Tyler Gibb – Writer, Director, Editor, Filmmaker

Not fifteen minutes ago I had a near miss involving my precious phalanges and the canines of a… Well, canine. The dog in question belongs to a neighbour of mine who I’ve always gladly stopped to talk to whenever our paths crossed. For reasons unknown (and possibly unknowable) to me, my neighbour’s dog however has disliking for me; always has. Today however, when I ran into them, my neighbour offered me a potential olive branch; a doggy treat which I could then take and offer to the pouch. This seemed like a perfect solution to years of uncomfortable encounters! I humbly offered the dog her treat. She humbly accepted. Whatever bad blood there had been between us seemed to have simply disappeared. Contented, I gave her a scratch behind the ear, said goodbye and walked away.

That’s when the bitch bit me in the ass.

My neighbour was horrified but fortunately also a responsible dog owner and he was quick with the leash. Which was nice because it meant I didn’t have to kill his dog… Which would have been my next move. Also, to my great fortune, it’s February and I was wearing my long coat which is only this side of being as heavy as kevlar, so my ass remains quite unscathed.

Now I have no intention of making this webspace a depository for the weekly banality of my life and I’m going somewhere with this so stay with me…

Dogs don’t like me. I get along great with most of the animal kingdom but it seems that man’s best friend is no friend of mine. Blame it on pheromones, maybe it’s my hirsuteness, whatever. I’m tired of trying to rectify things when I seem to be the only one who’s making any effort, which brings me to my point:

You can’t please everybody. Some people just won’t get your work. They just won’t get you. In fact they may even take an instant disliking to you before you even have a chance to prove yourself. What you’ve got to remember is that this has nothing to do with you (and I mean the collective “you” – I’m really talking about myself here). There are any number of reasons why somebody just may not like you and as an artist you can’t take that personally. Any equivalency of the phrase “It’s just not for us,” exists as a reminder of this. Taste is subjective and nothing’s personal.

As for me and the bitch who bit my ass, I’m not sure what I did in another life to deserve that, but in the next one I’m coming back as a flea.

I recently declared this year to be “The Year of Production” over here in the Tylerverse. And so far so good, I say. What this really means for me is that if I’m not either sleeping or writing I want to make sure I’ve got a camera rolling.

I’m in the early stages of producing a live-action feature (sorry animation buffs, you’ll have to wait little longer for me to get back on that horse). So in preparation I’ve been trying to shoot a little something every weekend. I think of these little shoots as ways of honing the different aspects of filmmaking that I’m going to need to produce the bigger project. And rather then simply making these little shoots nothing more than “camera tests” I’m trying to treat them like the short films they have every possibility of being.

For instance, a few weeks ago I wanted to test a my ability to organize camera set-ups and manage the more administrative side of shooting a film; planning the shoot, marking the scenes, keeping a record of everything; that kind of thing. It’s tedious but if you don’t do it then you’re going to be in a world of crap when you get down to shooting and moreover, editing. So I wrote a short script… It came out to about 15 pages – which is short for me. Then I went about creating a list of the shots I wanted which meant rehearsing and blocking them (that’s figuring out how the actors would move around the set and where to put the camera).

The shoot was fun… For the first two days. Then I realized that to get everything on my list (there were about a hundred shots because I’m a gluton for punishment) I was going to be at this for at least another three days. I’d originally thought the whole thing would take just one weekend.

But that’s why I shot the thing. To teach myself what I wanted to learn as well as encounter whatever other problems might arise. In this case that lesson was: Calculate your schedule then triple it… And that was shooting video… Yeesh.

Anyway, thanks to the ever forgiving nature of my stunning partner, Vidya, we persevered and finished the project… Or so we thought. But I think I’ll leave post-production and the art of additional dialogue recording an entire short film to another day.

Here’s a trailer for our fifteen minute short film The Seven Second Slice:

I’d just like to preface this editorial by pointing out that I’m an autodidact in this business and that any perceived wisdom I may have to impart should be taken with that grain of salt.

Minushi’s been invited to submit to more film festivals since I decided to self-distribute than it was rejected from prior to distribution… Go figure. That said and flattered as I am to have received this attention I haven’t taken any of these fests up on their offer to screen the movie. I know, I’m a self-destructive idiot right? Maybe so, but on the other hand this is how I’ve rationalized my decision:

As far as I’m concerned (and this is really a subjective appraisal of things) film festivals are there to serve two basic functions for me, the filmmaker. Press and the possibility of distribution/representation. Now I’m not saying that’s the only purpose a film festival serves! For a particular community or for the art of filmmaking festivals are a great resource. But if you’re an indie filmmaker who’s boiling the broom for soup then you may have to be a bit more pragmatic in your feelings on the matter.

So I say again; press and/or the possibility of distribution is what I have to consider if I want to continue to eat. So I had to look at what any given festival was going to bring me in terms of those two criteria. And realistically, your average small town festival isn’t exactly going to be attracting the kind of business folks you want to have screen your movie… (Unless your small town happens to be L.A. or N.Y.) And again, that’s not to say there isn’t value to these festivals! There’s enormous value culturally, but even small festivals can cost you in the way of time and money to participate. And for me, that time and money was best served in going after a festival in my own hometown. This way if your film is selected then you have that hometown advantage of not only being able to attend the festival but also with any luck capitalize on the buzz of being a homegrown filmmaker.

There were only a handful of other festivals to which I submitted Minushi. Giant festivals for which the possibility of selection seemed impossible. And ultimately was. But I take solace in telling myself Minushi just isn’t “that kind of movie.” The point is, it can’t hurt to try because you never know what a selection committee might be looking for any given year and if you ever do land a giant festival well then that’s just pay dirt isn’t it?

My only exception to these guidelines laid out with my finite knowledge would be specialty festivals. If you’re making a vampire movie and you know of a horror movie festival that’s maybe not so big or local but it fits your film’s genre then that would probably serve you well as far as finding an audience. However, I think these days, the 24/7 festival of the internet can probably fill that need better than any other source at the moment.

To sum up: Big festivals that look at little movies; good. Hometown festivals; good. Some small town festival on the other side of the planet; good for the filmmaker who lives in that small town on the other side of the planet.

But maybe that’s just me?

Since the Minushi DVD release I’ve gotten some questions about the hows and whys of going with the self-publishing route. So I thought I’d give some background on what went on last year as I shopped Minushi around for the best distribution solution.

To completely over-simplify; there seem to be three tiers of media distribution: The biggies, the indies and the scroungers. Essentially three levels of middle men between you, the filmmaker and your audience. And I’m talking about DVD/TV distributors/sales agents here, not theatrical distributors whom I didn’t even bother considering for Minushi.

So what I did was I prepared a Demo DVD of as much of Minushi as I had finished at the time (including a snappy trailer (no more than two minutes long)) and a little package to send out to as many of these distributors as I thought would be interested. Some companies are pretty genre specific, others are open to almost anything – do your homework, it’ll save you time and money.

Now the biggies are generally protected by a fortress of incommunicado. You’ll be lucky to ever get a name or number or email address out of them and even if you do those execs are likely protected by their legal department’s force-field of no-unsolicited material. And the only people able to surmount these defenses are called “agents” – and if you had one, you wouldn’t be wasting your time reading this.

On the other end of the spectrum are the scroungers. Unlike the impenetrable biggies the scroungers seem like a dream come true – at first. They LOVE your movie, they can’t wait to add it to their roster, they’re sending you papers right away! Too good to be true. Here’s why: I discovered in my research (did I mention that research can save you a lot of time and money? Add pain and aggravation to that list) that there’s a real racket being run by some of these lowest tier distributors. It involves what are called film markets. Markets are basically trade shows for distributors and like any trade show they cost money to attend. If you’re not careful with the contract you sign with your distributor (and contracts are a whole other post – or even website – altogether) then you may wind up turning any profit your film may see over to your distributor’s hotel, restaurant, air-travel, (and so on) expenses. When you hear about filmmakers who have a movie in stores but they’ve never seen a dime for their efforts, I’ll bet this is why. Scrounging distributors who take on as many low-level titles as they can get to use what meager profits those titles will bring in to sell the couple higher-level titles they’ve got in their roster. At least – that’s what the word on the street is.

The indies are the tier sandwiched in between these two worlds and I have to admit they were a pretty receptive bunch. These are smaller distribution companies (you’ll see their names printed on the backs of indie movies in your local video store) who generally will have contact information readily available on their websites. I had a pretty good success rate at getting my Minushi Demo screened by these indies. And I don’t mind sharing that most of them passed on it. You have to keep in mind when your film gets rejected, this isn’t because it’s a bad film – Minushi has, after all, thousands of fans online and that’s all the proof I need. Reasons a distributor will pass on a movie can be wide ranging (not the right fit; concerns over marketing; they already have a movie about giant alien robots) but those reasons have more to do with the distributor than they do with the movie. None the less I did enter negotiations with a handful of these indies.

Now I’m not a lawyer, and if you can afford this kind of perk then it’s probably a good idea to get one if you’re actually talking to a distributor. That said – there’s a lot of information about this kind of stuff out there and I’ve been dealing with distribution contracts of one kind or another for years and bottom line: If something doesn’t feel right then it’s probably wrong.

In the end the offers being made for Minushi just didn’t feel right. They felt to restrictive and I really just wanted to make sure my film got out there and didn’t get shelved: Just because you sign with a distributor, does NOT mean your movie is ever going to get distributed; but it might mean it’s suddenly locked away by one company even if another one (a better one) comes along later.

And besides the industry is facing such an upheval right now that it’s anybody’s bet what’s going to happen next as far as distribution and media goes – and wouldn’t you rather have all your rights intact to see what does happen next? I would. And I did. And along came DVD on demand. A solution that allowed me to get my film out and available online where it found its audience in the first place.

But yeah, all that said, if one of the biggies ever does call I’ll probably sell out faster than a Police reunion concert.

T

When I made my announcement videos last month a more shocking revelation to some than the fact that the Minushi DVD was finally released was perhaps the mop on top of my head.

Well maybe not shocking – let’s say perceivably different from my earlier video appearances. At any rate I wouldn’t bring it up unless it had a direct relation to making moving pictures, and it does:

When you’re trying to make a go of independent entertainment (whether its film, music, etc) your biggest obstacle is going to be finances so you cut costs wherever you can. Hair is a cost… So I’ve been it – myself for the past ten years actually. Anyway, shaving it clean off was simply the fastest method of getting things done in the past so that I could get back to the business at hand… However! These days I find myself stepping into the live-action arena – on both sides of the camera – which leads to the mop top:

In a second.

Yeah, live-action. Don’t get me wrong, I love animation, but four-years to make nine-minutes of footage? Alone? Hey, I’m not getting any younger, kids. So yeah, I’m still thinking animation but I’m also entering a new realm. I’ve written six feature screenplays in the past year – many more shorts as well and its time for action.

Pun!

So I’m going to be launching into production this year (in fact I’ve already begun) and as always, I want to take you all along for the ride. The first step will be to get some short movies under my belt – I call this step the learning curve. Put myself in as many production situations as I can and just see what happens. Call it a video sketchbook. Which brings us back to the hair:

As I did with Minushi, I will likely find myself performing in many of these short movies and since I don’t have an animated facade to hide behind this time around, I need to prepare myself. Whereas with a blank sheet of paper you add, with the hirsute male you subtract. I think that to the filmmaker on a budget hair can be great source of characterization and as an actor you need enough of it to be able to shape into whatever the role calls for. And as it’s faster to cut off into the look you want than it is to grow it into place, I’ve become shaggy in wait for whatever role I take on next.

Cut!