Alan Fitzpatrick « Chandlerbling's Blog

Alan Fitzpatrick was our third guest speaker of the semester. He remained quite humble about the whole thing throughout and didn't blab on about his own background. The main talk of the hour was on the Filmbase where he is heads a department. He is managing director. Film base are located in Temple bar in the heart of Dublin. It is quoted on the website as being a Public Space.

He described Filmbase as a non-profit organisation for filmmakers in need of equipment and sources and the like. They are also free to use the dedicated editing facilities that they have.

Alan gave us useful hints on how to sell your idea when applying for a Filmbase grant grant. They will first of all need a copy of your script, formatted and presented to industry standard. Only the best presented will be treated seriously. Out of two or three or four kickass scripts, the well-formatted one will come out on top. First impressions are important! If you're lucky enough to be in a long-list, there is an extensive interview process. Confidence is key here just like in any interview, but don't have too much confidence. Sometimes too much can leave the interviewer questioning. Maybe you are just full of it and do you really have the skills necessary?You have to be 100% sure what and how you're doing and enjoy what you are doing. Unconfident? How will you be able to handle a crew and cast if you can't handle yourself in a one on one interview?The company is funding up to three short films a year from out of 250 to just over 300 applicants. There are three to four rounds of interviews just like how the CAO system works when you left school. So there is alot of demand for the service. Good luck to ya!

Filmbase also has a lot of courses like Film Production, Post Production, Multimedia, application courses, such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Flash, etc. It also offers trainings in Film and Film Equipment. The company organizes the screenings, releases a magazine and does the funding to the successful applicants as I mentioned before.

The most interesting part was when Alan showed us a few short films that his company have funded or been involved in some way with. Tufty was the one that stuck out for most people,because honestly, dancing isn't alot of people's cuppa tae! Tufty portrayed teddy bears as they are being hunted and are later sold as toys which represents poaching for animal fur and the like. It was very dark, but the subject matter which it represented is also pretty disturbing so they pulled it off very well. Was very impressed.The class were talking about it for a good few days after anyway.

Film base celebrate their 25th anniversary this year! For more info, if that is what your into, visit: www.filmbase.ie for more info.

~ by chandlerbling on April 30, 2011. Posted in Working in Digital Media