No Budget Film School

No Budget Film School

Instructor / Guest Speakers

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. Antic recently completed True Love, the third feature from acclaimed director Henry Barrial (Some Body). True Love was developed in the 2003 Sundance Screenwriters Lab and is now currently on the festival circuit. Stolaroff is in pre-production on Barrial's next script, Pig, which he intends to shoot in 2008 in an aggressively no-budget manner. He was also the co-producer of the feature documentary Paper Chasers, which was released in 2005, and was the Associate Producer of The Trouble With Men And Women, which opened theatrically in 2006.

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 (Memento, Batman Begins, The Prestige) first feature, Following; Joe Carnahan's (Narc, Smokin' Aces) first feature, Blood, Guts, Bullets, & Octane; the Academy Award-nominated documentary Sound And Fury; and the Sundance Grand Jury Prize winning documentary Southern Comfort. He was the Associate Producer on a number of Next Wave projects, including Some Body and Manic, two digital features at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival, and the award-winning theatrical documentary Keep The River On Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale. 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 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 decade, 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 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 recent August 25 & 26 2007 Class held in LA:

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

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 this year's 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 will air on PBS’ Independent Lens in November 2007. He recently edited "Who’s Back" (shot by DA Pennebaker), which will appear on the definitive Who DVD collection “Incredible Journey.”

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.

RICK TAIT is a UNIX cowboy, and has been designing, engineering and maintaining large computer & network systems for over 13 years. He has worked and consulted in many industries; from designing and building the UNIX infrastructure for a 500m share/day trading system while on Wall St., to redesigning the back-end server farm for thestreet.com, to evangelizing and revolutionizing the use of technology in one of the U.S.'s premier arts institutions (The Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival). Rick runs and operates 1245_VINE_Industries, a tech-consulting firm catering to Indiewood's many technology woes. He is located in Hollywood, but misses 75¢ New York deli coffee.

TI WEST was an award-winning student short filmmaker before becoming a prolific feature filmmaker. West was the recipient of the 1999 Rhode Island School of Design Award, winner of Best Director of a Student Film at the 2001 New York International Independent Film Festival, and a 2003 nominee for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography at the Dusty Film Festival. His fest fave short "The Wicked," which was released by Hypnotic, caught the attention of producer/director Larry Fessenden, who financed West's first feature, the no-budget horror film "The Roost." "The Roost" was a hit at the 2005 Los Angeles Film Festival and was subsequently picked up by Showtime. West was then given the job of directing the sequel to the highly successful horror film, "Cabin Fever." Getting antsy following the shooting of "Cabin Fever 2," West went back to Fessenden to bankroll a new feature idea. "Trigger Man" was shot in 7 days on a tiny budget with barely a crew and premiered recently at the 2007 SXSW and Los Angeles film festivals. "Cabin Fever 2" is currently in post production.

CRAIG ZOBEL was raised in Atlanta, GA, and graduated college from the North Carolina School of the Arts, School of Filmmaking. He co-produced David Gordon Green's debut feature "George Washington," and has continued to work with him on several films. After working his way up the production track in New York as an AD and Line Producer, Zobel decided it was time to realize his dream as a director and make his first feature. He moved temporarily to Charlotte, NC and enlisted his old school buddies to help him make his feature directing debut, the low-budget "Great World Of Sound." The film was accepted into the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and was subsequently picked up for distribution by Magnolia Films. It has since played numerous film festivals across the country and won several awards. "Great World Of Sound" opens theatrically September 28, 2007. For more on the film, please visit the No Budget Films Page . Zobel is also one of the founding creators of the cartoon Web site Homestar Runner.