Shooting with John
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Shooting With John: Adam Schartoff
I was very nervous about the experience. The idea was to go upstate, about 80 or 90 miles or so north up the Hudson Valley region, to some bucolic spot and shoot guns. Originally we were supposed to shoot skeet but that equipment wasn’t available so we ended up doing target practice. A longtime gun control advocate, I was a bit at the end of my rope. It was November of 2012 and there had been close to 16 mass shootings in the U.S. up to that point including the Batman shooting and the Texas A&M shooting that summer. The […]
by Adam Schartoff on Aug 29, 2013 -
Shooting with John: Lauren Wolkstein
The concept was genius, yet a bit insane. Get a bunch of indie film nerds together (who have never met before) to travel to upstate New York for the weekend and shoot some target practice – with assault rifles. None of us had ever shot a gun before, let alone an AR-15. We were terrified. Well, I can’t speak for the rest of the group, but I was terrified. However, there was a catch, and I didn’t know this until I arrived for the target practice: we had to be interviewed immediately after firing the rounds, with the assault rifles […]
by Lauren Wolkstein on Mar 8, 2013 -
Holiday Top Ten of 2012…With Eggnog
Tis the season for egg nog, friends, good conversations, video games, and top ten lists. So we put all of it into one post. Ghosts of SWJ past and future get together in this first episode of season two to give us their top tens from 2012. But first a few friends drop by for a drink and to talk about creativity in today’s climate. Check out Bryan’s sites: Bryanbruner.com Loveandrobots.tumblr.com Eric’s Film: American Bomber Movie Happy Holidays! John Top 10 of 2012: Frank Mosley 1. The Comedy 2. Compliance 3. The Master 4. Killing Them Softly 5. Bad Fever […]
by John Yost on Dec 21, 2012 -
Why 3D?
John has graciously given me a chance to tell people why I do 3D, why I ACTUALLY do 3D, to write something beyond the technical babble that typically highlights any in-depth discussion of 3D or the snark that informs any “3D, ugh” diatribe or the relative silence from my peers in the indie community. I’ll do my best to talk about 3D in a way that I haven’t heard often… less a technical piece (or 3D ugh-fest), more an honest ramble on independent artistic creation. An ode, if you will. It’s a shame to start like this, but to get […]
by Zack Lieberman on Nov 2, 2012 -
Shooting with John: The Occupation of Indie Film
If independent film is going to prosper well into the 21st century, many would agree that there must be some sort of interdependence between filmmakers, a collective effort that will help everyone to communicate and share resources. Thankfully, there is already a driven group of Americans who are doing exactly that, providing a template that indie film can examine and emulate. It’s the Occupy movement. No matter how you feel about their politics, Occupy has utilized new technology and social media better than many organizations and affinity groups in the United States. And if you look closely at how they […]
by Marty Lang on Sep 17, 2012 -
Shooting With John: A Performance Behind The Lens
It was a hazy Saturday afternoon in Berne, New York, and a motley crew of filmmakers holding shotguns, aimed at the sky, surrounded me. My mouth was dry and I felt the mind’s eye going black while gripping my barrel. “What the hell am I doing here and who are these strangers?” Well, I was asked to join a small group of filmmakers to shoot skeet and talk shop (and sadly, not form a militia). This past year was a whirlwind tour with my first feature art/documentary, Convento, which premiered at SXSW, played a bunch of fests and was picked up […]
by Jarred Alterman on Aug 28, 2012 -
Shooting With John: Lest We Forget
Perhaps it was no coincidence, then, that on the morning of my return flight from LGA, my stomach peppered on too little bagel and too much coffee, I came across the tidbit of news that traffic would be jammed due to an animal convoy truck that had crashed wide open, spilling several cows to run rampant across Dallas-Fort Worth. Several had been killed in the wreckage, a few had laid down to rest, and yet an even bigger number had mustered their courage to brave the zig-zagging pattern of screeching 18-wheelers and high tail it to the fields that must […]
by Frank Mosley on Aug 14, 2012
