This article was written by Mark Stolaroff.

“My email box was ablaze this past Friday with news that Paramount was forming their own micro-budget film division.  The goal is to make twenty $100k no-budget features a year.  After their success with “Paranormal Activity,” (a film they DID NOT PRODUCE, by the way), this sounds like a case of ‘give the guy a rope and now he thinks he’s a cowboy.’  All I can say is, “good luck!”

As someone who has devoted most of the last 15 years to no-budget filmmaking and spent the last six years specifically working on this kind of a multi-film model, not to mention the last five years teaching no-budget filmmaking and making my own no-budget features, I have this cautionary note for Paramount:  it’s harder than it looks.”

Read the rest of this article from Film and Music Forum.

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Sign up now for your own FREE monthly subscription to “The Director’s Chair” filmmaking ezine and get: (1) Day One of my 201 page mutli-media Online film directing audio course, “The Art and Craft of the Director Audio Seminar” and (2) the first 24 pages (plus mp3 audio) of my 137 page “Script Breakdown and Film Scheduling Online Course For Independent Filmmakers.”

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This article was written by Brooks Barnes.

“Paramount Pictures, looking for new ways to turn its old movies into cash, especially as DVD sales continue to decline, is creating an online video clip service that will allow users to search hundreds of feature films on a frame-by-frame basis.

Feeling “the need for speed,” as Tom Cruise put it in “Top Gun”? Log on to ParamountClips.com, search for the exact video snippet you want and press the checkout button. Within minutes — with the price depending on the type of licensing use you have in mind — Paramount will electronically deliver the selection in the format and resolution desired. Most scenes are available in multiple languages.”

Read this article from New York Times.

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Sign up now for your own FREE monthly subscription to “The Director’s Chair” filmmaking ezine and get: (1) Day One of my 201 page mutli-media Online film directing audio course, “The Art and Craft of the Director Audio Seminar” and (2) the first 24 pages (plus mp3 audio) of my 137 page “Script Breakdown and Film Scheduling Online Course For Independent Filmmakers.”

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This article was written by Lauren A. E. Schuker.

“Spurred by the success of its ultra-low-budget horror film “Paranormal Activity,” Viacom Inc.’s Paramount Pictures will devote about $1 million each year to finding and producing small-budget movies, according to people familiar with the situation.”

Read this article from The Wall Street Journal.

The Ten Commandments of Filmmaking
How to Work (and Survive) in the
Film and Television Industry
by Peter D. Marshall