Meta tags:
description=Official Blog of Filmmaker Michael Walker;

Headings (most frequently used words):

the, maid, room, of, blog, for, posts, pango, films, closed, back, in, business, our, trailer, is, up, storyboards, movies, are, new, tv, current, state, indie, film, product, placement, or, nothing, price, check, song, list, getting, stuff, made, wall, no, money, navigation, recent, archives, official, filmmaker, michael, walker,

Text of the page (most frequently used words):
the (168), and (90), that (78), you (57), are (56), film (47), films (44), have (40), for (39), there (33), but (31), they (30), with (27), get (25), this (25), about (23), made (22), some (22), all (22), not (21), more (21), these (21), when (20), maid (18), room (18), what (17), now (15), their (15), how (14), like (13), stars (13), can (13), time (13), make (13), because (13), out (13), blog (12), 2009 (12), money (12), them (12), has (12), don (12), scenes (12), #storyboards (11), going (11), your (11), was (11), world (11), will (11), 2010 (10), wall (10), getting (10), back (10), business (10), than (10), lot (10), one (10), pangofilms (10), need (10), had (10), comment (9), hollywood (9), movies (9), who (9), different (9), good (9), here (9), any (9), think (9), script (9), big (9), scene (9), much (8), which (8), would (8), even (8), april (7), price (7), every (7), see (7), everyone (7), shoot (7), know (7), things (7), most (7), being (7), leave (7), two (7), years (7), january (6), june (6), 2011 (6), our (6), check (6), posts (6), take (6), work (6), while (6), been (6), making (6), other (6), part (6), interesting (6), place (6), into (6), from (6), britta (6), where (6), budget (6), aren (6), without (6), storyboarded (6), pango (5), march (5), august (5), 2012 (5), 2014 (5), product (5), placement (5), indie (5), idea (5), just (5), space (5), used (5), could (5), very (5), around (5), less (5), directors (5), those (5), better (5), too (5), day (5), luna (5), dean (5), few (5), live (5), burger (5), anything (5), look (5), sundance (5), only (5), were (5), sign (4), december (4), november (4), new (4), end (4), stuff (4), list (4), state (4), today (4), try (4), star (4), say (4), bad (4), fact (4), goes (4), never (4), enough (4), able (4), want (4), reasons (4), cost (4), his (4), doesn (4), over (4), long (4), ago (4), well (4), should (4), first (4), huge (4), corporation (4), nearly (4), times (4), way (4), maybe (4), roles (4), really (4), anyone (4), since (4), came (4), production (4), shots (4), dialog (4), site (3), wordpress (3), com (3), comments (3), may (3), september (3), song (3), nothing (3), closed (3), opens (3), isn (3), gives (3), someone (3), thought (3), incredibly (3), talented (3), pay (3), thing (3), another (3), sort (3), hope (3), stories (3), themselves (3), point (3), talents (3), set (3), show (3), yet (3), got (3), mine (3), similar (3), saw (3), pretty (3), craft (3), people (3), corporate (3), mostly (3), king (3), couldn (3), logo (3), low (3), put (3), gets (3), having (3), almost (3), little (3), distribution (3), then (3), budgets (3), great (3), festivals (3), come (3), foreign (3), actors (3), looking (3), movie (3), lynda (3), interested (3), posted (3), changed (3), scripts (3), story (3), always (3), happens (3), storyboarding (3), waiting (3), went (3), shot (3), official (3), started (2), website (2), required (2), write (2), content (2), log (2), subscribed (2), subscribe (2), free (2), february (2), july (2), october (2), 2013 (2), 2016 (2), 2017 (2), ideas (2), current (2), trailer (2), cut (2), agent (2), given (2), actually (2), ambitious (2), side (2), says (2), full (2), comes (2), kind (2), becomes (2), least (2), complain (2), why (2), through (2), read (2), styles (2), awful (2), seen (2), director (2), far (2), shelf (2), job (2), crazy (2), seems (2), black (2), ask (2), spells (2), eyes (2), else (2), working (2), music (2), soundtrack (2), complete (2), fighting (2), companies (2), corporations (2), logos (2), instead (2), something (2), same (2), nike (2), character (2), americans (2), problems (2), coffee (2), hate (2), products (2), forget (2), impossible (2), chocolate (2), days (2), again (2), attention (2), looks (2), economy (2), best (2), studios (2), still (2), left (2), smaller (2), three (2), distributors (2), hardly (2), under (2), millions (2), case (2), filled (2), toronto (2), generally (2), keep (2), pick (2), value (2), relationships (2), many (2), presale (2), basically (2), financed (2), tend (2), break (2), coming (2), guy (2), guarantee (2), obst (2), call (2), tadpoles (2), book (2), last (2), course (2), seem (2), becoming (2), cinematic (2), episodes (2), words (2), beginning (2), follow (2), lost (2), shooting (2), didn (2), planned (2), needed (2), question (2), before (2), planning (2), equipment (2), half (2), page (2), simple (2), draft (2), pages (2), start (2), tried (2), choices (2), reviews (2), search (2), filmmaker (2), michael (2), walker (2), design, name, email, loading, collapse, bar, manage, subscriptions, view, reader, report, privacy, already, account, create, 2008, archives, except, rant, animation, changing, expectations, unstoppable, suspense, haircuts, directing, recent, older, navigation, cheap, bastard, rob, lie, away, final, fuck, scream, sue, sets, parameters, within, tells, virtually, heartbreaking, lose, soul, destroying, losing, decision, power, clashes, yours, life, lucky, such, inside, inch, doing, fairly, considering, locations, overtime, non, existant, cast, crew, paycheck, wish, deserve, artistically, definitely, compromises, makes, exciting, compromise, example, opposed, digital, afford, idiot, executive, decided, dead, lack, cold, unfeeling, irrational, opinionated, dumb, won, personally, reading, summary, dying, ted, right, 500k, varies, remains, somehow, nobody, geniuses, haven, gotten, skills, particular, skill, friends, darren, aronovsky, whatever, flaws, strengths, languishes, proverbial, matter, ballet, dancer, takes, women, magazine, young, woman, thrust, happening, her, sense, lifted, stole, swan, liked, hated, wasn, weaknesses, hadn, summer, fell, sand, pebbles, merry, phillips, theodore, dinosaurs, laurie, berkner, toe, xray, eyeballs, ticking, bomb, knives, bavaria, night, nurse, ramona, alyx, found, satin, peaches, radio, hero, after, moment, mermaid, harvest, moon, pepper, rabbit, dress, ourselves, princess, katie, racer, steve, malibu, love, nest, smoke, crowd, white, fence, postcards, title, besides, referring, did, albums, excellent, old, band, update, links, download, awesome, bands, american, amendment, enforce, deal, sad, affairs, sanitization, contributed, controlled, created, criticizing, criticize, real, shoes, shoe, trouble, difficult, conversation, involved, touches, overweight, biggest, luck, despite, problem, wait, shrek, walks, starbucks, corner, jobs, service, props, exchange, shouldn, cleared, company, fast, food, restaurant, setting, him, stop, find, none, house, signs, billboards, ads, stores, hundreds, multi, billion, dollar, mcd, target, abercrombie, etc, critical, culture, infested, lives, hershey, cadbury, valrona, crowded, 100, brands, high, trying, certainly, selling, happy, twix, highly, monopolized, independently, easy, dominate, indies, piece, pie, sum, surplus, release, fox, searchlight, focus, twc, usually, vod, theater, combo, own, pockets, kick, starter, angel, investors, talking, ones, hard, buyers, slots, relationship, festival, sales, producer, breakout, exceptions, rather, rules, sxsw, become, sold, awhile, competitive, filling, schedules, mystery, clear, submit, year, said, bank, agreements, estimates, sale, bucks, otherwise, expected, driven, marketable, below, sits, ironic, presales, whine, markets, ignoring, indiewood, lots, obviously, support, overloaded, busy, called, supporting, argue, include, bigger, distributor, million, dollars, bankrolled, hedge, fund, rich, backs, allows, makers, tax, incentives, raise, studio, mid, level, risk, partly, allowed, superhero, she, small, explains, based, potential, overseas, revenue, sadly, does, discussing, behind, elsewhere, cynical, euphemism, industry, seeing, nice, tighten, features, demand, wouldn, boring, parts, compared, slowly, talent, leaves, worse, let, hand, starting, embrace, series, contain, ever, cancelled, feature, hours, bladders, hold, short, format, bladder, limit, novelistic, saying, talk, entirely, franchises, serialized, squeezed, approaching, whether, road, map, yourself, roads, possibilities, fog, due, others, nature, filmmaking, race, footage, together, reason, storyboard, pressures, feet, plenty, pressure, give, imagination, pacing, cutting, performances, exhausting, exhilarating, politics, opinions, producers, waited, ten, worked, during, essential, special, imagine, realizing, eight, build, schedule, knew, simply, lend, forces, ways, cover, forth, coverage, important, thematically, wise, slip, frame, tell, designer, wrote, versions, choose, sometimes, version, ants, window, effect, integral, ending, works, entire, 300, scrawls, stayed, true, figure, upload, alway, blogging, naturally, promise, stay, tuned, announcements, soon, spread, word, equally, proud, both, stylistically, acting, camera, audiences, along, funny, likes, range, run, thinking, delete, shitter, collapsing, itself, irrelevant, passing, link, nudity, hits, worth, helped, relevant, anymore, dedicate, spent, home, skip, menu,

Text of the page (random words):
shoot storyboards are essential for planning like that for some scenes we need special equipment to get a shot without storyboards how would you even know that you needed it imagine getting to the set and realizing that you could have this great shot but you can t get it because you don t have the equipment but planning is only part of it some scenes that take up half a page in the script will need 30 shots while some eight page scenes need only a shot you need to build that into your schedule in price check we had long dialog scenes with a lot of people because i storyboarded these scenes i knew we could shoot them simply in half a day or less the best reason to storyboard is that it gives you time to think about your film and how you are going to shoot it at a time when the pressures of production aren t around there s no question that directors have to think on their feet but there is plenty of time before that pressure to give things a lot of thought and imagination it gives you time to think about the pacing and the cutting even the performances production is exhausting and exhilarating and full of politics and opinions storyboarding happens before all this happens while you re waiting for actors to get back to you about the script or waiting for producers to call you back or waiting which there is an awful lot of in this business i waited ten years to make the maid s room and while i worked on other scripts and made another movie during that time i always went back to it and storyboarded a scene here and there when it came to shooting the maid s room we didn t have nearly enough time to get all the shots i had storyboarded scenes that had 15 planned shots had to make due with one or two there were others that had 15 planned shots that really only needed one or two this is the nature of filmmaking there s never enough time to shoot it all and it s always a race to get as much footage as you can and hope that it comes together as a movie i hate approaching scenes without having storyboards even if you don t look at them at the beginning of the day or don t follow them they are always there for you when you get lost in a scene which happens all the time when you ve storyboarded your scenes you know what you need to get whether you follow them or not storyboards are that road map you made for yourself back when you could see all the roads and possibilities in the fog of production i d be lost without them storyboards for the maid s room june 24 2014 pangofilms leave a comment movies are the new tv june 13 2014 pangofilms leave a comment everyone is saying that tv is where all the interesting movies are being made now what they don t talk about is how movies are becoming more like tv hollywood movies are almost entirely franchises at this point in other words they are serialized episodes that go on and on like tv low budget films are being squeezed so much that they don t have the money to shoot anything cinematic so the films look more and more like bad tv tv on the other hand is starting to embrace closed stories ie a series may have 8 10 episodes that contain one maid story in other words they have a beginning and an end tv used to be a place where the only end that ever came was when a show got cancelled maybe what we used to think of as a feature film which was really only 2 hours because that s how long most bladders can hold it will one day be more of a short story format tv which has no bladder limit could be more novelistic of course it would be nice if tv would tighten their scripts like features demand so there wouldn t be long boring parts budgets in tv seem huge compared to anything in low budget films now and they are slowly becoming more cinematic and of course everyone is getting into tv now because they all need to work so as talent leaves the film world film will get worse and as it goes to tv let s hope it gets better the current state of indie film september 10 2013 pangofilms 1 comment it s been a while since i posted here and the industry has changed in those last two years here s what i m seeing hollywood has been making less movies and more to the point less interesting movies lynda obst s book does a great job discussing the reasons behind this and anyone interested should read that because of this stars are looking elsewhere for interesting roles the cynical side of me says that interesting roles is a euphemism for money and work lynda s book explains that hollywood films now are made based on their potential overseas revenue sadly this is now the case for indie film too now i would argue that indie film should include some bigger budget films that do not get made without a us distributor in place these are the 10 20 million dollars films that are bankrolled by some hedge fund or rich guy or money guy on the backs of stars and the guarantee that they will have distribution in the us this guarantee allows the makers to presale all over the place and with some tax incentives raise the money to make a big budget movie for a hollywood studio they are generally making the kind of mid level budget films that hollywood used to make but they do it without the studios having to take the risk this is partly what has allowed hollywood to get out of the business of making films that aren t superhero films lynda obst would call these the tadpoles she has no idea how small tadpoles really are so below these budgets sits the under 5 millions what s ironic to me is that these films are being financed by foreign presales too so we can whine and complain that hollywood is making movies for the foreign markets and ignoring the us but so is indiewood these films need stars and they need lots of them obviously a huge star will get a film financed but a smaller star will need some support so these films tend to get overloaded with stars basically they get some stars who aren t busy or who aren t getting called so much to take supporting roles roles that used to go to character actors looking to break out or up and coming actors looking to break out like i said these films take their stars to the bank with some foreign presale agreements or estimates if the film gets a big sale at sundance or toronto they make big bucks otherwise they ll still make their money back basically these films are now expected to be star driven marketable films for the price of about 5 10 of what a hollywood film would cost the stars work for less money or a cut now sundance and toronto and sxsw have become the place where these films generally go to be sold to the us these festivals have been around for awhile and they are incredibly competitive yet for the most part they keep filling their schedules with films that aren t very good while some of the reasons they pick their films are a complete mystery to me and everyone else a few big reasons are very clear they value stars because stars get attention and they value their relationships but they have a lot of relationships think of all the big directors that have come out of sundance and how many of them submit a film in any given year in any case the festivals where the buyers are going are filled with films that are filled with stars there are maybe a few slots left for the little films but a lot of times these have some relationship to the festival too maybe a sales agent or a producer or even a director so breakout films at these festivals are the exceptions rather than the rules then there are films with no stars and no budgets these are being made by people out of their own pockets or with kick starter or with angel investors they can be great but there is hardly any us distribution for the under 5 millions i was just talking about so these ones are incredibly hard to get out there if i was to sum it up there seems to be a huge surplus of films with stars being made with no us distribution in place there are two or three distributors that will put out a big release fox searchlight focus twc there are a lot of new distributors that will put a film out in some way usually a vod theater combo of some sort it s not the best of times in the film business the studios still dominate and the indies are left fighting for a smaller piece of the pie i like to say that these problems are not just with the film business try getting into the chocolate business these days hershey and cadbury have all the shelf space but look there s a little space for the valrona look again and you will see that little space is now crowded with 100 different brands of high end chocolate all trying to get your attention and it all looks good certainly better than what the big two are selling yet most of the world is happy with a twix and for most of the world that s all there is we live in highly monopolized economy and working independently in that world is not easy product placement or nothing december 24 2012 pangofilms leave a comment it s nearly impossible today to make a film critical of the corporate culture that we live in today actually it s nearly impossible to make a film with any sign of the corporation infested world we live in every day of our lives when i leave the house i see the signs of every corporation out there i see billboards i see ads i see the stores themselves hundreds of them but mostly of the same multi billion dollar companies you know them all mcd target abercrombie etc but if you look in a film you will find almost none of it when you make a film every logo every sign every ad has to be cleared by the company so if i want to make a film set at a fast food restaurant forget about setting it at burger king if you want to make a film when someone gets a burger forget about having him stop at burger king but wait there is product placement even shrek walks around a world where starbucks is on every corner they ll even pay for this one of the first jobs we have on a low budget film is getting product placement so that we don t have to pay for all the craft service and props we ll put a coffee logo in our film in exchange for some free coffee i hate product placement but we live in a world with products all over it so why shouldn t we have some products the trouble is that it becomes very difficult to have any sort of conversation about anything when this stuff is involved how about a film that touches on americans being overweight this is one of americans biggest problems but good luck getting any corporate logos in your film despite the fact that corporations are at least part of the problem so mostly what we get is a world where the logos are created instead of burger king we ll get burger world or something like that it s not the same thing at all criticizing a corporation that is like nike instead of being able to criticize nike isn t the real world you couldn t have a character try on some shoes and say he doesn t like them if you saw the logo on the shoe this is american and we have the first amendment but the cost of fighting a huge corporation to enforce it is too much for most film companies to want to deal with it it s a sad state of affairs i would go so far as to say that the sanitization of corporations in films has contributed to the state of corporate controlled world we live in now price check song list march 12 2012 march 12 2012 pangofilms 8 comments a lot of people ask me about the music in the film so besides referring you to dean and britta who did the soundtrack and have a few albums of excellent music and luna their old band here s the complete song list i ll update it with links when i have time but for now here s what s in the film everyone should download these awesome bands someone else the working title black postcards luna when there is no crowd white fence eyes in my smoke dean and britta malibu love nest luna we dress ourselves princess katie and racer steve harvest moon pepper rabbit mermaid eyes luna after the moment craft spells radio my hero well well well well the satin peaches i found it not so dean and britta show you mine alyx ramona craft spells night nurse dean and britta knives from bavaria dean and britta ticking is the bomb luna big toe xray eyeballs we are the dinosaurs laurie berkner all i ask theodore all things merry britta phillips the day summer fell the sand pebbles getting stuff made april 28 2011 april 28 2011 pangofilms 1 comment i saw black swan not too long ago it was pretty good i liked it but part of me hated it it wasn t because of any of the film s weaknesses it was because i have a script that was similar that hadn t been made my script isn t about a ballet dancer it takes place at a women s magazine but it s about a young ambitious over talented woman who is thrust into a big job and goes crazy with all the crazy things that are happening around her so in that sense it s similar it s more than similar there s even a scene that seems lifted out of my script not that they stole it from me mine scene is better in fact my script is better but that doesn t matter darren aronovsky got his film made whatever i think of his talents or the flaws or strengths of his script his film was made and mine languishes on the proverbial shelf my point is that part of the skills and talents of a director is getting your film made because if you don t have that particular skill set you re never going to be able to show any of your other talents i have friends who are far more talented than me but they have yet to get a film made how to get your film made varies and the stories of films getting made are as different as the styles and stories that are in the films themselves but the fact remains that there are directors who get their films made and those that don t there are directors who are awful but we have seen their films because they somehow know how to get their films made nobody has seen the films of the directors who are geniuses but haven t gotten their films made because they don t have any films the wall of no money january 15 2011 april 9 2011 pangofilms 1 comment i was reading a very good summary of why indie movies are dying at ted hope s blog which goes through the reasons films today cost what they do interesting films right now are going to cost around 500k or less you can read about the business here artistically making a film like that which i m about to do is definitely full of compromises there s never enough money or enough time to make a film which is part of what makes it exciting but more money comes with a different kind of compromise for example it s one thing to not be able to shoot film as opposed to digital because you can t afford it and another thing to not be able to shoot film because some idiot executive has decided that film is dead the lack of money becomes a sort of cold unfeeling wall but at least it s not irrational or opinionated that wall never has a dumb idea it s just a wall you can complain about it all you want it won t take it personally we ll see how making this film goes and what we are doing ...