Film & Ink Blog – Page 15 – Deborah S. Patz

Oct12015

Movies To See Again: Picasso Would Make A Glorious Waiter

Film festival season, and though I’m seeing new and terrific films now, I’m also remembering gems of festivals past.

Picasso as a waiter? Huh? Great image, no?

Well, this movie is a documentary that follows the wait staff at Glorious Catering… but, boy, does the movie go deeper than that!

What I really like about this doc is that without any talking heads, we follow each member of the serving staff at a catering event. Each one is adept in their role and we are a spy with backstage access.

Then we sneak a peek into each person’s “other life” and we discover each member of the team is vastly different and uniquely the same: painters, musicians, sculptors, and so on. A mosaic of talented artists!

You start to question your own identity as you re-label them. They are not wait staff who do art… they are artists that wait to pay the bills.

Who are we, then? We don’t have be the job that pays the bills. We can be… whatever we choose. We just have to do it.

So… what are you going to do?

Cheers & good on ya,
Deb

Sep192015

Story Retold: It’s All About the Style

Weird how we can see the same story retold over and over again, isn’t it? I mean how many versions of Cinderella have you seen or read? Or Jane Eyre? And each one is a different experience, never an exact copy.

Well, there’s a fellow on You Tube (Anthony Vincent) who performs Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse” in 20 different styles. Very entertaining!

To find it on You Tube, search for: Katy Perry 20 different styles
http://www.youtube.com/

And it’s wonderfully illuminating because: It’s all about the differing styles. The video clearly shows that it’s the way a story is told (or song is sung) that can totally change the experience.

So…. What’s your style?

Cheers and good style to you,
Deb

Sep32015

Magic Hour – Big and Small

Crimson and gold clouds stretching to the far horizon… a pink blush of colour tints the buildings left behind… sunset is a vibrant, spectacular time of the day – especially when the weather conditions are just right. No wonder at all why it’s called “magic hour.”

We can’t help but look to the skies for the extravagant light show, can we? Well, know that there are many other – smaller – magics happening at sun rise and set too.

Look down. Look closely.

Find the flowers that close up in the evening and open again at dawn. Everyday. Every single one. It’s a quiet kind of magic, but magical all the same.

Look closely. What small magical events and stories are happening around you?

Cheers and magic to you,
Deb

Aug202015

Business Cards at Festival Parties… Are They Passé?

With festival season starting soon, and all the festival parties and networking ahead it’s time to think about designing and printing your business cards.

“Aren’t they old-school?” you ask. “They’ll just throw them out!”

Indeed, you may be right. The business card has a hard time competing with the smart phone, but then again it may not need to.

Previously, I’ve mentioned the strategy of wearing a blazer or similar piece of clothing that has pockets on both sides of your body. Business cards to hand out in the pocket on one side, and business cards collecting in the pocket on the other (so you don’t mistakenly hand out someone else’s card). It’s still a good strategy.

Why?

1. Not everyone has their cell phone handy (to update) at a party.

2. Not everyone wants to pull out their cell phone to add everyone they meet to their cell phone contact list immediately.

3. A business card can be full colour and eye-catching and provide more message about who you are compared with a text note or name and number added to a cell phone.

4. People respond well to pictures. Promoting a film or book? The card can be the film poster or the book cover on one side and information on the flip side.

5. White space on the card or its back is useful for adding extra notes about your networking conversation (so the recipient will have a memory trigger about you after the event is done). Of course, you’ll need a pen with you too to take advantage of such notetaking.

So… call is a business card yesterday or a “promotional you” card today, it’s still a useful networking tool.

Now, it’s over to you! Design an eye-catching “promotional you” card. You know the recipient won’t keep it forever, so it can be business card sized, small bookmark sized, or some other relevant shape that you dream up (but keep it small, pocket-sized).

Then off to the printers before the festival parties begin!

Cheers & happy networking to you,
Deb

Aug162015

Ink wisdom: “Pirate’s Passage”

Think of pirates and your mind will no doubt go back to the Golden Age of pirates. An age so often romanticised in books and movies. Why don’t you first think about Sir Francis Drake? Or other explorers of the Caribbean? If it was government-sanctioned, was it not still piracy?

You gotta love a book that challenges your ideas on a topic… especially when the story is told as a modern day adventure story.

Author William Gilkerson gives us this new persepctive on pirates and on what is good and what is bad from the grizzled old Captain Charles Johnson (who appears to be a sailor out-of-time). Using fiction, the new ideas cannot possibly come across as factual and dry, but instead keep you guessing, teasing you back and forth on both sides of believing them. Through the POV of 12 year old Jim, you are taken on a journey to the thin line of choice to become a pirate yourself or not. And when you’re there, the decision is not as easy as you thought it would be when you were on page 1.

Then again, serious decisions are never as easy as they first seem, are they?

Cheers and good decisions to you,
Deb

Jul182015

400 Room Nights

So I was calling around prospective hotels for sufficient room nights to house visiting cast and crew for the duration of the shoot.

There was a good estimate of the number of out of town cast and crew we’d need. Calculate who would be there for the whole shoot plus a bit of prep vs in town for a few days at a time. We ended up with a total of 400 room nights… that’s a pretty good booking and duration. I should be able to make a good deal.

But my first choice hotel turned me down with no negotiation.

Really? I was puzzled. What was the problem?

“We don’t have 400 rooms in the hotel,” was the response.

Ah. Right. I had to explain. It was going to take us longer than 1 night to make the movie…

Cheers and a good shoot to you,
Deb

Deborah S. Patz – Author