[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 22, 2:30 pm -- Library Center Theatre, Park City]

Do I need permission to film that person? In my previous documentaries, the answer was always clear: get a signed release form. But this film was set in a different world: a virtual world called Second Life, populated solely by digital avatars. Was this a game or a place governed by the laws of the real world? To make things more complicated, most “residents” (as the users call themselves) fiercely guard their real identities, adopting fanciful new names, ethnicities, nationalities, genders, even species. Asking for a resident’s signature and real name often felt like trying to unmask a CIA operative. It was soon clear that I needed some ace legal advice. I contacted an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who recognized this as novel legal territory and offered to take on my film pro bono. Ultimately we made an interesting decision, with the goal of notifying as many people as possible about my intent: My avatar would carry around a virtual video camera and wear text that signaled I was making a documentary. If anyone clicked on me, they’d get a description of who I was, how the footage would be used, and a way to opt out. I also did my best to seek explicit permission via text chat or, when an avatar was prominently featured, digital release forms. Even if the person would only sign as “Decomposing Monster.”

# posted by Jason Guerrasio @ 5:01 PM Comments (0)

RESTREPO |
directors, Sebastian Junger & Tim Hetherington 

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Thursday, Jan. 21, 9:30 pm -- Eccles Theatre, Park City]

Our goal in making Restrepo, a documentary about soldiers at a remote outpost in Afghanistan, was to give viewers the experience of a 90-minute deployment. We had no difficult decisions, per se, but we did have important ones. First and foremost, we decided that our cameras would never leave the soldiers. We would not interview generals or diplomats; we would not return to the United States to talk to the families. We would limit ourselves to what the soldiers had access to and nothing more. Finally our film would have no political agenda or moral viewpoint... it would simply be a starting point for the complex and painful debates that surround any use of military force. This is war, full stop. The rest is up to you.

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THE WORKS OF MICHAEL JOAQUIN GREY |
director, Joaquin Grey 

New Frontier Performances and Installations [PREMIERE SCREENING: Thursday, Jan. 21, 3:00 pm -- New Frontier on Main, Park City]

Not filming anything, I developed software that breaks down film as
video into its basic primitives — the building blocks of media. I take body signals and sound to reanimate and dematerialize existing media and create film objects and “dream anatomies” of our familiar media body. These computational cinema works are not recorded; they are generated as the viewer experiences the work in real time. The works synchronize with your own body to create new synesthetic experiences.

# posted by Jason Guerrasio @ 4:59 PM Comments (0)