Good advice from Ray Bradbury.
Hat Tip to Cultural Weekly.
Month: July 2012
Dear Film Friends,
This month’s cinematic mystery is: “What allows for a great and truthful performance by a child?” I recognize that it is not an easy question to answer, beyond “I know one when I see one.” The good news is I know you will see one when you come next Tuesday to see The Zellner Bros. KID-THING at “Indie Night” — the monthly screening series I curate at The Film Society Of Lincoln Center. Sydney Aguirre delivers an incredibly cool, intense, and outright miraculous performance as Annie, the kid at the center of this “thing”.
by Blake Ashman-Kipervaser (producer)
As a film producer I find that each production I work on has its own unique set of challenges and the process can feel a bit like a roller coaster ride at times. Yet somehow things always seem to work out, and hopefully after its done you feel you’ve learned something or become stronger at what you do. With STARLET undergoing finishing work and getting ready to be released later this year I’ve thought back on some of the recent close calls and other experiences we survived during the making of the film and how fortuitous many of them seem to be in hindsight. Here are five examples which I hope will help other filmmakers in some shape or form.
1. The right place at the right time
While developing another project STARLET director Sean Baker,
Or for that matter, what do you think can really change and move things forward in both the near and distant future? If we could ask five key people what they saw on our various horizons, what would they show us? Who should we ask? One of the great things about being pointed in a direction, is that it is almost a path. Could we have walked down that road when Francis Ford Coppola predicted YouTube in 1991:
It is not easy to just boil down to one specific all the various change that is swarming over us at this point. I see major shifts coming in so many different aspects of cinema: discovery, consideration, value/return, participation, collaboration, transitioning, immersion, and many others.
Two years ago I wrote a blog post “Ten Things We Should All Do On Our Productions“. I would like to do a sequel to that post and would love your suggestions as to what those things now should be. I do think the old list fully applies, but I am confident we can add to it.
One of the ten things that was on that list was doing things the “better” way vs. the “easy” way. We so love completing tasks we often cave into just getting things done. But if we all worked together to lift the bar higher, no one would tolerate many of the practices that are currently considered “acceptable”. So why not work together to raise the bar higher? How about I start with a list of:
15 Things We Can All Do On Our Film Productions That Would Make Life & Art Better, Safer, & More Satisfying.
When you find someone to share your life with you are not about to let outside forces to separate you.
“Oktapodi” is an Oscar-nominated short from 2007 that captures this quite well.
If you couldn’t make it to the IFC Center in NYC on June 18th, you missed having Hal Hartley moderate a Q&A session with Martin Donovan, David Morse, Melissa Auf der Meur, and myself on how Martin wrote, directed, and got his debut feature made.
Ah, but no worries, the glory that is the internet brings the past back to you for your eternal enjoyment. COLLABORATOR is currently available on VOD and will return to the IFC Center tomorrow July 6th, and then the Egyptian in LA on July 20th. Please check it out.
Certain highlights to check out:
Hal Hartley & Martin Donvan on “What is directing”
approximately 1745- 2250
David Morse, Hal Hartley, Martin Donovan, and me (Ted Hope): “What makes a director someone an actor (or producer) wants to work with”
approx 25:00 – 31:00
For more of Martin’s secrets, check out his interview with Marshall Fine here.
