blogging – Sir Cinema

In the wonderful world of media, there is a vast supply of content available to any and everybody to use to their heart’s content. This supply is limited, however, and restricted in many ways. When using other people’s work, the biggest obstacle is known as copyright. In most cases, it is illegal to distribute (and even make) copies of somebody’s work.

While I mostly plan to make my own works for my blog, there have already been and will likely be some situations in which making my own is not feasible. This is sure to be true for you as well when making your own website. For these cases, I have below 5 tips that should help you choose reusable content to use for your own website.

Tip 1: Make your own stuff.

Making your own images is possibly the safest way to stay away from any chance of copyright infringement. From the moment you create something and fix it in a tangible copy for the first time, you automatically become the copyright holder of said work.

Not everybody has the time or ability to make every single piece of media they need to carry out their task, so, while this is the safest route, it is rarely the most practical.

Tip 2: Create a stock media account.

Image contributed by shutterstock.com, Personal Use Only, DISCLAIMER: I am in no way affiliated with Shutterstock nor do I hold any rights to this image.

Stock media websites, like shutterstock.com, give you access to a large supply of images that are eligible to use for any purpose you desire. This is a great tool if you don’t want/have time to make your own pictures, but there is a down side.

Many of these accounts require a monthly fee of around $30 to gain access to these bits of content. The prices really isn’t that bad for the wide range of reusable content, but it might be enough to warrant searching for a cheaper (FREE) alternative.

Tip 3: Creative Commons is fantastic.

Creative Commons is a non-profit organization dedicated to building a globally-accessible public commons of knowledge and culture. This is where you would go if you wanted to share your work while also securing it as your own. It is also a wonderful place to go to find digital content to use for your own projects.

This is a pretty safe option because it clearly details what type of license each individual work, minimizing your chances of using the wrong thing and getting in trouble for it. I won’t be going into the six categories of licenses offered in this blog, but the most suitable licenses to fit your needs are the Attribution license and the Attribution-NoDerivs license. These are works that are available to use both commercially and non-commercially.

IMPORTANT: Regardless of what creative commons license a person has on their work, it is imperative that you give credit to the copyright holder.

Tip 4: Find public domain content.

Public Domain: No Rights Reserved. Icon for Public Domain. Image contributed by Ahkâm, Personal Use Only, DISCLAIMER: I do not own the rights to this image.

While these can be harder to come by, public domain content is most-often the safest route to take when reusing media. These works have no copyright restrictions and can be modified and used both commercially and non-commercially without any need of giving credit to the creator.

There are a couple issues with searching for public domain content on the web. One is that people are not likely to put their work in the public domain. This would make it impossible to gain any source of income from said work.

That being said, you are not very likely to find a hefty sum of public domain images and videos that suit your necessities. The other issue is that, even when you do find something that matches your idea, it will likely be sub-par in quality. I am not saying that no skilled artists put their work in the public domain, but it is highly unlikely.

Tip 5: Contact the creator.

The best way to go about reusing other people’s content is by simply contacting the creator/copyright holder and ask for permission to use their work.

To obtain permission, there are a few easy steps to take.

Determine who the copyright holder is.
Contact the copyright holder.
Obtain permission to use the work how you intend to.

Sometimes obtaining this permission can require you to pay the copyright holder a fee and sometimes they will just turn you down, but having to pay them or being told not to use it is a much smarter route than using something and finding out later that you are being sued for using somebody else’s intellectual property.

In following these tips, you will be able to add content to any website, blog, or other project you may have without the worry of copyright infringement, intellectual theft, and lawsuits. Happy blogging!

When writing for a blog, there is a pretty large number of “rules” for what you should and shouldn’t do. These are put in place to help your blog be readable and easily accessible to everybody. In this post, I will explain how I can apply the practices to my own blog and how they can also apply to a career in the film industry.

There is a wonderful article written by Brian A. Klems titled, The 12 Dos and Don’ts of Writing a Blog that lists (and explains) good and bad practices when writing for a blog. While every item on this list should be considered, I will be discussing a select few that I feel are of the utmost importance in relation to my potential industry.

How can I apply the “dos and don’ts” to my blog posts?

Links are a powerful tool to use when writing a blog, as they can be helpful to the reader and the credibility of the content. When used correctly, links can act as a deeper look into the topic at hand, an aid to something complex, or even a portal to a web page that better suits the reader’s needs.
Images are important to any blog, because readers “need to be stimulated visually,” according to Klems. By adding images in areas that complement the text, it will increase the satisfaction of the overall experience and make for a more immersive read.
Grammar, similar to CGI in movies, is something nobody notices unless it is bad. Ignoring grammar will make you seem unprofessional, uneducated, or just purely careless. By correcting any grammar errors, you can help to guarantee that your blog will be taken seriously. It will also reduce the chances of viewers giving up on the read because it is difficult to follow or understand.

The two images below show how even the smallest details will go noticed if they are missing. The first image, while it looks like a doughnut, is clearly not real because it lacks detail and looks too “smooth.”

Image: Computer generated image of a doughnut with chocolate icing, covered in sprinkles. Created by Joshua Andrews

The second image is of Thanos from Avengers: Infinity War, which looks like a real-life being that you could touch, but is not real at all.

Image: Thanos’ face in front of a light-speckled background. Retrieved from <https://discover.therookies.co/2019/05/06/beginners-guide-to-becoming-a-visual-effects-vfx-artist/>

These are three of what I consider the most important tips to writing a successful blog in a classroom setting. Next, I will discuss a few more tips that I believe better relate to blog writing in the film industry.

How are blog tips supposed to apply to the film industry?

Share, share, share to any and every medium that you can. Posting to social media sites, such as Twitter and Instagram, is necessary to reach the largest audience possible. People are constantly being bombarded by posts, links, promos, etc, which makes it easy for plenty of articles and blogs to get pushed “under the fold” of any particular medium. Reaching an audience is a prime goal of film and failing to utilize every available source could result in a fantastic blog with only a handful of viewers (if any at all).
Keep it short, sweet, and to the point when writing for film. Over the years, less has become more in the industry, as people are more apt to want more if they are left wanting more (redundant, but true). this can be better understood by watching movie trailers from the 70’s and 80’s compared to trailers today.

As you can see above, the trailer for the original Star Wars (1977) is wordy and explains a good bit of what to expect from the movie. While this is a decent trailer to a fantastic movie, it doesn’t catch my attention as much as the trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) seen below.

This trailer catches my attention from the start, it draws me in to the story and makes me want to go see the film, but best of all, it hardly says anything! It leaves me with questions that I want answered and only gives me enough to crawl back for more.

Now that I have gone through some tips and tricks I have learned to successful blogging, it’s time I explain what steps I will be taking to ensure that my blog posts are worth the read.

What will I be doing to make you like my blog?

Each week, I will work towards curating and customizing my blog page to be simple to navigate for any and everybody. I will do this by utilizing grid formatting to organize my site and including handicap accessibility. This will help make sure I can obtain the largest audience possible while I find my focus.

As I fine-tune my focus, I will thoroughly research my topics so that I am able to give reliable, credible information without chance of misleading my audience. I also will attempt to make every topic as fascinating as I can by allowing my incredibly vast interest in film to seep into each and every blog.