’s […]
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April 7, 2021For Coppola’s 82nd birthday, after almost 60 years of filmmaking, we’ve tried to extract some wisdom. 1) Don’t Give Up Coppola almost got fired three times while filming The Godfather. But he didn’t quit, delivering a film most consider one of the greatest of all time. 2) Don’t Be Afraid of Change “I have seen […]
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March 22, 2021It’s a short script, you wrote it and, you’re filming it with your friends/fellow students/Cousin Brad. You’re the producer and director and writer, you know this project like the back of your hand. So it will be okay, right? NO! You should always have a shooting schedule. Even for small simple projects. Why? Because something […]
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February 17, 2021I’m a firm believer that everyone is capable of making really great media. So where does all the bad media come from? Limitations. People are limited by budgets, availability, time, weather, and global pandemics. The thing stopping us from making great media isn’t a lack of ability. It’s the outside pressures pulling at our attention, […]
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