This Savage Art

Ever once in a while I write a post to get people to see a film I deem worthy of accolades — take that for what it’s worth. This is one of those posts. I saw Ballast at the recent New Directors/New Films series at Lincoln Center and thought the film was a beautifully grounded look at the lives of a fragmented family living in stressful times on the Mississippi Delta. As part of a new self-distribution model the Thursday night 8:00 screening is part of the IFP’s First Weekend Series. With the purchase of a $25 ticket you get the screening, a Q&A with filmmaker Lance Hammer and an after party with the filmmaker and NYC’s film community. You will truly be supporting a film that deserves it so check it out.

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September 14th-19th kicks off the meeting of the minds in independent film. I will only be attending this Sunday of the Conference which in my opinion looks like the better day to go.  Panels. Networking. You know the deal. A good week to get reenergized and bump into some old friends and hopefully make some new ones. The schedule can be viewed here. Anyone going? Drop me an e-mail.

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If you’re in the city this weekend and want to see what looks like a very inside view of the American male in the midst of an emotional tailspin, check out Momma’s Man from filmmaker Azazel Jacobs, it opened yesterday at the Angelica. Here’s a snippet from Karina Longworth’s review on SpoutBlog:

When a filmmaker casts his own parents as parents––in a film about an adult and his relationship to his parents upon returning to his childhood home, a film which said filmmaker shoots *in* his childhood home––you’d expect (or maybe fear) that the result would be meta-personal to the point of solipsism. But what’s really surprising about Azazel Jacob’s Momma’s Man, which stars his experimental filmmaker father Ken Jacobs and mother Flo Jacobs and was shot in the Manhattan loft in which the family has lived for decades, is that it feels completely universal. The story of a 30-something husband and father of a newborn who extends a stay at his parents’ ramshackle New York apartment indefinitely, it’s an incredible portrait of the final phase of coming of age, the transition from being parented to parenting.

I couldn’t wait to see this when Linda was on the verge of giving birth to the boy because, well, it described everything I was going through at the time in a little capsule. The panic, the responsibly, the desire to crawl back into the womb myself. I’m going to try and check it out next week myself but all of you should give this film a little weekend box office love. Check the trailer:

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The above video is a gleaming example of what can be done with very little. It is an impressive looking short film called White Red Panic from Ayz Waraich and it shows us we don’t need all the bells and whistles equipment-wise to make something that visually stimulates. This is desktop filmmaking shot with a Canon HV20. A tiny kick around HD camera that goes for under a grand [the new replacement model is the HV30.] Yes, you heard me right. 1080p24 for under $1,000. The film itself is a simple sequence but you can see how far color correction can take you if you do your homework. I own the HV20 myself and I’ve shot a few things around the apartment but I can’t wait to beat this thing into submission and get some serious images. I’m planning on the next short film to be shot with this camera.

I first found out about this film and the camera through Stu Manschwitz’s ProLost site. He’s kind of a digital DIY guru of sorts that has an excellent book that informs and educates and I highly recommend it. He’s also one of the founders of The Orphanage and chief creator of Magic Bullet Looks. The film, the site and the book might be the boost you need to get you to sharpen your skills and get you excited about creating again. Remember what I said, a $1,000 camera.

We are moving into a new phase of independent filmmaking, beyond the crappy looking mini-dv cameras of just five years ago. Don’t get me wrong, use what you have. It’s not about the tools. It’s about the vision and ultimately, the story. HD isn’t everything and not everything needs to be HD but the options are there and at an extremely affordable price and with some ingenuity all things are possible.

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[The following is an orphaned mini-review that I dug up from my draft archives. I thought it was relevant considering the recent changes in the film's distribution plan.]

At first glance director Lance Hammer’s debut film Ballast can easily be dismissed as a poverty level dirge of depression and bad luck for a lonely group of people who live on the Mississippi Delta. That would be a mistake. It’s more like a slow burn meditation on what it takes to survive when all life has given you is nothing in return for a life of suffering. It is the story of a fragmented family of three who try to figure out what will happen next after another member commits suicide. Immediate and pulsing with a Southern Gothic bloodline, the film deliberately ramps up into the desperate but dignified circumstances of this small collection of characters. The flat tone resembles the flat landscape but is never dull. Post-screening Hammer described his editing technique for this film as “using the moments in between” but he could have easily been speaking about his characters lives who seem to all too easily slip through the cracks.

Recent film news reveals that Hammer will look to go it alone when it comes to distribution and film rights.

Hammer says conventional distribution advances for a small film like “Ballast” range between $25,000-$50,000. “If you made a $50,000 project, that makes sense,” Hammer said. “If you happen to spend more money than that, it becomes difficult to justify giving up creative control.

After reading the news of the coming apocalypse for independent films it’s good to see an example of a filmmaker controlling his own destiny.

Related: For more inspiration read the interview with Lance Hammer at The Filmlot.

[...]

Ballast screened Sunday, March 30th at the 2008 New Directors/New Films series for the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

This post can also be seen at Big Screen Little Screen where I’m guest blogging.

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Forget the three picture deal. Fuck it. No really, fuck it.

After reading the sobering post from Jonathan Marlow They Didn’t Build Their Sales Model For You and its follow-up about film festivals and the state of distribution for the independent filmmaker on GreenCine Daily [Hands down one of the best film sites on the interweb. Thank you David Hudson] I had to come out of my recent sleep deprived dormancy. Like a cold pail of ice water in our faces Marlow sets a bleak and hopeful tone at the same time. I don’t say that in a casual way. It’s tough out there as we all scramble to figure out how to get our films into the right hands. The old models are broken. The long road of getting a film made, distributed and seen can seem longer. The glut of product seems endless. A filmmaker can no longer just make the film. He or she needs to be a technically proficient magician. A multi-tasking machine in all areas of business and marketing too and it still guarantees nothing but begs the question; is this really the best way to make a film outside the studio system or the only way? Great marketing ploy but shitty film?

Truth is empowering. Knowing what is really going on behind the scenes can save filmmakers a lot of time and anguish and give them the ability to utilize their resources more wisely. But the prospect of democratizing the process is over. We have arrived. We have technology on our side and have had it for close to eight years now. The Long Tail theory is relevant but it now needs to be reegineered for the independent filmmaker.

The truth can also be depressing. Hearing the stories of other filmmakers grinding it out on the front lines and coming up empty handed with orphaned projects can make even the die hard weary. We’ve all been there. We all have our stories. And yet we still do it because we have a passion for telling stories.

The good news is there will eventually be a venue for all of us. The tide is turning so just hold on. Changes are being made to get those gems off the shelf and out to an audience. I think now more than ever marks a real departure from what was and what will have to be to survive and thrive as a filmmaker. I’m a firm believer in cutting out the middle man if you can. By harnessing the internet to get your work out their I think individuals can bypass the taste makers altogether and deliver right to an audience. Of course I would love to see my films on the biggest screen possible but I would rather build an audience and skill set so I’m ready if that day comes. I’m also a believer in a Darwinian process for art. If that film is meant to be seen, it will be seen. The only problem with that is in the real world when it comes to a David vs Goliath face-off guess who is going to win? The one who is still paying off credit cards from three years ago to finance their last film or the one with a million dollar marketing budget. Who stands a chance? It’s true every once in a while a smaller film slips through and gains critical attention and box office numbers but do you really want to invest time, money and blood in possibly being that one? Maybe? What are our choices though?

Definitely food for thought. If you are a filmmaker or involved with film in any way and haven’t read those two posts I strongly recommend you do. Be sure to read the follow up comments too.

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I submitted my screenplay Dyre Avenue to the Emerging Narrative section of Independent Film Week on Thursday. It’s billed as an event for “writers and writer/directors seeking producers.” Guess that’s me.

I’ve been frustrated by competitions and contests in the past even when I’ve gotten good feedback. I think you get to a point where you just need to move on and create new work which I’ve done but for some reason I thought I would give this a shot. I’ll probably attend the week as a participant at the Conference like I did last year. It’s a good way to make new connections and catch up with some old ones. It’s like a battery recharge.

If I was going with a selected screenplay this year, well, that’s a whole other story. Maybe it will be the boost I need. Just maybe. Let’s leave it at that.

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Technology has upended everything from the music industry to shopping to how we get our news. Why should film festivals be any different? Scott Kirsner has a post announcing the first feature film, The Cult Of Sincerity, to debut on YouTube. That’s quite a feat and definitely raises some serious questions for any filmmaker creating content nowadays. New rules, more options, different workflows.

The film’s producers chose to just bypass the whole accept/reject process of the film festival and offer it up to whoever wants it for free. As compensation they will earn money if viewers sign up for a music service for a fee in order to watch the film online. It’s not the first film to set up this kind of structure but it’s obvious the distribution model is going in a different direction. One of the key questions that comes up is; will your film play better on the internet? Meaning, will it find its audience from online viewers versus a theatrical release? If you have a twenty-something post-college comedy [far from a new concept] like this one, your demographic is already sitting in the theater, their laptops. If you have an oddly sweeping, landscaped epic shot with anamorphic lenses on 35mm, maybe not.

Either way it seems that this new process of cutting out the festival middle man might have a serious trickle down effect. There are so many festivals right now, too many to even count [Okay, I'll look it up. Around 4,000 worldwide. Source: FilmFestivals.com.] Will online festivals and distribution put a crimp in real world film festival attendance? It seems that if festivals aren’t programming important, relevant films that need that exposure to push them into the stratosphere you might have an answer sooner than later.

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