Copyright vs. WGA Registration

Larry Zerner, a copyright attorney in LA, has laid out very clearly why you want to copyright your screenplay, not register it with the WGA.

The problem with the Script Registry is that many writers are using it as a substitute for registration with the U.S. Copyright Office. As a result, in the event that their work is infringed, the writer will almost certainly lose thousands of dollars. And, in many cases, a writer who only registered with the Script Registry will be precluded from filing a lawsuit because the economic realities of litigation.

Read the rest on his blog.

Linkbait, but...

Linkbait, but this is a pretty good list of 10 networking tips for people who hate networking. 

"It's not a good joke. But it's worthy of us..."

... Jim Henson used to say about the ancient-but-still-edible vaudeville schtick that was the heart of THE MUPPET SHOW.

According to the NY Times, Adam McKay, director of ANCHORMAN 2: THE LEGEND CONTINUES, has replaced all 763 jokes in the movie so that the studio can re-release it. The movie was shot improvisationally, so he has the outtakes to make a new, raunchier (not, he says, necessarily better) movie with the same plot.

Post production has got orders of magnitude easier. It helps when your movie has already grossed over $123 million and you can afford it. But this sort of thing is only plausible when it takes only a few keystrokes to move a sound effect. When I was in film school, everyone spent months building their sound tracks for their short films. Now I go into a room with the mixer and we do the sound effects while we're mixing the movie.

One thing I learned shooting my last short, WINTER GARDEN, is just how good actors can be at improvisation. I had a cast of veterans, headed by Enrico Colantoni, and they did all sorts of fascinating things in rehearsals once we got through the script and got into improvs. It's easy to see that shooting with a digital camera gives you more takes. It's surprising and fun to see what possibilities that opens up. Additional takes are still not free -- the clock is still running. But if you can add a few more takes, that means you can shoot the script pages, and then fool around for another take or two. Sometimes you'll find something amazing. Something you might catch a really great moment. 

Role Play at RVCQ

I'm very pleased that my short film ROLE PLAY will be screening at the Rendezvous du Cinéma Québecois, at 21h45 on Friday, February 21. It stars Juliette Gosselin (right) and Kat Garcia. 

Fiat Flux

Did you ever write until 1 am, and then have trouble getting to sleep?

Not the "Flux" I'm writing about.

There have been assorted studies that show that the relatively blue screen of a computer tricks your brain into thinking it's daytime. In fact, at 6400K, your computer screen is even bluer than sunlight, which is about 5600K. So when you finally close the computer, you're still in daytime mode. It takes a while for your brain to get into night time mode.

The nice people at Flux have written a free app that will change the relative color temperature of your screen so it's warmer -- anywhere from 5600K down to the 2700K of firelight.

(It has absolutely no relationship with Aeon Flux, whose picture is to the right.)

I tried it last night. I only put the color temperature to 4500K because otherwise it seemed just a bit too orange. (The FAQ says it takes some getting used to.) But I did feel a whole lot less wired when I finally stopped working around 11 pm.

The only odd feature of the program is that it depends on your location to determine when to turn the lighting of your computer down to night mode. So the transition happens automatically at sundown. In the depths of winter, I don't particularly want to feel sleepy at 5 pm. But it shouldn't take long before they allow you to set the timer manually.

Check it out.