I’m offering an opportunity to have your screenplay pitched to companies. As you know, I’ve been in the entertainment business for a very long time. I built my network ground up and I have fortunate relationships with those who are in the film business. In addition, I am part of a Grammy Nominated Management team that’s been in the industry for 15 years having slew of placements and hits. We are tapping into the film industry and we are doing it head on. So we are now looking for talented people so we can utilize our connections to the fullest.
If you are interested in getting your stuff pitched by me, please send me an email to Khoa.Le@gmail.com. Say this is in response to my Blog in your subject line as well.
Requirements:
1) Send a Tag/Log Line of your story
2) Brief Synopsis
3) Full Synopsis
4) Name, contact, and credible discography (if any)
If your story was selected, I will contact you to request for the full script. Please have it copyrighted if you haven’t yet. Thanks!
I was browsing the web and saw Vincent Laforet announcement of his contest. I thought it was a GREAT idea to take a still image, interpret it, and turn that interpretation into a short film of 2-4 minutes. Not only does it give you exposure, but it gives you a purpose which drives motivation and determination which is the foundation to success in any industry. In addition, it would help build a reel (portfolio) of my work in all categories of filmmaking.
So in this film, we had to interpret a treasure chest in a warehouse. I had a million ideas how to take it, but of course, have to stay within budget which “NO BUDGET”. But I knew that the only time we can do it was at night and I had the perfect location to shoot it. But as the result, I needed a shoulder-rigg which I had to dish out, out of my pocket. We shot using natural lighting which is pole lighting from above and used a flashlight for a “spotlight”. It was about 20 degree below and we took 2 nights to shoot it (5 hours each). After we shot it, I spent well over 40 hours of editing, sound designing, music scoring, and overall production on this film. I can tell you that within that 1 week of editing, I only slept about 3 hrs a night. Anyways, I hope you enjoy the film!
Brief Synopsis:
An ordinary man and woman stumble across a mystical clan of spirits yearning to break free from their dwelling inside a vintage 1950’s radio.
Kvibe Productions, LLC
Produced by: Khoa D. Le & Salvatore E. Sutera
Directed by: Khoa D. Le & Salvatore E. Sutera
Written By: Khoa D. Le & Salvatore E. Sutera
Director of Photography: Khoa D. Le
Editor: Khoa D. Le & Salvatore E. Sutera
Original Music & Written By: Khoa D. Le
Sound Design by: Khoa D. Le
Behind the scene photos: George Rivera
Production Assistants: Kim Nguyen, Joe A. Nunez, Eggie Belizario Escueta, Alyssa Pontecorvo
Actors:
Jean / Girl: Jean Farinella
Man: Paul Santiago
Jean’s Friend: Alyssa Pontecorvo
I’m the type of guy that learns very quick and apply the knowledge right away. We shot a short Monday Night where I was the Directing with another Director and also be the Director of Photography. I must say that it’s very hard to try to direct actors, be the camera man, and ensure that they are in focus. So you must have assistants working with you. In this case, I was fortunate to have another director to help guide the actors as well.
But the most important thing that I regret not doing that night was not give the actors the overall perception on how the film was going to be cut too. I felt as if they just don’t understand why we shoot in different angles and perspective. If they don’t have that solid understanding, it may cause lost of motivation and in back of their minds wonder if it’s going to be good or not.
So I recommend giving them an overall perspective on why we are shooting the next take just so they have a general idea on what’s going on to keep them motivated and pumped.
In 2 weeks, I finished 5 songs, finished 2 short film screenplays, setup online distribution stores to sell songs from Artist I worked with as I’m doing Independent releases to my records, and shot a wedding for my photography work. I also entered into the Vincent Laforet Contest to shoot short films with a deadline for each submission. And this is on top of my 9-5 job at Ernst & Young.
People ask me how do I find the time to get things done. Well, lately I’ve been sleeping around 4:00 am – 5:30 am and having to wake up at 8:00 am for work. I guess you can say that I’m more motivated than ever as I feel I am producing quality work, very confident in my abilities, and I smell something happening around the corner. I also think having management to help me expose my work motivates me as I finally have a vehicle to drive my music to another level. I have someone to take my work, present it, and I don’t have to go out of my way to do small talks with people just so they are comfortable on who I am so they can “place” a song for me. If only they used their ears instead of relying everything on reputation, it would be much easier for me.
Anyways, that’s my update! Please go to my iTunes store or Amazon or whatever stores that are posted on my page and download and support! Thanks!
Thanks for taking the time to read my blogs. I’ve been a bit behind on this as I’ve been working hard in furthering my knowledge in this exciting entertainment industry. My photography knowledge has drastically improved as well as my film knowledge. With that, I finished 2 scenes for my short film and in the process of editing and preparing for the final scenes.
So what did I do in a short amount of time to gain massive to do all of this? I joined a film meetup group in westchester (very educational) thanks for the host Holly and I asked tons of questions and I spent a lot of my nights reading forums, articles, youtubes, and blogs for best practice techniques and understanding of the process. But 75% is trial and error as you really got to get out and just “DO IT”. I shot a practice scene and seeing how long it took me to do the post production gave me a better insight on what to do the next time around. Without having any film education, it was common sense to me to have a shot log, shot list, distributed crew for certain roles that I can’t do by myself, and etc.
So the moral of this blog is to show my progress as well as tell everyone that if you are reading this and if something inspires you, stop thinking about it and do something about it. Life is too short to be lazy in life (unless that’s what really makes you happy). If you want to know, yes, I do have a day job that I like doing as it supports my passion.
I’m pretty convinced that this music industry is just getting harder and harder in becoming successful. You would think just like any successful business, you need to have the right people to work beside you to make it happen. It’s just that, in music, with the right people, you still have very high potential chance in failing. Supposedly, you have a better chance of being a Brain Surgeon or astronaut than being a superstar. Now, I don’t need to be discouraging, it’s just the facts of life.
I believe how I will achieve success in the entertainment market (which I love so much) is by taking a new route. Something I also enjoy doing lately which is writing, directing, and producing films. I’ve been on the grind on that level where I’ve been practicing, learning, and continue to further my self-motivation in educating myself to create great films. To think I started off video blogging to making films blows my mind. But I’m falling in love again(almost cheating). But the music business have jumped into the wild wild west where nobody really knows how to become successful. I know people with such a big network of people, credibility, and still can’t make it happen in today’s market. Though film and music go hand to hand, film requires more patience, more work, more creativity, and more of everything else than music. Unlike music, you can’t finish a film in a day. Or do post production in a day. There’s a huge difference in the work ethics for film as far as people and I believe it’s such a turn on to lean more towards that route.
In music, I just don’t know why musicians, artists, writers, and even producers who are trying to be established slack off sooooo much. Their mind says they love music and want to do it, but their actions speaks for itself. And I can tell you, the people I’m dealing with now, nobody is there right now. I thought of becoming my own Artist, and I believe I can do it much better than so many right now. But I just don’t love being an Artist, I don’t love performing or care for it. Because my heart isn’t there compared to writing and producing, morally it won’t sit in well for me. But film has taken a new turn in my career and I believe “Journey To Success” will be leaning there. It’s not confirmed as I like to have some Reels to show. And if it comes out great where I feel I have the nack for this, it will be confirmed that my priority will be films and since I do produce music, I’ll be scoring on my own films as well.
Lets see how that turns out =) If only there was a Recording Artist that had more drive than the average human being, maybe it would just be a different story. Again, remember, you can be managed, produced, be under a major label, but if have the mind frame of being pushed by someone else and think they will make you successful, you got it all wrong!
Again, this is only a test scene. I only concentrated on the cinematography. It took us 15 minutes to shoot, 15 hrs to edit. I was very unorganized on getting the clips/audio together. But this practice was the point of why I did it to find a certain workflow, understanding, organization, and creativity.
I am writing a short film and understand is very important. I now know what to do to be more organized. Next short film clip will be the actual one that will be presented to film festivals and so forth. Again, this was captured on the 5d Mark II, no matte box, no rails, just my 85mm lens, tripod, and camera. I will be building a dolly for better creativity cinematography.
Reminder, please ignore the audio quality and ACTING. This was only a quick test to get some ideas and workflow methods.
Richard M. Ponce: “A Flock of White...
Shavon Grass: I would be interested in submitting...
Khoa Le: Major labels shot themselves in the foot....
Robert M: Great topic and I think I can add...
Khoa Le: You too Tuan! It’s always nice to...
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Richard M. Ponce: “A Flock of White... Shavon Grass: I would be interested in submitting... Khoa Le: Major labels shot themselves in the foot.... Robert M: Great topic and I think I can add... Khoa Le: You too Tuan! It’s always nice to...