And here’s the short if for some strange reason you have not yet had the pleasure of experiencing it yourself:
Can we move beyond product placement for a collaboration between those that fund the production and those that create stories? Can it be done without compromising the integrity of the work. Steve Wax and I wrote a blog discussion about this last year and I recently stumbled across this video of Steve and I.
Guest post by John Zhao
Riding skateboards, boxing with the locals and cooking up a storm were the fun and affordable things I grew up enjoying. Film school I avoided because it wasn’t as affordable and I was paranoid it would take out the fun. After I eventually experienced making a first feature, I couldn’t help realizing a list of pastimes that seemed to inform me of how to go about being a first-time filmmaker. I’m sharing this list from my journal and hope to hear what other filmmakers do in between the cuts.
1. SKATEBOARDING (AND FILMMAKING)
Former Skaters Spike and Harmony
That public location essential to your performance will try to kick you out. Have a getaway plan or a good lie.
There’s a lot of fun to be had even if your wallet’s near empty. The world is your playground.
Skate videos are absent of narrative and plot. They’re a cornucopia of rhythms, textures, music, and poetry that can keep me intrigued for hours. How can a feature film do the same?
A general disrespect for money and authority is healthy.
Enjoy feeling pain over and over again. It can take a dozen drafts to find your film’s soul and a twenty takes to nail your best move. See failure as slapstick, not sad.
Skateboarders bail and crash the second they become self-conscious of where to land, or intellectualize their movements mid-air. Take a leap of faith when you’re “almost ready” and WILL IT into existence. Staying delusional like this while making films seems to work out.
Every skateboarder dances their own style. Finding your own style and voice, and being completely yourself can be a challenge. But you can make someone lonely in their world feel less lonely for being who they are. You can teach something new and push things forward.
It’s an athletic art form. Develop a great sense of space, timing and balance. Being physically fit is essential for the ride.
I had the pleasure of participating on a producing panel at the Athena Film Festival back in the second week of February. For once I got to be the token male. It was an excellent group with Mary Jane Skalski, Nekisa Cooper, and Susan Cartsonis. The moderator was Lisa Cortes, and she was one of the best moderators I have ever had (festival programmers take note!).
I started tweeting out the advice that was said by all on the panel. This was about both how to get your movie made and how to survive in these times. They got tweeted and passed around by others but I have collected them here for you now too. Sorry for the delay in posting!
1. Set the agenda
Guest post by Ritesh Batra
Where do we go now?
A somewhat reasoned rant on the Indian Independent Film Movement and the business of Indian Indie film.
There is something in the air in Bombay, everyone’s talking about it. Sometimes it feels very real, and at other times it feels more like Yeti- the mystical creature somewhere in the foothills of the Himalayas, many of have seen his footprints in the snow, no one seems to have met the guy or lived to tell the tale. It was pre-maturely named the Hindi new wave by festival directors in the West. It was expected to arrive sometime in 2009, just after Slumdog Millionaire, the Slumdog effect, but it did not quite materialize then. The following years, 2010 and 2011 were good years for Indian Indies with some travelling to major film festivals and even pulling in good numbers in the local box office. Yes, something’s definitely in the air, the water has pulled back and exposed all the artifacts on the sea floor- shells, fish carcasses, water bottles, rocks, even Ganesh idols that refused to melt, etc., people have walked in and are eyeing all these things with curiosity and this big Hindi New Wave is expected to come and sweep them off of their feet anytime now. But guess what, its not coming anytime soon, because unlike tsunamis, film movements take time to mature and bear fruit, a set of visionaries and the convergence of fortuitous events turn it into an industry, an ecosystem that can only develop organically.
Just go back to bed.
Charles Bukowski knew what end was up. When the blues get their claws into you, just give in & get in the bed until the juices are flowing again.
And yes, ain’t it too bad that we all have to chase the dollar?
Hat tip to Cultural Weekly.
As we gallop into our 3rd week of release, the critics are still beckoning the audiences to come along for the DARK HORSE ride. We are happily eating their hay in Providence, RI, Chicago, Long Island, and of course New York City. If this keeps us I am going to run out of good horse puns… Check out what the crickets are chirping.
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times : “Dark Horse” (3.5 of 4 Stars)
“Abe is the latest in a gallery of walking wounded populating the films of Todd Solondz, who has never met a character he didn’t dislike. And “Dark Horse” is another of his portraits of anguish in suburbia, joining “Welcome to the Dollhouse” and “Happiness.” There are times when it is dark humor, and then times when it is simply dark. But there is something more going on here, something deeper and more … hopeful?”
John Anderson, Newsday: “DARK HORSE Plays Irony Well”
“”Are you for real?” Miranda asks Abe, after his proposal has registered. “I mean, you’re not being ironic? Like performance art?” “Dark Horse” is certainly being ironic. Which doesn’t mean it isn’t a fully realized performance — or art, of a rather perverse variety.”
Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: “DARK HORSE Director Finds Humanity In Unsympathetic Lead ” (3 of 4 Stars):
“In a compact, wittily humiliating 84 minutes, “Dark Horse” does a smart thing: It transforms from realism into a string of dreamscapes taking place in Abe’s imagination, involving the sex life of his fellow office worker (Donna Murphy, on the money) and other bittersweet fancies.”
Whitney Matheson, Pop Candy, USA Today: “With DARK HORSE, Solondz Issues Another Darkly Comic Tale”
” While it’s not the feel-good movie of the year, fans of the director wouldn’t expect such a thing. Solondz, however, does succeed in making thoughtful commentary on the fleeting nature of youth, and our desperate need to be loved.”
You can read more of our early critic love here.
UPDATE Sunday 6/24
Brett Harrison Davinger, California Literary Review: “Dark Horse Is A Contender”
“Dark Horse isn’t your typical man-child comedy. It’s something greater, more honest, and significantly more powerful.”
Hollywood Chicago: “Todd Solondz Brilliantly De-Constructs Man-Child Pathology“:
“Dark Horse” brilliantly deconstructs Abe’s “man-child” pathology, exposing the frailties within his good-natured façade and barley concealed rage.”
TimeOut Chicago:”4 out of 5 stars”
“Dark Horse insists you look past its caricatures and see human beings– it is the director’s tersest, most troubling study of desperation.”
