Director's Reel

After working on the site and resume, I realized my reel hadn't been updated in over 4 years. This is something I want to do for potential investors as we gear up for fundraising hard core. If they want to see some snippets of my other work in a shorter period of time, this is it. I'd probably also include the entire short RELATIONSHIP CARD as a follow up.

A director's reel is a tool to demonstrate a larger body of work in a short amount of time. You want to put your best foot forward. It's my opinion only, but I like to show some versatility too. I like a broad range of styles and looks, but I wanted to shed the look of my movies from 10 years ago as much as possible. I got rid of most of the work from over 5 years ago.

In the case of this particular reel, I still wanted to show 2 whole scenes to demonstrate storytelling abilities. The two best things I've got are a clip from HORRORS OF WAR, one of the very few things in the movie that I am entirely proud of and now from ACCIDENTAL ART, the short. There are snippets and samplings from various other projects, including my new web series, but that's for another time...

Revamped Revised and Renewed

So I have put a little bit of time into the Sonnyboo.com site again. It’s been a while since I did more than just change a picture or add a screening. In the hopes of putting good will into the world and seeing how much gets returned, I doubled the amount of music for the royalty free music, added some public domain videos, images, and contracts. I have the strictly voluntary donation button for Accidental Art on these pages. Money donated (not invested) from these sites will go towards simple things like the wrap party or screener DVD’s.




I put some real time into updating things like the images to HD (1920x1080) and adding new videos that will be useful. Fonts bundled together for filmmakers along with new storyboard templates et al will help a lot of people out. I found in the past that tossing this good will into the universe tended to see it come back, so I want to get back to doing more things like this.

In preparing for this marketing push, I realized many aspects of the Sonnyboo.com site have not been touched in years. My resume didn’t even include directing HORRORS OF WAR in 2005 or anything at all after that. I’ve consolidated a list of all the awards I’ve accumulated over the years and it sits at 16 total, excluding the award for special FX or acting, which are not awards for me specifically. All this resume stuff lead me to look at my Director’s Reel, which has not been updated in 2006, so that’s sadly missing my better work. I’ve tried to work on that for 2 days in a row but there is no time and I do not edit at home anymore.



In the last few years, I have not marketed myself or the work as much as I used to. Partly, because I have a life and enjoy spending time with my girlfriend and cats, but also because work and other projects take a lot more of my time away from those kinds of endeavors. In looking at the stats, the Sonnyboo.com site had dwindled in popularity. Of course, I had not been making as many movies, but in the intervening years, sites like YouTubeand Vimeo are dominating the way people see videos online, but I didn’t miss that boat, as my views on YouTube continue to skyrocket into the tens of thousands on some of them (not merely dozens on the others).

I also noticed I had not updated the pages for the older short films. They still link to outdated sites that don’t exist, but also they haven’t been touched in years so they do not have the embedded videos from the other sites. I’m still only halfway through updating these pages for individual movies. It’s going to save me a ton of bandwidth by deleting the video files on my pages and having the movie sites take the hit on downloads. Vimeo is my preferred site, but YouTube is not to be underestimated.


So I added VIDEOS, CONTRACTS, PRODUCTION PAPERWORK, STORYBOARD TEMPLATES, IMAGES, DVD/BLU RAY INSERTS, FONTS, doubled the FREE MUSIC , and a bit more, all in the name of shameless self promotion that helps other people a lot more than it does me. If it helps Accidental Art get a little extra, then it’s all worth it.

Genus Festuca

Yesterday we went to the Cincinnati Oxford International Film Festival, both to do a story on the festival for FRAMELINE and also because ACCIDENTAL ART the short was playing. We arrived a little late and I thought we missed my little 5 minute movie. Instead it played much later in the set of short films.



All of the movies I saw were of a surpassing quality of camera work. The prevalence of 35mm film adapters, DSLR, and the Red One camera are all raising the bar on indie film in a huge way. Digital Cinema is no longer hampered by the deep focus of DV and regular camcorders. Shallow Depth of Field and using that cinematic tool is now completely in play for under $1,000 cameras. It shows, people with no money are making incredible looking movies. The artistry and craft of cinematography has never been this energized.




ACCIDENTAL ART played pretty well. It hits where I wanted it to. The lines I thought were funny get a laugh and the tense moments make the room get thick. It’s working. I like being in a room with no lights and the sound booming from beyond the screen as we, as engage in the communal experience of watching a story unfold. I’m getting better at it, but I don’t think I’ll ever master this entirely. It’s a lifelong endeavor and I enjoy the pursuit.



We got an interview with one of the original creators of the festival. It started out at Miami University in Oxford Ohio 4 years ago and has since expanded into Cincinnati. There used to be a Cincinnati International Film Festival, and I attended the last one in 2003 where I had 11 movies play. These two festivals combining is a great chance for the good buzz to keep on percolating.



I did the Q&A after the block of short films. I love doing the Q&A with an audience. It’s the same pattern every time. You ask if anyone has any questions, no one EVER does. So you have to start talking about what you did and if you can find something interesting about your project or the making of it; inevitably someone will ask a question. I got about 8-9 good questions be rambling on about changing from the exterior location to the interior house which were 2 miles apart.

We’re trucking along on FRAMELINES. Doing more shooting than editing right now. I’ll get some more footage this weekend for the show. We’re snagging stories here and there throughout the state. I can’t wait for this thing to start airing. It’s gonna turn some heads and I’ll make some noise.

Peace out homies.

How Ohio Filmmakers Got Screwed by Politicians

I think all politicians suck. They are out for themselves and never for us, the people. I lean a little to the left, but who on Earth would want to be associated with the Democratic Party? That's like wanting to get beat up and have your lunch money stolen on a daily basis. Similarly, who would want to be affiliated with the GOP or Tea Party? Good God, it seems like your choices are either radical this or pathetic that. No thank you.

In Ohio, we have an ugly race for Governor. Two guys, Strickland versus Kasich. Neither choice is very good. As is evident, neither can articulate any good ideas, so they both sling mud. Unfortunately, it has decided to use Columbus Film as it's slime.

For one of Kasich's smear ads, he hired a local actor to portray a steelworker attacking Strickland's policies. Hiring an actor is hardly a new thing, bad, or controversial. Well, someone decided it should be. Someone from Strickland's campaign decided THIS should be the issue. Not jobs, not the economy, not gay rights, not terrorism... not anything REMOTELY IMPORTANT TO ANYONE. So they made this web-commercial (that may be airing on TV, but I don't know)...

Are you kidding me? from Jeremy Froughlin on Vimeo.

Thanks to the blogosphere, someone went so far as to research the actor and found out he had some kind of record. They made some blog entries about "Kasich hiring a felon" or something like that. This crosses a line for me. He's an ACTOR and he ACTED a part. Who on Earth thinks it's a good idea to crucify HIM in the name of politics? Which one of these two sides thinks causing this actor to NOT get hired because his alleged criminal record is now all over the web? Who thinks trying to paint some innocent actor who probably didn't even get union wages as a sex addict by using pictures from his MySpace page with a stripper at a birthday party? Who's looking out for the little guy? Who's looking out for privacy? What does this really achieve?

Now in the commercial above, they used footage from two short films from Columbus Filmmakers WITHOUT PERMISSION. The politicians and the campaign are claiming "Fair Use" laws to defend their decision to steal movie clips. I guess they figure "Hey, they're from Columbus and it would cost them more money to fight us than Hollywood, so screw them! USE THEIR CLIPS!".

Well, THANKS politicians. I don't care which party did what. That's not the issue. The issue is intellectual property and the rights we have over our WORK. We can't let fat cat politicians step all over us and use our clips in whatever way they want.

This is MY video to all the politicians. Get off your lazy asses and do something for the PEOPLE, not yourselves, you worthless sycophants.



I guess if they can claim "Fair Use", then so can I, right? Is there anything wrong with my artistic decision to show both candidates with random word phrases like "PEDOPHILE" and "TERRORIST"? I'm not saying they are these things, nor do I intend to imply such outrageous claims. I guess if they want to sling mud, I prefer to bring a gun to their little knife fight.

Why not go out and make your own videos with their commercials and FAIR USE it all up and go for the throat? If our once and future governor(s) can steal clips, then so can we!

These two idiots running for Governor are spending MILLIONS in TV advertising, and they want to claim "Fair Use" on using a poor independent filmmaker's clips? Yeah, even if by some miracle it's legal via a loophole, that doesn't make it right.

Arithmetic & Budgeting For Film

As the script revisions finish, the business plan and budgeting has begun for the next feature film. Since I was a broker, I have some idea how to write for the people with money. It’s never easy and it’s never fun, but I have a knack for knowing numbers. What’s odd is that most filmmakers are terrible with numbers. I’ve seen people throw out numbers and budgets as if they had a clue where that money goes or what it’s for when they clearly do not. Anyone who randomly says, “I could make 5 feature films for $100,000.00” clearly doesn’t know how to budget a movie.

A lot of people hear about El Mariachi for $7,000 or Clerks for $27,000 (rounded up from the actual $26965.00). Or the generic budgets of $1 Million for an indie film and they just turn into parrots repeating numbers they heard vaguely somewhere or they just pick a budget amount from a random group of numbers without doing any kind of break down.

For people who intend to make a feature film for under $10,000 some harsh realities have to kick in. It’s possible to make “a” movie for that, but its profitability is limited to similarly low amounts. The price you pay is a crew that is all volunteer and mostly inexperienced. There’s nothing wrong with this model and business plan, but it’s not for me and most people are deluding themselves into thinking they have the next indie feature hit film like PARANORMAL ACTIVITY.

The problem is when people have such a low amount of money to play with, like $10K and think that everyone will get paid at least something. This is unrealistic.

Here's a line item on MEALS alone....

$6 per meal x 20 cast/crew x 3 meals a day x 15 DAYS shooting schedule = $5,400

That's a combined cast and crew of 20. Add some extras and your costs start to go up a lot. Add more shooting days, price goes up. This does not include craft services either, as having food and drinks available all day is the least you can do for a free or cheaply paid crew. That $6 per meal includes beverages. Making that stretch and not buying pizza for every single meal is the art of a good caterer and there are some that specialize in film and video shoots.

Let's look at a basement low pay rate for crew. Let's say you are going to have 8 crew people.

$50 a day x 8 crew people x 15 days = $6,000

I don't even want to know how much experience your grip has if they can afford to work for $50 a day. I randomly chose 8 positions, some will cost more and in some cases, you might need more people, or less people at a higher rate. Most professionals start at about $200-$300 a day, and a good D.P. or sound person will be higher, especially if they are bringing their own gear to the production.

Right now, you are already over budget by $1,400 of your $10,000 budget and this is paying peanuts to the crew and nothing to the cast and feeding everyone for meals during the shoot. This amount does not include any money for tape stock, editing, on set special effects, stunts, props, sets, location fees, transportation, hotels, equipment rental, post production, editing, sound, deliverables, E&O insurance, Production insurance, contingency, batteries, walkie talkies, printing of scripts, printing of call sheets, production reports, taxes, and the few hundred other expenses that come with making a movie.

My advice to anyone starting out making movies or moving from short films to a feature film is to get out a calculator and work out some very basic numbers with arithmetic before spouting any potential budget ranges. Everyone wants to focus on the “art” and not worry about the costs. If you want someone’s money, you will start having to worry about the costs, or you will have to get money and hire a PRODUCER to worry about the costs for you. If you only have $10,000 – congratulations Mr. Director, you are also your own Producer.

That leads to another topic for another time….

The Pudency of the Pariah

I am attempting something. I’ve taken quite a bit of time off from promoting myself, the Sonnyboo.com site, and the free things I have for filmmakers. As we gear up for fundraising for ACCIDENTAL ART as a feature, it seems like a good time to spread some love, put out the good karma and hope it comes back.

I doubled the number of songs from 20 to 40. I think 8-9 years ago when I first put some songs out there, I held back a few things for sentimental reasons. Even though several of the songs out there were personal favorites, most of the songs were throwaways. I have become so disinterested in anything I did in music that nothing is sacred or worth keeping to myself, so I uploaded 20 more songs that either had quality (a relative term when referring to anything I did in music), or just might be in a genre of music useful to people no matter how much the sound or composition sucked.

I’ve added some new images, now adding HD sized (1920x1080) FBI warnings, film festival laurel leaves, etc. For video, I only had a countdown leader, because AVID users didn’t get one with their software and everyone else did. It’s still standard definition. Now I’ve thrown together 4-5 new HD videos of things too.

I think helping people is essential. I have to do it in the broad strokes because my time is not my own anymore. It’s important to pay back to the world for what help and good has come to you. I want to help others and I will need help in the future. Helping others first, and knowing full well that it’s a 1,000 to 1 help back ratio (if I’m lucky). The most I’m doing is putting the links for donations for INDIE GOGO and KICKSTARTER. Anyone can download for free and some want to give something back.

I’ve barely started letting anyone know about the site re-vamp and we’ve already gotten in $50 in donations. It’s a “soft opening” and pseudo beta testing. I’m finding more new things to add, re-arrange, tinker, and poke at the site. I’ve done some new designs and looks, and even this blog might get a little new look soon.

I felt like making a silly action movie style promo and here it is.