The Pyramid - How it works

Summary

1. Professions: At the bottom level of the pyramid you can register as a: Producer, Director, Scriptwriter, Actor, Cinematographer, Composer, Sound Artist, Production Designer, Editor or Visual Effects Artist and create your own profile. You can upload or provide a link to your films, upload scripts, pictures etc.
2. Ideas and Script Forum, Work and Equipment Offer: The second level of the pyramid is a meeting place furnished with a bulletin board where you can find your first collaborators and discuss your problems.
   1. In the Ideas Forum you can get to know each other, find people to work with, present your scripts, discuss your projects or offer your production services.
   2. In the Work and Equipment Forum section you can put messages on the Notice Board, which is divided up into sections corresponding to typical film production needs. If you are already working on your project you can come here with specific requests for assistance, to look for more collaborators or to find a particular piece of equipment.
3. Production Rooms: When you are ready to go ahead with your film you will be given a password protected Production Room where you will be able to develop your film script and handle production issues, talk to crew members and sort out budget issues.
   1. Each Production Room comes with a Showcase, a sub-page accessible to everyone where you can promote your project, inform everybody about the progress you are making, and which can also serve as a notice board dedicated only to your project.
4. Shooting: Now it is time to meet and shoot your film.
5. Post Production: Once you have finished shooting, go back to your Production Rooms to discuss the editing process. Your final films should be delivered to Level 5 of the pyramid. Here everyone will be able to see and judge the fruit of your collaborative effort.
6. Distribution and Promotion: This is a very important level of the pyramid. After your film has been made it is time to promote it and to show it to audiences. The Distribution and Promotion level which crowns our pyramid is where you will be advertising your films.
7. The End

Read on for more detailed instructions.

The Pyramid

The pyramid you see on the homepage is a graphic representation of our Virtual Film Studio. This is what we will be climbing in order to make our movie. And this is what our climbing hike will be like.

We, filmmakers representing various professions, occupy the bottom of the pyramid, the summit of which is crowned by the films we make together. Let's make the trip to the top, taking one step at a time.

Registration

When you register yourself on our website you are joining the FilmSpringOpen fraternity - a filmic community producing and promoting their own films in a collective effort, using modern methods and solutions. The bottom level is where we are: Directors, Producers, Scriptwriters, Actors, Cinematographers, Editors, Set Designers, Sound Recordists and Computer Graphics Artists. This is the registration place where you come to give us a description of yourself - but not only to provide links to your achievements (the films you already have under your belt, the photographs you took or the music you composed). What we want FilmSpringOpen to provide is an opportunity to make films without having to spend years before someone comes along to discover us. We do not want to sit around waiting for the green light from producers, editors or other species of decision makers. We know how to make films and want to start making them straight away. Having said that, we will succeed only if we start helping each other. Hence the first question we always fire at you: What can you do to help the other FilmSpringers make a movie? By joining our crowd, you volunteer to cooperate with others. One of us may have an apartment he or she can make available to needy colleagues, another person can contribute a car or a camera, while others may have time on their hands to read and comment on someone else's scripts.

You can expect to get something from others only if you are a giver yourself.

When you register, remember it's not just about your achievements to date, whether they are photos, music or films. On this website you are creating a window where others can come to have a look at you and really get to know you. When you register you will get your “private” space. This is where you can present yourself to the others in whatever way you choose: you can post your best script or project here - or just a picture of your beloved cat. You can start a blog or provide a link to your best film. This sub-page is to be an illustration of our philosophy, which calls for collective work with lots of fun in the process.

Ideas and Script Forum, Work and Equipment Offer

Climbing to the next level of our pyramid we arrive to the Ideas and Script Forum and to the Work and Equipment Offer. This is the place to come looking for your first collaborators. Here we will be meeting people such as directors looking for co-authors to help them with their film ideas, screenwriters presenting their scripts, and producers offering specific production services.

The Ideas and Script Forum is a place where FilmSpringers can get to know each other, discuss their planned projects, and find people who would like to be a part of these projects. This is where we will be looking at the first outline sketches of the movies we are contemplating. We will be having public - and no doubt constructive and critical - discussions on Scripts, Ideas and Anecdotes that might make it into the films we will eventually produce. Each forum thread will be labelled with the working title of your future movie. And every FilmSpringer is most welcome to contribute to any and all of the threads.

The other part of this level is the Work and Equipment offer- a regular Notice Board divided up into sections corresponding to typical film production needs, including for example Transportation (passenger cars, vans, campers); Equipment (cameras, lights, dollies, radio mikes); Accommodation (apartment in Berlin, seaside villa, tent sleeping 20), and so on. FilmSpringers already working on a film can come here with specific requests for assistance - looking for more collaborators or some particular piece of equipment.

Production Rooms

Climbing up one level, we arrive to a place, which is already out of bounds for outsiders - our password-protected Production Rooms. When you are done with publicly discussing your project in the Ideas and Script Forum and you decide it is now time to get down to really serious work and start developing you script within a smaller team, in peace and quiet and out of earshot of all the others, you can create your own Production Room. There, behind closed doors as it were, you will be able to develop your film script and handle production issues, discuss the message you want your film to bring to the world, talk to cinematographers and set designers about the style you would like your film to have, and sort out budget issues. A small communication program will be provided to help you plan Skype conferences or exchange e-mails.

Showcase

Each Production Room comes with a Showcase, a sub-page accessible to everyone where you can promote your project, inform everybody about the progress you are making, and which can also serve as a notice board dedicated to your project alone. You can use the Showcase to request reviews of your script, seek new collaborators, announce casting sessions, etc.

Shooting

We are now at the stage where we have a script, a film crew and the equipment we need. We know each other but have not seen each other in te flesh. It is about time we actually met face to face - this will often be our first time together - in order to shoot our film - our brainchild we spent months discussing on our website. This physical getting together to make our film is represented by Level 4 of our pyramid.

Film Spring Workshop

If you have a script ready, we suggest to arrange this meeting around October on the Hel peninsula in Poland, to coincide with the annual get-together of FilmSpringers. For three years now FilmSpring workshop participants from various European countries have been coming to this picturesque peninsula at this time of year to shoot their film together. Painters have their plein airs during which they can each paint on their own but also have opportunities to talk together. There is no reason why filmmakers cannot be doing the same. You are all cordially invited!

Regardless of where you will end up making your film, one thing is sure; you will be coming together not only to work but also to have great fun. And we can promise you another thing: Just like the Film Spring workshop participants, you will become good friends and you will be longing to meet again.

Back to Reality

Once the shoot is over you will be heading home to your computer screens, back in your respective Production Rooms on Level 3 of our pyramid. Where you had previously developed your script you will be now cutting your film, adding music and additional special effects to its soundtrack. If you will have a hard time picking your edit version, you can always post a link in your Showcase and ask the other FilmSpringers for advice.

Finished Films

You deliver your finished film to Level 5 of the pyramid where everyone can come to see it and judge the fruit of your collaborative effort. We may feel we have now crossed the finish line; that our climb up the steep sides of the pyramid is over. But is it?

Distribution and Promotion

There is one more step to the top of our pyramid: Level 6. And we believe it to be the most important level. Nowadays it is no longer enough to make a film, however good the film might be. We must also deliver the film to an audience. Our movies live only insofar as they generate emotions in a film theatre or in front of the home cinema screen. Artists in the 21st century cannot sit back, counting on someone to discover them and “force” people to view their works. We do not stand much chance if we act individually. However, as FilmSpringers, a group of artists from many countries, we can help our colleagues promote their projects - counting on them to reciprocate and support ours. We need to bear this in mind already from day one. The Distribution and Promotion level which crowns our pyramid is where we will be advertising our films.

Finding ways and means of getting our movies to the largest number of viewers possible is the FilmSpringers' most important task and goal. We plan to use the FilmSpringers' short films as material for a full-length feature to be submitted to international film festivals. We would also like to organize a festival of our films during the Film Spring workshops in Poland and will be encouraging its participants to organize mini-festivals of our productions in their respective countries.

The End

Our pyramid rests on the foundation of our individual desires and emotions channelled into professions we would like to be working in. By climbing the pyramid, we will be building a community. It doesn't matter all that much who does what work. Our aim is to assemble a group of artist filmmakers ready to help themselves by helping others. Films are not made by individuals acting alone. Films are made by groups of talented artists working together. The architecture of a film is simple enough, but actually making one is as complex as building a pyramid.