Dear Rob,

(Story title removed) is a great story.  I’m particularly impressed with your pacing, which is the most important aspect of creating suspense in a script.  You have the innate ability to utilize the ‘slow reveal’ in your writing, which is a trait that is hard to teach and difficult to master.  Instead of giving your audience all the facts from the outset, you take your time letting them rise to surface organically.

However, I have a few suggestions that will help even further strengthen this suspense.  While pacing is important, you must also give equal attention to character development.  Well-developed characters are going to be what makes all of your suspense worthwhile.  In order for the suspense to work to its greatest potential, your audience needs to believe in the validity of your characters.  If your audience doesn’t believe your characters, they’re going to have a difficult time buying into your suspense.

Let’s take a look at your protagonist Ricky.  Ricky has the potential to be a superb character.  He’s vulnerable, unstable, and chilling.  He is a man who instead of being consumed in fiery revenge, becomes calm and methodical in his violence.  This fact alone is what makes him terrifying, as well as pitiful.  If you can make an audience both loathe and sympathize with your protagonist, you have (in my opinion) done a great thing.

However, the tone of Ricky’s character is inconsistent.  In the first scene, there is no hint of any instability in his personality.  He’s absolutely normal, almost boring.  This is our first introduction to him, and like in real-life, first impressions are very important.  When he snaps later in the story – producing a gun, pistol-whipping people on a whim – it seems too abrupt.  Ricky needs to earn this violence.  I would recommend adding some sort of subtle hint of his instability – of this mental imbalance – in your first scene.

The audience needs to feel that something is off with Ricky from the beginning, something that gives us a gut feeling that this man is capable of committing atrocities.   It reads unnatural on page 6 when he states that he has been “thinking about this for a while.”  Hasn’t it only been less than a day since he first heard rumors of Nicole’s infidelity?  If he has, in fact, been thinking about this for a while – we need some very brief back-story here in the form of a few simple lines of dialogue or action in the very beginning of the story.  Set-up is very crucial, especially in a short film.  You must be very efficient in your craft.

I recommend sitting down and writing a complete character sketch on Ricky.  Even though you won’t use a majority of the material you produce, it will help you really get to know his character.  The more you personally know Ricky, the more believable he’ll read on the page, and ultimately appear on the screen.  What was Ricky’s childhood like?  Was it abusive?  Why is he so violent, so short-tempered and irrational?  Why does he own a gun in the first place?  Answering questions such as these will only strengthen your story.  I was also suggest doing this for all of your characters, though you don’t necessarily need to go into the same amount of depth with each of them.  It may seem tedious and self-serving, but if you truly want the audience’s sympathies – which you absolutely need for the suspense to succeed – each one of your characters needs to breathe on the page.

Finally, I noticed a few minor formatting errors in your piece.  While formatting, in the end, is a personal preference – there are a few things that can make your script read a little more fluidly.  First of all, character names only need to be CAPITALIZED the first time we meet them.  Also, they never need to be completely capitalized in dialogue.  It’s not the end of the world, but it is a little distracting to whomever may be reading your piece.  Secondly, your action paragraphs should be broken down by action.  For example in your very first action sequence, every one of Ricky’s actions – lighting the candles, checking the meal, grabbing the wine – need their own paragraph.  This will help the actor playing Ricky better organize his movements.  He’ll be able to glance at the page and rehearse on the fly without needing to shovel through a long paragraph.

Overall, great job Rob.  Focusing on character development – especially the character of Ricky – will only strengthen this piece.  You’ll notice as you do this that your dialogue will begin to read more naturally and that the interactions between characters will become more human.

Thanks for the opportunity to read this.  I’d be very interested in reading the revision.  Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions or clarifications.

However, you can get many high performance video cameras for under $1000. While it’s true you won’t have access to a 3 CCD chip camcorder that can shoot 24P (although our top few choices can shoot 24p on 1 chip), you will nevertheless be able to acquire a camera with great manual control, a decent sensor size, great color control as well as the capability for shooting HD (High Definition).

First thing is first: Brands. While Sony and Panasonic make great pro-sumer level professional camcorders (over the $2500 range), Canon comes in as the winner for cheaper camcorders. Sony’s video cameras have great lenses (Carl Zeiss) and they’ve managed to find a way to keep a relatively large CCD chips which helps the cameras capture high quality images and also helps them perform better in low light situations.

1. Canon HV30 – Estimated Price – $570 – Can shoot 24p and 60i
2. Canon HV20 – Estimated Price – $399 – Can shoot 24p and 60i
3. Canon HF10 – Estimated Price – $570 – Can shoot 24p and 60i
4. Canon HF11 – Estimated Price – $825 -
5. Canon HF100 – Estimated Price – $530

For those of you who don’t already know, a 35mm depth of field adapter is an attachment you put on your video camera and it allows you to attach 35mm lenses from still cameras onto your video camera. The difference this has on your final video product is massive and impressive. Attaching a 35mm lens to your video camera allows you to control the focal length and most importantly the depth of field within your shot. You will also now be able to use wide angle lenses, telephoto lenses and so on to control the look of your film.

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Message by:  Lights Film School
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This is exciting because up until fairly recently this possibility has not existed for filmmakers. Large Hollywood productions have always had this ability. However, independent filmmakers using consumer or pro-sumer level video cameras have not had this option.

There are a few major players in the 35mm Depth of Field (DOP) adapters industry. Redrock M2 and Brevis 35  are the two biggest names. The problem is that although their products are great, they cost independent filmmakers upwards of $1300 for the attachment alone. Once you start buying lenses and flip adapters, this price will increase dramatically.

The reason we wanted to review the Jag35pro was because the price tag is only $275. This makes a 35mm Depth of Field adapter considerably more reasonable for independent filmmakers. Best of all you can get the adapter made to fit old Canon FD lenses. These lenses are great and can often be picked up for $25 – $100 each on Ebay or in your local used camera shops. You can also get the adapter made to fit Canon EF lenses. These lenses are newer and often more expensive, but we recommend keeping your costs down by getting FD lenses unless you already have fast EF lenses ( f1.2- f2.8).

You can watch some test footage with the Jag35pro below

Best Images of 2008 from jehu Garcia on Vimeo.

Overall this product is fantastic. We have been using this product for a week now and we are incredibly impressed with the capabilities of the Jag35pro.

The most impressive features of this product are obviously its technical ability to help create a shallow depth of field in your video footage. Before adapters became available, this option was only available to video cameras that cost upwards of $4000. Now you can attach a Depth of Field adapter to a $100 camera and you get great control over your depth of field. Overall, the Jag35 pro is a great product for filmmakers on a tight budget.

Another great and unexpected feature of this product is that it adds weight to smaller camcorders. In the past we’ve liked shooting with heavier cameras because they don’t have the some high levels of noticeable shake as lighter cameras. Once you’ve attached the Jag35 lens adapter and lens you’ll have added quite a bit of weight to the camcorder which produces more stable footage.

We also thought that the vignetting within the image would be worse on an inexpensive producuct. For those of you who don’t know, vignetting is the change in brightness or saturation around the periphery of the image. You’ll notice in some of the test footage above that the 4 edges of the frame where slightly darker than in the center. However, the vignetting was not terrible at all and some cases people find this effect desirable. Of course it existed slightly within our footage, but all we needed to do was zoom in very slightly to get rid of the darkness around the corners of the image.

We also knew that because the light would need to go through a few more layers of glass that the camcorder would need to have its exposure adjusted in order to avoid underexposure. However, this was not as bad as we anticipated. While we definitely needed to manually increase our exposure a couple of notches to achieve our desired level of exposure, the darkening of the image was not of considerable consequence. That being said, on cameras with 1 small CCD chip you might experience troubles shooting in low light conditions with this adapter.

The quality of the image is also not degraded at all. We expected increased graininess or pixilation but the image remained clear and clean. Of course high quality lenses which don’t have scratches or dust in them are important in achieving a clean image as well.

The only downsides to this adapter is that without the flip hack, it reverses the image. This means you’ll see the image in your LCD screen upside down and backwards. This can obviously be easily fixed in post production. However, shooting this way can take some getting used to. After practicing for a week I am already much better at composing each shot. You can also order a flip hack if you don’t like shooting upside-down.

We also lost our ability to zoom using our camera’s zoom control. We could zoom very slightly which also helped get rid of the vignetting, but after a certain point the image becomes completely blurred. This means you’ll need to reposition yourself closer to your subject rather than using your camera’s zoom to do the work for you. This however, is of little importance to us in most of our shots.

The biggest upside to the product is its ability to maintain a great image quality and obviously the price point is incredibly attractive as well. The biggest downfall is that you’ll need to adjust both the manual focus on your camera and the focus on the lens that is attached to the adapter. This makes “run and gun’ shooting very difficult. This may make the adapter more difficult to use on documentaries or in situations where there are a lot of unknowns in terms of movement. However, as we stated above, as time goes on we get more and more confident with the flipped image and trust in our abilities more and more each day to compose beautiful images using the Jag35pro.

You can order this product from their website at:
http://www.jag35.com/

Lights Film School Question 1:
Product placements are great ways for independent filmmakers to help finance their films. In the past, it’s been the responsibility of filmmakers to approach companies based on the pay for performance model you have suggested on your website. You mention that filmmakers can expect to earn money based on impressions (CRM which is cost / 1000 impressions). What are the average earnings filmmakers can expect to make based on 1000 impressions?

Tadcast Response:
Actually, in the past, product placement has mainly not been on a pay for performance basis – it has mostly been done in individual deals struck with Hollywood productions for a fixed price.  Tadcast is trying to show advertisers that product placement in amateur, non-Hollywood online videos is a great, safe, and effective way to expose their products to niche online viewers.  To prove this, we are hosting a contest where filmmakers will make videos and incorporate one or more of our advertisers into their videos as product placements.  Our advertisers are iced tea company Honest Tea, music equipment and accessories company Zildjian, and hip new cocoa nib company SweetRiot.  If we can demonstrate that unknown filmmakers will do a good job in this contest, we will be able to get advertisers to pay more and more to filmmakers for placing products.

Ultimately, it is our vision that the most successful online videomakers will be able to earn upwards of $100 CPMs, and the average online videomaker will be able to make upwards of $40 CPMs.  It will all depend on the filmmaker’s reputation, so it is important to start as early as possible to develop a reputation with Tadcast for producing quality work and meeting advertiser requirements.

Lights Film School Question 2:
What are the limits to filmmaker earnings? How much would a film featuring 1 product stand to make if it brought in 10,000 impressions? 100,000 impressions?

Tadcast Response:
That will depend on the particular product and deal.  Each advertiser will set a limit for how much they are able to spend.  So for example, Pepsi might offer a CPM of $20 and a budget cap of $200,000.  In that case 10,000 impressions with just the Pepsi product would earn $200 and 100,000 impressions would earn $2,000.  But if many filmmakers choose to accept the Pepsi deal and someone earns 10,000,000 views he should earn $200,000 himself, but because others will also be eating into that $200,000 budget he will likely see a bit less than the $200,000.  In the future, we expect that CPMs will be much higher, especially for the filmmakers with good reputations, and 100,000 impressions could earn somewhere around $10,000.

Lights Film School Question 3:
Filmmakers often see product placements as necessary to help finance their productions however there is a fine line between a produce placement and a full out commercial advertisement. Filmmakers often don’t want to compromise the creative integrity of their films. This means that they will often try to underexpose their product placement. Although each of your advertisers have minimum requirements under their listings, what happens if they refuse to pay for impressions on a production they simply feel doesn’t accomplish what they are looking for? For example, sweet riot, doesn’t have a minimum time listed on their description. If, as a filmmaker using that product in my video, I show the label in a medium shot for 3 seconds they may feel the value of a medium shot for only 3 seconds isn’t worth their advertising dollars. As a filmmaker willing to do product placements in my videos I have my limitations as well. I will likely feel a close up of the product for 7 seconds will jeopardize the integrity of my film or video. How can you ensure both your filmmakers and advertisers that their vision for the placement is similar?

Tadcast Response:
Filmmakers only have to do what is specifically asked of them in the advertisers’ requirements.  If they are not comfortable with the advertiser’s requirements they should not take on that particular advertiser.  If the advertiser doesn’t specify something (such as close-up), then a medium shot, for example is fine.  To better their reputation, however, filmmakers should be sure to use their best judgement on issues that are vague.

Lights Film School Question 4:
Will there be different CPM’s / product?

Tadcast Response:
Yes.  And as time goes by, the better the filmmaker’s reputation the better CPM opportunities he/she will have.

Lights Film School Question 5:
You mentioned that advertisers can have a fixed budget. What happens if an advertiser sets their budget for $1000 and then 10 filmmakers put the time into producing a video with that product in the hopes that they can make $1000. If all of these 10 films do well and make $100 each in the first day, the advertising budget has essentially been eaten up. You mention that all additional hits to the video are free after the budget has been eaten up. How do you plan to ensure situations like this don’t happen that obviously disadvantage the filmmaker?

Tadcast Response:
Next to each advertising opportunity we will post the number of filmmakers who have posted videos incorporating that product and have a meter indicating how much of the budget remains up for grabs.  That way filmmakers will know, roughly, the potential amount of money they will be able to earn on each deal before they invest their time and energy.

Lights Film School Question 6:
From the filmmakers perspective is their any way to work with a sponsor that is willing to pay / impressions for a set budget based on that specific project alone. For example, if I’m willing to place product “X” in my film and know I’ll be able to get at least 300,000 views of the video how do I ensure that I will be compensated for all of those impressions and not simply half of them or a quarter of them? What happens if the film is a hit and produces millions of visits?

Tadcast Response:
Once a filmmaker develops a great reputation on Tadcast, not only for meeting advertiser requirements, but also for regularly high viewing numbers, the filmmaker would have the opportunity to engage in a more direct relationship with the advertiser.

Lights Film School Quesion 7:
Do you allow filmmakers to put the website on multiple video sharing sites? If so how do you protect your advertisers against click fraud?

Tadcast Response:
Yes, filmmakers can put their videos on any sites so long as we can prove how many views each video receives.  We are working on technological ways to prevent those who commit click fraud from getting away with it.

To learn more about Tadcast, and sign up for the Tadcast Contest visit www.tadcast.com
First prize: $5,000
Second Prize:  Adobe editing suite (retail value $1,699)
Top ten: free 3-month subscriptions to IMDbPro
Everyone: Be a part of a mission that will help filmmakers earn money for doing what they love.