Monthly Archives: April 2013

the director spirit

10 years ago an ad made a bold statement: EVERYONE IS A DIRECTOR.

Making of Sony Two Worlds from Spy Films on Vimeo.

In the 1960’s this statement would have been ludicrous. Directors were grand masters of a young art-form, explorers of the mystery of movement and the power of story. Directors, at least in Eruope, were an intellectual avant-garde at the edge of all the arts, carrying the torch of inspiration, talent, individuality, genius.

Cinema directors of that time were like shamans, a living conduit between universal questions and small human stories told in frame-by-frame detail. Films often reflected experiences that the mostly grown-up audiences could recognize and identify with.

In a film by Fellini or Kurosawa or Antonioni one could expect to get lost in magical worlds that other arts could not yet access. The master directors blended material, physical and spiritual dimensions in personal, unique manifestos. No other art-form could move so dynamically: the monopoly on moving images, virtual travel, urban escapism and human darkness and dream belonged to the cinema.

Directors held the power to unleash Freudian/Junghian shadow dark sides. The new release by Kurosawa or De Sica was awaited (in almost every country except the United States) with fervor, more than a Lady Gaga show today. Cinema audiences were mostly still unspoiled by a world of inflated, constant, omnipresent imagery and constant swift manipulation and pressure to buy, not think or feel.

FeetyourFilm. Take your movie out for air.

A new cinemahead game: Feeturfilms. Longer than a feature film, further than you can walk alone.

It’s a contest for taking films around the world by foot or bike. You take a film. You take it with you, and hand it off to someone.

Yes, let’s look at a film Launch again. “Launching” means PR distribution campaings, big events and shiny lights. But what if filmmakers played along and let go of a film altogether? A film, in any format preferrably small (like USB) can be released into the environment in a dynamic way, meaning that a launch should allow the “vehicle” to carry on, to keep moving. To Launch is to let go in a way that the film (in whatever forms it is) keeps moving.

“Launching” a film the FeeturFilm way is not a radical event, not unlike “premiering” a film in a small town festival. You present your work, you answer some questions about your process, and you meet the people whom your film has just met.

A Launch could be leaving a film on a parkbench in a central park, in a visible place where it is likely to get picke up and moved forward. Launch packets can have QR codes for those who want info. A launch can be anywhere, but the idea is that it not be ignored, but rather spark an action-reaction chain that sets the film in motion, on its own feet.

Feeturfilms are longer than feature films. They go the whole way, they can go around the world even, but they travel slow: no engines, no fossil fuels, no inorganic waste.

Feeturfilms walk your way if you can give them a hitch, a ride, or just stick them in your pocket as far as you can go with them.

Think Geocaching.
you go treasure hunting for hidden caches armed only with smart GPSs.

Think Natural currents
Dropping a container with a USB drive from a ship into an ocean current to see where it lands. I once saw a golfer hit one off a cruise ship into the gulf current. That was in the 80s..

|| @dannialegi

AMATEUR goes Big.

Watch this upcoming film post by the makers of the nofilmschool community. They ran a kickstarter project and are looking to go Big (as in “feature”) with this story. Here are some notes from their website

The biggest help — do you know anyone in the sports world?

The best way to reach someone is through a connection. So — do you know someone in the sports world? Do you know someone who knows someone? As I posted about it on Kickstarter, reaching out to anyone in the basketball world could be a HUGE help.

Hope you’re well.

A friend of mine, Ryan Koo, released a short film about under-the-table high school basketball recruiting and I think you’ll like it. Give it a minute and I think you’ll watch the whole thing (it’s only 9 minutes):

The filmmaking team is looking for support from the sports world in order to show there’s an audience for the feature, MANCHILD, which is about a 13 year-old phenom and the pressures he faces. This short is a prequel to the feature. Phil Jackson backed their Kickstarter campaign!

Ryan is trying to make the writing process easy, so there’s background info, hi-res photos etc. here for anyone to cover it online:

Thanks for taking the time to check it out.

The best spots ever?

Some ads are memorable. The Cannes Ad festival every year nominates the best ad in the world. The winners of these high-profile industrial competitions are usually big ad companies. If you have’t seen these award-winning ads for Nike, Old Spice and Adidas here is your second chance (life’s all about second chances).

These ads are entirely different, and worth comparing.

The Nike chicken ad comes from Tractor, a Stockholm-L.A. team of directors producers that enjoys a kinda cult status in Sweden. way past Björn Borg and approaching Abba. They’ve done work for pop tarts stars and coke global sodas, and they’ve even taken a comedy shot at hollywood.

 

 

Are film-makers innovators?

A film-maker is a “maker” in the open-source sense, a tinkerer with old tools and new technologies. Film-makers use familiar and unfamiliar materials to develop personal takes on story and film.

The meaning, as canadian animator Norman McLaren used to say, is between the frames of a film, between the lines, in the changing relationships and tensions between colours, shapes, the dark and light.

There is a lot of learning going on. Sharing knowledge is the smartest most tangible reward a collective society affords its citizens no matter if they are leaders or followers.  
 
Check out this short & funny TED talk about starting a movement.  The first person to follow an idea is just as important as the first person who jumped up and down screaming Eureka!

 

Film-makers are true innovators exploring, digging thru hybrid sources narrative environments to re:mix and share with a crowd they get to kno. Solitary reflections and social encounters. from garage to garage, from lab to classroom, from funded projects to home studios, help feed a landscape of one-of-a-kind miniature film-making platforms bringing together mentors and apprentices, developing and supporting projects and collaborations, encouraging freedom in storytelling and shared making-of experiences.

 

Firefox Flicks?

It’s a video contest. it’s a chance to win small prizes. Firefox is out to color an open space available to digital makers. The Flicks contest was one example, and the Popcorn Maker is a whole new bag of tricks.

The creative brief

Last year’s flicks

2012-10-09-18.03.46-300x224.jpg

For more indie filmmaking info keep an eye out for the awesome NoFilmschool and the Firefoxflicks

Popcorn

Avant 2013 – Exp. film fest in sweden

 

AVANT is a yearly Experimental Film Festival in Karlstad

avant poster

Every year the subject for AVANT changes. In 2012 it was comedy with “Avant Goes Witty” and the humorous strand in experimental film, with super-8 programs by the Spanish maker David Domingo (aka Stanley Sunday), British filmmaker John Smith,  and  work by Robert Nelson presented by Mark Toscano, archivist at Academy Film Archive, Los Angeles.  
The program for august 2013 is….?AVANT 2013 will again be  free of charge with online booking.
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