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A wannabe filmmaker's guide to the Web
'Tis the season for Western New York film buffs, and not just because of the upcoming Academy Awards (http://www.oscars.org/77academyawards/index.html). In addition to the long-running Buffalo Film Seminars (http://csac.buffalo.edu/bfs.s05.html), local movie fans can also enjoy the Ninth International Women's Film Festival, sponsored by the Institute for Research and Education on Women and Gender (http://genderbuffalo.org/). Festival entries will be screened every Thursday until March 3 at the historic Market Arcade Film & Arts Center in Buffalo's Theater District (for directions, visit http://csac.buffalo.edu/mafacdirs.html).
The festival entries represent a diverse cross-section of experiences, with the directors' home countries as far away as Senegal and Iran. But surely, there are a number of unique stories to be told by talented would-be directors right here in Buffalo. The following Web sites can take them from "Lights, camera, action!" to "That's a wrap!" and beyond.
Any novice director's first stop should be at filmmaking.net (http://www.filmmaking.net/), one of the Web's oldest resources for independent camera hounds. This site is home to the Internet Filmmaker's FAQ (http://www.filmmaking.net/faq/), a list of frequently asked questions related to all stages of the moviemaking process. The British site Exposure takes a similar approach with its "Eejit's Guide to Filmmaking" (http://www.exposure.co.uk/eejit/index.html), which includes everything from tips on low-budget lighting to recipes for fake blood. For an even less-serious approach, there's So You Wanna Make a Low-Budget Movie? (http://www.soyouwanna.com/site/syws/makemovie/makemovie.html), a humorous but informative overview of the filmmaking process, from location scouting to festival screening.
Naturally, a number of guides for the aspiring filmmaker also can be found in the University Libraries. Try a keyword search for "motion pictures and direction" in BISON: The UB Libraries Catalog (http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/e-resources/bison/) to retrieve helpful titles, such as "First Time Director: How to Make Your Breakthrough Movie" and "From Reel to Deal: Everything You Need to Create a Successful Independent Film."
Locally, filmmaking classes are offered at the Squeaky Wheel arts collective (http://www.squeaky.org/workshops/), which also rents filmmaking equipment at low cost to its members (http://www.squeaky.org/equipment.html). This is a great alternative for those who are not enrolled in UB's Department of Media Study program, which only rents lab equipment to its current students (http://mediastudy.buffalo.edu/s/labpolicies.shtml).
Once the future classic has wrapped, some directors might be eligible to enter the prestigious Student Academy Awards (http://www.oscars.org/saa/2005/application.html), which include cash prizes of up to $5,000. The only catch: The film must have been made as part of a school project at a degree-granting institution at which the applicant is enrolled full-time.
For everyone else, it's time to hit the festival circuit; entertainment lawyer Mark Litwak maintains an updated list of film festivals worldwide at http://www.marklitwak.com/film_festivals/festival.php.
Whether you're a curious film fan or the next Martin Scorsese, the Web has an answer to your filmmaking queries.
—Jennifer L. Behrens, University Libraries