Tuesday at Sundance I saw two documentaries back to back that each deals with one of this country’s most pressing and complex political issues. Josh Tickell’s Fields of Fuel tackles America’s reliance on imported fossil fuels while Patrick Creadon in his follow-up to Wordplay, IOUSA, wrestles with the exploding United States budget deficit. Both films employ what is now a familiar doc style of exploring political and social issue subject matter: quick editing, talking heads, a chapter-by-chapter structure, use of humorous archival material, and energetic source cue-driven montages. Of the two films, Fields of Fuel is the slicker. It segues […]
I’ve still got most of my Sundance commentary to get up and I’m on my way to the International Film Festival Rotterdam, where I’ll try to file some short reports on the fest and the concurrent Cinemart, which is a great financing conference that plans, this year, to begin a dialogue about how it can be reshaped for the future. (Full disclosure: I’m on the CineMart’s Advisory Board.) From the festival’s Tiger Daily: Eschewing conference and panel formats and instead deploying the tried and tested device of brainstorming towards a consensus, IFFR management and industry experts will sit down this […]
BONO AND THE EDGE IN CATHERINE OWENS AND MARK PELLINGTON’S U2 3D. COURTESY NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ENTERTAINMENT. Though her body of work is famous, Catherine Owens — the woman behind the visual design of U2’s legendary stadium tours of the past 15 years — until now has maintained a much lower profile. Beginning with the band’s revolutionary ZooTV tour in 1992, Irish artist Owens used her expertise in many media (sculpture, video art, sound design, photography, etc.) as inspiration for their subsequent PopMart, Elevation and Vertigo tours, helping the band gain a reputation as the best live act in the world. […]
As I didn’t get into Park City until Sunday night, I’ve been playing catch-up for the most part, trying to get the pulse of this year’s fest (which for the most part hasn’t been the feeding frenzy in terms of deals as last year), and trying to see as many films as possible (and hitting some parties). So far Daniel Barnz‘s debut feature Phoebe In Wonderland has stuck in my mind the most. Barnz was named one of our “25 New Faces” this past summer so I knew a little about him and his work before going in, but it’s […]
Writer and d.p. David Leitner sent us this report about two new cameras that can be seen here at the Sundance Film Festival.Located in the basement of a small commercial mall on upper Main Street across from the Egyptian theater, the annual Sundance technology showcase known as New Frontier on Main is particularly worth a visit this year due to two product introductions poised to rock the world of low-budget HD indie production. Word is already out about Sony’s EX1, a Handycam-type camcorder bearing both XDCAM EX and CineAlta logos for a strikingly low $7,790 suggested retail price. In a nutshell, […]
Ten percent more money wouldn’t have made that big a difference, but 10 percent more preproduction time would have helped. Our funding showed up so late in the game that nothing could be nailed down until two weeks before we started shooting. Casting and location scouting was last minute. Luckily my producers and crew were intrepid so we just marched on. Rehearsal with actors was minimal. I met most of the people in the smaller roles for the first time on the day they arrived on the set. The only thing that saved us was the script. The time spent […]
It’s very tempting to go for the obvious answer and say money, since most of the elements that one would kill to have 10 percent more of could be had with a little more money. Money would be the universal gift card with which one could purchase delicious items like more shooting days or film stock or editing time. I’m still in post so even thinking of a card that could buy me more mix time or music licensing is getting me a little worked up. But money seems like an easy answer, so I’ll try to think outside the […]
The question isn’t fair as it relates to my production. I don’t wish I had 10 percent more of anything. I deliberately set out to make a film without expectations. Expectations are what thwarted any creative impulse I’d had in the past. Instead I relied on whatever I found before me. It is no accident that our production company’s name is Found Films. From the get-go we knew we had severe limitations: intellectual, financial, technological and with regards to professional talent; so instead, we embraced those limitations, almost with glee. No interchangeable lenses? No problem. Let’s embrace the aesthetic and […]
I made a documentary where I tried to interview my ex-girlfriends to find out why they dumped me. I wish 10 percent more of them had agreed to talk to me. In fact I wish 50 percent more had talked to me. But they didn’t. So for a couple of months I wandered ’round, scratched my head and tried to think of ways to persuade them. When I couldn’t persuade them I tried to come up with other things to film. As a result I think I ended up doing a lot of naval gazing, or in my case, a […]
If I could have had 10 percent more of anything it would have been days off! We worked 6 and 7-day weeks on this film ever since production started in May 2006 and haven’t stopped. And believe me, looking for the most wanted man on earth and traveling for months at a time to some of the most dangerous places in the world (all while having a pregnant wife at home), is not the best recipe for a stress-free job. [PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, Jan. 21, 8:30 pm — Library Center Theatre, Park City]