The Celtx Blog

'Hyronauts' - Celtx Project of the Week #15

Gilles Dubuc is a multi-talented, multi-media developer, designer, filmmaker, animator, photographer, AND...... he also happens to be this week's Celtx POW winner!!! (and the crowd goes wild!!!...)

Visit Hyronauts on Project Central and follow Gille's thought processes as he revises his script to near perfection in this short sci-fi feature about "...a young drug addict’s fight to communicate with his comatose girlfriend, using the very same nanodrugs that ruined both their lives..."

Oh, and btw - If any of our Aussie friends are looking to hire, Gilles is headed your way and looking for work (hint, hint)

Cheers! and Good Luck, Gilles!
Your very cool Celtx T is on the way!

- The C Team

The Promiscuous Materials Project

If you are an advocate of Free Culture, and are familiar with the writings of critically acclaimed American author, Jonathan Lethem, then you'll be excited to learn that he has recently launched
"The Promiscuous Materials Project".

Lethem created the project as an opportunity to make an argument for Free Culture by offering up some of his own stories for remixing and adaptation. He says,

"...These stories are for filmmakers or dramatists to adapt. They're available non-exclusively -- meaning other people may be working from the same material -- and the cost is a dollar apiece...... There's a simple written agreement to sign, which imposes a couple of restrictions, and that's it -- once you've paid your dollar and signed the agreement, you're free to adapt or mutate the story as you please..."

So what do you think? Wanna make your mark in Free Culture history? If so, head on over here for more info.
Here are some examples of completed projects and other works in progress.

Enjoy!
-S

Celtx Visits the NIFCO Film Class

This week, we made a visit to the Film class at the Newfoundland Independent Filmmakers Co-op, (NIFCO). NIFCO has been a great supporter of the Celtx project with Derek Norman, the course instructor, using Celtx as the main tool for teaching screenwiritng and pre-production. He finds Celtx to be a great fit for independent filmmakers.

For most of the participants, this course will be the first experience they have with film-making. By the end of 7 weeks, they will have hands on experience in scriptwriting, pre-production, lighting techniques, sound recording and shooting. After a short break, the group will reunite for 4 weeks of post production where they will learn to picture edit, sound edit and to put the finishing touches on their project.

Situated in historic downtown St. John’s, NIFCO has produced many award winning films including award winners, "My Left Breast" by Gerry Rogers, "When Ponds Freeze Over" by Mary Lewis, Paul Pope's "Rare Birds" and the Canadian/Irish co-production "Random Passage", just to name a few.

Celtx is thrilled support such a great organization and it's independent film community. We look forward to seeing your film!

Celtx Review by Zamwi.com's Zach Wilt

Zach Wilt, Chief Architect of the technology blog, Zamwi.com loves Celtx so much, he was compelled to write a review so he could share it with others. So check it out.

And Thanks!! for sharing Zach. Your support is greatly appreciated.
- The C Team

"If you are looking for a way to write that Academy Award winning film I have found your solution. Writing scripts and planning films, videos, or plays is such a crazy task, and staying organized through the writing process is even crazier. Celtx is an application that manages your new media writing without even opening your wallet!..." (more)

'20-20 Hindsight' - Celtx Project of the Week #14

Applause please, for this week's POW winner, Shawn Peach of Peach Productions. Shawn is a keen, young screenwriter who hails from Sydney, Australia. He did the re-write of '20-20 Hindsight' (original score by Peter De Vrijer & Jasper Kelderman), and will also be directing this film short once pre-production is complete.

'20-20 Hindsight' refers to a "perfect understanding or appreciation of what has already been seen", and in this short story the authors "... aim to allow it's audience to experience the fantasy of hindsight....through a guy who is given the power of hindsight, but not in the fantasy version that we all know; He can actually go back and re-do things."

So have a peek... '20-20 Hindsight' is a good read and a work in progress that reveals some interesting pre-production details.

Wikipedia adds 'NoFollow' Attribute

Well, looks like those jerk-o spamheads have ruined the party for everybody... Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia used by everyone (except my mother!), finally decided to apply the 'nofollow' rule to all of its external links. T'is is a darn shame considering the amount of traffic Wikipedia drives to the huge number of important and informative sites that are linked in. It should be interesting though, to see if this effort has as much of an impact on the battle against spam as it will on say, Google search results. More details on the topic here.

"Masterpiece v4" - Celtx Project of the Week - #13

This week hearty congrats are extended to Mr. Mike Thorn from Atwater, Ohio for his creation of "Masterpiece v4".

Mike puts lots of Celtx features to work in "Masterpiece v4, a story about 'Max' who works as a ground-level draftsman for an architecture firm. Unsatisified at work, he longs to return to his childhood passion for inventing things, but struggles with the notion that this may not be a useful endeavour.

Enjoy Mike's work here on Celtx Project Central.

Chicago Sun-Times names The Dance Party of Newfoundland 'rising stars' of the Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival

You know, the talent in this Province is really something to brag about. Be it in music, the visual and performing arts, writing or filmmaking, Newfoundlanders have a tendency to pop up regularly on the International stage. Great Big Sea, Artistic Fraud, Rick Mercer, Shaun Majumder, Shalloway, Mark Critch, Mary Walsh, Wayne Johnston, Anne Troake, Christopher Pratt, Lisa Moore, Michael Crummey... they are all examples of just some of the exceptional creative talents that this island produces.

And that illustrious list certainly doesn't end there, because just this morning I learned from the CBC's Morning Show that Jonny Harris, Steve Cochrane (hot guy in Celtx demo!!), Phil Churchill and Dave Sullivan of The Dance Party of Newfoundland Sketch Comedy Troupe earned some well deserved accolades from the Chicago Sun-Times for their irreverent 'This is the Cross-eyed Bear' performance at the 6th annual Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival. CST staff reporter Misha Davenport wrote:

Word about how well Chicago Sketchfest treats the artists has obviously spread. More than 200 groups submitted show clips this year and the 100 groups selected to perform reflect the best and the brightest. Well-known sketch groups appearing this year include Chicago's own Sketchcore, the prolific New York's Elephant Larry (will this five-member group ever run out of funny new ideas?) , San Francisco's Kasper Hauser (known for their unique brand of multi-media satire) and the rising stars Dance Party of Newfoundland and their edgy comedy. Posen says being well known isn't enough and that each group is evaluated equally on the basis of its comedy...more

And if that isn't enough, in this morning's CBC phone interview with Jeff Gilhooly, troupe member Steve Cochrane said they also received some special attention and very encouraging feedback from comedy screenwriter Harold Ramis (Ghostbusters, Analyze This, CaddyShack, etc., etc.). The man obviously knows talent when he sees it.

Rock on B'ys!
-S

joost = Official launch name of The Venice Project

joost? Hmmmm.... a curious choice. But then again fits right in with Ning, Florb and Zub, etc. To be fair though, we've had more than our share of inquiries regarding the origins of 'Celtx', which by the way, is an acronym: C= Cast; E=Equipment; L=Location; T= Talent; X=XML (one of the programming languages used). We pronounce it as 'Kel-tix'. You can call it whatever you like, just as long as you use the darn thing!!

Anyway, the news on joost is out now so Niklas and Janus have decided to release more information. Immediately you see impressive interface improvements between the Venice Project and the joost beta release. Find out more in this TechCrunch article, along with cool screenshots and additional info from NewTeevee. Enjoy! - S

The Venice Project - A YouTube Killer? Here are some opposing views...

Kazaa and Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, are at it again, busy developing a new way to watch TV on the Internet via peer to peer streaming. It's called The Venice Project, and like Celtx, it's built on the Mozilla Application Framework.

Interestingly, there appear to be some opposing views regarding the future success of the project.Techcrunch's Michael Arrington questions some of the development choices made, while Jason Chen over at Gizmodo thinks The Venice Project will be sure to disrupt existing TV streaming and online video sharing sites like YouTube.

Stay tuned to see who may be right.... - S