Time travel is go. When we look into Extreme Deep Field aka Space we see the past. We photograph the past. We approach the past. It is time travel.
When you look into space, when technology renders it real for us, when we capture the images, our imagination soars. Without art, we’d have less science. Without science, we’d have less art. Peanut butter & jelly. Blucheese and fresh figs.
Was it good news for film lovers everywhere that Cinedigm, a company that provides smaller theaters with digital projection, said it helped arrange funding to save 3,000 screens from extinction when studios phase out film prints of movies?
Early this month I wrote about how Independent Exhibition & Distribution In The US Is Seriously Threatened by the conversion to digital. If only it was simple as putting in the digital projectors and servers. Don’t get me wrong, that’s a great leap forward… in some ways.
Virtual Print Fees (VPFs) may provide a way for exhibitors to afford the equipment to go digital, but they indirectly, but severely, limit the type of films that can play theatrically. The answer to
“Fog is cool” I said to myself as I stumbled in from a weekend nosh of idiosyncratic food and drink. Diverse places and people in a city nestling with nature. It sure isn’t NYC — and that’s a good thing. I took it as an omen that this video popped up as I thought of my wife soon joining me here in my new home. Change is a wonderful thing, particularly positive change and the joy of having someone to share it with.
How great would it be if San Francisco was the Indie Film Hub, and this time instead of a group of aspiring artists and entrepreneurs trying to make it, it emerged as a true community that knew that it had to work together, amassing and learning from mistakes, forever aiming to make deeply resonate work, regardless of individual authorship, work that celebrates the expansive aspects of life today, doesn’t shy away from complexity or lack of comfort, and is based on exploration far more than declaration. Ah, a person can dream….
by Mandy Ward
I’ve had my fair share of ups and downs. Looking for fresh content after producing in NYC for nearly 10 years and working for a production company in Tribeca was not as easy as it seemed. There was a gaping hole that I discovered in my search: a reluctance to finance, produce, and distribute anything by first time directors. I would read dozens of scripts a week and see nothing but old stories reworked and retold (or genre-based just for genre’s sake). But occasionally, I would stumble onto an amazing, ORIGINAL, imaginative and well written story by a first time writer or director and pitch it around. And this would be the response: “This is amazing. Great writing, seems like a big talent… BUT NO THANKS.” This would happen not once – but literally hundreds of times! It was not only frustrating, but it left me thinking: “What is to become of the film industry if we do not support new thinkers and artists?” And the answer: We are left with the same people, the same styles and the same stories. And they will attract ever-diminishing audiences.
By Matthew Heineman
One of the biggest surprises in our newly released documentary “ESCAPE FIRE: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare” is the storyline about how US military medicine is trying alternative treatments like yoga, meditation, and acupuncture for managing pain and reducing injured soldiers’ reliance on addictive pharmaceutical drugs.
We follow a young combat veteran Sgt. Robert Yates, a self-professed “hillbilly” who is addicted to painkillers after being injured in Afghanistan. He undergoes an amazing transformation over the course of the film by turning to these alternative treatments. As with the rest of America, treatment of pain and PTSD in injured soldiers is based almost entirely on throwing pills at the problems, which unfortunately often leads to addiction and even deadly overdoses or suicide.
The greatest challenge for my co-director Susan Froemke and me was getting access from the US military to film this compelling story. Not surprisingly, the Department of Defense is wary of cameras and filmmakers.
Hat tip to @vhopeful
By Roger Jackson
Previously: New Mantra: Do More, Faster
Digital Hollywood
I spent today (10/15) at the Digital Hollywood conference, an event that happens in LA a couple times a year. Attended several panel discussions. One panelist argued that the film industry today will not only follow the same trajectory as the music business — but that film now is only where the music business was at the time of the phonograph! Hmm, maybe. I certainly agree that in terms of massive disruption we have a ways to go. Had a bunch of meetings. The head of a group of angel investors suggested we pitch KinoNation “as soon as we have our MVP done.” MVP meaning “minimum viable product.” He said it doesn’t need to be pretty, it can be full of bugs and missing features, but, in his words, we need to “remove the technology risk” for people who might write a check. That is, prove we can actually build what we claim we’re building. Good timing, since we’ve just today launched the Movie Uploader and will roll it out to most of our Private Beta group over the coming days. The Beta is
