Producing Your Short Film: Someone's Got to do It & Why It Should Be You

Part two of Kathy Cabrera’s Short Film Webinar Series happens this coming Wednesday night! 

Instructor: Kathy Cabrera
Price: $40 ; $30 for ATLFF Members
Duration: 90 Minutes
 

The vast majority of short films are independent productions, with many of the key creative team members holding more than one designated role on the project. If you’re a writer with sound organizational skills – you should seek out the opportunity to learn and lead and be one of the producers on the film as well. If you’re a lead actor or director whose name and reputation are riding on the film – you should definitely be involved in a key producing capacity on the film. If you’re strictly a well-organized, go-getter of a producer looking to deliver an amazing short film – partnering with talented writers, actors and directors is the key way to landing future positions and projects. To ensure everyone has enough information to be dangerous when it comes to knowing how a short film should successfully be produced, the following will be covered in this session:

• Definition of different producers, and roles (i.e. the “investor-producer”, the budget-balancing “line producer”, the “creative” producer involved in casting and artistic decisions with the director) 
• The key elements and how-to’s of producing during each phase (pre-production, production, and post-production) 
• Why the producer’s job never ends – key elements after the film is complete to effectively market and distribute the film (tactics such as what film festivals are most valuable; web distribution options; and high-impact, affordable marketing tactics)

Hand-outs and examples of supporting materials will be provided. As needed, the instructor will also make recommendations for outside reading resources.

Kathy Cabrera makes short films for a living as a filmmaking instructor and writer-producer who graduated from the UCLA School of Theater, Film & Television’s MFA in Screenwriting program.  In addition to penning eight feature-length screenplays and a drama television pilot, Cabrera has also written and produced several award-winning short films with budgets ranging from less than $2,000 to hundreds of thousands of dollars with the support of well-known industry sponsors such as the Director’s Guild of America (DGA), Kodak, Technicolor and Panavision. Cabrera has one screenplay optioned and was a finalist for the 2007 NAACP & NBC Screenwriting Fellowship and awarded the 2008 Young and the Restless Fellowship in Television.