Category: Truly Free Film

We are on the verge of a new film culture and infrastructure.

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Truly Free Film

It Could Be Getting So Much Better All The Time #11: Throw Away The Rule Book!

Chris Monger, screenwriter, director, artist had this to answer my plea:

I started a reply which turned into a rant which morphed into my history of why Indie Film did not start, but died with sex lies and videotape – and that’s even before I’d started on why Indie Film should also forget the form of the 90 minute theatrical feature. The future is here, we are free to try anything. 
And that’s the conclusion I was working towards: There’s nothing to save. 
We can’t hang on to what was (and what was often totally imperfect) anymore than we can hang on to newspapers. Regular Film / Studio Film / Indie Film as we know them may limp along for a while, or may even exist like Opera for a long time, but stories / moving images are not going away.

Now’s the time to have fun with them. In the late 60’s early 70’s a lot of Indie Filmmakers (and I’m talking about people who processed their own film, ran their own printers – really Indie!) believed that film was at the same point that painting was at the turn of the 20th Century: Rather than being ruined by photography, painting was liberated into all the isms of the new way of seeing and looking and re-presenting.

So I say, where are the Picassos and Matisses, the people who will throw away the rule book?

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Truly Free Film

Maybe It Shouldn’t All Be Free

I find the current debate regarding micro-payments for print journalism fascinating.  Each morning, I work to talk myself out of a panic that we will soon be deprived of all the great newspapers, writers, and journalists.  A friend chimed in that after the papers fall then next up is the free internet.  The line of dominos is really easy to imagine. 

But maybe it shouldn’t all be free.  I, like all my film friends, are looking for a model of survival, no longer success.  Reading Steve Brill’s defense of micro-payments makes me wonder if there is anything that film fans and workers are really committed to paying for.  Variety & Hollywood Reporter start to feel like real luxuries these days.  Guilds and unions, like membership in IFP and Film Independent, are crucial in the same way that if you want a vaccine to work, virtually everyone has to partake — but my son still screams with every shot (maybe if vaccines had a networking attribute like these organizations my son would respond better…). 
But what will we pay for?  My Netflix subscription seems like a better value with each new film that is available for streaming, even if I still prefer DVDs.  As they just hit 10 Million subscribers it seems that everyone will pay for access to every film.  As a devourer of new international film, I need a festival diet of projected new work from around the world every two or three months.  It’s one of the reasons I can never leave NY.  Jaman may offer it online but I need to see it large in a room full of people.  And as much as I like to see it, I like to talk about it, read about it.  So what will I pay for?  I honestly don’t know.
Anyway, read Brill’s suggestion, and ponder the applicability to our world of film.  I am.
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Truly Free Film

Jon Jost Responds To Jeff Lipsky

Jon Jost, longtime true indie filmmaker of great talent, innovation, and commitment, commented on Jeff’s recent post.  We bump it up in hopes that no one misses it (and next time, Jon, please send me an email address or something so I check in with you!):

As a, oh shall we say somewhat experienced filmmaker in this regard, I think much of the above makes for a delicious meal of red herring.

There are as many truly awful films that were tightly scripted, etc., and Lipsky’s assertion that scripting is some path to betterment is folly.

There are also many truly awful films that were improvised.

So what might one learn from this? Maybe that it is not whether something is scripted or not, but whether all the aspects of a work – the underlying “idea” of it, the imagery, the sound, the acting (assuming there are acting figures, which itself is a fat assumption about what a film is – there’s many stunningly wonderful abstract works with no actors) which all combine to make a film work or not. Maybe one should learn to open one’s thought processes a bit, and think and feel a bit more clearly, and not jump to rather simple-minded views.

On a personal level I can pass along that of my own work, while each was rooted in some fundamental idea or structural framework, my films
CHAMELEON (1978); SLOW MOVES (1983); BELL DIAMOND (1985); REMBRANDT LAUGHING (1987); SURE FIRE (1989-90); ALL THE VERMEERS IN NEW YORK (1989-2000); UNO A TE (1995); all shot in film, were completely improvised – though frankly most people looking at them would assume they’d been fully scripted and thought out before hand, but they were not. VERMEERS had not one page of script or dialog,nor did any of the others listed above. What they did have, in the broadest sense of the term is “direction” and craft skills and an overarching cinematic sensibility guiding them.

Subsequently, the narrative digital films OUI NON (1996-2000), HOMECOMING (2004), OVER HERE (2006) and the most recent PARABLE (2008) were all similarly utterly without script.

It is true – sort of – that digital media, drastically bringing down the costs of actual shooting, enhances the opportunities to improvise and take risks. My shooting ratios are higher, though not by much, than they were in film (in film averaged about 2.5 to 1; though some films were virtually 1 to 1); I suspect now I average in narrative work something like 3.5 to one. I am not interested in wading through piles of crap to find a film in it. Some people are and some very good films have been made that way.

So the real matter is not whether one improvises or scripts, but rather how one goes about orchestrating the totality of what makes a film. Digital enhances this by letting people shoot, fall on their faces, make total crap AND LEARN IN PROCESS, rather than sitting around waiting for $2 million or whatever to materialize so they can go replicate a script and make another cookie-cutter film, however well or badly. And, for those few who seem to actually be willing to deal with it, digital also offers a far richer and more complex palette of aesthetic possibilities, though frankly most of our younger filmmakers treat it as if it was just cheaper film and don’t begin to touch what it really is.

My two bits – a friend of mine in Stanberry MO, filmmaker Blake Eckard, pointed me to this item. Thanks Buck.

Jon Jost
www.jon-jost.com
www.jonjost.wordpress.com

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Truly Free Film

Film Independent’s Project Involve

We’ve had a fair amount of discussion about the need for producer training programs here.  The need for training programs in other film-related disciplines is equally pressing.  The need for training programs that focus on diversity and champion under-represented groups is particularly of need.  Let’s face it, the film industry remains a bastion of privilege, and unless serious efforts are made, everyone just keeps helping out people that are like themselves.

Luckily, one of the longest running training and most successful programs is dedicated to increasing diversity in the film biz, and that is Film Independent’s Project: Involve.  THERE IS A FEBRUARY 23rd DEADLINE so best download your application here, fill it out, and submit it pretty damn quick!

WHAT IS PROJECT:INVOLVE?

Project:Involve is Film Independent’s signature diversity program, dedicated to increasing cultural diversity in the film industry by cultivating the careers of under-represented filmmakers. The program, which runs from October through June, selects filmmakers from culturally diverse backgrounds and filmmaking tracks. The Fellows are paired one-on-one with a mentor from the film industry. In addition to the mentorship, the Fellows also attend filmmaking workshops, community screenings, and receive career development assistance.

During the nine-month program, the Fellows are assigned a 2-minute short film project. They work in pairs to develop and shoot a short film that incorporates the concept of diversity in our every day life.

40 Fellows are selected for the program each year.

Project:Involve Fellows receive:

A one-year membership with Film Independent
A pass to the Los Angeles Film Festival (Westwood Pass)
Alumni support
Applications are accepted in the following categories:

Acquisitions, Acting, Agent/Manager, Cinematography, Composing, Costume Design, Development Exec, Directing, Documentary, Editing, Entertainment Law, Film Programming, Marketing/Distribution, Music, Producing, Production Design, Screenwriting, Sound, and Writer/Director.

Read more about here.  And again, download the application here.
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Truly Free Film

It Could Be Getting So Much Better All The Time #10: A National Film Board

Look at what Canada has!  Free streaming of great films!

Imagine if we had government funding for the arts in this country. For a brief moment I had hopes that the stimulus plan would include something more than a token.  As Scott Macauley at Filmmaker Blog reported with a good round-up of the lack thereof, it ain’t gonna be so?  You’d think with almost 3 million people employed in the arts in this country, they’d be more of demand for such a stimulus.  It’s crazy that when investments like this and the state based film tax credits bring more revenue in, that the politicians don’t make the happen.  Sigh…

Well, image if we had a website like this promoting our culture.  What would be the ramifications of that?  Would media literacy increase?  Would artists prosper? Would that be so bad?
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Truly Free Film

Save The NY Film & TV Tax Credits!

I don’t think I need to tell anyone reading this what a boost the credits have been to NY State, or how many jobs they have created, or how horrible it will be for the industry if they are not reinstated.  

We all need to call Governor Patterson.  We all need to write him a letter.  But you can start by signing this petition: 

http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/petition-sign.cgi?Zablocki

To find your NY state assemby representative: 

http://assembly.state.ny.us/mem/

To find and write your state congressional representative:
http://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml
The petition reads:

To: Governor David A. Paterson
CC: Speaker of the Assembly/Assemblyman Sheldon Silver,
Senate Majority Leader Malcolm A. Smith

We are writing to you today, on behalf of the thousands of men and women employed in the film and television industry in New York State. A recent article in the New York Post, titled “Cut! And Run Looms: NY Out of Film Lures“, reported that the successful state program that provides tax credits to lure television and film productions to New York has run out of money. The report goes on to say that “A Paterson spokesman said yesterday that there is no additional funding for the tax credits included in his latest budget proposal.” This is alarming.

With an unemployment rate of over 7%, now is not the time to cut programs that create jobs and foster new businesses in our state. This program is proven to be highly successful and at a time when this industry needs all the help it can get, you must rethink the true impact of not funding this valuable program.

According to a 2007 study by Ernst and Young, the state and city combined have issued $690 million in tax credits and have collected $2.7 billion in taxes from movie and television productions. This program pays for itself! It helped create over 7,000 jobs, directly, in 2007 and over 12,000 jobs indirectly.

As you are aware, New York City has seen a surge in new television, motion picture and commercial filming in recent years. The Mayor’s Office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting reports that in 2002, there were 14,858 NYC location shooting days and in 2008, we reached over 27,250 days. There is a direct correlation between the growth of this industry and the tax credits provided from the state – we need to keep the momentum going, especially during tough economic times.

New York City and New York State have become”Hollywood of the East”. We are finally a player in the international film industry. Please, Governor Paterson, fund the New York State Tax Credit program for television and motion pictures. Real jobs depend on it!

Sincerely,

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Truly Free Film

It Could Be Getting So Much Better All The Time #9: 2B a filmmaker is 2B an exhibitor

Today’s suggestion is from filmmaker and blogger Pericles Lewnes:

Every indie filmmaker should figure out a way to become a minor league exhibitor. The new indie production company model should have a new component for screening other indie filmmakers. Not just their own movies, but their colleagues movies, heretofore seen as “competitors.” These would be small screenings for sure, but if all filmmakers could set up some time with their friends to show the movies of colleagues, the grassroots level of the indie film seen will grow. These screenings and the reactions they would produce would be a good place for higher tier exhibitors to find new talent.