No human beings can lick their own elbow.
Update July 4th: We got many notes sent to us proving us wrong. Youtube is filled with videos of people licking their elbow. Most of us can’t, but there are those that have special talents. What are the odds?
Today’s guest post is by director Allison Anders (Mi Vida Loca, Grace Of My Heart), co-founder of the “Don’t Knock The Rock” Film Festival”
Seven years ago I was given one of the greatest opportunities of my opportunity-rich life — a tenured post at UCSB as a distinguished professor in the Film And Media Department at UC Santa Barbara, where I remain on faculty, teaching one quarter each year. My first quarter I created a class on rock ‘n’ roll films since this had long been my private passion, and called the course “Don’t Knock The Rock”, named for the 1956 Alan Freed, Sam Arkoff, Columbia film of the same name. I loved the experience of sharing these music rich movies so much I didn’t want it to end.
With the help of producer Elizabeth Stanley who was at that time at the DGA, and who connected me to festival producer Gianna Chacere (now with The Hamptons Film Festival) , I began to lay out plans for a festival in Los Angeles showcasing rock ‘n’ roll movies. My musician daughter Tiffany Anders was returning to Los Angeles, after living in Brooklyn for a good chunk of her 20s, so I immediately welcomed her home and enlisted her to curate live music for my hair-brained idea. The first year she delivered Sonic Youth, J Mascis, The Tyde, Dead Meadow, Wayne Kramer, and Ariel Pink before I even knew he had been born!
We are now launching our 6th annual (we took one year off) DKTR Fest July 8th and will run every Thursday of July and August at The Silent Movie Theater, Los Angeles. From our first Don’t Knock The Rock Film And Music Festival, our agenda was, and remains, the same: to showcase music films and live music performances for die-hard fans and music nerds and to get the word out to them. We are dedicated to that agenda, even though the struggles of the niche film festival like ours are many, well actually, money; the struggle is always money.
Well, it would be nice if such a study existed, but I guess everyone figures “why bother to fund what we already know”. Ahem…
Classical music sales did skyrocket though when a study found it made kids smarter. The state of Georgia even passed a law providing classical music CDs for every newborn child. Imagine that, with each new spawn, parents would be given a copy of Hal Hartley’s entire catalogue. Harvey Pekar could be come a household name if the standard baby gift was American Splendor. Okay, maybe such greats as Ballast, Wendy & Lucy, Goodbye Solo and the such may not be so good for teen psyches, but hey Stranger Than Paradise is still a good primer in on studied cool and Primer will surely drive a few truly innovative business ideas (and innovative filmmaking at that).
U.S. District Judge Louis L. Stanton’s decision against Viacom and in favor of Google and YouTube placed the onus on copyright holders to identify specific instances of infringement and then inform websites to remove the pirated content. If the sites do so promptly, they are shielded from liability.
Today’s guest post is from James Fair, a filmmaker and educator I had the pleasure of meeting at the Galway Film Fleadh last year and recently met up again in NYC. You might recall him from a prior post “University Challenged: Educational Approaches To Filmmaking”.
This summer I will direct “The Ballad of Des & Mo”, a feature film shot, edited and screened in 72 consecutive hours as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) in Australia. The plan is to shoot it upon RED One, to cinematic quality with dollies, tripods and tracks. If it goes well, you should never be able to tell that it was made in 72 hours.
‘Why do this?’ I hear you ask. Well, I am fascinated by the organisational structures that digital can offer to filmmakers, and I enjoy experimenting with alternative workflows and roles within filmmaking. I am not convinced that trying to use new technologies with the antiquated organisational structures of a struggling industry is effective. And it seems that the MIFF organisers agree that this is a valid point for us to explore at their event. My argument is that linearity permeates all areas of film production. To be linear is to be direct, undeviating and sequential. I believe that independent filmmakers have a fixation with linearity, and it is an obstacle they need to overcome.
But as Variety has reported, it looks like Congress is going to stop it, and the film business will remain like onions — unable to leverage the future to mitigate risk. We need to find ways to create a secondary market for film investment, so it is far more liquid than it is today.
Cantor Exchange president Richard Jaycobs said in light of the bill reported out by the conferees on Friday, “Cantor is continuing to assess its options for providing risk management and financing tools to the motion picture industry.”
Okay, it’s a minute too long, but maybe that’s because they want you to know it is important…
Hat tip to Pericles @PretentiousFilm!
