I’m Peter D. Marshall and I created this film directing blog in 2007 as an online movie making resource center for Independent Filmmakers like yourself.

(As of May 23, 1692 film making posts have been published on this blog!)

For over 38 years I’ve worked (and survived) in the Film and TV industry as a Film Director, Television Producer, First Assistant Director and Creative Consultant. (See IMDb Credits.)

In 1999, I started my website, ActionCutPrint which has grown into one of the top film directing websites for Independent Filmmakers on the Internet today featuring online movie making courses, film directing articles, film and television books and filmmaking workshops.

In 2000, I started publishing my free monthly film making ezine, The Director’s Chair which is read by over 5500 filmmakers in 105 countries around the world. (You can read 129 back issues here.)

To fulfill my goal of mentoring and teaching, I developed several filmmaking workshops that I have presented over the past 18 years: from Canada to Singapore to Dubai. I am also a directing instructor at the Vancouver Film School.

So if you want to keep up to date on the latest Online film and television resources, please Bookmark this Page Now or Subscribe to this blog to read daily film making articles written by myself and other film makers from around the world.

by Hemant Kumar Gaba.

When I finally managed to finish my first feature length film Shuttlecock Boys which took me a good 2.5 years to pull off (normally this period would vary between 1.5-2 years for first time filmmakers, mine was just a little longer), I wondered – What do I do now ? That was my thought process in January 2011 after the film got completed.

I was not wise or smart enough before making the film to chart out the strategy on how the film will be showcased after it was complete. That’s because I was not even sure, if I will be able to make a full length feature film. I thought, let’s try it; we will see what happens.

I started figuring out what normally happens after a film finishes. If it’s a Bollywood film from a studio or with an experienced producer, the film will already have a release date and a publicity plan. But what happens to Independent Films? That was question to which I wanted to find an answer. There will be few of those Independent Films which are made on a decent budget say Rs 2 crore or above that might be released independently; some recent examples might be ‘Love You to Death’ or ‘Tutiya Dil’.

Read the rest of this article from IBN.Live.

Sign up now for your own FREE monthly subscription to “The Director’s Chair” filmmaking ezine and get the first 30 pages of my 238 page Film Directing Multi-Media Online course, “The Art and Craft of the Director Audio Seminar.”

by Jeremy Kirk.

Experiencing Don Coscarelli’s latest, John Dies at the End, was a trip at South by Southwest. Actually, experiencing any of Coscarelli’s films are a trip of one kind or another, and the guy is such a pleasant film maker you can’t help but want to hear him talk about his earlier works. That’s why we’ve chosen Phantasm this week. One of his earliest works, it was this horror film that landed Coscarelli on the industry map, turning its success into a full-fledged career that continues to this day. It’s also his scariest and arguably his best to date.

But, as interesting as it is to hear Coscarelli speak, it’s good to have friends, and he’s brought three of them along for this commentary track. The DVD box boasts Reggie Banister, who plays the guitar-wielding ice cream guy, Reggie – Pretty sure the part was written for him – but he doesn’t appear on the commentary. Instead, it features the other two leads, Michael Baldwin and Bill Thornbury, and the Tall Man himself, Angus Scrimm, who isn’t even listed on the box.

Regardless, we’ve got the writer/director on board and three of the film’s main actors, so grab a seat and check out all the things we learned from hearing these men talk about Phantasm. It’s the commentary that’s got balls. If you haven’t seen the film, I regret the euphemism already.

Read the rest of this article from Film School Rejects.

Sign up now for your own FREE monthly subscription to “The Director’s Chair” filmmaking ezine and get the first 30 pages of my 220 page Film Directing Multi-Media Online course, “The Art and Craft of the Director Audio Seminar.”

by Sheri Candler.

Wow, has it really been a month since my last post?? Of course I sympathize with all of you who face the same obstacle, how to keep your online site populated with fresh and interesting content? It is a real problem in this era of being not only an artist, but a publisher and continually connecting with an audience.

Truth be told, I have been blogging regularly…just not here. If any of you are so inclined, my ballet blog for the Joffrey documentary is here. And I make daily  posts to my Facebook and Twitter accounts, also fairly regularly to my Google Plus. I could do better with balancing and mixing all of my activities; some links, some longer posts, devising a Pinterest board of the week…that kind of thing. So once again, I am getting on that horse and starting back again. I hope a few of you are still around.

Speaking of Pinterest…I only recently started using it for the Joffrey project which is why all of my boards are devoted to that. Looking at them gives a good idea on the kind of thing you could use it for on your production. In my workshop presentations, I talk about posting regularly on your social channels and not just information directly about your film, but also about the interests of your audience; those who would be a fan of your film and of yourself as an artist.

I am using the boards to show Joffrey history through pictures and videos. The ballets they created, the ballets they revived, their alumni dancers, Robert Joffrey through the years as well as photos of the merchandise available to buy through our site. It’s a balance of audience interest and promotion for the film.

Read the rest of this article from Sheri Candler.

Sign up now for your own FREE monthly subscription to “The Director’s Chair” filmmaking ezine and get the first 30 pages of my 220 page Film Directing Multi-Media Online course, “The Art and Craft of the Director Audio Seminar.”

by Chandra Steele.

Every town has gone a little Hollywood this month. Cinemas are packed with theatergoers wanting to see esteemed Oscar nominees and this week’s Sundance Film Festival previews what could be the next gleam in their eyes.

One of the Oscar favorites, Hugo, is an uncommonly gentle film from Martin Scorsese that’s a love note to those who go to the movies and also to those who create them.

Whether it’s a recent fancy or a long-time fantasy of yours to make a movie, now’s the time. Most filmmaking tools are low-cost (or even free) and easy to use. Here’s what you’ll need to create everything from the opening scene to the end credits.

Read the rest of this article from PC Mag.

Sign up now for your own FREE monthly subscription to “The Director’s Chair” filmmaking ezine and get the first 30 pages of my 220 page Film Directing Multi-Media Online course, “The Art and Craft of the Director Audio Seminar.”

by Matt Soergel.

When Patrick Barry was in high school at Bishop Kenny, in the dark ages of the late 1990s, filmmaking was his passion, though it wasn’t an easy one to follow.

“But I guess we just did it,” he said. “You got your friends together, got to the thrift shop, found the funniest costumes you could and built around that.”

Not many amateurs were making movies back then, he says, and no wonder: Shooting and editing on bulky video camcorders was awkward, time-consuming. Then converting that video to film, so your work actually looked good when you showed it to an audience, was way too expensive.

He’s 30 now, still making movies. And things have changed greatly since the dark ages: The number of today’s budding filmmakers is “absolutely, without a doubt” booming, said Todd Roobin, head of Jacksonville’s film and TV office.

Just consider the advantages offered to them, after all: Digital technology makes shooting, editing and distributing your film far easier than the video and film cameras of the past.

Read the res of this article from Jacksonville.com

Sign up now for your own FREE monthly subscription to “The Director’s Chair” filmmaking ezine and get the first 30 pages of my 220 page Film Directing Multi-Media Online course, “The Art and Craft of the Director Audio Seminar.”

from The Daily Beast.

Ever since his 1995 directorial debut, The Brothers McMullen, which grossed over $10 million at the U.S. box office on a budget of just $23,800, Edward Burns has been at the fore of cutthroat,low-budget indie filmmaking. With his latest film, Newlyweds, released Dec. 26 on video-on-demand, the director opens up about how independent film distribution models have changed, and what it means for the future of indie moviemaking.

Sixteen years ago as a film student at Hunter College, I made my first movie—The Brothers McMullen. While film technology has made rapid leaps and bounds since then—I shot my most recent film on a Canon 5D—the method of exhibiting indie films theatrically has seen little change over the years, and it is still as difficult as ever for independent filmmakers to reach a sizable audience in movie theaters.

Read the rest of this article from The Daily Beast.

Sign up now for your own FREE monthly subscription to “The Director’s Chair” filmmaking ezine and get the first 30 pages of my 220 page Film Directing Multi-Media Online course, “The Art and Craft of the Director Audio Seminar.”

by Kim Voynar.

Last time on Adventures in Filmmaking, I told you all about the awesome crew we’ve lined up to shoot my short film, Bunker, and promised that I’d write another journal entry about the art design and such. Then things got a little busy, what with going off to NYC a week before my shoot, but I thought I’d take a few minutes out of my day to catch up on this before I disappear into the netherworld of last-minute pre-production and shooting for two 12-hour days this weekend.

One of the things I see lacking on a lot of low-budget indie films is production design. I was reading an article in Filmmaker Magazine about how the economy and budget crunches are affecting below-the-line spending and how art direction is one of the areas taking a hit with this, and how more and more filmmakers are using their own furniture and such in their production design to save dollars.

Certainly this has been the case with Bunker. We’re spending a lot of money on this film, for a short film (and we’re still looking at doing a crowd-funding thing to help defray some of our post costs, even though we’ve managed our expenses as well as I think we could have while getting the level of crew experience I wanted), but when it came down to the bottom line, I felt like I needed to focus our spending on those areas in which I have zero experience or knowledge (all the tech stuff, basically). If I wanted to get the best folks for those jobs, something was going to have to give.

Read the rest of this article from Movie City News.

Sign up now for your own FREE monthly subscription to “The Director’s Chair” filmmaking ezine and get the first 30 pages of my 220 page Film Directing Multi-Media Online course, “The Art and Craft of the Director Audio Seminar.”

by Joe Nalven.

I love going to the movies. But my understanding of this art form is limited to the avid filmgoer.

When I saw that Art San Diego was featuring a short film program, I looked over the list of films. I found the name of someone whom I had met only briefly, Mauricio Chernovetzky. Perhaps, I thought, Chernovetzky would reveal something more about what it is that makes movies compelling. If I understood his approach, I might see more than I usually did.

I work almost exclusively in static 2D art. Video is something I enjoy, but it is pretty much a mystery of how things get put together. Any thoughts for an outsider?

Read the rest of this article from Sign On San Diego.

Sign up now for your own FREE monthly subscription to “The Director’s Chair” filmmaking ezine and get the first 30 pages of my 220 page Film Directing Multi-Media Online course, “The Art and Craft of the Director Audio Seminar.”

by Cynthia Reid.

I have to admit, I’ve been in a time warp when it comes to music lately (I’ll take Sade and Public Enemy easily over Lil Wayne).  However, when the Watch The Throne album by Jay-Z and Kanye West dropped recently, I had to stop and take notice.

While the opinions of the album ran the gamut (Ava DuVernay calls it a “Black Nationalist Masterpiece for the New Millenium” HERE), I was more impressed that this genre of music can still generate so much frenzied anticipation and is still relevant thirty plus years later since its inception.  That got me thinking…What can the new, emerging black film movement learn from the hip hop scene?  Yes, I know hip hop has its share of ugliness but what positive pointers can we take away and apply? Here’s my list:

Read the rest of this article from IndieWire.

Sign up now for your own FREE monthly subscription to “The Director’s Chair” filmmaking ezine and get the first 30 pages of my 220 page Film Directing Multi-Media Online course, “The Art and Craft of the Director Audio Seminar.”