As an amateur filmmaker, I'm already familiar with some of the gadgets and software that are used in production and post-production purposes. I've learned that 24fps or frames-per-second is used in film, and 30fps in video. There is also a difference between "digital" and "film" formats. The film format uses rolls of film, varying from sizes of 35mm, 16mm, or super 8mm where the higher is the better. In the digital format, as what we now use, it is already a computer file from tapes like mini DV, DVC pro, betacam, hi8, etc. Here, we have two types of cameras, the standard, and the latest high definition. In editing, I use Adobe Premiere Pro which editors use, as mentioned in the panel discussion.

Because of the fast changing world of technology, many kinds of equipment come out in the market. It is advised that filmmakers must choose wisely what to use, ones that are suited for their film. Check the features first and look at what is really needed. As one of the panelists said, it doesn't matter what technology you use, whether old or new. It's how you brilliantly conceptualized your story. What you need are good and trusted staff and crew. The most important thing is that you are able to put into the big screen and tell the people the message that you want your film to say.

I have not yet watched this whole movie. Whenever it is on, I manage to watch excerpts from the movie, but not the whole movie. No doubt this is a fault. I haven't watched the whole of Driving Miss Daisy either, another award winning movie. Even though I must admit, from the various scenes, that the Dancing With Wolves is a great movie. It has all the elements of greatness, of the epic historical movie. And it's great to have work for so many excellent Native American actors. Nevertheless, this is the same story.

It's the same story as the story in which Tom Cruise is in the Asian world, getting to play hero. It's the same story. You know the movie. The Last Samarai. Tom Cruise?

It's the same story as Tarzan. These are glorified Tarzan movies. It's the same mythology.

Basically there's nothing wrong with this mythology, as long as you know it's mythology. And mythology--racial and national--always has its role. Like the myth of American innocence has its role.

Of course this is a great story, a great mythology, where Europeans find themselves among the "natives," and they become hero in the native's story, they control the native's story, and the natives celebrate them and praise them. They even "get the girl," whether it's a white girl or the native girl. They always get the girl. It's the same story, told and retold and told and retold.

Sometimes this story is real, sometimes its myth, sometimes it virtual.

There's nothing wrong with this story, with this mythology. And there are many examples of Europeans coming among the natives, in the real world and easily gaining authority, control and prestige among the natives. And many of them continue to be the producers, directors, funders of the films, so rightfully they can tell their stories. They can select the types of stories, the stars, the milieu. Every now and then they are like Clint Eastwood, an "American Master" (ref. the PBS series, here) and allow the natives to have "their point of view" as the Japanese "natives" in the award-winning Letters from Iwo Jimo. Outside the movie, however, Clint still gets to play hero, as in his "Bird" movie, and the natives are just as fond as Clint as others. Certainly the natives admire Dirty Harry Callahan. For many of them he's a culture hero also, and likewise with cowboy Clint, "The Stranger," etc. I happen to be a fan of Clint Eastwood's. Movies are very addictive. American movies are American #1 industry, and for a good reason. However, we find that many of these other movie makers, the more we learn of them, are quite extraordinary also, those of us who like the foreign film festivals.

There are many such heroic stories, while the natives are generally "every which way but loose."

We witness the natives don't have any problem accepting these culture heroes either. But this is the same story.

Most of us don't mind this story because the movies are quite entertaining, and the pundits, including the native pundits, that do interfere with the American myth cannot compete with that myth. It's being told and retold and retold and retold.

Europeans are going to continue to tell this story and natives are going to help them tell this story. Sometimes the natives get to play Othello, sometimes they get to play Caliban.

Sometimes the natives refuse to help them tell this same old story.

But how dare them?

Then other natives come along to help them tell and retell this story, this same old story.

There's nothing wrong with these stories. Every people have their cultural heroes and their cultural mythologies and their standard stories. The Europeans have Beowolf, the Africans have Mwindo. There's nothing necessarily wrong with these stories. It's acceptable to have a story in which Kevin Costner gets to play hero, saving Whitney Houston.

Nevertheless, it's the same story. It's the same cultural mythology, told and retold in different stories, but the same story, the same mythology. It's even in all the science fiction stories, except the aliens sometimes get to play hero. Sometimes the robots get to play hero. But it's the same story. A Space Soap Opera. A Space Western. The same story of Western Civilization, and Western hegemony.

There's nothing wrong with this story, it's just recognizing the myth.

But I must admit there is truly a great and poignant scene when Rodney A. Grant, Native American Actor, Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota, USA, named Wind In His Hair in the movie (also had a role in Geronimo: An American Legend, 1993, with Wes Studi as Geronimo) calls out to Kevin Costner, holding up his spear,

Do you see that I am your friend? Can you see that you will always be my friend?

An all-time great scene.

But why is it that Kevin Costner--Dancing With Wolves--doesn't reply?

Of course natives every which way but loose natives don't have anything against Kevin Costner, Tom Cruise or any of their heroics. They are in our cinematic imagination.

Every now and then the native pundits complain. The People go to the movies, like The People go to Disneyland. In Paris. In Hong Kong. In Japan.

What A Dancing With Wolves in which you have a native man and woman the center and hero. They tried this with Geronimo--An American Legend movie. Every now and then they tried it with other "American Legends" that are not European.

I don't mean as a "native" that we can't continue to have the Kevin Costners--Tom Cruises--even the Madonna heroes in the native movies and real native world. Certainly not. And when these people have the funds they should have the right of control.

So of course the Will Smiths and the Oprahs and the ordinary the people are going to have to fund their own movies. Like when the women complain about not having any roles.

They are going to have to fund their own movies. However, the women, Europeans, have always had pretty great roles, even if not always the leading roles.

A Russell Wong instead of a Tom Cruise as the hero?

As for the box office appeal--maybe that's a problem. They keep telling us these people don't have box office appeal.

But for some of these movies, we might have to forget the box office appeal. Just make an independent movie.

Maybe all of these natives are going to have to have their Telemundo, their BET, even though we have many complaints about these efforts. But they are making their own movies.

Many of these great Native American actors in Dancing With Wolves, including handsome leading men and leading women should be the heroes in their own movies. Certainly maybe Native Americans themselves are going to have to be the producers and directors and actors and screenplay writers, and they are going to have to educate the general public to be able to perceive them as leading men and leading women and heroics.

And all of us every which way but loose natives can't wait to be discovered, like George Lopez.

Even when African Americans have heroic roles, if we're honest, it's usually in movies where they're saving white people, like Denzel Washington saving little Dakota Fanning. I'm not going to call Denzel Washington a glorified Uncle Remus when he saves little Dakota or little Julia, because he certainly is modern, postmodern, intelligent, manlier man. And Kevin Costner can save little Whitney a few more times, if this is the American mythology that we want.

By the way, it's good that somebody discovered "America" to play Ugly Betty, and it's good that Ugly Betty starring "America" won a Golden Globe.

When blacks were saving each other in their cinematic renaissance we called it Blaxploitation or Black Exploitation, and we, even blacks, did our best to convince blacks not to make any more of these movies. We convinced them that postmodern versions of the old stereotypes are acceptable. These are the old stereotypes in a modern and postmodern version, in which they get to be intelligent and heroic, but for whose benefit?

Or we can allow them (these American "natives"; think Richard Wright) to save Asians, as in The Art of War. They can save a few of us Latinos, if they want. They can even save some Native Americans, if they want. They can even go to Africa and save a few Africans, if they want.

We natives are every which way but loose.

Latinos of course find ourselves playing every stereotype in the book, every which way but loose, until we make our own "LatinoFlavored" productions and production companies. Then "Jose Speaks." Let Jose speak for himself.

Natives must pen works that return us to the center of their own heroic universes We have these great works, our Dancing With Wolves. Many people don't know of them, don't read them, some go unpublished.

We're all "Mischief Makers," (Amazon.com), to use the title of a Nettie Jones' work. This native work should be made into a movie, with all of these natives returned to the center of their heroic stories. Read of Mishe Masaube, Chippewa Indian, the natives at the center of their own universe, the center of their own stories, their own magical mythologies. Called "lyrical, mystical" prose.

There is N. Scott Momaday.

There is James Welch.

There is Leslie Silko.

There is Paula Gunn Allen.

There are the self-pubished Native Americans at Lulu Press.

There is The New Native American Novel: Works in Progress (Amazon.com).

There is When Brer Rabbit Meets Coyote (African-Native American Literature).

There are the books by the natives and the non-natives.

We find the natives in Dancing With Wolves welcoming Kevin Costner and accepting him as a member of their "tribe." However, they also know that he is an "exception." He's certainly not the "rule." From the point of view of the whites of that era, certainly he has "turned Indian," and certainly he is a traitor. He gets to play hero nevertheless.

Many of the Indians just get to play Indians.

Many of the natives just get to play natives.

Sometimes the natives are--every which way but loose.

Sometimes the natives are--any which way you can.

Here are just a few comments on Dancing With Wolves. Thoughts and opinions. A great movie. However, I would like to see more Native American movies with Native American men and women as the heroes and heroines, and at the center of their own noble and heroic universes, and where they control the stories, we learn their myths, they legends, their magical mythologies, and yes hear more of their languages, their many native languages.

There are many books written by great Native American writers that would make great movies. Many of them can be found online, some published by the great commercial publishers, some by small press, some by the Native Americans themselves.

We natives have our folklores, folktales, adventure stories, wisdom stories, and sacred stories in which we ourselves get to play the the heroes and heroines and the many personalities and types--many of these can be made into plays, TV and theatrical movies.

What genre of movie? Would this book make an excellent TV movie, an independent film?

If you think this is an excellent cinematic novel, then read and reread the novel, taking notes on how you might adapt it into a film.

Highlight the important scenes?

What is the POV? Is the movie point of view the same as the novel?

Then reread the book making a scene by scene outline.

The length of a full-length movie is about 120 pages.

Do you have enough material and significant movie scenes for this number of pages?

What about characters?

How many characters are central to the movie? Are these the type of characters who would make interest movie characters? Think about what movie stars could play the characters in the movie? As you write the movie, thinking about these characters help you to write the movie. You can imagine these characters speaking the lines.

Of course, if a production company decides to make the movie, this doesn't mean these stars are going to play the characters in your movie. Nevertheless, thinking about them helps you to dramatize the scene.

After your first draft is written, reread, take notes, and revise.

Read the dialogue out loud. How does it sound? How would it sound in a movie?

If you don't know how to format screenplays, then get a sample screen play script and/or purchase screenplay software. You can also find free screenplay software online.

This is just an exercise, of course. If you want to make use of this novel for commercial purposes, you would have to obtain the screenplay rights. You would have to have the permission of the author to adapt their work. You would have to option the rights. You would have to contact the author and/or the author's literary agent.

If this is your own novel, of course, you would already have the rights to adapt it as a screenplay. These are some of the techniques that you can use.

In addition to adapting novels into screenplays, you can also adapt works of nonfiction. Often works of nonfiction can make more interesting movies than fictional works, especially creative nonfiction that makes use of fictional and cinematic techniques.