The No Budget Film School is
taught by Mark Stolaroff. Stolaroff will be joined by a number of low-budget filmmaking experts.
MARK STOLAROFF, Instructor
Mark Stolaroff is an independent producer and a founding partner of Antic Pictures,
an LA-based production company producing a slate of low budget, high quality digital features. He recently completed work
on Meera Menon's Farah Goes Bang, which premiered in April 2013 at the Tribeca Film Festival, winning the Nora Ephron Award. He is currently in post
on award-winning writer/director Henry Barrial's fifth feature, The House That Jack Built, which is premiering in June 2013 at the Los Angeles Film Festival. Stolaroff produced Barrial's fourth
feature, the micro-budget film Pig, which was an official selection at over 35 film festivals worldwide, winning 10 awards, including 7 Best Feature
awards, and will be distributed domestically in Summer 2013. With Ron Judkins, Stolaroff produced Barrial's third feature,
True Love, which was developed in the Sundance Screenwriters Lab and was a hit on the festival circuit. Other projects include: The Trouble With Men And Women, (2006, Associate Producer); the feature documentary Paper Chasers, (2005, Co-Producer); Some
Body (2002, Associate Producer); Manic, (starring Joseph Gordon Levitt, Don Cheadle, and Zooey Deschanel) (2001,
Associate Producer); Keep The River On Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale (2000, Associate Producer), and others.
Stolaroff was formerly a principal of Next Wave Films, a company of
The Independent Film Channel that provided finishing funds to exceptional, low budget films; and through its production arm
Agenda 2000, financed and executive produced digital features. Included in Next Wave's 13 films are Christopher
Nolan's (Inception, The Dark Knight, Batman Begins, Memento,) first feature,
Following; Joe Carnahan's (The A-Team, Narc) first feature, Blood, Guts, Bullets, & Octane;
Amir Bar Lev's (The Tillman Story, My Kid Could Paint That) first feature
Fighter; the Academy Award-nominated documentary Sound And Fury; and the Sundance Grand Jury Prize winning
documentary Southern Comfort. In all Next Wave took seven films to Sundance and five to Toronto; nine were
released theatrically in the U.S. and two premiered on HBO; nine were shot digitally and six of those were transferred to
film.
Stolaroff has lectured on low/no budget and digital filmmaking throughout the world
and at many of the major film festivals. He has taught film classes at UCLA Extension, the Maine Film Workshop, and
The Learning Annex and has written for Scientific American, Filmmaker, Sight & Sound, Film Festival
Reporter, and Film Arts Magazine. He has been on countless filmmaking panels over the last two decades, including
serving as the Series Moderator for IFP/LA's Digital Filmmaking Series in 2001 and 2002. He has sat on the juries
of several film festivals and was on the Advisory Board of HBO's US Comedy Arts Film Festival. He currently serves on
the advisory board of Filmmakers Alliance. Stolaroff founded No Budget Film School in 2005, and in addition
to teaching his classes, has lectured at most of the major film schools.
Stolaroff has extensive production experience on several low budget features and shorts, including production
managing the Academy Award winning short film My Mother Dreams The Satan's Disciples in New York. His background
also includes two years in Investment Banking at Merrill Lynch Capital Markets, and five years as the Managing Director of
Curtains Theater, an innovative legitimate theater he founded in Houston. A native Texan, Stolaroff received his BBA
from the prestigious Business Honors Program at the University of Texas in Austin and minored in Film Production, directing
several 16mm shorts.
Guest Speakers for
the May 11-12, 2013 Class:
Peter Broderick (left)
PETER BRODERICK is President of Paradigm Consulting, which provides strategic consulting services
to filmmakers and media companies. In addition to advising on financing, sales, and marketing, Paradigm Consulting specializes
in state-of-the-art distribution techniques -- including innovative theatrical service deals, cutting edge video strategies
(mixing retail and direct sales online), and new approaches to global distribution. It helps filmmakers reach target markets
effectively and build core personal audiences.
Broderick was founder and President of Next Wave Films, which
helped launch the careers of exceptionally talented filmmakers from the U.S. and abroad. A company of the Independent Film
Channel, Next Wave supplied finishing funds and other vital support to filmmakers, and financed digital features through
its production arm--Agenda 2000. Next Wave's features included Christopher Nolan's Following, Joe Carnahan's
Blood Guts Bullets & Octane, Jordan Melamed's Manic, Kate Davis's Southern Comfort, Josh
Aronson's Sound and Fury, and Amir Bar-Lev's Fighter. Broderick played a key role in the
growth of the ultra-low budget feature movement and has been a leading advocate of digital moviemaking, giving presentations
on digital production at Cannes, Sundance, Toronto, Berlin and many other festivals. He has lectured at Harvard, taught
courses at UCLA, and written articles for Scientific American, The New York Times, The Economist, The Los Angeles Times,
and Filmmaker magazine. A graduate of Brown University, Cambridge University, and Yale Law School, he practiced law
in Washington, DC.
Most recently, Broderick has focused on the coming revolution in independent distribution.
In addition to giving keynote speeches on the subject internationally, he published a groundbreaking article, "Maximizing
Distribution," in the Directors Guild of America magazine (Jan. 2004, http://dga.org/news/v28_5/craft_maxdist.php3). In 2004 he launched a website, http://www.filmstoseebeforeyouvote.org, designed to harness the power of film to impact elections utilizing new distribution techniques. For more information
on his sought-after consulting services, visit his website: http://www.peterbroderick.com
Sean Baker
SEAN BAKER has the distinction of being nominated for the Cassavetes
Award, (the award given at the Spirit Awards for the best film made for under $500,000) three
times, including twice in one year. Sean graduated from NYU with a degree in Film and directed his first feature, Four Letter Words, a few years
later. His next feature, Take Out, which he co-directed with Shih-Ching Tsou,won an award
at the Nashville Film Festival and played many other festivals before getting nominated for the Cassavetes Award, the same
year his follow-up feature, Prince of Broadway, was also
nominated. Prince was one of the most acclaimed indie films of 2008, winning numerous awards,
including grand jury prizes at the Florida Film Festival, the Cleveland Int'l. Film Festival,
The Los Angeles Film Festival, the Woodstock Film Festival, and others. His latest feature, Starlet,
starring Dree Hemingway, premiered at the 2012 SXSW film festival and was released theatrically by Music Box
in November 2012. That film, too, was nominated for the Cassavetes Award and won the Robert Altman Award
at the 2013 Spirit Awards, given to the film with the best ensemble cast. Sean is also a prolific TV producer, creating the
hit TV shows Greg The Bunny for IFC and and Fox, and Warren The Ape for MTV.
Kenneth Cran
KENNETH CRAN and JIM CRAN are filmmaking brothers. Ken directs and Jim produces. They are best known for their low-budget independent monster movie The
Millennium Bug, which was shot without any CGI, mostly
in a 700 sq. ft. warehouse in North Hollywood, CA, using miniatures and puppets. The Millennium Bug played
numerous festivals, picking up several awards, before being distributed through Green Apple
Entertainment
Matt Radecki
MATT RADECKI is a Los Angeles-based
producer, director, editor and cinematographer, and the co-founder of Different
by Design, a high-definition production and post-production company. Included in Matt's credits
are "TV Junkie," a feature-length documentary he co-directed and edited which
won a Special Jury Prize at the 2006 Sundance Film
Festival and is currently screening on HBO. "Chasing 3000," which he co-produced with his
Different By Design co-founder Greg Lanesey (who directs), premiered at the
Tribeca Film Festival and stars Ray Liotta, Rory Culkin, Lauren Holly, Seymour
Cassell, Keith David and M. Emmet Walsh. He also produced and is co-cinematographer of "Red White Black & Blue,"
which aired on PBS’ Independent Lens in 2007. He also edited "Who’s
Back" (shot by DA Pennebaker), which appeared on the definitive Who DVD
collection “Incredible Journey.” More recently, he was the producer of the multi-award winning
documentary Marwecol.
Different By Design www.dxdproductions.com was founded in 2004 to produce interesting and entertaining films and provide high definition production and post-production
services to their clients. Since its inception, Different By Design has produced
six feature length films and has provided HD services on over 100 films, documentaries
and music videos, including "Me & You & Everyone We Know," "The Aristocrats"
and music videos for Keith Urban and Switchfoot. Different By Design can provide high definition
camera packages through its partnership with HD Cinema, high definition and
standard definition online and color correction as well as dubs, down converts
and deck rentals.
Instructor for May 18-19 "Cinema Language"
Classes:
Tom Provost
TOM PROVOST has enjoyed a
varied and successful career in the entertainment industry as an author, screenwriter, editor, director, producer, actor,
and instructor. Before graduating from The University of Texas in Austin's prestigious Plan II honors
program with an emphasis in film, he wrote and directed several shorts and authored a published thesis on director
Alfred Hitchcock. He then moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. After landing several parts
in film and TV, including a recurring role on Steven Spielberg's SeaQuest DSV, Provost took up editing,
learning the Avid system just as non-linear editing was beginning to make its way on the scene. After editing short
films and a couple of features, he worked for several years cutting and producing award-winning promos
for the WB and Bravo Television Networks. During this time he was hired to adapt a script for Morgan Freeman's
production company, Revelations, a screenplay eventually made into the film Under Suspicion starring Freeman
and Gene Hackman, directed by Stephen Hopkins. The screenplay was nominated for an Edgar Award. This lead to work as
a script doctor, where his ability to shape story has been highly prized.
Provost's
feature directorial debut The Presence, (www.thepresencemovie.com), which he also wrote, was recently released by Lionsgate. The inventive ghost story/modern-day gothic romance
stars Academy Award-winning actress Mira Sorvino (Mighty Aphrodite), Shane West (ER), Golden Globe
Nominee Justin Kirk (Weeds), and Tony Curan (Pearl Harbor, Gladiator). In addition to directing
commercials and editing reality TV (The Bachelor, The Apprentice [Emmy nominated], and several others),
Provost has been a popular film instructor at a variety of venues all over the country for many years.
A graduate professor of Screenwriting at Pepperdine University in Malibu, you can read some of Provost's writing at
his blog: onfoodandfilm.com
