In case you didn’t see the possibilities of the free filmmaking software from Xtranormal I wrote about in February of last year, I recently noticed a great use of it in a national commercial. A filmmaker used the software to create a simple commercial. Geico bought the commercial ($$$) and put it out nationally. Here’s a link in case you haven’t seen it. 

Sarah Palin is a lightning rod of media attention. Her endurance in mass media has been amazing. When I came across this cool  new movie making animation software program by Xtranormal called Text to Movie and her pre-animated avatar, I couldn’t resist using her image to help push my book on Larry King.

Although this program is limited a bit by its computerized voice and actions, the possibilities of what can be done with it, even in its current state, are compelling.

I wrote this script, directed it and uploaded it in a matter of minutes. Getting the timing as right as possible and getting the voices to say what I wanted, took a couple hours, but viola. Moments after posting, it had garnered over a hundred views and hopefully will keep spreading.

This technology holds huge promise for writers and directors:  sharing story ideas, jokes, writing short scenes and even creating an entire web series. As the technology and text to speech capacity improves, I can imagine a lot from this program. Tell me what you think.

TRL

This is the fifth and last of a series of articles about relocating to Hollywood or New York to follow dreams in the entertainment industry.

Here’s my first (and perhaps only) Vlog. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think and please check out the other blogs on this site. Can you tell I’m nervous? I don’t know how many takes it took, but as you can tell by the annotations I included, I still missed stuff.

Additional thoughts are that a bunch of new Online Film Festivals for directors and producers to get their films into. If you haven’t taken advantage of these, you should consider it.

For years, directors and film producers made their films independently then sent them to festivals across the country hoping to get accepted. If they got accepted, they might get viewed by a couple hundred people at the fest–unless it was a real hit. Today, you can get a couple hundred people to view your movie online without even trying.  With cheaper bandwidth has come better video sites and more people are beginning to view movies on their computers–even Netflix offers movies via download.

There is a foreseeable future, and may already be here,  where independent film makers will be able to enjoy a decent living from their films without ever having to come to Hollywood at all. Imagine digitally uploading your film directly to theaters.

In the meantime, check out what I learned in interviews for my book with directors and producers here in Hollywood is the best way for young filmmakers to break into the business now.

Thanks for stopping by. Please leave your comments and/or questions. And don’t forget to let me know what you think about the video.

Good Luck,

TRL