May 2013
6 posts
15 tags
Happy Birthday, Julia!
The saying goes that a...
6 tags
Sorry.
It’s been a very rough spring. Just when I thought I was making headway with my own personal grief, last week we suffered another tragic loss. My wife and I lost a dear friend a few days ago, and we’re simply out of tears.
Between personal loss, Roger Ebert, and now the passing of my dear friend, I’m really struggling to find the words and the focus to finish my posts for this...
10 tags
Music for the Weekend: Trust Your Neighbor by MRC...
6 tags
New Personal Website!
So I’ve created my own personal directing website that has a ton of my filmmaking info, my bio, my reel and other cool stuff like storyboards, concept and comic book art, and some photography. There’s also a link to buy the Lilith DVD or download. It’s a work in progress, but it’s pretty fun.
sridharreddy.squarespace.com
And don’t worry, this doesn’t mean...
13 tags
Coming back.
I’ve had some time to think things through and decompress with the events in my life, and I think I’m ready to start writing again. It really is amazing how life can change within a matter of minutes, how our fortunes can shift in the blink if an eye. We’re processing our loss the best we can, creating small rituals and symbols to deal with our grief.
Grieving is something that...
3 tags
April 2013
8 posts
5 tags
Taking a break.
Dear Readers,
It’s with a heavy heart that I have to put the blog on hold for some time. My family has been beset with a devastating tragedy and it is going to take me some time to recover and be clear of mind to keep valuable contributions to this blog going.
I know so many of you were looking forward to the next business plan posts, and I am so sorry that I won’t be able to...
10 tags
Business Plans, Part 3: THE NUMBERS - COMPARABLES.
If you want to catch up on previous installments, here they are:
Business Plans, Part 1: THE BIG IDEA.
Business Plans, Part 2: READINESS.
______________________
I’ve already written a piece on finding comparables for your business plan in a previous post, you can read it here. In essence what you need to know about comparables is that they are, first and foremost, absolute rubbish....
15 tags
2013 Resolution: Movies Watched This Week...
Continuing with my resolution to watch more movies, here’s what I took in this past week:
Through the Weeping Glass: On the Consolations of Life Everlasting (Limbos & Afterbreezes in the Mütter Museum), dir. by The Brothers Quay, USA, 2011.
A couple of weeks ago my wife and I made a quick weekend trip to Philadelphia, for no other reason except that we’d never been, and that ever...
7 tags
24 tags
2013 Resolution: Movies Watched This Week...
Continuing with my resolution to watch more movies, and since I missed last week’s installment, here’s what I took in this past two weeks:
Gate of Hell (Jigokumon), dir. by Teinosuke Kinugasa, Japan, 1953. Gate of Hell has long been out-of-print and unavailable to the public, so when I heard Criterion was releasing it, I was beyond excited. Way back in film school I’d read about the...
14 tags
Music in Memoriam: Happy by The Wrens.
...
18 tags
Business Plans, Part 2: READINESS.
It’s been awhile since my last entry so it’s worth the time to revisit my first entry on business plans, discussing THE BIG IDEA. With our business plans our main objective is to stand out from the crowd. Why are our movies worth attention? Why are they special? What makes them different?
It’s not enough to simply write a screenplay that no one’s ever seen before....
7 tags
Brief hiatus...
Been traveling a bunch and recently came down with a nasty bug, so I haven’t been able to write or work much. Should bounce back in a day or so, and will get back to writing about business plans and such.
True to my resolution I did see three movies last week, and I’ll write about them plus the films I plan to see this week as a single entry. Thanks for your patience.
Back to...
March 2013
18 posts
16 tags
2013 Resolution: Movies Watched This Week...
Continuing with my resolution to watch more movies, here’s what I took in this past week:
Room 237, dir. by Rodney Ascher, USA, 2013.
Stanley Kubrick’s reputation for perfection incorrectly paints him as a cold, calculating and draconian film figure. What’s not generally known is that Kubrick was a massive supporter of improvisation, something which seems contradictory when you have 100 takes...
15 tags
Big Announcement: The One Trick Rip-Off
For those of you who followed up on the release of my article in this month’s issue of American Cinematographer, you’ll have read that indeed my next feature film is an adaptation of Paul Pope’s New York Times-bestselling graphic novel The One Trick Rip-Off. Paul and I have been working on it since 2009 and the script is simply one of the best things I’ve ever written....
19 tags
Business Plans, Part 1: THE BIG IDEA.
I’ve been requested to do some more posts on how to go about doing a business plan for film, so I’m going to spend the next few posts going REALLY in-depth into the nuts and bolts. Please note that this is my way of doing a business plan - there are the standard templates that you can find in the appendices of film business books, but I want to encourage young producers to start from...
24 tags
2013 Resolution: Movies Watched This Week...
Continuing with my resolution to watch more movies, here’s what I took in this past week:
Spring Breakers, dir. by Harmony Korine, USA, 2013.
This was one of my must-see films for 2013, for more reasons than one. I’ve long been a fan of cinematographer Benoit Debie, ever since I saw the horror film Calvaire I had this feeling that he was going to be the next truly great maverick...
15 tags
Music for the Weekend: In and Out of Harm’s...
12 tags
Mistakes I've Made, part 42 of 5840.
So you’ve got a script, a business plan and a budget, and nowhere to go. I was in this position in 2002 - I’d just graduated from business school and had written my first feature-length screenplay called Ceremony. What I did is a masterclass in what not to do, which to me is very valuable information to dispense. Here’s a list of amateur mistakes I made:
1) Sending out the first draft of your...
27 tags
2013 Resolution: Movies Watched This Week...
Continuing with my resolution to watch more movies, here’s what I took in this past week:
The Loved Ones, dir. by Sean Byrne, Australia, 2009.
Normally I hate torture porn. I find it pointless, sadistic, and devoid of any real entertainment value, unless you consider suppressing your gag reflex entertainment. But here’s the thing - I think depictions of torture have their place in...
5 tags
24 tags
Hot Topic: Veronica Mars, Kickstarter and 'Chuck...
So unless you’ve been under a rock for the past 24 hours, you’ve probably heard of the funding phenomenon that’s happening over at Kickstarter with the Veronica Mars movie. As of this writing, it’s just south of raising $2.6 million in less than 24 hours, with 29 days of funding to go. A whopping 42,685 people have contributed.
I always root for crowdsourcing campaigns,...
15 tags
My first student film, "Abstract Origins"
Prepare to be underwhelmed. I finally got around to transferring my very first student film - my first formal film that I’d ever made - to a digital format. I hadn’t seen this for almost twelve years (I made it fourteen years ago), and my cheeks were burning with embarrassment as I watched it.
Not that it’s a bad film, in fact I still quite enjoy it. It’s just so raw, so...
16 tags
9 tags
19 tags
2013 Resolution: Movies Watched This Week...
Continuing with my resolution to watch more movies, here’s what I took in this past week:
The Master, dir. by Paul Thomas Anderson, USA, 2012.
As with all P.T. Anderson movies, I watch them multiple times, so when I got my copy of the Blu-Ray this week, I proceeded to watch the film two times in a row. It’s still one of the year’s best, although I think it doesn’t stand...
14 tags
19 tags
filmanddonuts asked: Hi Sridhar. I watched your director's reel and I really enjoyed it. I'm planning on putting together my own reel in a few months and I've shot comedies, dramas and some behind the scenes work over the last year or two. Would you suggest doing shorter, separate reels or doing a reel that featured the best of my work, regardless of genre?
23 tags
Finding that first job, and working for free.
Before I get into this post, watch this video:
See a theme forming here? It’s a fairly dirty part of not only the American film industry, but also American business in general, which is is the exploitation of young people seeking jobs and the giving of no-pay internships.
When I was starting out in the film business, I needed an in. Somehow, somewhere. I had an incomplete film...
29 tags
2013 Resolution: Movies Watched This Week (3.3.13)
Continuing with my resolution to watch more movies, here’s what I took in these past two weeks (sorry, didn’t have time to write last week’s entry, so this is a two-fer):
Holiday, dir. by George Cuckor, USA, 1938.
My wife picked this out on Netflix a long time ago and it’s been sitting on our coffee table - in true Netflix style - for like the past two months. We...
19 tags
February 2013
16 posts
16 tags
How to Fail in the Movie Business, A Short Tale of...
True story, which happened yesterday. I was at the Chicago Merchandise Mart having lunch with my wife and mother, and saw next to us three young folks - a guy and two girls, definite hipster artist types - who were having lunch and hanging out. I overheard the young man talking about how he was having a tough time finding a job, how employers just don’t seem to “get him.” His two...
14 tags
Beautiful Spanish Review of 'Lilith' - highly... →
Just received a lovely review of Lilith from the amazing Spanish horror film website Almas Oscuras. If your Spanish is rusty, copy the site url into Google Translate and it’ll do a decent job. Special props in the review for the performances of Julia Voth and Nancy Telzerow, Faroukh Mistry’s cinematography, and the score by Dälek.
I won’t lie - it’s always a wonderful...
14 tags
Music for the Weekend: Etimasia by Jim Jarmusch...
20 tags
Final Episode of Julia Voth's 'Project S.E.R.A.'
It all comes to a head (or does it?) in this final installment of Julia Voth’s Resident Evil-universe webseries Project S.E.R.A.. In this final episode, we learn that intrepid agent Gillian Ames has a big heart, and that the world she lives in is a hell of a lot more complicated than what she bargained for.
The series leaves a lot of questions that need answering in Season 2, so...
12 tags
21 tags
2013 Resolution: Movies Watched This Week...
Continuing with my resolution to watch more movies, here’s what I took in this week:
Les Miserables, dir. by Tom Hooper, UK, 2011.
I tried. I really did. Despite my abject hatred of musicals (check that- Broadway musicals/ showtunes), I stuck to my goal of trying to watch all of the Oscar Best Film nominees and popped my Academy screener of Les Miserables into my DVD player.
I...
18 tags
Project S.E.R.A. - Episode 5
I’m really diggin’ Julia’s new web series. The production values are still top notch (helicopter shots!) and the story’s motoring along, leaving us each time with a cliffhanger. Julia and her co-star (Derek Theler) are really settling into their roles and we’re learning more about their characters with every passing episode as backstory is revealed.
I really hope...
5 tags
The Life: Managing Life and Finances as an...
It’s that weird part of life where it seems like nothing and everything are happening at the same time. We all go through it in some way, shape or form. Sports fans will liken it to the month of July, when the NBA playoffs are over, the Stanley Cup has been hoisted, and all that’s left is mid-season baseball that no one (including the players) are particularly invested in. It’s...
23 tags
2013 Resolution: Movies Watched This Week...
Continuing with my resolution to watch more movies, here’s what I took in this week:
La Marge (The Margin), dir. by Walerian Borowczyk, France, 1976.
Walerian Borowczyk is a filmmaker that I’d only been familiar with through textbooks, film journals and still images. That I was compelled to learn more about him based on that alone is testament to how captivating his work appeared...
18 tags
“Pixar is seen by a lot of folks as an overnight success, but if you really look...”
– Steve Jobs
Pixar was founded in 1979, made its first film-related CGI sequence in 1982 (The Wrath of Khan), and didn’t release its first feature, Toy Story, until 1995, sixteen years after its founding. Previous to 1995, Pixar consistently lost money, and it was Steve Jobs’ belief in...
17 tags
New 'Project S.E.R.A.' - Episode 4
In which our feisty heroine Gillian Eames (played by Miss Julia Voth) kills everything in sight and learns of ‘neurological chaos.’ Dope.
17 tags
Short Film: The Naked Zinester (NSFW)
Wanted to give a shout-out to Jon Nix, one of my insanely talented collaborators on Lilith who just released his short film ‘The Naked Zinester’ this week. The film’s got an astounding 14,000+ hits in just a few days, which is a testament to Jon’s skill as a director and the craftsmanship of his team at Turnstyle Films. ‘The Naked Zinester’ is a fun and witty...
23 tags
noah-andrew asked: So amazing reel. I'm a film student and my first major short film will be taking place in a night club. I love the images you have in your real of the women in the night club and I was wondering what camera, lenses what not you used to create the image. THANKS!
19 tags
My reel.
So after three different versions and grappling with the philosophy of what and what not to show, this is my final 2013 reel.
Besides Lilith there are some real deep cuts in here, including footage from my first feature, 19 Revolutions and a ton of sneak-peek footage from 7x6x2, my collaboration with graphic novelist Paul Pope. Enjoy!
Sridhar Reddy Directing Reel from Sridhar Reddy on Vimeo.
20 tags
2013 Resolution: Movies Watched This Week (2.3.13)
Continuing with my resolution to watch more movies, here’s what I took in this week:
Besides watching the first three episodes of Julia Voth’s excellent Resident Evil-offshoot web series Project SERA, I stayed up pretty well on my resolution to watch 2-3 movies a week. Not included in this list is my choice to revisit the original Judge Dredd starring Sylvester Stallone, which was on...
18 tags
Project S.E.R.A. and the Future of Television.
HUGE release for the Lilith family as Julia Voth’s sci-fi web series Project S.E.R.A. was unleashed upon the world via IGN’s START Network. The series is rooted in the universe of the Resident Evil video games, and after watching the first three episodes, I can confirm that it certifiably kicks ass.
It’s such a thrill as a director to watch Julia at work - she’s added...
January 2013
16 posts
6 tags
A Winner Has Been Chosen!
Thank you everyone for entering in the Lilith 50k follower contest. I received about 300 responses in total, ranging from beautifully written letters to a single “I like turtles.” I wrote each entry name on a scrap of paper, put them in a box and drew a name. Very scientific, I know.
Either way, congratulations to stevenhoang on winning the prize!
Maybe when we reach 100k followers...
14 tags
