Make This Movie: A Filmmaking Series
Make This Movie is a serialized 12 episode filmmaking podcast from ShoHawk Media. It chronicles filmmaker Christopher Sakr's journey through producing his feature length film, Counterintelligence. Moving episodically through the entire filmmaking process—from writing and budgeting, to pre-procution, principal photography, through post and release—Sakr chronicles this micro budget production and how Counterintelligence came to be for just under $12,000. Throughout the production's journey, he's helped by his collaborators and friends, who lend their skills and voices. Don't forget to subscribe to this show to stay tuned, rate and review it, and share with friends who like the same stuff as you! For more relevant podcast information check out Shohawk.com/makethismovie For more on Counterintelligence, check out counterflick.com
Episodes
We’ve almost made it through Pre-Production, and the hardest work is yet to come. Micro-budget independent filmmaking hurdles emerged here that taught me lasting lessons.
Sometimes, filmmaking isn’t as much a creative endeavor as it is a logistical one. It can be gruelling to plot the minutia in advance and fill out mounds of paperwork, but you feel the ben...
Between the Frames is a set of sub-episodes wherein Chris probes far deeper into specific facets of each filmmaking stage covered thus far. He explores some important practices, disciplines, philosophies and skills that may have been previously glossed over, under discussed, or all together undiscussed.
In this inaugural Between The Frames, Chris discusses some ...
Camera speeds… Sound speeds… Aaaaaand… Action! Counterintelligence has made it to production. All the work we’ve done so far has lead to this point. Production was so extensive we broke it into two episodes. In Part 1, we'll cover shoot days 1-3 of 7. The first two days took place at my apartment and the second was a night shoot outside a brewery in one ...
In Part 2 of our production episodes, we'll cover shoot days 4-7. These days included a return to the apartment location, a series of offices, a ranch outside of Portland, and more. It also consisted of the biggest blocking challenge on the production, a tense moment, and a lot of laughs. It ended over drinks, food, and general merryment.
In this Between The Frames segment, Chris discusses some specific production topics including:
- Filmmaking as jazz
- Improvisation
- Knowing your actors personally
- Asking for input
- Self-care
- Problem solving/conflict resolution
- Being present
He covers their importance and some best practices to get the most out of each.
He also recommends a list of tools and resources in the form of books, apps, and podcasts that serve the pre...
We’ve arrived at post production. More specifically, editing Counterintelligence.
The editing process was multi-layered, from cutting scenes throughout production as they were shot, all the way up to merging those scenes into a rough cut, and refining into locked picture.
Editing is where the film gets made: the final vision takes shape at this almost final step in the process.
It’s said that three different films are made througho...
Having locked the cut of Counterintelligence, there’s still a whole world of post that needs completion, even at the time of this episode.
On the docket: scoring, color correcting, some minor visual effects, sound design, and sound mixing.
Our score was composed by the great Noah Simons. Sound was mixed by Mike Elliott, who you’ll recall was also our Director of...
In this Between The Frames segment, Chris discusses some specific post-production topics including:
- The facets of post, from start to finish
- Doing post from the start
- Managing the post-production flow
- Collaboration in post
- And, the creative post process
He covers some best ...
Season 1 of Make This Movie is nearing its end, but the season wouldn’t be complete without distribution.
Distribution is the place where your film meets its audience; it’s where your baby ventures out on its own and overnight belongs to the world at large. And as with sending a child off on its own, the distribution process is replete with hard lessons and separation anxiety.
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We’ve reached the finale of Make This Movie, Season 1.
Thank you so much for coming along on the ride to making Counterintelligence. Many lessons were learned throughout the process, most of which were covered throughout the season’s 12 episodes.
To highlight the ones that were and insert a few that weren’t, in this episode Chris will go down the list of 12 less...
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