As you may have noticed, SpoutBlog has a new look today. We’re still working out some minor details, but if see something isn’t working, or if there’s something you can’t find, or if you have any questions, please let us know in the comments.
Skype sponsored a panel at Cannes today called “Buzz Builders,” and it featured a number of Friends of SpoutBlog: Alison Willmore, Michael Jones,Eugene Hernandez and, via the sponsor’s internet based calling system, David Poland. Poland used the panel to announce that he’ll “be very surprised” if “The Hollywood Reporter is still [around] three years from now.” Jeff Wells’ commenters used the opportunity to make cracks at Poland’s track record with predictions.
Girish calls Robert B. Ray’s The ABCs of Classic Hollywood ” the best new film book I’ve encountered in a long while.” It sounds fascinating: “Ray’s starting point is this quote from Vincente Minnelli: “I feel that a picture that stays with you is made up of a hundred or more hidden things. They’re things that the audience is not conscious of, but that accumulate.” Ray proposes a fascinating and unorthodox method for discovering these hidden things. For each film, he puts together a collection of ‘entries’, one or more for every letter of the alphabet.”
Andy Horbal’s going all Web 0.5, using his blog to advertise his email list. I’ll let him explain: “…by the time my friends realized [a movie] had opened, I’d already seen it and was on to the next film.In response to this problem I started a mailing list for everyone I knew who was interested that discussed what was new, what looked good, and when I was planning on seeing everything….[A]fter about two months I believe I have a handle on what I’d like these e-mails to look like and I’m going public: you (yes, you!) can now subscribe to ‘The Movie E-Mail.’” Details at Mirror/Stage.
These are some of the sites and blogs I visit and read regularly:
Shira Golding wrote a really fine piece this week called “Upstream: The Wide Wide World of Online Video Platforms” for MediaRights. The organization also brings news of filmmaker, Jehane Noujaim’s call for entries for Pangea Day, a landmark, one-day, global film event showcasing shorts from around the world.
Over at Shooting People, Ingrid Kopp blogs on Shooting from the Hip about an interview with writer, Harlan Ellison, who rails against the propensity these days of someone offering an artist exactly zilch to use his or her work–a timely topic for the looming writers’ strike.
For some mind-bending independent film distribution statistics, visit the blog Independent Films by the Numbers, where resident cruncher, Matt Syrett, weighs in on some solid strategies for marketing and exhibiting your film to its best advantage–impress your friends and neighbors by whipping out those bar charts.
I always check in with the Cinephiliac to read a heartwarming yarn about Aaron Hillis’ latest adventures in film journalism-land.
Also love visiting Blank Screen–check out their great interview with Cartune Xprez, a curatorial project for animated videos and multimedia performances.
The latest Westchester-based Burns Film Center newsletter reports that Janet Maslin will be talking to artist and film director, Julian Schnabel, after a screening of his beautiful The Diving Bell and the Butterfly on Thursday, November 29. Maslin will also host a chat with graphic novelist/filmmaker Marjane Satrapi, director of Persepolis, after it screens there on Thursday, December 13.
And then there are my friends over at UnionDocs, hosts of the Documentary Bodega series. Their blog is maintained by program director, Christopher Allen and the eight resident curators and producers that use the large house on Union Avenue in Williamsburg as both living and work space for their film, photography, art, music and media projects. This is a unique arts collaborative where the visiting residents live and work for one year, usually while pursuing advanced degrees. Take a visit out there on a Sunday evening and get involved. One of the current residents, Hillevi Loven, an MFA candidate in Integrated Media Arts at Hunter College is working on a project on Christian hardcore/metal culture (hmm). She says that, “UDRP offers a growing community. I wanted to build a center for creative exchange and dialogue between media artists. I have always longed for a chance to create a presentation/exhibition space.” If you’re looking for a cool place to have a screening for your film, get in touch with the curators over there.
Dziga Vertov’s 1929 silent Soviet classic The Man With a Movie Camera has outlived the grand majority of films from its epoch to become a staple of film schools and retrospectives, a landmark of personal/political documentary and even a kind of style guide for avant garde filmmaking and design. Now, British artist Perry Bard is putting together a “global remake” of the film, to screen at the UK Big Screen touring film festival in 2007-2008.
Bard is using his website to solicit collaborations from around the world. He’s posted every scene from the film, as well as thumbnails representing each scene’s beginning, middle and end. The basic idea is to have volunteers pick a scene from the original to re-interpret by creating their own footage. Within those parameters, Bard is encouraging experimentation:
Use what you have at your disposal. If you don\’t have a video camera, a succession of still images will work. Text is also o.k. The database will reflect the shape of the wired world on the 21st century stage…Vertov\’s footage was shot in the industrial landscape of the 20\’s. What images translate the world today? e.g. instead of the mining scene if you\’re living in Silicon Valley you might film inside Apple headquarters, etc.
This approach makes a lot of sense. Not only was the original Movie Camera a love letter of sorts to collaborative labor, but as a one-man movie studio using a prosumer technology to document his vision of the world, Vertov sort of prefigured the YouTube generation by about 85 years.
If you’d like to participate, all the relevant info can be found here. Bard says he’ll start accepting submissions in August, but you’re advised to keep it clean–he reserves the right to “eliminate inappropriate material.”
A few artists set out to make a small difference in a forgotten neighborhood in the third ward of Houston, TX. The results are huge. Paul talks to Andrew Garrison about his documentary of this story, Third Ward, TX.
Our own Rick DeVos, Spout’s fearless leader, was interviewed and quoted in an Austin Chronicle article yesterday. The article, “The Future of Film on the Web,” talks about the overwhelming sea of content on the web, and how “The old days of a Web campaign for a film attracting audiences on novelty alone are over. …Instead, filmmakers are finding success in reaching out to online communities….”
Communities build excitement around discovering and sharing something with others, the article asserts, which is what filmmakers need to do today to make their movie stand out. This, of course, is where Spout comes in. Here’s part of what Rick has to say:
For Rick DeVos, founder and CEO of film community Spout.com, that’s where Hollywood goes wrong. “They think of community as, oh, I’ll put a message board on my Web site, and that’s building a community around this film. It’s much deeper and more complicated than that.”
Spout is a community first, a commercial entity second, and it’s powered by connections. “We’ve stolen liberally from Malcolm Gladwell’s ideas around the tipping point,” DeVos explains. “We think of our users as three components: You have the casual film consumer; you have the maven, the passionate film fan, the connector who’s tagging and blogging like crazy; and the filmmaker. We think of the maven as the way of connecting the consumer and the filmmaker. They’re a trusted voice in this sea of content.”
Food is such a universal gathering mechanism. So are bonfires. We had both last weekend, which attracted about 20 of our friends and a good handful of their kids. It reminded me why community–coming together around common needs and loves–is so important.
The occasion was nothing more than a welcoming of fall. Six friends brought their special-recipe chili, and others brought corn bread, really amazing desserts, and plenty of beer. We had a regular chili cook-off and even voted and gave out prizes. Then we all migrated to the bonfire out back, where we sat around telling stories while the kids ran in and out of the warm house and cold night wearing dress-up clothes. It was just what I needed on so many levels.
But, before I go any further with this, I want to recognize the danger of trying to celebrate community without romanticizing it and making a good number of people roll their eyes. I realize my own little idyllic domestic scene isn’t going to warm the cockles of your heart, so I won\’t bore you with any more details.
I do think, though, that whatever was at the heart of my little party Saturday night is at the heart of what warms us all. Not the chili and the fire as much as the desire to share something with others. It translates to so many types of moments. I’ve gotten glimpses of this at film festivals, and I certainly felt it during Spout’s 51 Birch Street event and outside on the sidewalk afterwards (here’s a podcast of that conversation, in case you missed it). It can even be apparent as you walk down a busy sidewalk with strangers during winter’s first big snow. You don’t necessarily interact but you’re somehow connected.
What I think we want, as humans, is to experience something–whether it’s the mood of a conversation around the fire or the mood of a powerful film–then look around at the people who have experienced it with us, sharing a moment with them to remind us we are not alone.
There’s a lot of excitement around the Spout offices today, as we watch the tickets sell for our first community film-watching event, tonight. We’ll be watching 51 Birch Street, a documentary by Doug Block about his parents’ marriage and the general mystery we call “family.” After the screening, we’ll host an online Q & A time with the director, then we’ll get as many people as possible to head over to our favorite local joint, The Cottage Bar, for some beer and continued discussion. (After tonight we’ll continue the discussion in a conversation group on spout.com)
The fact that we’re handing out drink discounts for the Cottage should help get a crowd to participate in the follow up. But from what I’ve heard about the film, I think people will feel compelled to be together and have opportunities to talk about the issues the film presents. That’s ultimately what’s exciting to me about this event, and about film festivals and any community film watching experience, really: the possibility to connect with others and parts of ourselves in new ways, around ideas sparked by films. And that’s why we’re testing this event–to find out how we can help individuals anywhere put together an event like this. We’ll let you know how it goes.
We spent our last morning in Portland wandering around the “largest independent new and used book store in the world,” Powell’s. I’ve been before, but it never ceases to amaze me. Three rambling floors of books covering an entire city block. Probably my favorite thing about the store, besides the ability to browse shelves upon shelves of books on even the most obscure topics, is the unorthodox practice Powell’s is famous for: shelving new and used books side-by-side. It’s so brilliant (and they’ve been doing it this way since 1979).
But what I was thinking about after this book-lovers orgy (while eating brunch at the very delicious Genie’s) is how Powell’s is such an anomaly in the word of on-line versus off-line retailers and independents versus big chains. Powell’s has a very successful dot com (started before Amazon, incidentally) but I want to set that aside for a moment and just look at the Burnside Street store. We’ve been conditioned to go on line if we want inventory and selection, and go to a real-life store if we want an “experience” within a community. Powell’s manages to do both at once (and I’m still trying to get my head around how the Long Tail theory fits into all of this). It’s so successful, even amidst the chains, because of its huge selection, knowledgeable and friendly staffers ready to share everything they know, and plenty of in-store events that make you feel a part of a crazy-book-lovin’ community. You leave with your books, and a story to tell–an experience.
Are there any parallels in the world of film and DVDs? A way to get the films you really want–to not be limited–yet to have an experience within a community? What’s the ideal model for theaters or DVD rental stores? Can an “experience” be created for on line consumers? (Obviously Spout thinks so…)
Greetings from Portland, the city that apparently has more movie theater seats per capita than any other city in the country. My man Jason and I are out here visiting my brother, Bill, who is a huge film lover–6-foot-4, to be exact (so sorry for the bad pun). For people who are into great community film-watching experiences, this seems to be the place to live. Not only are there theaters all over the city keeping up with the first-run pace of much larger cities like New York and LA, there are several alternative theater experiences to take advantage of. Personally, I’m much more excited about these than I am about catching a new film now that will hit my local art theater back home two or three months later. I can wait. What I can’t do back home is drink a good microbrew while I’m enjoying an affordable, well-chosen film in a community setting (ie: not my livingroom).
Take the Laurelhurst Theater. This movie theater landmark since 1923 shows second runs and classics on four screens for $3 a show, while you fill up on pizza and wash it down with microbrews. The McMenamin brothers have also made a huge name for themselves in Portland, by refurbishing historic buildings, showing $3 films, and serving exceptionally delicious pub grub and their own micro-brewed beers. They have four theater locations, including one in an old elementary school. And get this: The Academy Theater not only has “real” food, beer and wine, it also offers inexpensive babysitting on site! A complete date at an affordable price–what a novel concept!
So all of us not from Portland (or Austin or the few other places in the country that have their theater groove on) are thinking “Of course! That’s the way to see films! That’s the way to keep historic theaters as theaters, and to repurpose other great old buildings into film destinations rather than driving film-lovers all out to the suburbs!” If we’re all thinking that, where are the McMenamins of Indianapolis and Pittsburgh and Louisville? When will every other place jump on the train? Are the rest of us really not cool enough to support these kinds of theaters in small and mid-sized cities across the map?
Some movies are violent, some are disturbing, and others are just plain wrong. Paul W. S. Anderson’s Death Race is a fun ride with some gnarly crashes, but it can’t hold a candle to its demented predecessor, Roger Corman’s Death Race 2000 (1975).
Cinema’s favorite weirdo, Cripsin Glover, is taking his film across the country, personally [...]
Skype sponsored a panel at Cannes today called “Buzz Builders,” and it featured a number of Friends of SpoutBlog: Alison Willmore, Michael Jones, Eugene Hernandez and, via the sponsor’s internet based calling system, David Poland. Poland used the panel to announce that he’ll “be very surprised” if “The Hollywood Reporter is still [around] three years from now.” Jeff Wells’ commenters used the opportunity to make cracks at Poland’s track record with predictions.
