Tag short film

This week’s guest is Jon Foley from the Las Cruces Film Office in New Mexico. We met Jon at the American Film Market in 2017 and decided to pick his brain on why filmmakers should contact a film office for their next movie. Many filmmakers don’t realize the benefits working with a local film office can have including incentives, locations and a local crew.  Filming in a location like Las Cruces may surprise with its vast landscapes, mountains, deserts and miles of pecan trees.

Jon Foley began his journey into film & video production at the age of 11 in Las Cruces, New Mexico. His path has had many detours; Digital Video Content Manager for an online ethical hacking university, video production company owner, 1 feature and countless smaller projects as a Director of Photography, Producer of short films premiering at festivals like Festival de Cannes, Brussels Short Film Festival, and Hollyshorts, viral content creation (5+ million views across the web), landscape photographer, and the list goes on. Currently, he is the Film Liaison for Las Cruces and has his full attention on bringing more film and television productions to his area.

Have an interesting story about working with your local film office or film commission? Share it with us in the comments

Film Las Cruces Links:

http://www.filmlascruces.com
https://www.facebook.com/filmlc

Keep in Touch with Jon Foley

https://www.instagram.com/jonathon_foley/
https://www.facebook.com/offroadnewmexico/videos/1782038265362262/

What is the Las Cruces Film Office?

• The Las Cruces Film Office is about to be certified to become a film commission
• Jon’s job is to market the city of Las Cruces New Mexico film producers, location scouts and anyone looking to shoot television, film, commercial work or anything video related that will get local crew members work and the area seen.
• The film office also helps with permits, facilitating locations or working with local departments such fire and police.

 What are the benefits of filming in Las Cruces?

• One major benefit is not having to pay for permits and Jon usually turns them around in 1 to 2 days.
• If you’re doing a non-union shoot, Jon has access to over 60 local crew members ready to work including camera operators, grips and production assistants.
• Las Cruces has an abandoned court house / prison you can shoot at for free for the next year! Dona Ana Detention Center
• Visit Film Las Cruces to see their database of locations available.

What are the qualifications for shooting in Las Cruces?

• Jon helps everyone from the micro budget indie film to Hollywood sized budgets.
• There is no minimum spend as long as you are willing to fill out the paperwork.
• There is a 25% film rebate as long as you keep track of the money spent.

How does the film rebate work?

• The rebate is processed through the New Mexico Tax & Revenue department.
• As a filmmaker you’ll be buying the lumber, paying for locations, food, gas and transportation.
• In 2016 there was $505 million spent on TV & Film in the state of New Mexico.

How do you acquire locations?

• Jon drives around taking pictures of city property to add to the database regularly.
• Who you know and how you get to know helps in acquiring private property.
• Find locations across the United States using LocationsHub powered by Reel-Scout.

Fun Fact: The car crash in “Due Date” was filmed in Las Cruces

What has been filmed in New Mexico recently?

• Look for Godless on Netflix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMUiRYoc76A

How did you get the job as a film liaison?

• I went to a Film Las Cruces board meeting and they announced they were hiring.
• I threw my ring in the hat and I became the assistant to the person who was hired.
• When he left I became the film liaison.

 Jon’s Film Career

• Hear Jon’s journey from corporate training videos to real estate photography
• Jon helped finance a short film that went to Cannes and also worked on a short that premiered at Brussells Short Film Festival & Hollyshorts
• https://www.facebook.com/wolffslawshortfilm/videos/1564437833810947/

Facebook Groups for Marketing

• Download or Stream the episode to hear how Jon continues to organically grow Facebook pages like NewMexi.co

Cupids is the latest comedy short film from Angelo Calarco. Cupids is currently on its festival run and was recently featured at the Soho International Film Festival and will be in New York again at the Gold Coast Film Festival. We discuss the challenges of filming dialogue with 4 people on screen and how to not make it feel boring. Angelo has a unique perspective using visuals and sound,  crossing from fantasy to reality to keep the audience engaged.

Angelo Calarco is an Italian freelance Producer/Director living in London operating under the name of Beware Of The Dog Films.  His career started as a comedy writer and an award winning stand-up comedian. Angelo moved to London in 2010 and learned the art of filmmaking by working as a Production Assistant, Marketing Assistant, Assistant Producer and Assistant Script Editor for several Film Production companies in London such as JetSet Films, Wo-Ho! Productions and One Eyed Dog Films while also experimenting with his own passion projects.

Watch Cupids on Amazon

Cupids Short Film Cast & Crew

• Director: Angelo Calarco
• Writer: Nick Grills
• Starring Jenny Delisle, Tiernan Douieb, Michelle Fahrenheim & Daniel Knight
• Logline: Two cupids must team up to face one of the greatest challenges of modern times: getting two strangers to talk to each other!

Interview Highlights with Angelo Calarco

Angelo’s Background

• Angelo moved to London specifically to learn how to read and write English to gain an international audience.
• He was writing scripts before making films until he opened his own production company.
• After 10 years of stand-up comedy, filmmaking has always been the end goal of his artistic dreams.
• Angelo’s idols include comedic filmmakers Mel Brooks and Woody Allen.

Producing Cupids The Short Film

• Angelo contacted writer Nick Grills after originally hearing the idea 3 years prior at a script writing meeting.
• The script was still available and they adapted the script to Angelo’s point of view and went from there
• “I respect so much the work of a writer and I didn’t want to make big changes.”

Directing Cupids – The Challenge

• The story was written as a very static scene.
• The dialogue rotates around the table with 4 characters that speak a lot.
• Most of the comedy comes from the dialogue and the problem was how to make it visually interesting.
• Angelo studied the genre of the film including comedy and fantasy.
• Using cinematography and sound, Angelo created two worlds in the same place.
• Jumping between the two worlds is what makes the scene dynamic.

Look for Cupids at the Gold Coast Film Festival November 11^th at 4:30pm EST

On this week’s Imperfect Podcast, we talk about our experience at the 2016 Winter Film Awards 48-hour Film Challenge. There were 21 teams chosen to demonstrate how well they could create a 2-7 minute short film based on a given genre, tag line, and a prop. Each team was called into a conference room and asked to pick a genre out of a hat. The genres were Horror/Slasher or Monster, Romance or Comedy, Martial Arts or Super Hero, Buddy film/Chick flick, Spy/Cop, Zombie/Musical, Science-fiction, Western, Thriller/ Suspense or Film Noir.

The tag line for this year’s 48 hour film challenge, which every group had to incorporate into their short film, was the following quote from Oscar Wilde: “This is New York and there’s no law against being annoying.” The last requirement and most challenging was the prop, Grand Central Station. Each group was issued a permit to film in that location for 1 hour.

We discuss the difficulties inherent in a challenge such as this as Heckler Kane Creations was one of the participating teams. Here are all the films submitted on YouTube.

Find out more info about the Winter Film Awards 48 Hour Film Challenge on twitter @winterfilmawards

Watch Our Short Film The Drop Off

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