Inventing the Movies

Some of the things I love about summer are weekend trips to the Berkshires, taking time off for a vacation, and all that means more time available to read books. On my summer reading stack this year was an advance copy of Inventing the Movies, a new book by Scott Kirsner that takes you on fascinating romp through the movie industry’s hundred-year love/hate relationship with technology and innovators. The book is an entertaining read with fascinating historical research and fresh insights from interviews with a long list of contemporary luminaries including director Peter Jackson, computer graphics pioneer Ed Catmull, and entrepreneur Mark Cuban.

With a keen attention to multiple perspectives, Kirsner presents the view of industry executives who are reluctant to innovate, and contrasts their views with the innovators who have advanced the many technologies like projection, color, sound, non-linear editing, digital projection, internet distribution, etc. that have transformed the industry over a century of change and revived it over and over again for many generations of audiences. Inventing the Movies is a lively book of interest to innovators in any field, as well as people who love movies and want to take a look at the business and technological machinations behind the many screens in their life: cinema, television, home theater, personal computers, portable media devices, and video-enabled phones.

Last week I did an interview with Scott Kirsner about the book, how the project got started, and what he plans to do next. The interview is currently being edited will be posted on this blog sometime before September rolls around.

The book is now available from Amazon.com. The book is also available as an e-book from LuLu. Scott Kirsners blog post on the book is here.

Cinema Study Resources

Here’s a listing of some cinema study resources available on the web, I’m in the process of adding more sites to this list. Is there a site you think should be on this page and it’s not? Please contact me about it.

The Internet Movie Database (IMDB) provides a comprehensive listing of movies, credits, facts, and more. This was among the first user-community generated sites on the Internet, now a definitive destination and commercial site owned by Amazon. Looking for movie credits? This is a good place to start.

The Art Historian’s Guide to the Movies is a record of appearances of and references to famous works of art and architecture in the movies compiled by Craig Eliason based on citations that people submit to him. It is intended to be a source for teachers of art history who are considering showing clips or entire films as part of their presentation of the traditional arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture.

Library of Congress, American Memory Collections: Motion Pictures provides links of the American Memory online collections for materials in the motion picture format. American Memory provides free and open access to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience. It is a digital record of American history and creativity and a resource for education and lifelong learning.

Flicker is a site for the alternative cinematic experience. Here you will find films and videos that transgress the boundaries of the traditional viewing experience, challenge notions of physical perception, and provide cutting edge alternatives to the media information technocracy.

Midnight Ramble concerns Black Hollywood from the period just after World War I through the 1940s. It considers everything from the low budget, independent Race movies of Oscar Micheaux to major studio productions. It’s a tribute to a very misunderstood, and mysterious film genre that lasted for over forty years.

Women in Cinema - A Reference Guide covers a wide range of topics. Though “Women in Cinema” narrows the topic in one sense to a particular type of film, at the same time it broadens it to include many aspects of topics such as feminism, the women’s movement, and women’s issues. The study of film encompasses a wide variety of types, historical periods, national productions, and related topics.

Operation Filmmaker offers crisp angle on subject-filmmaker relationship

I recently watched Nina Davnport’s new film, Operation Filmmaker at the ICA in Boston. Not since watching Shadow of the House last year have I enjoyed watching a documentary so much.

This is one of those films that started out as one project and ended up a completely different one, because the filmmaker was able to continue working with their subject as the context around their work changed dramatically, which makes it all the more delicious. The project started when David Schisgall, a friend of Nina Davenport from college, directed a piece for MTV, “True Life: I’m Living in Iraq,” about young people living in Iraq. The piece focused mostly on American soldiers, however, it also featured seven minutes about Muthana Mohmed, a young Iraqi film student who was desperate to go to Hollywood. Actor and director Liev Schreiber saw the piece and was moved. He contacted Schisgall with the idea that he’d like to give Muthana an opportunity to come to work with him as an intern on “Everything is Illuminated,” a film Schreiber was going to direct in the Czech Republic.

Schisgall thought that Muthana’s experience might make for an interesting documentary, so he hired Davenport to make a film about Muthana working on the set of the film. This might have been an ordinary behind-the-scenes movie worthy of a DVD extra, however, when Davenport arrived on the set of “Everything is Illumniated” she quickly realized that this was not going to be a straightforward piece about an intern working on a Hollywood movie. Director Liev Schreiber and producer Peter Saraf had all sorts of expectations of what Muthana would accomplish on the set of “Everything is Illumniated,” which in the end were unrealistic; at the same time Muthana was not much different than the average middle-class kid unsure of what they want while being caught in a very unfamiliar situation. I don’t want to give too much away about the story itself, because I had a chance to see the film only knowing this setup, and I really enjoyed the journey not having any idea how the story was going to end. It’s really delightful to be able to see the movie that way, the film unfolds like life itself.

Nina Davenport, who was Ross McElwee’s student at Harvard, follows her teacher in the tradition of personal documentary filmmaking, and it really works in this film. What starts out as a straightforward behind-the-scenes piece, ends up becoming a personal film for Davenport. Her camera is at once gentle and probing, talking us along the ups and downs of the relationship between subject and filmmaker. In an era in which so many people are making films about themselves without an observer providing perspective, Operation: Filmmaker demonstrates once again why we benefit from seeing a dialog between subject and filmmaker. What makes the film so interesting is seeing a life honestly portrayed from the perspective of a third party who at the same time is closely involved in the life of the subject, and yet a different person who in the end can only observe, capturing both the things that make the subject attractive to us, as well as the things that we may not like about the subject. In the end, Muthana comes across as very human, and whatever we may not like about his character, we must recognize as characteristics about ourselves. As Anais Nin once wrote, “we don’t see people as they are, we see people as we are.” This film provides an eloquent visual manifestation of Nin’s oft quoted phrase.

This richly observed and well edited film goes beyond the events unfolding in front of the camera to tell a larger story about ourselves and relationships with others. Part of what makes this such an interesting film to watch is that Davenport reveals her struggle to make the film, during the Q&A session after the screening she said, “I felt I was in an abusive relationship, but it was not the man, it was the movie.” And while some will see this film as an allegory for our involvement in Iraq, in the end it’s a more universal story about expectations of others and what happens when those expectations don’t meet up with reality.

A list of upcoming screenings is available on the films website.

Smile Boston Project

Smile Boston Project is an award-winning short documentary about Bren Bataclan’s “Smile Boston Project,” a street art project. In the summer of 2003, Bren Bataclan began leaving paintings of his colorful characters for people to take all over the Boston area on park benches, in subway stations, schoolyards, and other public locations. To each painting Bataclan attached a note that read, “This painting is yours to keep if you promise to smile at random people more often.” This film covers the project from its inception in the summer of 2003 through the spring of 2007, examining Bataclan’s influences, his goals, and the reactions of the people who have found, purchased, and critiqued his paintings. The film was edited by Elissa Mintz and the music was composed by Colin Owens.

Play Trailer (00:54)

Visit the Smile Boston Project web site for more information about the film.

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Ten Documentary Films

I was reading a post tonight on DVXuser that asked What’s the best documentary you’ve ever seen? and I was inspired by the challenge and made a list of 10 documentary films to watch that are worthy of both viewing and analysis. I can’t begin to rank what I would consider a top ten of documentaries, nor could I ever narrow things down to ten, but if I had to pick ten documentary films right this instant to program in a virtual documentary film festival, here are ten films I’d consider programming right at the moment.

One is a short to make up for the epic length of one of the selections.Ask me tomorrow and my answer will be a little different, ask me next year and it will be really different. So here’s the list in chronological order:

Read more

Destiny

Destiny (2001, 4 min., 24 sec.) is a short narrative film and my debut as a director (not counting student films). A classic New York love story of two young professionals who are perfect for each other. Two dogs. Two actors. Two thousand dollar budget (shot on film in 1999 on the cusp of the digital video revolution). Two (or so) days of shooting. Destiny is all about twos.

 Play Movie

Note: With some versions/configurations of Internet Explorer the above play button will not play the movie properly. If this is the case, please visit the Destiny movie page on blip.tv to view the movie. If you run into this problem, please consider upgrading to FireFox, a standards compliant browser that plays nice with others and is growing in popularity.

Project Notes

I directed, shot, and co-produced the film and worked with two dedicated producers, Liza Case and David Chachere. Liza wrote the screenplay and played the role of Margaret. Rich Madelung played the role of Greg. Nelson Ryland spent many hours in a dark Media Composer suite as the editor. Trevor Jackson composed and recorded the score.

You can download a copy of Liza’s delightful script from: Destiny1.pdf (PDF, 25K bytes).

We had many enthusiastic and talented people join our crew for production, I wish we could include them all here. Balazs Nyari of Cineric made things possible behind the scenes as Executive Producer. The filmmakers include everyone who made the film possible through their generosity and support.

The film premiered at the Long Island Film Festival, screened in the NewFilmmakers series at Anthology Film Archives in New York, was featured at the Multiples of One conference, and was licensed for broadcast by WE: Womens Entertainment and the Emmy Award-winning PBS series, “The Short List.” After a long exhibition hiatus, it is now available for viewing online. It’s interesting to think that when this film was made, there were not that many venues for short films except for film festivals, now, many years later, we have a wide array of options including Vimeo, YouTube, and blip.tv (where Destiny is hosted).

After working on many shorts and feature-length projects as cinematographer, I was ready to direct my first non-student film. I used to meet up with David, Liza, and others on a monthly basis for the New York Independent Film Monitor editorial meetings. Liza and David were always encouraging me to direct. I said, yes, I wanted to direct something, and for my first time out wanted to direct something short and light, and with that in mind, had started looking for a really good short script, not being a writer myself. Good short scripts are hard to find.

At one of these meetings Liza suggested Destiny, a stage play she had written. It had been performed on two occations in New York with humans playing the roles of the dogs in a minimalist black-box environment. Liza offered to rewrite it for the screen. After reading the script I said, “Now this is a really good short script, with just the right twist at the end,” adding that it would make, “a perfect short film, this is what I’ve been looking for.”

So Liza rewrote Destiny it for the screen. David and Liza came on as producers. We all called in the many favors we needed for the professional crew, 35mm film stock, processing, telecine, camera, dolly, lighting, locations, music, editing suite, etc. It was an amazing experience to collaborate with Liza in her roles as writer, actor, and co-producer. I especially enjoy collaborating with writers, not being one myself. Stephen Jobes, a seasoned theater director, provided me with an excellent crash course in directing, and I was off.

I shot Destiny in 35mm using an Aaton 35-III from Abel Cine-Tech. The 35-III is a small and lightweight and a delight to work with, it offers practically the same mobility and ease of use as a Super 16 camera (it’s only four pounds heavier than the Aaton XTR and lighter than a professional camcorder) with the spectacular image quality and optical characteristics of 35mm. Even though the final film exists as a video, the spectacular quality of 35mm aquisition comes through in the DVD version, not so much in the low data-rate Flash version for the web, but story always shines through technical limitations.

Credits:

Featured Cast: Liza Case (Margaret) and Rich Madelung (Greg); Director and Cinematographer: David Tamés; Supporting Cast: Christopher Hardwick (Big Guy), Dermot Walsh (Skateboarder), Max (as Himself), Monkey (Priscilla), Diners: Lorna Brooks, David Marguiles, David Knappe, Elizabeth Maynard; Editor: Nelson Ryland; Writer: Liza Case, Based Upon Her Play; Co-Producers: David Tamés and Liza Case; Executive Producers: Balazs Nyari and Monitor Films; Producer: David Chachere; Unit Production Manager: Anita Sum; Location Manager: Bob Fois; Art Director (Wardrobe and Selected Jewelry): Kate Katomski; Make-Up And Hair Design: Susie Kim; First Assistant Director: Daniel Fischer-Pask; Continuity: Laurence Moulin; Gaffer: James Bishop; 1st Assistant Camera: Joseph Bondulich; 2nd Assistant Camera: Pixie Alexander; Botfly: Stephen Jobes; Production Assistant: Dermot Walsh; Music: “Just a Holler Away” Written by Trevor Jackson, recorded at Trevor’s Place, Valhalla, NY and Gig Lizzy Studios, NYC, mixed by Stephen Tjaden at The Fun House, NYC, trumpets by Erik Jekabson, vocals and all other instruments by Trevor Jackson; Special Thanks: Joseph Correia, Berkely Catering, Screen Actors Guild, Joanne Morelli, Artist Linda Lee, John Lynch, Shay, Meridiana Restaurant, Peter Abel, Abel Cine Tech, Hot Lights, Cineric, New York City Mayor’s Office, Jonathan Shoemaker, Irmina Tamés, Martha Braunfield, Luna Films, 104 Broadway Farm, Broadway Convenience Center, Mohammad Anwar; Shot on Kodak 35mm film with an Aaton 35-III camera; Edited on Avid Media Composer.

A Kino-Eye.com production; Copyright 1999 Monitor Films, Copyright 2001 Kino-Eye.com Productions, Released under the terms of a Creative Commons Share-Alike, No-Derivatives, Non-Commercial License; any redistribution must not remove the URL at the end of the video and any web pages or text descriptions must include a link to: kino-eye.com/destiny.

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The grizzly ecstatic truth

I heard an interesting interview on Weekend Edition with Werner Herzog talking about Grizzly Man, his new documentary about Timothy Treadwell, who spent many years with grizzly bears in Alaska. There’s another good interview that was on Fresh Air a couple of days prior.

Treadwell and his girlfriend were killed and eaten by some bears in October of 2003. The film makes use of Treadwell’s own video footage to tell the story. Herzog claims that it’s a “film that gives you more insight into our own nature than many other films that I’ve seen in a long time.” The film screens theatrically this summer and will be aired on the Discovery Channel this fall. Herzog says some interesting things about the documentary/fiction distinction, “I don’t really make a clear distinction between documentaries and feature films, there’s a blurred line because I stylize documentaries, sometimes I even invent … sometimes I try to dig into something much deeper than the superficial truth of the so called cinema verite, somehow [it is] confused about fact and truth, and I’ve always looked for something much deeper, an ecstatic truth, the ectascy of truth … the distinction is not so clear.”