Hollywood Unions versus Reaganomics

Hollywood union solidarity could undo four decades of damage to America's middle class caused by Reaganomics. Redistribution of wealth by Reaganomics is often cited as the reason for the degradation of America’s middle class. Returning to a fair share of shareholder value for workers could reduce America’s growing extreme income inequality. By Michael R. Barnard …

My Bumpy Road through “Hollywood” — What Will Be the New Normal?

UPDATE: Today is Friday, June 12, 2020 and California and the County of Los Angeles have opened up cinema/TV production in "Hollywood." The "Reopening Protocol for Music, Television and Film Production: Appendix J" is now published.

My Bumpy Road Through “Hollywood” – My 2003 Business Plan & Financial Projection for EVERYBODY SAYS GOODBYE

The indie film world was very different than it is today. This was before the near destruction of indie film caused by the triple disasters of the Writers Strike, Digital Disruption, and the Great Recession a few years later. The excitement around "cheap digital filmmaking" was centered on the Canon XL1 mini-DV standard definition camera. If you were cool in Hollywood in those days, you had to carry around an XL-1.

My Bumpy Road through “Hollywood” — THE BLENDED SCREENS: WHY SHORT FILMS?

Above the common question “How long is a short film?*” should be the more significant question, “Why a short film?” Good short films are enjoyable and moving, with stories that can have an impact as strong as good feature-length films or powerful TV series. You can laugh, cry, and be inspired watching a good short …

My bumpy road through “Hollywood” – PALLION THE YOUNG STALLION spec script for BoJack Horseman

My favorite show on Netflix is BoJack Horseman, which reveals a lot about me, since it’s a show about an emotionally dysfunctional has-been in Hollywood. So, back in January 2018, I was motivated to write a spec script for the show. I thought maybe I could replay the events decades earlier, described in “My Bumpy …

My bumpy road through “Hollywood” – That time I designed the Hollywood sign

I worked on a Paramount Television production from the team responsible for the hit 1980s series MIAMI VICE. It was a pilot starring Edward James Olmos for a proposed TV series called “Hollywood Confidential.”

My Bumpy Road Through “Hollywood” – THERE ONCE WAS MOONLIGHTING

Before Bruce Willis was BRUCE WILLIS, and when Cybill Shepherd was CYBILL SHEPHERD, there were only three TV networks, a couple independent TV channels, and cable TV was mostly just rebroadcasts of old shows and movies (HBO wouldn’t get an Emmy nomination until more than a decade later). One of those three networks – ABC, …

My Bumpy Road Through “Hollywood” — On set for LAW & ORDER TRUE CRIME: THE MENENDEZ MURDERS

This is my stream-of-consciousness report about production experience these days.

My Bumpy Road Through “Hollywood” — Starting Over. Again.

Since Middle School, I have been a writer, and was the editor of my school paper in Ninth Grade. I began in television in high school and became producer and writer for the New Year’s Eve variety program “CELEBRATION” which aired on network affiliate TV stations in Minneapolis for several years. I then helped build …

KICKSTARTER steps up for corporate responsibility, becomes new Benefit Corporation

If you follow business issues, particularly corporate entity structure and how the existing incorporation laws require companies to ignore the common good in favor of shareholder profits, then you may have applauded the recent creation of a new corporate entity form: the Benefit Corporation (also referred to as a "B-Corporation"). The popular current corporate structure …

My Bumpy Road Through “Hollywood” — HOT CAR

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5zfhD2GSo4 I said to myself, for quite some time now, "I gotta do SOMETHING." Tired of projects failing, hating the junior high cliquishness of crowdfunding, realizing it's been too many years. I sought the Holy Grail of indie filmmaking: two people, one room, one day. So, at Thanksgiving time 2014, I took an inventory of …

The Present Threat to the Internet

WHAT IS THE THREAT TO NET NEUTRALITY? Millions of American citizens have flooded the FCC website with comments to let the agency know our demand for Net Neutrality. Many citizens are intimidated by this wonky and technical issue, knowing they do not fully understand the complex issues or its importance and urgency. The threats to …

BARNARD’S LAWS

Observations of life.

My Bumpy Road Through “Hollywood” — A VENOM IN THE BLOOD

Two decades ago, I bought a book. In producer-speak, that means I acquired the rights via option to make a movie from a book. I knew a TV news reporter, and she had made contact with a reclusive author who wrote a book she thought I might be interested in. Actually, “reclusive” is too weak …

My Bumpy Road Through “Hollywood” — CONSUMED BY A PASSION PROJECT

  How Is a Filmmaker Consumed by a Passion Project? The following is a guest post from Michael R. Barnard, who is in the final days of an Indiegogo campaign for his film, Everybody Says Goodbye: The Story of a Father and Son. For many years, I have been chasing a motion picture project that …

My Bumpy Road Through “Hollywood” — THE MEAN STREETS

I spent a lot of time on the mean streets of Hollywood. I lived there, worked there, had friends there, I walked them a lot. My screenplay for the feature film EVERYBODY SAYS GOODBYE—The Story of a Father and Son is set there, in 1998. The sketchy stretch of Santa Monica Boulevard between La Brea …

My Bumpy Road Through “Hollywood” — THERE WAS A RECESSION IN 1991

(originally published April 22, 2010) There was a recession in 1991. Not as big as this Great Recession, but big nonetheless. A hallmark of the 1991 recession was that, for the first time ever, a recession had a negative impact on "Hollywood" [Entertainment Weekly, 2/22/91: "How will the recession affect Hollywood?"], [Den of Geek, 8/18/14: …

FILMMAKERS: BLACKER IS ‘THE NEW BLACK’

The NAB Show 2014 in Las Vegas is showing many new and innovate products and processes for indie filmmakers. Colors are becoming important, including black. How much of the image you create is black? Black cannot be projected. It exists in media by turning off light of any color. (Consider as an example that your …

My Bumpy Road Through “Hollywood” — WHEN PRINCE WAS KING

[UPDATE: This was written long before my friend Prince passed away. I still miss him and am still shocked.] A friend just now found and sent to me this post from  Prince.org, the Prince fan site that described how I pulled off the production of Prince's ALPHABET STREET video on impossible notice! It is from …

The Internet needs to be free. [UPDATED APRIL 23 2014]

THE INTERNET NEEDS TO BE FREE Yes, free. That’s not a statement about pricing, it’s a statement about democracy. This is what is commonly referred to as “Net Neutrality." The following blog post keeps evolving since its original posting in 2010, because the concept of "Net Neutrality" (or the attempt at a more popular term, …

Equity Crowdfunding is dead for us. What’s next?

If you remember that there once was a glimmer of hope for more sustainable financing for innovative small business (and, for my concern, an indie film industry) through "Equity Crowdfunding" as demanded by the JOBS Act of 2012, the fact is that it's not going to happen. It's already far past the Act's imposed deadlines …

How to Survive on Set Without Looking Like an Asshole

Nice compilation of things sometimes overlooked.

CALLAM RODYA | BROADCAST JOURNALIST

Callam Rodya as Roddy with 3rd AD Alex Pitzel slating the shot on the set of “Stalking by Numbers”.

When it comes to film work, actors have it the easiest. Don’t argue. You know it’s true.

In case you need a bit more convincing, consider this:

• We’re the last ones called and the first ones wrapped.
• There is a team on set whose sole job is to make us look beautiful.
• They tell us where to stand, where to walk, and what to say, and they even put down little pieces of tape for us and print out our lines on little pocket-sized sheets to make it extra easy.
• We get to stay warm in the trailer while they’re out there in a snow storm setting up the shot.
• We usually get paid better.
• We get all the credit.

Don’t get me wrong, acting is extremely difficult (especially when you…

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Corporate Conglomerates Battle to Regain Gatekeeper Status

The merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable is a powerful situation that has broad negative implications for society and for filmmakers specifically. It's not simply a business issue, it's a democracy issue. The merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable is another deliberate attack on Net Neutrality. By assaulting Net Neutrality, GATEKEEPERS -- and …

Crippling Digital Distribution for Indie Filmmakers: the Death of Net Neutrality

Dismantling Net Neutrality means that the major movie studios will rule the Internet, while access to the digital distribution that indie filmmakers believe to be the future WILL BE CRIPPLED.

The independent filmmaking industry needs a new relationship with investors [UPDATED]

Prolific indie film producer Ted Hope, who spent the past year as Executive Director of the San Francisco Film Society (as of June 2015, a Production Executive at AMAZON STUDIOS), recently posted "Towards A Sustainable Investor Class: Accessing Quality Projects" as a call to build a healthy independent filmmaking industry. As always, he makes an …