The Celtx Blog

Tracey: Re-Fragmented - A Unique Online Editing Opp for Canadian Filmmakers

Here's a terrific filmmaking opportunity for the HOME crowd...

In an online contest launched last month called Tracey: Re-Fragmented, Canadian Director, Bruce McDonald released all the footage from his latest award-winning feature film, The Tracey Fragments under Creative Commons and is inviting aspiring filmmakers to mash it up as a re-cut, which any old way they like! The other bonus is this initiative makes the movie's score by Indie, Broken Social Scene available for use as well.

In explaining his inspiration for the project McDonald says:

“The Tracey Fragments is a film that fully embraces experimentation and teamwork. I wanted to find out if that experience exists on the Internet and give others the chance to experiment and play with some beautifully shot footage of a world class actress in a free form environment. I hope people make their own feature films, short films, rock videos, trailers, experimental films and personal manifestos out of The Tracey Fragments."

(see full Press Release)

The contest started October 29, 2007 and closes on Jan.31, 2008, so there's still lots of time to enter.
The winning Canadian submission will be chosen by Bruce McDonald and his editors and receive an Apple Final Cut Pro prize pack, in addition to a spot in the bonus features on the DVD release of The Tracey Fragments.

So Guys and Gals, get online and strut your stuff...... If anything, it could be a bit of fun :)
Instructions and contest details are available here.

Good Luck!

Sheila

Celtx Makes a Splash in L.A!!

Last month Mike Jones, and Laurie Clouston, and I left our respective homelands of Australia and Canada and converged upon the City of Angels to partake in 'The World's Largest Conference and Trade Show for Screenwriters' - Creative Screenwriting Expo 6. And by all accounts, I'm thrilled to report this whirlwind L.A adventure was a resounding success!

Team Celtx worked 5 long jet-lagged days meeting, touting, dishing, and demo-ing, and the resulting response to the software was phenomenal. At the trade show and seminars we welcomed a constant stream of screenwriters of all levels, and writers of all kinds, animators, filmmakers, teachers and students. Especially satisfying were the existing users who extended heartfelt hugs of thanks, and the new and the curious who's faces lit up like a child at Christmas once they had been enlightened.

We even had visits from our friendly 'competitors', and garnered some unsolicited press from the popular LA Screenwriter.com, and from the Virtual Channel Network(stay tuned).

Other highlights included the 1st (Annual?) LA Celtx Fete, .... Hosting it at the fabulous Goodfellas on Melrose (thanks to Max Smerling for that tip), .... And finally getting to meet LA friends face to face. who up to that point, were familiar to us only as usernames and email addys. Getting around LA is no easy feat, so we greatly appreciated the efforts of everyone who turned out.

And lastly, I would be totally remiss if I didn't extend our enormous thanks to Mike Jones for his incredibly valuable contribution to this trip. He did a bang up job presenting the Celtx seminars, but also went far beyond the call, manning the booth, demoing demos, lugging luggage, and just being an all round super guy to hang out with.

If you were unable to join our seminars in LA, below is the next best thing to being there!... a two part podcast of Mike's presentations entitled:

"Re-thinking the process of script to screen: Integrated approaches to writing and screenplay development with Celtx":

Script To Screen1
Script To Screen2

There's no question we came away with that warm and fuzzy feeling, so chances are... we'll see y'all next year! - Thanks for a great time L.A!

Cheers!

Sheila

Star Wars fan film chosen as Celtx Project of the Week!

This week's POW brings us to Coupvray, France.

In "Le Jedi Révélé", three Jedi are on board a Star Destroyer to recover data for the Rebel Alliance. As they try to escape, they encounter Stormtroopers who open fire and engage them in battle.

This project is a Star Wars inspired fan film created by Xavier Newland a 24 year old, French/American attending film school in Paris. Always a big fan of movies, Xavier has long admired the work of directors such as George Lucas, David Lynch, Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese. Last year he and some friends founded an Indie Film amateur group called Plutons Rising.

According to Xavier,

"When I direct movies, I always try to make the camera work feel immersive in the action, the suspense, so that the public can feel just like they were there. I'm also the main editor. With today's technology in movie making, the director can easily take control of the editing with such great programs as Final Cut Pro, letting the movie become even more the vision of the script. DIGITAL editing is the future and lets the director be more creative and have to worry less on the films budget. Our team is actually working on our future Production which will be coming out in May 2008"

Check out the video for this project complete with realistic Stormtrooper costumes the fine acting talents of Alexandre Pialat, Carlos Dubois, Sandra Dillière and Romain Lefevre.

Project Crew:

Directed and Written by: Xavier Newland
Director of Photography: Virginia Douine
Other crew members: Paul Vercamer, Eddy Norman, Alexandre Maximilien and Julien Heel.

Great job gang! May the force be with you.

Michelle and the C-Team.

TEDTalks - Lawrence Lessig on Copyright & Creativity

Mike Jones recently posted this brilliant presentation by Lawrence Lessig on Copyright and Creativity, or specifically,... "How creativity is being strangled by the law".
It's part of the TEDTalks presentation series.

As Mike says, "It's a presentation that no creator can afford to ignore."

Enjoy!

Sheila

"Proyecto Agua" Named Celtx Project of the Week!

Water is the main component of life. We drink it, we wash with it, we create electricity with it and it makes up the majority of the human body. The Celtx project of the week tells you everything you ever wanted to know about water.

The creator of this project is Chilean biochemistry professor Willy Felix Choque Mamani. Titled "Proyecto Agua" or "El Agua, Secreto de la Vida" ("Water, the Secret of Life"), it is an e-learning technical project made for UTAmed de Chile. This project explores many aspects of water including its uses, composition and its relationship with mankind.

This project is written in Spanish. For a decent translation check out babelfish. "Proyecto Agua" very interesting and pertinent to our times. The project also includes links to interesting sites such as GEMS, or the Global Environment Monitoring System and the New Water Culture Foundation.

Congratulations on a great project!
Michelle and the C-Team

MacApper's featured review: Celtx v.0.966 :-)))

In that expected quick iterative fashion, Celtx v.0.966 was released just 2 days ago, (exactly 2 months after the release of 0.955) and MacApper's Darcy Fitzpatrick was quick off the mark in sharing this thorough featured review, complete with new screen shots.

Check it out here.

Thanks Darcy!!
-S

Celtx v.0.996 Point Release available for Download

Greetings All!
If you haven't already, head to the Celtx Download page and grab your version of v.0.966 Point Release. It's available in 14 languages and includes a number of both client and server fixes AND surprises!! Full details are outlined below and on the Celtx forum.

As always, we encourage your feedback, so please drop us a line anytime.

Enjoy!

Sheila et al

0.996 RELEASE NOTES

CLIENT FIXES

Status Bar
- Create an account option works
- Edit online profile opens in Web Services Tab

Typeset
- total page count bug fixed

Project Library
- Duplicate item option duplicates in memory changes

Upload Bug
- Fixed false message bug "Version on server is newer.
Overwrite it with your local version?"

Pagination (in editor)
- Pagination performance improved

Login
- Leading spaces for a username are ignored

Reports
- Miscellaneous, Mechanical FX, Special Equipment category
items now appear in the reports

Stageplay & AV Script (performance bug)
- Full length AV scripts load much faster

Text Doc Print Preview Crash
- fixed print preview segfault issue

Stageplay
- Page break no longer occurs prior to the first Act when
pagination is enabled
- Full length stageplay documents load much faster
- Wording of scene navigator delete confirmation corrected
when an Act is deleted.

Cut and Paste
- minor improvements to cutting and pasting of text

Schedule
- Scheduling A/V script no longer produces an empty scene list

Calendar
- Add/remove of events to/from a calendar functions properly

Title Page
- "By" line is editable
- Alignment of contact information is left-justified

Title Bar
- File name is displayed in the title bar

SERVER FIXES

Typeset A4
- "(Continued)" now appears at the bottom of the page

Dual Dialog (Screenplay and Stageplay)
- Dual dialog displays correctly on Project Central

Index Cards
- Index Cards are displayed on Project Central

Project Central User Comments List
- User link on comment points to page listing all user comments

Email Notifications
- Email notifications sent for project invitation, updates
and comments
- Notification checkbox in user profile (enabled by default)
- Notification includes link to the project

Shot List Numbering
- Revise numbering of shots to 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 ...

Upload Project and Publish Settings
- If the user has set the Publish option to "Publish most recent
version" then an upload of the project will automatically
update Project Central.

Design Change
- added Motion Sketches to main page on Project Central

"Modern Nights" named this week's POW!

"To maintain his humanity, Ethan struggles with his darker self. Can he hold on long enough to save a young woman’s life when she is threatened by it?"

Modern Nights takes a new look at the life of the Vampire. This 15 minute HD narrative is the first segment of a sci-fi/ fantasy series created by students at CSU Monterey Bay. The story is about Ethan, a vampire who roams San Francisco during the night acting like a human, constantly avoiding those like him. One night he notices a young woman being attacked and he has no choice but to release his true vampire self to save her. He is faced with a choice, feed from the woman he saved or be destroyed when the sun rises.

According to Dane Bergerson, the writer of the pilot and a senior student at CSU,

"This project is actually my senior thesis project at CSUMB, what we call a capstone.  It is the culmination of all the studies I have done over the last 2 years as a Teledramatic Arts and Technology major.  The idea came to me years back as I was gaining interest in the lore of vampires.  I had grown tired of watching vampire movies that showed just blood thirsty monsters or crazy badass self-hating vampires that killed their own kind.  What I wanted to show with this movie is a society hidden from the world.  A society of creatures who are not supernatural, but rather a genetic mutation of the human race.  The idea for this project is less about making a short film and more about making the pilot or start of a television serial that would hopefully air on something like the Sci-Fi channel. My creative inspiration comes from the few vampire movies that take on the idea of vampire society.  Movies like Interview with a Vampire and Underworld are a major source of my character creation.  My goal is to rewrite a section of vampire lore that will be told by future generations.''

 
This project will get underway in February and Dane will be playing the lead role of Ethan.  The exteriors will be shot in San Francisco and the interiors in Monterey.

Good Luck, Gang!
We look forward to seeing the finished project.

Michelle and the C-Team! 

"STIGMA" chosen as this week's POW!

This week's POW is Stigma, the story of David, an HIV-positive man who has not revealed his status to anyone until a clinic receptionist openly discloses his status and prevents him from receiving treatment.

Before getting into filmmaking, project creator Quincy Minor, earned a degree in computer programming and he and his wife were members of motorcycle clubs. When his wife's club had an anniversary party, Quincy filmed the event and became instantly hooked on filmmaking.

"I decided to take a few courses to learn more about filmmaking so I enrolled in Austin Filmworks. One of my classmates told me about Celtx and said it was free. I didn't take it seriously. Later, I decided to check it out. I was impressed by the writing, organization, and publishing tools."

According to Quincy this film was shot in just one day and the actors are all relatives of the director. The story was inspired by a story that Quincy saw in the news.

"I like to write about current issues and the decisions that we make in life. I read the newspaper, watch the news on TV and read it over the internet. I also try to watch as many movies as I can. I originally got my idea for Stigma from watching the news. After hearing the lawyers irate description of what happened to John Doe, I logged onto the news stations website, printed the story, and put it into the folder with the rest of my ideas. I thought the Stigma of HIV/AIDS was a thing of the past. When it came time for my first semester final project, I had a few ideas that would have cost money and resources I didn't have. I decided to do a little more research on the situation. I went to the courthouse to search the computers for any information. There were hundreds of John Doe's in the database so I didn't get far. I did what I should have done in the first place and visited his lawyer. His lawyer was very friendly and was excited about the idea of a movie and printed the petition that was filed for me. This was all I needed to finish my first script."

Stigma, was shot on DV and edited in Final Cut Pro. It premiered in the first week of December 2006. Since then, it has been screened at the Hollywood Black Film Festival, the San Francisco Black Film Festival, the Texas Black Film Festival and the Nudge 3.5 Micro Digital Film Festival in Austin, Texas.

Way to go Quincy! Keep up the great work!

Michelle and the C-Team.