EVANS MEDIA

SKIN DEEP

2009-02-07T15:42:00.000-08:00

Evans Media principals Tim Evans, Steve Marshall and Matt Salisbury are working with a team of accomplished production people and actors on an edgy, relationship-driven web series called SKIN DEEP to premiere on YouTube April 20th. Tim's directing, Steve is the producer and Matt is one of the creators and writers. Stay tuned for more behind-the-scenes info and a peek at the net's hottest new show!

New media a new president makes...

2008-12-20T16:05:00.000-08:00

Whenever a new morsel about our soon-to-be president's online campaign pops up, my pointer finger gets busy (I learned months ago that the middle finger of rage just isn't as effective as some of my friends think). Obama's online campaign was, in a word, brilliant. His video team deserves perhaps the most recognition - they produced polished, moving content for immediate web release from virtually anywhere and everywhere in the country.

Now, we all know that Obama embraces evil policies. No shit, Sherlock. That didn't keep his team from whipping out compelling shorts like this one:

Turns out Obama had an impressive FIFTY-person team taping, editing, scoring and uploading vids around-the-clock. Multiple cameras were used during his speeches for optimal "coverage", ensuring the best possible shots could be picked in editing. And yeah, they were fast. Once, his team had professionally produced video of a speech online nineteen minutes after his speech ended. For more deets:

http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/7/obama-s-video-guru-speaks-how-we-owned-the-youtube-primary

I'm glad we're learning the same programs and skill set the Obama team had at their disposal. Waltzing into the culture war unarmed, unprepared and unready is kinda like invading another country without actionable intelligence. The fallout will crush us, and we'll end up alienating our own most fervent supporters.

Grassroots Films rolls out a web short

2008-09-11T20:28:00.000-07:00

Grassroots Films has put out a new short aimed at encouraging Catholics to vote. The video doesn't endorse either candidate but it makes the responsibility to exercise one's right clear. This is a well-made, powerful short.

CONTROL FREAKS

2008-08-27T22:07:00.001-07:00

Over the past several weeks, I've been working off-and-on in my garage to put together a stop motion video for Sarah's Law (will require family notification for a minor seeking an abortion). I found many political ads to be dull or otherwise un-edgy, and I thought playing with a Barbie doll might help remedy that. Although we're focusing on putting a feature together at Evans Media, there's tons of opportunities when it comes to web.

Further revisions

2008-08-23T01:04:00.000-07:00

After another week of company meetings, discussions, and planning, we have re focused, and are finally pointed in the right direction. We do not primarily focus on short films, but rather feature films. Our goal is to tell great faith-based stories to a modern audience. To have box office success somewhere in the future.
We will make short films and look for contests and festivals to enter, we might explore the field of webisodes, but for the next year and a half, our primary focus is a feature film; writing, developing, and preparing to shoot it. A faith-based story that will change the hearts and minds of modern audiences.

Seeing it narrow-minded

2008-08-08T01:32:00.000-07:00

The film industry is basically divided into two parts: Studio Pictures and Independent Pictures. We focus on independent pictures.
Independent pictures are basically divided into three categories: Feature films, short films, and other films. (Internet webisodes, commercials, ads, marketing, documentations, etc.) In the future we will work on feature films and webisodes. But currently, we focus on the short films.
Independent short films are basically divided into four categories: products for TV, personal productions, productions made for theater or to sell, and films to be entered into contests. We focus on the latter two; films for contests and theaters.
What makes us unique is that we have a special ability to find the great stories in low-budget, bible-shelf Jesus junk movies, and produce high-quality films that the public will enjoy.

LIVE from COMIC-CON 2008

2008-07-24T14:16:00.000-07:00

Howdy folks,

I'm surrounded by Storm Troopers, Anime babes, Batmen, and locked & loaded gunmen from Umbrella Corp. Them, and plenty of talent scouts, studio execs, fifty thousand news crews and little shaggy-haired fanboy spawn reading comic books. A guy just walked past wearing cardboard/sharpie signs announcing that he IS, in fact, hiring "2D and 3D Animators". Oh, yes. The fun continues.

I've talked to a Disney Studios talent scout, a guy who started his own graphic novel series, and another dude who's trying to create a multi-platform story world through webisodes, comic books and lotsa merch. His series is called "The Red R". More on that later.

This event is truly mind-blowing. I've never even conceived the ability to market this much STUFF at once to this many people. Times Square, Universal City Walk - they don't come close. I've got so much swag I'm thinking about wallpapering my room with it.

Anyway, I'm going to re-emersh myself in the sweet, sweet womb of the exhibit hall now. I'll take some pics & hopefully meet some more of the 100,000+ people that swang by.

First week of Incubator

2008-07-13T01:11:00.000-07:00

We held a meeting after the first sessions of the business incubator. We will be writing, between the four of us, two research documents; one focusing on the Virtue and Faith-based films, and one on viral marketing and webisodes. We realized that "faith-based" is a very shaky and narrow platform. So we are now more "virtue based", but we will still try to implement faith elements and saint stories as much as we can.
Meanwhile, rumor has it that the women are beginning to look into starting an official website. And the first short film is in conceptual stages.
Stay tuned.

The "new" in what we do is what's new for you

2008-07-07T01:37:00.000-07:00

I was standing in line at the airport the other day, and I saw on a little screen an instructional video guiding passengers through the security point steps. I wondered about the people behind the camera; did they work for a company that specifically works on little projects like that for firms? How much would someone pay to have someone make a promotional video or some video for whatever cause? Wouldn't there be a lot of opportunities out there for things like that?
Well maybe, as an initial secondary function of the company could be to make little videos for people who want a video made for something. It would be a pretty steady and reliable stream of smaller but sustainable income for the company, and could at least help kick it off with the initial funding needed to make it bigger. Also, it could help establish our own credibility. Eventually we can move to the bigger things.

Anyways, we'll find out more later this week. Wednesday is the first session of the business Incubator, where we will all be put on the same page, and start to steer in one direction.
More on this later.

That's all, folks.

2008-07-05T13:59:00.001-07:00

Our internship has come to an end. It's been a spectacular four weeks. We've learned a lot about development and marketing, and it was fantastic to see everything we learned about being played out in real life (pitches at the majors, writers coming in, management contracts, options...)

I read thirteen screenplays, five TV movie treatments, and two TV series pilots. I was able to work on film posters and TV show logos. I got to participate in a development meeting, and take classes on story development, contracts for writers and directors, websites for film, and packaging scripts & projects.

I made a new set of friends, and I was inspired. With companies like Hero out there, I know without any doubt that our culture's hugely important entertainment industry is NOT going to the dogs.

That healthy, airbrushed look

2008-06-20T00:37:00.000-07:00

So I was watchin' some late-night TV and trying to ignore the AC-less HEAT. A commercial came on, advertising skin cream for "that healthy, airbrushed look". No joke.

I also spent the evening on the Santa Monica pier, looking at all the beautiful people (and the people who want to be beautiful). It's set me thinking. I'm not talking about the obvious reflections we've all heard too many times about real beauty vs. interior beauty...I'm talking about perception. How we see people. How I see people.

And I've gotta admit, it's hard to look past the externals. Much of that's due to entertainment's portrayal of beauty/sexiness as good. The good guys are beautiful hunks or babes. The bad guys usually aren't (unless they have to be a love interest of our hero).

But, obviously, physical symmetry and 'airbrushed skin' doesn't equal good. It means you got lucky, you buy too much skin cream and you eat too little food. I think that's a challenge for filmmakers. Showing eye candy and calling it "hero" is easy. Building character and truth and humanity without flash isn't, but it's what we have to do. That's telling the truth.

FIRST WEEK

2008-06-16T22:58:00.001-07:00

So what did I do last week?

I read and covered half a dozen scripts, I participated in my first story development meeting, I spent time doing online research on some of the most successful indie production companies. And that was just me – my fellows did as much and more. That was the work.

Then there was the fun stuff – rooting for the Lakers (‘cause no matter how much they suck, this is LA, baby…), eating ham sandwiches on the roof of our office building while we soaked up the smog, getting plenty of edgy and awesome Latino culture. We swung by the almighty Chris Riley and planned lunch at In-N-Out. We laughed at the tourists in Hollywood. We slept on the floor and fought off the ants and wished we had air conditioning. And we went to Starbucks every. Single. Day.

So that was our first week. Another update with photos (I hope) will arrive shortly. Count the minutes, count the hours, count the seconds…

FIRST DAY

2008-06-09T20:10:00.000-07:00

Here’s the promised first day update:

We had quite an awesome honeymoon at Hero. After a 1-hour nasty-LA-traffic commute we found the offices, which are pretty spiffy. They’re also down the block from a giant Starbucks (but what isn’t these days?)

We started off in orientation meetings with the CEO, a young Spaniard named Kique, Valentina, the Marketing VP, and Fernando, the Development VP. Then we had a talk from the intern director, Jacob. There are two other interns right now: a guy from LA and a girl from Quebec City. The people at Hero are very friendly, tightly-knit and real motivated.

We’re focusing on development and marketing. Development = reading and evaluating (writing coverage on) movie scripts that are sent to Hero. I got to practice by reading a script sent in by the William Morris Agency, one of the most prestigious agencies in Hollywood. Marketing = initial ad campaigns, online buzz for films in development, website critiques, etc. They need a ton of design stuff done; they hire pros for final ads but they want marketing approaches/design concepts put together by us, since we’re in the target demos of many Hero projects. Plus, we’re free. We did a focus group on one of their posters.

We’re going to be having a class every week about “the business” during our lunch hour at a restaurant. Hero provides the lunch and the speaker. Fernando will be the regular speaker, but we’ll also have guests. Tomorrow we have to sign confidentiality agreements and read the scripts they have in development. Now I have to drink a beer & do a little work work. Hopefully I can get my phone charged up soon.

Don't make religious movies. They make too much money.

2008-06-09T00:57:00.000-07:00

Here is a trailer for "Bloodline". It is a new film that seems to take after the DaVinci code theory. It shows how Jesus and Mary Magdalen have a bloodline. Seriously, they actually have descendants. Watch the trailer.
http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/bloodline/trailer/

And here is another. Less serious, and more a "I can't believe you people take religion seriously." Mindset The smiling, polite, and slightly sarcastic Larry Charles brings us another documentary about religion in our world today. Another trailer, if you are interested.
http://www.apple.com/trailers/lions_gate/religulous/trailer_large.html

What I wonder is, is there really a market for these films? Somehow I'm not convinced. Bloodline made a grand total of $38,029 in the first month of release. Religulous may do better, but I cannot imagine such shallow arguments to hold up substantial box office results. But that could just be me. We'll wait and find out next fall. I can't imagine it making much more than a mere 6 or 7 million.

On the other hand, there are a handful of faith-based films that are somewhat successful. Disregarding the potential Passion fluke, films like the Mission (1986, grossing $17.2M) tend to do comparably well as well as certain other films with well-accepted religious aspects, such as "It's a Wonderful Life", "Going My Way", "Raiders of the Lost Ark", "Ben Hur" (won best picture '59), and "Chariots of Fire", to name a few.

True, there are plenty of religious films that don't do well, but that's because the filmmakers are not, well, filmmakers.

Here is an article I found on why Variety hates "Religious Films". Mainly it is becuse they are over-criticle, they promote God at the expense of science instead of in addition to, and they assume the watchers need converting.

Read it for yourself: Variety Hates Religious Theme of Movie Because...Well... it's Religious

Evans Media

2008-06-07T22:12:00.000-07:00

Hi,

I am Elizabeth Merriman, co-founder of Evans Media. Right now we are, as Tim said, in our starting phases. I am currently working on our first script which should be finished in summer 08'. We are all very excited about the company, and are working very hard. We are working to have short films ready to enter in contests as well as scripts to enter.

Checkin' In

2008-06-07T13:40:00.000-07:00

Hi,

My name's Matt Salisbury; I'm a Junior (well, technically, at least) at JP Catholic. I'll be 'Checkin' In' with this banging blog at completely unannounced moments. Throughout the next month, I shall be working as an intern at Hero Pictures (heropicturesinternational.com) As I work away, my experiences will be shared with you, dear readers. Join me, a feckless young man, as I pay my dues in the entertainment capital of the world. Learning cutting-edge skills for companies like Evans Media has NEVER been so much fun. NEVER EVER.

What you (don't) see

2008-06-04T19:57:00.000-07:00

In a recent video on Studio Daily, an online family news center, Barry Sonnenfeld, director/producer/cinematographer, gave a keynote presentation at NAB to discuss the changing nature of television and film.

Is the world of theater dying? Are less people going to see movies? Television certainly seems to be strongly rivaling movies, due to the high-end effects and format television is now capable of, and the ease of accessibility. People don't like to pay $10 to sit and be entertained for two hours where they could be doing something else. Having the TV on allows for other activities at the same time, and during commercial breaks. Besides, it's basically free.

And what about the internet? The totalitarian rise of the world wide web is certainly making multitasking easier. YouTube is great, but doesn't it tend to shorten people's attention spans? And if you're going to watch a movie, it's nice to be able to leave it playing in the corner of the screen while you do... anything else at the same time.

One other point Sonnenfeld brings up is how Facebook is becoming a hub of personal information. Seriously, if the government wanted to watch your everyday life, and know everything about you, it's a lot easier, thanks to Facebook.

You can watch the video here:
http://www.studiodaily.com/main/video/9484.html

Evans Media: the seed

2008-06-04T15:46:00.000-07:00

Evans Media is a brand new company recently founded By Tim Evans and Elizabeth Merriman. Beginning in July 2008 the company will go through an intensive incubator, and is expected to be fully active before January 2010.

The team members currently include several students at John Paul the Great Catholic University.

We are all committed to our goal of entertaining a modern audience with untold, faith-based stories through new media.

Here at our new web page you can keep up with all the latest updates on the activities of the team members, and learn more about the company as it grows. Look for pictures, video clips, and news on entertainment here.