Tag Archives: process

talkin’ INTERSTELLAR Blues

TED interstellar blogpost

TEDed

“Interstellar” By Chris Nolan has sparked admiration and quality criticism (New Yorker)  Few other high-concept films in recent years have had this kind of echo, as if it were “2001 Space Odyssey” all over again.

TED-ed posted a number of blog posts and visuals about the science in the film.

The conversation continues here Cinemahead Forum

New road doc by Alberto Martin & Daniele Manca welcomes feedback.

Hello everybody, please watch the trailer of this upcoming low budget documentary and give feedback to the makers.

[ http://highmobilitygeneration.com/ ]

A ROADTRIP THROUGHOUT EUROPE “We went on a 5000 kilometer-long road trip throughout Europe. We travelled from Schengen, Luxembourg, the birthplace of a borderless Europe, all the way to Copenhagen, which will be in 2025 the first zero emissions world capital. Denmark on 2012 has also taken the top spot on the United Nation’s first ever World Happiness Report. So we travelled from the birthplace of a borderless Europe to a place where you can already see and experience the future firsthand. ”

TO PORTRAY A GENERATION “We wanted to interview young people who have grown up in a Europe without borders: those who live, study, work, think and travel around in a high-mobility society, both digitally-connected and multicultural… in other words, those who are contributing today in building the society of tomorrow. So we went about casting in an unusual way: We posted an abstract for the project on the social network “Couchsurfing,” and whoever liked the idea then invited us to “surf” his or her couch and conduct interviews. ”

Release the Captured Image

danny photo

published in the collective book: MAGIC MOMENTS
by Broby Grafiska – Film I Värmland, 2014
ISBN 978-91-981533-0-9

I struggled as a kid with the systematic murder of butterflies in the name of the study and preservation of their magical, ephemeral beauty. Maybe an idea is like a butterfly that we find alive in flight, perfect as is. We humans are curious creatures, we live for ideas, we want to feed on rapture and wonder. We are driven to observe, hold, capture, even devour an idea. It’s a process we do unconsciously, like breathing, I suspect.But then, as in any story, once we feel an idea… “what happens next?”

For me an idea is like lighting a match in the dark, IT makes all the difference. IT reveals a little more. IT creates shadows and in betweens. Before I “get IT” or explain IT or identify IT, I can recognise one feeling: an idea can transform the unfamiliar into a cell of awareness without having a name or a purpose yet. Just a bolt of energy that reshuffles what we knew before, like a new kid on the block has the power to change an entire neighborhood.
For the most part, my ideas remain private, unexplained. Instinct is wordless, right? Why explain ideas to yourself? Sequences of verbal translation are a social tool of communication. My guess is when you feel an idea, you do what a plant does thru photosynthesis, changing light into nutriment. Perhaps our ideas are inputs, breaths to exhale later in new form. In between the in and out, is the mysterious, fascinating creative adventure of “process”, the middle of things, the Now. The East sits on the path of “what’s happening now” in a contemplative, deeper sense. The West keeps trucking’ on the highway of what happens next: desire, competition and material accomplishment. Action is inevitably a story structure: beginning, end, middle. The middle comes last because, a middle is a middle only if it is followed by an end.

Personally, I am interested in one specific kind of idea: the cinematic idea. A cinematic idea moves and changes thru time. It possesses- from its beginning – the energy and DNA of a film, and nothing else. A cinematic idea carries visual power and storytelling potential, emotional dynamics. A cinematic idea wants to be a film, not a statue, a painting, or a building. Trying to freeze and label a cinematic idea to me is like sticking a pin into that butterfly, to be able to place it – dead forever – under a magnifying glass. But I am no scientist or biologist, I am interested in stories ion motion, movies, personal films across genres and media. The movies I am most interested in are not the ones playing on Netflix, but those that have not been made yet. I started working with youth cinema for this reason: young and amateur creatives can fly if you just let them without dissecting them with how-tos and to-dos. One thing is fly, and another is to label, report and study.
James Joyce once said that his final opus “Finnegan’s Wake” – whose verbal flux and storytelling deconstruction were so unprecedented as to frustrate and fascinate readers for ever – said his inspiration for the weaving structure of the book came – in part – from the new art of cinema. [Read the “Introduction to Metaphysics” by Henri Bergson, there is a cinematic idea]

Ideas, in fluid narrative process, can become “stream of consciousness”, the art of flow. Many writers wait for flow to flood their pages with unstoppable, final sentences. Good ideas seem to shine with a promise: there will be “less pain” when a script “writes itself”. Bbut in story development good ideas are necessary but not sufficient. A writer can’t just admire a new magic moment of insight, s/he must dance with IT.

A magic moment “pops up” and we look at it, then we think we must save it, hold on to it, never let it go. How do we do that? Some scribble or tap notes. Some “take pictures” to stake a placeholder claim on the world. We all seem to want to trap, even arrest our ides as images and words, and then imprison them in our pocket digital devices. We seem to give so much value to our “captured images” and their potential value as idea reminders. But I know there is a way to do the reverse, to release the source of an idea back into the wild, to set IT free. I call it the Cinemahead process.

Carrying captured images and sounds can fill the hard-drive space in our camera and brain. This cuts down our play-space and playing with ideas (the process, the now) is the most juicy part of the game. So I try and leave a new idea exactly where I found it. Instead of capturing a shot of a tree as a memory, I play with it, then I put it back: I leave it there. Next time you do, look at how “your” idea returns where you found it. rock-n-roll! The next time, your the idea will be waiting for you there, exactly where you left it. Nobody will steal your ideas in the open. Trusting an idea into the common space can be not sonly exhilaratingly free, but even contagious. Imagine others as they may run into your ideas and you into theirs. Imagine a creative commons of shared ideas right around us, everywhere. So much common ground, so much potential for cross-pollination and mutual inspiration. Personally that in itself feels like an idea, so – like an unknown butterfly – I will leave it here and let it go. See what happens to it, now and next. The best part of a magic moment is breathe it in, and let it be.

[daniel alegi]

STARTUP your STORY – new seminar series

StartupurstoryIn the past, Cinemahead has created doc and animation films for the the city of Karlstad.

StartUp your Story is our new seminar + workshop series on cinematic story design, story different for writers and non.

We open Friday Feb 21st in Karlstad, Sweden at the modern Karlstad CCC Conference center.
The series will continue in different locations for 2014 with further events and dates TBA.

Each event is divided in two sets/halfs. The first half is a seminar which will be entirely free for students with ID. The second half will be a hands-on workshop on scripts, story lines, idea development and scene doctoring.

START UP YOUR STORY opens at 9:00 AM and ends at 16:00, with a 1 hour lunch break @12:00.

Please note that online registration is required for admission. You can sign up for the seminar in this link. No one can enter after 10:00. Contact us if you are a student to joon for free.

The seminar is based on our freeebook “Start-Up Your Story” that you can download here.

photo.

questions?
Contact@cinemahead.com

Need a film crew?

avatar, film crew network post

FCN – Film Crew Network – is, in its own words “a Network that puts quality before quantity keeping things up close and personal to support each member through their developments. It doesn’t matter where you are in your career our crew will welcome and help you out since we we all started somewhere and sometimes all we needed was some inspiration and support to keep us buzzing and on track. On FCN you will be able to meet some very cool individuals that have worked on gigs we all dream of, make some valuable connections, share and learn from some of the best in the industry.”

SOME FCN FEATURES:
JOB post and respond
PROJECTS create & invite crew onto your projects
NETWORK develop your specialist list of contacts
ALBUMS create and develop unlimited
ADVERTISE yourself or your business
SHOWREEL & video upload and share
GROUP & EVENT creation and participation
UNRESTRICTED contact on the Network

check out the FCN site!
CINEMAHEAD

The making-of good actors is a show of its own – take a look.

Take a good look at these two young actors in training at the MEISNER TRAINED teaching series in S.Francisco.

The scene work is lead by Meisner protege’ and Cinemahead friend Jimmy Jarrett. Click the blue link to view the short session.

http://www.themeisnertechniquestudio.com/meisner-trained-video/?vid_id=9883&sh=y

Screen Shot 2013-08-01 at 11.52.27 AM

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.