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DIGITAL FUTURES
The Independent Television Service has published a 51-page guide, Digital Futures, downloadable free-of-charge as a PDF from the organization's Web site.
Funded by the Ford Foundation, and presented by ITVS and the Center for Social Media at American University, the guide includes a glossary and explanation of digital technology terms; an analysis of today's distribution, funding and legal landscape -- including issues affecting copyright and fair use, digital piracy, media concentration, bandwidth and the growth of wi-fi; as well as a directory of resource organizations for independent producers.
# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 3/10/2004 03:01:38 PM
Um, is anyone else out there following the very scary goings on at the FCC these days? I know there's been a lot to write about -- the Oscars, The Passion of the Christ -- but the collective entertainment blogosphere has been awfully quiet when it comes to Congress's proposed changes to the FCC charter.
From the Howard Stern/Clear Channel ban to some of the measures detailed in this Washington Post article, risk-taking programming is under siege at the moment. Note the article's last paragraph: by only one vote, a Senate provision sponsored by Senators Byron Dorgan and Trent Lott was defeated that would have extended the FCC's indecency rules to cable and satellite programming.
One vote.
The independents won, for the moment, against the MPAA in the screener ban. But what will be the economic ramifications of some of these new rules -- or, the even harsher rules that will be enacted down the line after another televised nipple baring -- on independent films as they try to recoup in the ancillary marketplaces?
# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 3/10/2004 12:52:00 AM
BETTER THAN NEW
Vincent Gallo fans -- and perfectionist filmmakers with money to spare -- must check out this eBay page in which Gallo sells the camera, lights and sound package used to create The Brown Bunny. (Being a fan, I hope this doesn't herald a retreat from filmmaking for Gallo.) The package contains two Aaton 16mm cameras, Super Baltar lenses, the last Nagra 4 STC made by the company, and an Angeniuex zoom purchased from the Kubrick estate!
Writes eBay seller nbvbn, who, by the way, has a seller rating of 76 with 100% positive results, "Vincent Gallo, the director of Buffalo 66 decided after completing Buffalo 66 that for his next film, The Brown Bunny, he would own all his equipment. He would not rent a thing. He would own everything he would need to make his next feature film. In putting this production package together, he spent a year of researching and testing equipment. Afterwards, he would spend 6 months designing the package and another 2 years purchasing, customizing, testing and tweaking the gear. The goals were as follows: to be lightweight, compact, versatile, reliable and cost effective. The package would have to include everything needed to make the film: 2 cameras, a high quality and comprehensive lens collection, mobile yet sufficient lighting, sound equipment that could integrate with the cameras so as to avoid slating, a mic assortment that would never need backup, and a ton of extras that would meet the needs of his flexible and spontaneous production style, and last but not least, an extremely secure transportation case system. 100 hours of case design alone was needed.... All in all, Gallo put more effort into this production package than the whiny Wes Anderson, the sputtering Spike Jonze, the un-darling Darren Aronofsky have put into their whole lives."Bidding for the camera package ended on March 8. With the current bid listed as $86,800, the reserve had not been met.
A hat tip to Movie City News for picking up on this link.
# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 3/8/2004 09:59:43 PM
With Lars von Trier's Dogville set to open March 26 via Lions Gate in New York and Los Angeles, the second installment of his "USA Trilogy," Manderlay, begins production today through May 1 at Film i Vast in Trollhattan, near Gothenburg, Sweden.
The $15-million film, produced by Vibeke Windelov for Zentropa, deals with the issue of slavery in America's deep South. "But since the film is taking place in the '30s," says von Trier, "and, as you know, slavery was not legal then -- it's kind of... aaah... it's a little bit more... funny. It's kind of a comedy!"
Ron Howard's 21-year-old daughter Bryce Dallas Howard (The Village, Book of Love) was cast as Grace, the film's lead, after Nicole Kidman opted out of the remaining installments of the trilogy, reportedly due to scheduling conflicts. The film also stars Danny Glover, Issach De Bankole, John C. Reilly, Jeremy Davies, Lauren Bacall, Chloe Sevigny, Jean-Marc Barr and Udo Kier.The third of a series of film cycles begun in 1984 with the "Europa Trilogy" (The Element of Crime, Epidemic, and Zentropa -- which takes its name from an imaginary, huge rail network created in 1912 by the Hartmann family in Germany) about Western Europe after World War II, and continuing with the "Gold Heart Trilogy" (Breaking the Waves, The Idiots and Dancer in the Dark), inspired by a sentimental children's book from von Trier's childhood about a little girl who is always ready to sacrifice herself to help others, von Trier's "USA Trilogy," set in the Great Depression of the 1930s, "could be described as a depiction of a woman's development to maturity," says the director.
With Manderlay, von Trier intends to continue to employ the Brechtian style he employed for Dogville, using as many as 100 cameras to film on soundstages with theatrical props instead of traditional movie sets or exteriors. The film is being lensed by Anthony Dod Mantle.
Zentropa is also developing Dear Wendy, the fourth feature from Dogme 95 co-founder Thomas Vinterberg (The Celebration), from a script by von Trier and Vinterberg, starring Jamie Bell and Bill Pullman. The film tells the story of Dick (Bell), an ingenious teenager, who upon losing his father finds an unusual friend and confidant in the unlikely shape of a toy pistol which he names "Wendy".
# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 3/8/2004 01:41:25 PM
THE EUROPEAN GRADUATE SCHOOL
Holly Willis, Karol Martesko and I founded Filmmaker back in the fall of 1992 and for many years after that Holly served as our West Coast Editor before moving on to her current position as editor of the quite excellent Res magazine.
We were trading e-mails recently, and Holly asked if we'd link this site to the European Graduate School, where she is working on her second Ph.D. When she wrote to me that the program was "ridiculously perfect -- it brings together amazing philosophers with filmmakers for intensive three-week seminars in a tiny town in the mountains of Switzerland every summer" -- my interest was piqued and I asked her to e-mail back some more comments on the program for this blog. Here is what she wrote:
"The program works like this: we study online for six months, with each seminar focused on the particular work of a filmmaker or philosopher and students engaged in often contentious online discussion. In December, I watched as many of the films of Claire Denis as I could; in January, we read work by Giorgio Agamben and Avital Ronell. I'm currently reading Heidegger for a seminar on philosophy and art led by Chris Fynsk, whose lovely book, Infant Figures, has amazing passages on the work of Francis Bacon. I'm also reading some Hegel for a class with Jean-Luc Nancy, and in April, we turn to the films of Chantal Akerman. "After the online session, students travel to the tiny town of Saas-Fee in Switzerland, nestled among five towering mountains in the Alps. The town has one main street; cars are not allowed, preserving the town's sloooow pace and clean air. There's a bar, a couple of stores, an ice cream shop and hotels for the visiting skiers in the winter...
"The seminar I attended last August was amazing -- although only three weeks in length, it felt more engaging and ultimately more fruitful than any other academic experience. The school is run by Wolfgang Schirmacher, a philosopher in his own right. In our introduction to the school, he demanded to know why we were important; what had we offered the world, and what did we plan to do in the future? If we couldn't answer, he didn't want us to stay. So that's the more aggressive side, and illustrates the demand that we step forward and participate; quiet passivity is not permitted.
"Each class is small with just 15 - 20 students, and the professors are stellar. For the first several days, we alternated between Slavoj Zizek in the morning and Alain Badiou in the afternoon, going from the total frenzy -- intellectual, physical, emotional -- of the Slovenian genius to the gentle, stunning grace of Badiou, who explained -- seriously -- the formula for creativity in hypnotic excursions through psychoanalysis and mathematics. Both were absolutely riveting. "We also met with Peter Greenaway for three days -- he's bombastic, arrogant and assertive, demanding that we explain how we imagined making our mark on posterity, in between rants about the "four tyrannies" that have destroyed cinema (the tyranny of the text, the actor, the frame and the camera, all of which he's tried to disrupt in every single film he's made). In addition to screening many of his hard-to-see early films, he showed all three segments of The Tulse Luper Suitcases, detailed his transition into digital production, and regaled us with his plans for reinventing cinema....
"The other students are varied, geographically as well as by age and interest. There are the maddeningly brilliant twentysomethings just out of college who can recite passages of Heidegger and argue for long hours into the night; there are a few academics interested in exploring philosophy and cinema in a decidedly non-traditional environment. And there are many artists -- media artists, filmmakers, video artists and musicians -- hoping to expand their practice. Strangely enough, despite differences in background and academic expertise, the conversations managed to remain, always, at a certain intellectual pitch. Similarly, there's general respect all around, as well as an interest in new directions in media practice and in the explorations of younger artists like DJ Spooky, Tracey Emin and Shelley Jackson, all of whom are included on the faculty.
"So I'm enjoying it -- friends tease me about earning an online degree but it's not really about that. God knows my first Ph.D. did nothing in terms of my current so-called career, and I expect that a second one will be similarly invisible, if not downright detrimental! But last night I was diligently reading my assignment and came across a passage by Blanchot detailing the image of a child discovering the vertiginous sense of nothingness; it's a beautiful paragraph, and I got to experience one of those rare moments of intense connection to something that seems utterly fundamental to being human. And that's a treat...."
# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 3/7/2004 08:16:16 PM
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© 2004 Filmmaker: The Magazine of Independent Film