From IADT Nashville: What makes a good animated movie? While beautiful art is certainly important, it takes an engaging story and memorable characters to help an animated film truly stand out. Here’s IADT Nashville's list of the 10 best animated films since 2000. What do you think? Did we leave anyone out? 10. Monsters, Inc (2001) No animation studio has more consistently produced great movies…

I arrived for once a little early, as the last gold balloons were being lifted into place. I decided to walk the block, attempting to hide my game industry noobiness with some assertive power walking. Ah a river. I will gaze across it with a sense of confidence, a metaphorical eye on the future. All is fine. So as I was scribbling this blog in a cafe in Bristol, the guy opposite told me "I never…

Brilliant actor Paul Scoffield, star of A Man for All Seasons, the Crucible and Quiz Show, has also passed away.David Paul Scofield, CH, CBE (21 January 1922 – 19 March 2008) was an award-winning English actor of stage and screen. Noted for his distinctive voice and delivery, Scofield won both an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award&nbs…

'Stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you' Ray Bradbury   Dear Tom, It has been a while. I forget whose turn it is, but for sake of ease I shall both ask and answer my own question - a simple one. Where am I? It is a device, more than a question, to uncork my tongue as I sit here, in Paris's Gare De Lyon. Life shakes its stuff around me, and I shudder inside with the wearines…

  Award-winning actor and comedian Red Buttons has died at the age of 87 He was one of the first funny men to show that comedians could also be Oscar-winning actors. He won the Supporting Actor award for Sayonara (1957), in which he co-starred with Marlon Brando as a U.S. airman who embarks on a tragic romance with a Japanese woman. He was also a quick-witted master of his craft as a com…

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How Do I Sell My Film Part One - DEMOGRAPHICS Netribution and film distributors WYSIWYG have joined forces to present on-line WYSIWYG's essential Guide to Film Distribution. We're both interested in building a strong industry for independent filmmakers. This means creating films that people want to see and buy. It does not mean sacrificing creative integrity, but it means business. To do the b…

On a day where celebrities seemed to dropping like flies, it's a shame that the obits for British scriptwriter Troy Kennedy Martin  probably won't be as extensive as they should be. Needless to say the man was a man who had a hand in helping to create and write some of the best UK TV shows ever made including 'Z-Cars' and 'The Sweeney'. His TV shows helped pave the way for intelligent genre fare…

  Owen Thomas the producer (and now distributor) of the UK's first DV feature, the acclaimed One Life Stand, directed by May Miles Thomas, offers advice from his foray into DVD distribution on How To Sell Your Film (Not Your Soul)           Six years ago everyone was talking DIY filmmaking - how digital tools would revol…

I recently heard from a music industry insider that Radiohead make some 80% of their income from touring, which opened up the question of why they put so much effort into packaging, selling and protecting albums. A question that has now been answered. Free from a record label after their six album deal with EMI had come to an end, one of the most revered bands of the last 20 years have taken th…

Dan - man with a Cannes Van Plan, has posted the first Rogue Runner Cannes update to his website. The show - shot over 12 hours and edited in 8 - runs on alternate days on his site and sponsor LoveFilm. Latest episode now online.

  Writer Simon Rose on Getting His Story to the Big Screen I can't be the only writer who, after sitting through umpteen appalling movies, has thought, "Surely I can do better." By 1994, I was itching to write a screenplay, but a subject eluded me.  Then I heard about Graeme Obree. This down-at-heel Scot built a revolutionary bicycle from scrap and washing- machi…

As the season finally closes in on us, for those tired of the same old re-runs on TV or wanting to avoid the family warzone of the living room and watch TV on a computer under your bed - or better still are looking for films to share during the post-dinner web video show-off - I've pulled together some of our favorites of the year. In the first bundle I've focussed on anima…

Two and a half weeks may be a little late to begin writing up the Open Video Conference, but then my first essay, penned in the few days after, discussed Pirate Bay at some length and even mentioned Michael Jackson and Brian Newman and so is now largely irrelevant. But with our new Tweeting Netwitbutions, perhaps this is the time to sign up fully for the more anti-knee-jerk Slow Blog Movement - i…

Dead pan and wry are often traits associated with the national character of Edinburgh International Film Festival’s own natives, the Scots. So it’s intriguing to witness Argentinian and Greek directors – Ana Katz and Filippos Tsitos respectively - tackling family drama or existential inevitability in a dry-as-a-bone manner. Whether Argentinians or Greeks are noted for irony is moot, but consideri…

Power, Corruption and Laughs. This was Danish director/protagonist Mads Brugger’s route through the failed state chaos that reigns in the Central African Republic in his documentary satire The Ambassador, premiering in the UK at Edinburgh International Film Festival this week. Tackling deadly serious subjects that involve diplomatic immunity, old colonial interference and blood diamonds dredges…

Just before lunch yesterday I read of a report by the WWF that the number of species on the planet has reduced by 31% in the last 35 years. If the planet continues at its current pace of using natural resource, by 2050 two earths would be needed to meet current demand, with an almost inevitable consequential environmental collapse. Then while munching away on my fried eggs on toast, I read…

Sheffield Documentary Film Festival wound up on Sunday, with a brief interlude before the Scottish Documentary Film Institute hosts the Edinburgh Pitch on Tuesday and prior to the Edinburgh Film Festival officially kicking off on Wednesday. Filmtastic week. As was probably part of the rational to shift Sheffield to June (which it has wanted to do for almost 4 years), many of the commissioners who…

Legendary film-maker Ingmar Bergman has died at the age of 89. Cissi Elwin, CEO of the Swedish Film Institute, comments on Ingmar Bergman’s passing. "Probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera" Woody Allen "This is a day of sorrow in the world of film. One of the world’s most prominent f…

Forget Buddhism, Kabbala, and Scientology - there's only one religion that the Hollywood A-list want to be seen to be worshiping these days - Knowledgology. It began five years ago when the Reverend Doctor-Professor Solomon Profundis set up The Knowledge Hub, a spiritual retreat where burned out celebrities could recharge their batteries and at the same time broaden their religious horizons. Her…

As I left the job interview yesterday, the words by the kindly woman wishing me off left me with no small sense of irony. In short I had bombed. I sometimes wonder about orbits, how we tend to revolve around something or another - perhaps our partner or our family. After a big break up in 2003, I found myself gravitating towards anything that seemed stable enough to spin around. When t…

  In the rush and work pressures surrounding filmmaking, it's all too easy to overlook some essentials, but these are often the factors that can lift a film from the mundane level to the exceptional. James MacGregor's notes reveal some of the secrets of real film craft.....   Storytelling on Screen Your focus is on telling the story, not just o…

In recent time there is great headway in photo industry. Modern technology has changed the entire process of photographing. Gone are the days of analog imaging. We are in the era of digital imaging. However, over and above digital imaging, there is nowadays the use of computer in photographing. Some photo software can be run in computer to make room for all types of image manipulation. Co…