Film Independent (formerly the IFP/Los Angeles) announced the winners of its 2005 Los Angeles Film Festival. Mark Banning won the Target Filmmaker Award for Best Narrative Feature for his Jellysmoke, and the Target Best Doc Award went to Beth Bird for Everyone Their Grain of Sand. The Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature went to Miranda July's Me and You and Everyone We Know. David Zeiger's Sir! No Sir! won the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature. Luc Jacquet's March of the Penguins won the Audience Award for Best International Feature.

Catherine Kellner and Ebon Moss-Bachrach of Leslie McCleave's Road won for Outstanding Performance in the Narrative Competition.

Describing Jellysmoke, the fest writers, "In his feature debut, Jellysmoke, Mark Banning paints the portrait of a young man searching for love and a way to maintain his sanity. Though sweet, handsome, and well-liked, Jacob suffers deeply from bipolar depression. After a stint in the psych ward, he resolves to find normalcy and sees the key to securing it in the love of a beautiful stranger and her young son. Quietly nuanced, Michael Ealy's performance is a beautiful and apt reminder of how heartbreakingly fragile, yet ultimately hopeful life can be."

And re the doc winner: "Beth Bird shows a small town's struggle for survival in the face of corporate greed and how it powerfully demonstrates the downside of globalization and U.S.-Mexico border economics. Since 1988, Mexican community Maclovio Rojas has been fighting for education, electricity, and water owed them by their government, which would rather force thousands of residents off land that developers are drooling over. Community leaders are arrested, lingering in prison without due process, while their families and friends make every effort to obtain justice. Beth Bird's heartbreaking and intimate feature debut balances these hardships with glimpses of goodness -- an elementary school graduation, holiday celebrations -- to remind us what they're fighting for."
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# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 6/27/2005 12:14:00 PM

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The folks at Stay Free Magazine have have an informative blog entry up on the music clearance hassles of Mad Hot Ballroom. The film's producer and writer Amy Sewell talks about the unexpected issues she faced clearing everything musical numbers to a Rocky cellphone ring tone.

Here she recounts one of the more vexing moments:

"When we were down shooting the boys playing foosball, Ronnie yelled out, "Everybody dance now!" Just when I think we've finished the film, someone points out that we have to clear that because it's a "visual vocal cue." So I went back to the publishers, and the first publisher, Spirit, says they'll throw it in with the other things we've cleared if Warner Chappell throws it in. But Warner Chappell said, "Look, we've cut you some nice deals, we can't give this to you." They said this three-second bit would cost $5,000. And since they had Most Favored Nation status it would have raised the cost on similar uses, like the Rocky ring-tone. So I went back to lawyer and said we should keep it in because this should be a poster child for fair use. But he didn't recommend taking on the music industry. Those corporations have too much money for us to play Norma Rae our first time out."
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# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 6/25/2005 09:05:00 PM

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... even Elton John music, is so much better than the formulaic trailer cutting that is rampant these days. You know, the fast music, cheesey step-zooms that aren't in the actual movie, weird whooshing sound effects on the edits, even for dramatic films, switch to slow soulful music half way kind of thing?. This clip for Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown, linked to first on Ain't It Cool News, is a much better promo than what will probably come later... Check it out.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 6/23/2005 11:40:00 AM

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The guys over at Ain't It Cool News have been creaming over Michael Davis's Shoot 'Em Up, an action pic set up at New Line starring Clive Owen. First the site's Moriaty posted an interview with Davis in which the writer/director traces the interesting and circuitous route he took to being the town's new go-to action guy. (Jeffrey Welles has also written about Davis in a fascinating career study that explains how a 44-year-old direct-to-video guy came to helm a big-budget A-list actioner.) And today, Moriaty links to the Latino Review which has a detailed script review and, most importantly, Quicktime files of the 1700-image animatic Davis drew by hand and took in to New Line to get the job. Filmmakers looking for illustrations of how to pitch their projects should check out Davis's work. (Moriaty also throws some props to New Line exec Jeff Katz, who he credits with reeling in a bunch of exciting new projects for the studio.)

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 6/20/2005 12:18:00 PM

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On the opening weekend of the IFC's new IFC Center (which a friend reported was packed out for the opening of Miranda July's Me and You and Everyone We Know), the folks at Gothamist have posted an interview with our friend John Vanco, the chief programmer for the theater. Vanco talks a lot about film and outlines an exciting vision for the theater, and he also reveals a past life as a carpenter when asked about the theater's construction delays:

"My background as a carpenter is an awfully obscure fact and fading memory -- that was a long time ago. But, yes, kind of being handy with tools and having confidence with basic rules of physics and engineering has been useful in participating in some of the problem-solving moments of the renovation. But I've been lucky enough to be surrounded by lots of experienced and talented specialists who have helped conquer all the construction challenges and make this such a beautiful place and such an architecturally successful mixing of the past and the present. I do look forward to the day in the very near future when my previously untapped talent for HVAC [Heating, ventilating and air-conditioning] systems programming and my opinions about the best way to cantilever a 40-year-old neon marquee sign from the ceiling are no longer relevant."
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# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 6/19/2005 12:29:00 AM

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This fall's Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music will include the U.S. stage debut of actor Isabelle Huppert in a French adaptation of Sarah Kane's 4.48 Psychosis, directed by Claude Regy.

4.48 Psychosis premiered posthumously at the Royal Court in London in June 2000 sixteen months after Kane's death by suicide at the age of 28.

4.48 is the time most suicides take place.

"With words as exquisite as they are chilling, Sarah Kane's heartrending 4.48 Psychosis is a breathtakingly visceral rollercoaster ride through the playwright's private hell. Infamous at just 23 for Blasted, an explosive depiction of the Bosnian War's barbarism, and a few years later for the equally controversial Crave and Skin, Kane's anarchistic and highly literate voice has been favorably compared to those of Beckett, Pinter, and Artaud."

For those unfamiliar with Kane's work, check out Iain Fisher's excellent Web site. You can also download the short film Skin (1995) written by Kane, and starring Ewen Bremner (of Trainspotting fame), from the Channel 4 Web site.
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# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 6/17/2005 01:04:00 PM

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For the second year in a row, IFP has teamed up with Tishman Speyer Properties to present free Drive-In Movies at Rockefeller Center, June 14 - 18 at 9 pm.

Viewed outdoors on a 40-foot screen above the ice rink, the summer Drive-In series will feature five independent titles prior to their theatrical release.

June 14: Rize
The opening night film, Rize, directed by famed fashion photographer David Lachapelle, reveals a groundbreaking dance phenomenon exploding on the streets of South Central Los Angeles. Taking advantage of unprecedented access, this documentary film brings to first light a revolutionary form of artistic expression borne from oppression. The aggressive and visually stunning dance modernizes moves indigenous to African tribal rituals and features mind-blowing, athletic movement sped up to impossible speeds. Rize tracks the fascinating evolution of the dance: we meet Tommy Johnson (Tommy the Clown), who first created the style as a response to the 1992 Rodney King riots and named it "Clowning," as well as the kids who developed the movement into what they now call "Krumping." The film will be released on June 24 by Lions Gate Films.

June 15: The Baxter
The Baxter, a romantic comedy starring Michael Showalter, Justin Theroux, Paul Rudd, and Michelle Williams, tells the story of Elliot Sherman (Showalter), a conservative, risk-averse guy who is the quintessential "Baxter" -- a guy who never actually gets the girl. He is more anxious than ever on the eve of his wedding to Caroline (Elizabeth Banks), and expends an extraordinary amount of energy warding off rival suitors. His anxiety skyrockets with the arrival of Bradley (Theroux), Caroline's long-lost boyfriend. But this time Elliot meets someone who can help. Cecil (Williams), an eccentric temp at Elliot's accounting firm, is wild at heart and full of romantic advice. The film is slated to be released August 26 by IFC Films.

June 16: All We Are Saying
Rosanna Arquette's All We Are Saying is a compelling, personal look at what makes musicians tick. Arquette follows up her critically acclaimed documentary directorial debut, Searching for Debra Winger, with a look into the psyches of some of the top musical artists of the day. Through a series of intimate conversations, more than50 musical legends, hot new artists and music industry insiders reveal what inspires them, their personal struggles of balancing relationships and family while working on the road and the state of the music business in the 21st century. Presented as an ongoing, casual conversation, the film offers a unique insight into the artists' most candid and personal thoughts. The film is produced by DeMann Entertainment.

June 17: Show Business
Show Business is the story of aspiration, of heartbreak, of ecstasy. It is a landmark close-up of the passion, sweat, glory and insanely high creative and financial risk swirling around four of last season's biggest Broadway musicals ("Wicked," "Avenue Q," "Taboo" and "Caroline, or Change") as they rev up for Opening Night -- and the triumph or tragedy that awaits them at the hands of critics and those ultimate arbiters of success or failure, audiences. The film takes us to the front lines of the battle between the forces of the artful, impassioned "show" and the harsh, unforgiving "business." As directed by Broadway producer Dori Berinstein, Show Business is a triumph of access. The film is produced by Dramatic Forces.

June 18: Alchemy
Evan Oppenheimer's Alchemy is the definitive look at the competition between man and machine. The film poses the question: "What is love -- and how much hard drive space does it take up?" Tom Cavanagh, of TV's Ed, stars as Mal Downey, a low-level academic and the creator of the world's first fully functioning "emotive computer," known as Jerry. Endowed with all of Mal's personality traits (to the point of rooting for the New York Mets and internalizing Mal's sexual resume), Jerry is, his maker contends, man's complete emotional equal. Not everyone sees it that way, however. So, under pressure from college administrators to document his findings or risk losing his cushy assistant professorship, Mal conducts the ultimate research study: pit Jerry against a real human in a contest to win the affections of an unwitting female subject, then publish the results in a Cosmo-esque women's magazine. It all adds up to a disarmingly breezy exploration of the nature of love in a technological time.
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# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 6/10/2005 12:59:00 PM

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"The domain of architecture has been transformed by developments in interaction research, wearable computing, mobile connectivity, people-centered design, contextual awareness, [Radio Frequency Identification, or RFID] systems and ubiquitous computing," according to Haque Design + Research.

"These technologies alter our understanding of space and change the way we relate to each other," writes Usman Haque. "We no longer think of architecture as static and immutable; instead we see it as dynamic, responsive and conversant.

"In the past 10 years we have witnessed a series of projects that explore the relationship between technology and space or technology and the body. Yet few, if any, have attempted to align the two approaches and investigate the technological body in a technological space."

Haque's work-in-progress 1000 (little tips of communication), a collaboration with Studio 5050, "synthesizes these two tracks of exploration and develops a system where both the 'social body' and 'space' [participate] in an interactive dialogue... The overall objective of the project is to develop a working prototype of both a 'wearable' device and a spatially-oriented system with which it interacts."

Among his completed projects are: Bricks, a mobile projection system for creating responsive visual environments in public spaces; and Scents of Space, an interactive smell system that allows for three-dimensional placement of fragrances without dispersion.
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# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 6/10/2005 11:42:00 AM

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The latest chapter of Raster, the magazine of the eponymous digital arts and culture collective, is now online.

Chapter 37 features terrific interviews with the staff of the UK-based production company, Shynola; design guru Luziano Testi Paul; MyDeadPony's Raphael Vicenzi; along with reports from Vancouver's Vidfest; and amazing digital art by Raster's members. Via Eyebeam Reblog.
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# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 6/10/2005 11:18:00 AM

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As reported in Greg.org, and in today's New York Times, The St. Mark's Street location of Kim's Video (aka Mondo Kim's), a drycleaning establishment turned entertainment retail empire, was raided by police officers on Wednesday. Five store employees were charged with trademark counterfeiting. (Kim's store on Avenue A, where employees routinely terrorized customers with their ornery service, was shuttered last fall.)

According to MTV.com, the raid focused on Kim's mixtape business -- not on its bootleg videos. Police "seized 27 music DVDs, nine DVD burners and several store computers. All of the CD-Rs and DVDs were described by an RIAA spokesperson as 'urban in nature' -- mixtapes, featuring music by artists such as 50 Cent, Nelly, Alicia Keyes and Jay-Z."
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# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 6/10/2005 10:23:00 AM

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In The Guardian, Ousmane Sembene, the Senegalese-born "father of African cinema," talks with Bonnie Greer about filmmaking in Africa, his European experiences and why Live 8 is fake.

Africa, says Sembene, "is a continent going through a crisis. Nobody can deny that we have a lot of wars going on; brothers killing brothers; we have a lot of diseases and catastrophes. But on the other hand, we have a majority of individuals, both men and women, who are struggling on a daily basis in a heroic way and the outcome of whose struggle leaves no doubt.

..."Nowadays...I think it is France that is really leading [the way in] dividing Africa. Most of our presidents have dual nationalities, French and African. When the going gets tough, they run away to Paris and all our decisions are made in Paris. I think in that context it's very difficult to talk about pan-Africanism. Of course, it's just plain rhetoric. Why don't they abolish political borders in Africa? What is stopping them from developing education in Africa?

... [Big European initiatives, such as Make Poverty History, Hear Africa 05 and Live 8] are "fake," claims Sembene, "and I think African heads of state who buy into [these] ideas are liars. The only way for us to come out of poverty is to work hard.

... "I think there needs to be a rupture between Africa and Europe," he adds, "and all the international laws being conceived here in the West have to be revisited and changed. Just one case in point, now European countries are running into problems with China because of T-shirts. What did China do? China's flooding their markets with T-shirts. But last century, France and England bombed Shanghai -- they took weapons and invaded them. They can no longer do that because China has organised itself; and Vietnam has organised itself. That is what we lack back in Africa: we have been subjugated so much that all we can do is beg, and some even think what we are going through is a comedy.

...Today, "everywhere you go in Africa, in the big cities, you would think that you were in a Salvation Army store. [European industry has] even created an NGO whose role is to sell us second-hand clothes. I think the youth need to hear these stories. The struggle continues."
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# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 6/08/2005 12:30:00 PM

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Justin Lin, who was featured on the cover of the Winter 2003 issue of Filmmaker for his debut feature Better Luck Tomorrow, has been tapped to direct Universal Pictures' The Fast and Furious 3.

As reported in Variety, "None of the stars of the original two films will return, making this the rare third installment of a hit franchise where the only gross player is the producer, Neil Moritz."

Lin recently directed Annapolis, currently in postproduction, for Touchstone. He is also attached to direct a remake of the Korean film Old Boy for Universal and Vertigo Entertainment. (Tartan Asia Extreme will release the DVD of Park Chan-wook's Old Boy on August 23.)
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# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 6/08/2005 11:29:00 AM

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As reported in Variety, "Universal and helmer Spike Lee have decided to shoot Denzel Washington-Clive Owen starrer Inside Man at Brooklyn's Steiner Studios thanks to a new package of city and state tax incentives aimed at luring production to Gotham" as part of its Made in N.Y. program.

In today's New York Times, Glenn Collins profiles the 280,000-square-foot Steiner Studios, where Steven Shainberg's Fur, a film about the early life of Diane Arbus, featuring Nicole Kidman, is currently lensing.

Coincidentally, on Tuesday night, the Mayor's Office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting launched the latest additions to its Made in N.Y. program, introducing a Made in N.Y. discount card, "which will offer price breaks to members of the entertainment industry on services such as hotels, airlines, car rentals, parking and banking."
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# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 6/08/2005 11:08:00 AM

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According to the promotional material for Robots: From Science Fiction to Technological Revolution, "The 1980s were the PC years, [and] the 1990s the Internet years, [but] the first decade of 2000 will belong to the robot."

"When people think about the future, they envision a world of robots. Robots intrigue, amaze, worry and disconcert. Now on the cusp of the 21st century, they are poised to saturate every aspect of our culture, from medicine, science and industry to artworks, toys, and household appliances.

Robots by Daniel Ichbiah (Harry N. Abrams, June 2005, $37.50) is the first visual survey to focus on this increasingly important, always newsworthy scientific development and its effects on society.

"Covering automatons, androids and all maner of artificial intelligence, both fictional and real, this massive, comprehensive volume describes the robot's fascinating history and speculates on its probable future. Interviews with scientists, surgeons, manufacturers, science fiction writers, artists, toy creators, and a host of other experts bring tremendous insight to the subject, and the copious illustrations provide visual examples of robots in every environment. As entertaining as it is informative, this one-of a kind book is an indispensable guide to approaching the Robot Age."

As Will Wright, creator the video games Sims and Sims City writes in his Foreward to Robots, " The primary challenge facing robotics today is that of situational awareness. We can build capable hardware that can perform useful tasks under human control. But the hard part in automating that control is giving computers the same level of awareness that the human has... We need to give our robots the ability to build better models of the real world.

"Ironically, though, as we build robots that are, in some sense, models of ourselves, we begin to glimpse that one of the fundamental skills that we must learn is to give them the ability to build models of their own."

On a related note, Seth Schiesel writing in the New York Times reports that gaming's future, as exemplified by the interactive drama "Facade" (pictured right), lies in the creation of "virtual characters powered by artificial intelligence techniques, which allow [characters] to change their emotional state in fairly complicated ways in response to the conversation being typed in by the human player."

..." 'For a long time, games have been judged largely on their graphics,' " echoes Lane Davis, one of the organizers of the first Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment conference, and chief executive of Mad Doc Software. ... 'The graphics hardware is...getting powerful enough that basically everything looks good now. So what is starting to differentiate games is what is happening inside the characters, how the opponents behave and make plans, how comprehensively and realistically the worlds respond to what the players want to do.' "

..."As put by Chris Crawford, a legendary game designer of the 1980's who now focuses on interactive storytelling technology: 'As a game designer you are an absolute god. One kind of god says, "O.K., now this leaf will fall a little bit here, and then this wind will blow a bit over there." The other kind of god says, "Here are the laws of physics. Go for it." ' "
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# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 6/07/2005 01:44:00 PM

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The rap on us movie business people here in New York is that we're out of touch with the pulse of the industry, the daily insanity of life on the Left Coast. After seeing this pic, I fear that this criticism is correct. I honestly don't know what to make of this story on Defamer which concerns the town's biggest agency and one of my favorite writers. Finding it hard to believe that CAA has borrowed a promotional tactic from the IFP's Independent Feature Film Market circa 1996, I ask anyone out there in L.A. to confirm Defamer's claim that giant armored men are hand-delivering to studios copies of a feature screenplay by Alex Garland (The Beach, 28 Days Later) based on the Halo video game and requesting a lunch-hour read and afternoon bid.

From Defamer:

"On Monday at 12pm, CAA is going directly into studios with one of the most anticipated scripts ever written. Microsoft financed and oversaw development of the script written by Alex Garland based on the most popular video game ever sold. They have asked each studio to read during lunch Monday and make their bid that afternoon."
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# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 6/06/2005 06:27:00 PM

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As predicted yesterday in numerous publications and as recounted below, Apple Computer today announced that it will be moving from IBM's Power PC chip to the Intel Pentium chip, currently used in Windows computers. Yesterday I linked to Wired's Cult of Mac blog which stated that while speed may have been an issue, one of the other main reasons behind the switch was Apple's desire to use Intel's new Digital Rights Management protection that's embedded in the new Pentium chip, a technology that will allow Apple to pitch the major movie studios with an ITunes-like digital movie store.

At the Apple WWDC conference today, Steve Jobs announced the switch but digital rights management was on nobody's lips. However, read these comments after the conference by Jobs on CNBC in light of the Cult of Mac theory as well as one other salient fact: that Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo are all shifting to IBM's Power PC chips for future versions of their gaming machines that are intended to have other multi-media capabilities. What's shaping up is some kind of "War of the TIVO" spin-offs between gaming consoles and Mac-based PCs.

From CNBC via Think Secret:

"'We have a good relationship with IBM, and they've got a product road map, and today, the products are really good,' Jobs said when asked what IBM had failed to deliver, in his estimation. 'But as we look out into the future, where we want to go is maybe a little bit different. We can envision some awesome products we want to build for our customers in the next few years, and as we look out a year or two in the future, Intel's processor roadmap really aligns with where we want to go much more than any other.'

The transition is beginning now, Jobs said, to 'get us where we want to be to build the kind of future products we want to build.

'Our products today are fine,' Jobs added, 'but it's really a year or two down the future where we see some issues.'"

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 6/06/2005 06:13:00 PM

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According to BBC News, "A human version of the classic arcade game Pacman, superimposing the virtual 3D game world on to city streets and buildings, is being developed by researchers at Singapore.

"Players equipped with a wearable computer, headset and goggles can physically enter a real world game space by choosing to play the role of Pacman or one of the Ghosts.


"A central computer system keeps track of all their movements with the aid of GPS receivers and a wireless local area network.

"The Human Pacman was developed by Adrian David Cheok and his team at the Mixed Reality Lab, National University of Singapore.

"Merging different technologies such as GPS, Bluetooth, virtual reality, wi-fi, infrared and sensing mechanisms, the augmented reality game allows gamers to play in a digitally-enhanced maze-like version of the real world.

..." Other institutions focused on creating similar games include the University of Southern Australia, which has developed an augmented reality (AR) version of the Quake game.

"Some of the AR gaming technology developed at the University of South Australia is being modified for consumer use.


"The researchers have created a start-up company called A_Rage that plans to launch augmented reality game engines into market with a target price tag of AUD$500, by the end of 2006.

"Experts believe AR technology will revolutionize the gaming experience creating an arena where people move about, socialising and interacting with each other instead of being glued to a computer screen."
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# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 6/06/2005 12:07:00 PM

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If you've gone anywhere near your computer this weekend you'll have noticed all the stories about Apple's supposed plan to shift from IBM Power PC chips to Intel chips in its Macintosh computers. A Wall Street Journal story earlier in the week claiming that this shift might be in the offing caused Apple's stock to pop 6%, but most followers of Jobs and company doubted the report. Now, however, with the official announcement less than 24 hours away, it's being reported as near fact. For Mac fans, it's a big deal, as the architecture of the new chip will require rewriting of all Apple programs, a process that developers recently had to go through when Mac shifted to the Linux-based OS X.

The initial obvious reason for the shift is speed. Apple has reportedly been frustrated with IBM's ability to produce faster chips on a competitive timetable. But on the Cult of Mac blog on the Wired site, Leander Kahney has a different explanation, and it has to do with the movies:

"But why would Apple do this?" Kahney writes. "Because Apple wants Intel's new Pentium D chips.

Released just a few days ago, the dual-core chips include a hardware copy protection scheme that prevents 'unauthorized copying and distribution of copyrighted materials from the motherboard,' according to PC World.

Apple -- or rather, Hollywood -- wants the Pentium D to secure an online movie store (iFlicks if you will), that will allow consumers to buy or rent new movies on demand, over the Internet.

According to News.com, the Intel transition will occur first in the summer with the Mac mini, which I'll bet will become a mini-Tivo-cum-home-server.

Hooked to the Internet, it will allow movies to be ordered and stored, and if this News.com piece is correct, loaded onto the video iPod that's in the works.

Intel's DRM scheme has been kept under wraps -- to prevent giving clues to crackers -- but the company has said it will allow content to be moved around a home network, and onto suitably-equipped portable devices.

And that's why the whole Mac platform has to shift to Intel. Consumers will want to move content from one device to another -- or one computer to another -- and Intel's DRM scheme will keep it all nicely locked down."

We'll find out if Kahney is right tomorrow afternoon...
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# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 6/05/2005 08:23:00 PM

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Below we linked to a Hollywood Reporter article about the momentum in the industry towards collapsing the traditional theatrical/home video/pay television windows that have governed when new motion pictures are released to the public. Today on his blog, Mark Cuban, whose 2929 Productions and HDNet films are at the forefront of this experimental distribution, has a cogent explanation of his strategy. Make sure to read the postings from readers below his blog as well. Hollywood may not like it, but it's clear that he is on to something.

From the piece:

"Why not price a DVD or the PPV at a significant premium for day and date delivery? It's $29.95 retail if you want to wait 4 to 6 months. If you want to see it the same day its released in theaters, it's $39.95 retail. Plus, if we are smart, we will provide a $10 or $15 mail-in rebate against that price if you provide a ticketstub for the movie and a receipt for the PPV or DVD. Not only does it expand the number of customers who can and will see the movie on opening night, but more importantly, it enhances the perceived value of going to the theater. 10 bucks to get out of the house, 40 bucks to stay home. Of course this won't make everyone happy. Some people will still think that both options are too expensive. No solution will make everyone happy, but it will expand the number of customers and the revenue base upon release."
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# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 6/05/2005 05:42:00 PM

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Anne Thompson's column this week in the Hollywood Reporter is essential reading for anyone interested in the future of specialty film distribution. She interviews folks like IFC's Jonathan Sehring and Picturehouse's Dennis O'Connor about what she says is the inevitable collapse of the theatrical/home video/pay cable distribution window system.

IFC's Sehring, whose IFC Center opens this week in New York, is particularly forthright:

"While he has no plans to 'expand beyond one facility,' says Sehring, he sees other changes ahead. 'We're going to alter our business plans over the next six to eight months. We feel strongly about video-on-demand as a future. As we shorten the window between DVD and theatrical, you're going to see some sort of mixture and blend of VOD.'

"As Sehring sees it, 'When films open theatrically, they get national press attention for the first two to three weeks, and then move to B and C markets two to four months down the line. Aside from releasing on DVD earlier, we can take advantage of new technology on our cable channels via satellite and experiment with VOD day-and-date a week or two after the opening.'"

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 6/04/2005 02:17:00 PM

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The release of a new vocal album of songs by Brian Eno -- his first such solo "non-ambient" recording since 1977's Before and After Science (I'm not including albums that mixed songs with instrumental pieces like 1997's Nerve Net) -- would be significant enough to post about on this film blog even if Eno wasn't an artist whose work has been massively influential to filmmakers. But from the glam rock art songs of his that appeared on the Velvet Goldmine soundtrack to instrumental pieces that have played significant roles in films like 28 Days Later and Heat to his video installations, that distill cinema down to the most basic elements of sound and light, Eno has been, alternately, a provocative pioneer and a watchful, influential observer to many of the key artistic moments of the late 20th century.

On June 13, Eno will release Another Day on Earth, a collection of new songs, six of which can be sampled by on the album's new website, linked above. Typically, Eno's latest endeavor is not just a collection of music but also an interrogation of the limits of an art from -- in this case, the pop song -- in today's times. Says Eno, ""Song-writing is now actually the most difficult challenge in music. It's very easy to make music now but lyrics are really the last very hard problem in music. What I think lyrics have to do is engage a certain part of your brain in a sort of search activity so your brain wants to say 'here are some provocative clues as to what this song might be about.' They don't have to be explicit. In fact for me they certainly shouldn't be explicit."

The new album arrives amidst much new Eno activity, which can be tracked on the excellent Eno Web. Astralwerks has recently reissued remastered versions of most of his albums, he has been performing live gigs in Russia with the rai musician Rachid Taha, and novelist Jonathan Lethem recently used extensive quotations from his album Another Green World to provide closure to Fortress of Solitude. There's even a web designer, Guy Drieghde D, who has developed an Oblique Strategies widget for Mac's new Tiger OS. (Oblique Strategies, made by Eno and Peter Schmidt, are a group of cards, each with a off-center directive intended to jolt one out of a creative problem.)
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# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 6/04/2005 12:01:00 AM

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Via Wired Magazine comes the following report: "A Netflix-like system for trading your unwanted DVDs with others through the mail sounds like a cool idea. But in practice, you wind up with a stack of old discs that no one will take off your hands," writes Katie Dean. "That's been my experience with Peerflix, an online movie-swapping service that applies the principles of peer-to-peer file-sharing to physical DVDs."

Equally well-meaning, but far more charming, is Parson's School of Design MFA student Lina Fenequito's Swap-O-Matic, which "allows users to reuse and recycle goods in person with the aid of a nearby internet-connected computer, mixing vintage ideas with modern technology."
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# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 6/03/2005 11:16:00 AM

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According to Technology Research News, "Researchers from Stanford University and Cornell University have put together a projector-camera system that can pull off a classic magic trick: it can read a playing card that is facing away from the camera.


"The dual-photography system gains information from a subject by analyzing the way projected patterns of light bounce off it."

"The most practical application for the researchers' technique is in relighting movie scenes... 'Suppose you're making a new sci-fi movie and you wanted to have your hero actor in a spaceship,' said Pradeep Sen, an electrical engineering researcher at Stanford University. 'Nowadays the spaceship is likely to be a computer model rather than a big set, and convincingly putting the hero into the scene involves modifying the lighting of both he scene and the hero.'

" 'Any object inside a specific environment will assume some of the color of the environment'... The effect can be subtle, but the human eye is very good at noticing if something is missing. 'For example, when an actor is inside a volcano, the actor will get a reddish tint or glow to their skin... in a rain forest there will be a greenish tone.'

"In addition, a computer-generated character will sometimes cast shadow onto the real actor. 'This lighting is often not available at the time they filmed the actor, so they have to relight the actor afterwards on the computer,' said Sen.

" 'The matrix of light properties captured by the researchers' technique contains all the information necessary to do high-resolution relighting and has the potential to do so much more rapidly than conventional techniques,' said Sen. The researchers' current prototype works with static images, but could eventually be applied to moving pictures as well, he added."
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# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 6/03/2005 10:43:00 AM

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Realizing that it's been over two weeks since we've posted anything here about Miranda July, whose new blog for her film Me and You and Everyone We Know contains pictures of her receiving the Camera d'Or at Cannes from the once-in-a-lifetime pairing of Abbas Kiorastami and Milla Jovovich, I took notice of an email from Cloverfield Press. July's new book, The Boy from Lam Kien, is now available from Cloverfield, the small press started by film producer and Sundance Lab programmer Matthew Greenfield and writer Laurence Dumortier. The book is described as "a strange and lovely story about an agoraphobe's encounter with a young boy." Also now out from the press is Mary Rechner's book Hot Springs. Both books are available by mail order by clcking the links above.

Both books sell for $15.00 and are issued in numbered editions of 600, and there will be a reading with July, Rechner, Dumortier, and Carol Treadwell (The Museum of Contemporary Art) at Skylight Books, 1818 N. Vermont Avenue in L.A. on June 24th at 7:30 p.m.
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# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 6/03/2005 12:55:00 AM

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Tony-award winner Alan Cumming has signed on as the host of Sundance Channel's Friday night cult-movie destination, "Midnight Snack."

The new season will debut on July 1, 2005 and will showcase eccentric, outrageous and over-the-top films for the late night crowd.

"Midnight Snack" airs Friday nights at 12:30 a.m. The season will feature 12 episodes including the mind-bending thriller The Tesseract, the blaxploitation classic Foxy Brown, and the hilarious comic melodrama/thriller Die Mommie Die!

The "Midnight Snack" lineup for July is as follows:

July 1st at 12:30am
Dracula: Pages From a Virgin's Diary (pictured above) - Directed by Guy Maddin. The idiosyncratic Canadian auteur blends silent movie and ballet in an extravagant, erotic and quite faithful adaptation of Bram Stoker's horror classic. Performed to the music of Gustav Mahler by the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, with Wei-Qiang Zhang as the seductive Transylvanian bloodsucker.

July 8th at 12:30am
The Tesseract (U.S. Television Premiere) - Directed by Oxide Pang. Thailand-based director Pang (The Eye) bends time and perspective - not to mention bullets - in this crafty bit of existential pulp fiction. In a shabby Bangkok hotel, events conspire to entwine the fates of four disparate characters: an edgy drug courier (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Bend It Like Beckham), a grieving psychologist (Saskia Reeves, Butterfly Kiss), a sticky-fingered young bellboy (Alexander Rendell) and a critically wounded hit-woman (Lena Christenchen).

July 15th at 12:30am
Ichi the Killer - Directed by Takashi Miike. Japan's enfant terrible pours on the blood, horror and humor in this revenge saga based on a popular manga comic. A yakuza boss is kidnapped, and his scar-faced, torture-loving henchman Kakihara (Japanese superstar Tadanobu Asano, Last Life in the Universe) leads an inventively sadistic search for those responsible.

July 22nd at 12:30am
B. Monkey - Directed by Michael Radford. A sultry noir starring Asia Argento (xXx) as Beatrice, a London thief who decides to go straight after she falls for an elementary school teacher (Jared Harris, Igby Goes Down). But Beatrice's criminal comrades (Rupert Everett and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) aren't at all pleased about losing their collaborator.

July 29th at 12:30am
Dirty Work - Directed by David Sampliner and Tim Nackashi and executive produced by actor Ed Norton. A fascinating glimpse into three of society's least sought-after jobs, Dirty Work profiles Russ Page, a reproductive physiologist who is hired by farmers to collect bull semen; Bernard Holston, a restorative artist who recreates the glow of life for the dead in their caskets; and Darrell Allen, a septic tank pumper who has written catchy odes to his lifelong profession.
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# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 6/02/2005 03:40:00 PM

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Though I was never a big fan of the comic books, for me, the X-Men films were some of the best of recent big-budget superhero movies. Director Bryan Singer kept the focus on the characters and their relationships while also engaging in the de rigeur FX spectacle.

X-Men 3 has been underway and after a prolonged search Layer Cake director Matthew Vaughn was hired to helm the film. However, Moriarty over at Ain't It Cool News has the scoop that Vaughn is no longer on the picture due to his having to deal with personal issues. The film is still slated for a May, 2006 release date and shooting is nine weeks away. Follow the site for what I'm sure will be a week of rumors and speculation over his replacement.
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# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 6/01/2005 12:01:00 AM

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