Assembly Kick Off

Check out the initial email and basic rule and project breakdown for The Assembly, care of Tessa, and try and tell me it’s not freakin thorough, rockin and dear:

So…..The Assembly kicks off tomorrow! Here’s the info you’ll need to get started. Please read through it and email me with absolutely any questions as I know some of this stuff can be confusing.

Ok, first thing you need to do is download Celtx.

Go to www.Celtx.com and click “download”. Once you’ve downloaded and opened Celtx you’ll be prompted to create a username. Send me an email with your username so I can share the project with you. You won’t be able to start the Assembly until you do this.

After that, whenever you open Celtx you’ll see “Assembly #1″ or #2 and so on (each of you will have one project, they’re numbered randomly) in “Download a Project”. Click on the project to open it up and start working.

Writers: When you open the project you’ll see the opera piece to use in your writing. Remember, you need to take 5 elements from the opera to create your script. So things like a lyric line, an image you like, putting the character in a new situation, even a single word, however you wanna do it.

Filmmakers: For now, when you log in you won’t see any projects aside from those that other Celtx users have made public and a sample script in case you wanna try out the program features in the meantime. On February 17th, I’ll add each of you as a collaborator on a different project. After that, when you launch Celtx you’ll be able to open project “Assembly x” and see the script that a writer has made for you.

Musicians: Same as with filmmakers, for now when you log in you won’t see any projects aside from those that other Celtx users have made public and a sample script to let you try out the program features. February 24th you’ll each be added as a collaborator on a different project, which means you can read the script and see the video of a filmmaking team and get started writing your soundtrack. Remember, you’re making music with a live performance in mind. Use instruments and sounds you can play live. For the dvd that will be made of the final films, you can record with any setup you’d like.

Filmmakers and Musicians: When you’ve finished your part of the project (and at any time during your work), upload your film or music directly to the Celtx document to pass it on to the next team ( How to do this).

Everyone: Privacy, Rights, Sharing

Your work in The Assembly is licensed Creative Commons Attribution 2.5, allowing us all (other participants, Indyish, you) to distribute, broadcast, share, even sell parts of it, so long as proper credit is given to the makers.

Celtx runs a website called “Project Central” (http://pc.celtx.com) where you can publish your work to. You can choose to make it “shared” (viewable by other select celtx users, so friends of yours if you want), or “public” (viewable by any Celtx user).

During the Assembly, Indyish will publish highlights and changes to each project on our blog so that readers can follow the projects’ development. You don’t need to worry about arranging this, but should know that I’ll be able to view the projects to report on them. At any time, beyond these regular check-ins, you can send us your thoughts on how it’s going and we’ll publish it to the blog if you feel like sharing it with our readers. Email these to me at Tessa@ Indyish.com.

Need Help?

Your best bet is probably to check the Celtx wiki which is pretty easy to navigate. The table of contents on the right-hand side will help you find what you’re looking for.

They’ve also got these things to help you out:

Feature Tour Videos:
http://www.celtx.com/walkthru/feature_over.html

FAQ:
http://www.celtx.com/faq.html

Celtx Community Forum:
http://forums.celtx.com/

User Guide:
http://www.celtx.com/guide/index.html

Celtx Contact:
info @celtx.com

—
Below is a list of websites that might be helpful to you. [the email also included a list of a few people to contact if you want help with something specific like video editing or art direction.]

Ok, so that’s really all. Don’t hesitate to email me with questions, concerns, or comments at any point during The Assembly.

Thanks again for taking part in this crazy project with us and good luck!

I hope to see you tomorrow at the soup place. mmmm soup.

-Tessa

———-

Internet Archive (Audio, Images, Video to sample with)
http://www.archive.org

Cyber Film School
http://www.cyberfilmschool.com/

Movie Making Manual
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/MMM

Audacity (Open Source Audio Editing) [super useful for some stuff, but not fully multi-trak]
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Ardour (Open Source Audio Editing - multi-trak)
ardour.org

Kino (Linux Video Editing)
http://www.kinodv.org/

Writing Help
(articles on story building)
http://www.fictionfactor.com/bolts.html

(articles on creating and developing characters)
http://www.fictionfactor.com/characters.html

Useful info on a screenwriters blog:
http://www.johnaugust.com/

Paid Membership but highly praised indie film community - over 30 000 members:
http://www.shootingpeople.org/

http://www.howtowriteascreenplay.net/how/articles.cfm

ps- Risa here again, just gotta say - as the co-founder of Indyish it completely excites and awes me that people want to help us, work with us, throw events like I dream of and push paper schemes into the startling and terrific world of real life. It’s huge and beautiful, and though so many people are kicking in to help, Tessa is the most sparkly example of this in Indyish history so far. She joined us as an intern in the summer, assistant managed the Launch Weekend and took on even more for the Holla-Days, and since then I’ve been working with her as she hatched the Assembly plan and tommorrow, it begins! It’s brilliant to see what she sees as being possible in this young, bustling indie artist network thing that was just talk between me and Elran not much more then a year ago. I’m all a-flutter, but not at all nervous. It’s great to have someone else manage an Indyish event! Also- I feel like I could trust Tessa to raise my children (they’d end up a bit messy maybe, but Buddhist, brave, hard-workin and fabulous, so I’d be happy…and they’d get the messy gene from me anyway) so of course I feel ok trusting her with our young Indyish reputations. Especially since I think our reputation already involves a little chaos. Speaking of chaos- Watchout for the new version of Celtx, the program this project relies on. Sounds like it’s gonna come at some point during the Assembly experiment, just in time to add new stress and cool tools to our lives.. heh.. ahh life.