40 years ago today, Bruce Springsteen was playing Max’s Kansas City. Someone filmed it for all of us. I am so thankful that I have had Bruce to help guide & inspire me all these years. It’s incredible how he has helped shape my dreams and ambitions, reinforce my values and commitment.
Month: August 2012
Categories
Read The Press About My New Job
Okay, read it if you want to. I don’t want to make any demands. There are some more important things to do — I understand. I just needed to get all the press together in one place. I wanted to send it to my Mom. So here it is. I am sure I am missing some, so let me know if you find any more.
Don’t want to overwhelm anyone, but since there’s been so much demand….
Media Decoder – NY Times Blog (Michael Cieply)
Variety (Dave McNary)
Martin Scorsese, Steven Soderbergh, David Lynch and many others debate the digital revolution on Tribecafilm.com
Tribecafilm.com launches a month of conversation around the upcoming documentary release Side By Side today. Each day a new exclusive clip will post from one of the film’s prognosticators that couldn’t be squeezed into the final cut of the film. The clips will offer a daily opportunity to follow the debate on the digital revolution that is portrayed in this seminal film.
Side by Side, produced by Keanu Reeves and directed by Chris Kenneally, explores the complex and divisive conversation currently taking place around the transition from traditional filmmaking to the new digital revolution. Keanu Reeves asks the question – Will film survive? He takes the audience on a tour of the past and the future of filmmaking. Since the invention of cinema, the standard format for recording moving images has been film. Over the past two decades, a new form of digital filmmaking has emerged, creating a groundbreaking evolution in the medium. Reeves explores the development of cinema and the impact of digital filmmaking via in-depth interviews with Hollywood masters such as James Cameron, David Fincher, David Lynch, Christopher Nolan, Martin Scorsese, George Lucas, Steven Soderbergh, and many more.
With such a contentious subject, everyone had a lot to say. We will continue the conversation on Tribecafilm.com—home to the Future of Film blog, a platform that explores our changing industry on a weekly basis—as well as across social media all month. Check the site daily for exclusive clips from Adam Valdez, Barry Levinson, Bradford Young, Craig Wood, David Fincher, David Lynch, David Stump, Dennis Muren, Dick Pope, Dion Beebe, Donald McAlpine, Ed Lachman, Ellen Kuras, Greta Gerwig, James Cameron, Jost Vacano, Lena Dunham, Martin Scorsese, Michael Ballhaus, Michael Chapman, Reed Morano, Robert Rodriguez, Steven Soderbergh, Vilmos Zsigmond, Wally Pfister and Walter Murch.
Tribeca Film will release Side by Side via on-demand platforms on August 22. The film will also open in select cities theatrically, including Los Angeles (August 17), New York (August 31), Boston (August 23), Seattle (August 31), Chicago (September 15), Tacoma (September 18), San Francisco (October 18) and other cities to be announced.
For more information on the film go to www.facebook.com/sidebysidethemovie and sidebysidethemovie.com
I love lists! I mean, I LOVE lists!! They are the gateway to educated choice. You how “they” are always selling you something? Well, it’s because they have learned that when you don’t really know what you want, it’s much easier to make you act on impulse. When you know what you want, you don’t give away your money stupidly. Informed choice allows you to get more of what you want. Informed choice makes you more satisfied and thus happier. Who wouldn’t want to have more stuff they like and to be happier?
So you have to learn what you want. And that is where lists come in. I have lists that are so full I have more than enough films to keep me satisfied well past my life expectancy. I won’t run out of movies I WANT to watch until I am 110. And since they are going to keep making them, by the time I am 110 I will probably have enough movies I have CHOSEN to see to carry me past the age of 200.
So what do you want to watch? Or, perhaps, what do you want your children to watch? Did you know that the British Film Institute has a list of the Top 50 Films To See Before You Are 14? It’s darn awesome. And there are some on that list that I still haven’t seen and I am almost 50. I better live to be 110. I am going to start exercising just so I can watch more movies.
These are the BFI’s Top Ten To See Before You Turn Age 14:
- Bicycle Thieves (1948)
- E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
- Kes (1969)
- The Night of the Hunter (1955)
- The 400 Blows (1959)
- Show Me Love (1998)
- Spirited Away (2001)
- Toy Story (1995)
- Where is the Friend’s Home? (1987)
- The Wizard of Oz (1939)
But you know what? The BFI is not the only entity that has made a supercool list of movies to see. Filmmakers Mark Cousins and Tilda Swinton made some great lists and then did it up one step better, helping really cool kids everywhere organize parties around great flix. A party AND a movie? Does it get much better than that. Check out 8 1/2 Foundation now!!!!!!!
One last question: why are all these lists from British institutions? Where are the American counterparts? Or Swiss? Or Chinese? Or Australian? Help!
By John Zhao
New York City can be a pretty anonymous place to live. A new neighborhood film challenge called On My Block Films is looking to change that.
After living in 4 different neighborhoods within 6 years, filmmaker Ryan O’Hara Theisen realized he didn’t truly know any of his neighbors. That bummed him out and got him to thinking about ways he could change things. He’d noticed over the years how incredibly strong personal bonds where created between complete strangers on film sets in a short amount of time. 
This Is Where We Live from 4th Estate on Vimeo.
Crowdfunding: Getting Beyond your Family and Friends
By Antonia Opiah
Recently, we at the Beneath the Earth Film Festival hosted a panel discussion on financing film through crowdfunding. It was the first talk in our “Film 2.0: the Digital (R)evolution” series, which takes a look at the Internet’s impact on the film industry.
With all of the filmmakers on the panel confirming that much of their pledges came from their family and friends, I wondered: Does a successful Kickstarter campaign mean that a film has a built-in audience or just a really supportive network?
For our panelists it was a mixture of both but each was able to go beyond their family and friends. Here are some of the ways they did so:
