» Posts Tagged ‘documentary’
In conjunction with General Electric and Cinelan, Vimeo has launched a new short documentary series entitled Focus Forward, and they’re opening the series up for submissions. There’s a $100k Grand Prize at stake — along with a premiere at next year’s Sundance — as well as an additional $100k in prizes. The details: More »
'PressPausePlay' is a Free and Timely Feature Film on Art and Technology
PressPausePlay is a feature-length documentary on “hope, fear, and digital culture” that has been making the festival rounds for a while and is now available gratis on the internet. It’s highly recommended viewing at any price — you can buy it for $14.99 on iTunes or rent it for $3.99 on Amazon
Disney has released a 25-minute documentary following Pixar chief/director John Lasseter over the course of a day of work. I know, I know, this isn’t DIY/indie film at all, but come on… everyone loves Pixar. Except maybe the Cars movies, for which this is being released as a promo — the Cars films are, for me at least, a tad crass with their commercialism. And while the first part of the doc is mostly focused on Lasseter’s personal life, it does get into the group movie making/creative process at Pixar — which includes reviewing shots on an iPad on the way to work in what looks to be a custom Pixar app (note: driver required). I found it to be an interesting look behind-the-scenes, but if you only interested DIY filmmaking, feel free to skip this free 25-minute documentary: More »
In addition to the baby brother to the F3, the NEX-FS100, Sony has also officially announced the HXR-NX70, a rain- and dust-proof camera with 1080p/60p capabilities, a built-in GPS, and 96 gigabytes of built-in flash memory. In conjunction with the weatherproofing and long recording times (up to 40 hours to internal memory), a 26mm-equivalent wide-angle 10X zoom lens should make this camera great for shooting documentaries. Here’s an overview of the $3,200 (list) camcorder: More »
The Economist has teamed with PBS NewsHour to create The Economist Film Project, an open call for feature-length documentaries (40-90 minutes) and shorts (6-40 minutes) shot in the past five years. They’re planning on featuring three docs every month (focusing on, but not limited to, stories pertaining to current events), offering exposure and distribution in lieu of prize money or other rewards. Here’s their call for entries: More »
For every filmmaker I know who is a social media maven, there are at least two who are skeptical about Twittering and Facebooking their projects into existence (or at least, into popularity). I think it’s a common misperception that using Twitter and Facebook somehow comes at the expense of the actual filmmaking part of… well, filmmaking. I myself was a late adopter of Twitter (follow me here), and I understand the line of thought that goes into being a social media luddite. But the fact is, to reach an audience a hundred years ago, you would literally have to get out a soapbox and stand on it to shout at people passing by on the street. Now there are instantaneous, free tools of mass communication and some are worried that these tools are more trouble than they’re worth? In this light, Mashable has a nice story that rounds up many options for how social media has changed the game for (documentary) filmmaking, and it goes beyond just Twitter and Facebook: More »
Prison Valley is an interesting French documentary/interactive experience that examines Canon City, Colorado — home to 13 prisons, one of which is the first Supermax prison (widely considered to be the new “Alcatraz”). The web doc consists of brief filmed segments interspersed with interactive sequences, and offers a glimpse at where documentary film may be headed in the online space. Unfortunately it seems that I can’t embed a sequence, so here’s the blurb: More »
To me, it’s one of the most important American stories to come out of the post-9/11 war on terrorism. It’s currently playing in New York and Los Angeles, and will be opening wide September 3rd. It’s a fascinating, tragic, true story that you simply couldn’t write — and it’s well-told by director Amir Bar-Lev (My Could Could Paint That). I’m talking about the first feature-length documentary on Pat Tillman, who famously gave up a multimillion-dollar NFL contract to join the military, only to be killed in Afghanistan by friendly fire (not, as was initially reported, by Taliban soldiers). But after watching the film, I couldn’t help but wonder: does The Tillman Story bury the lede? More »
6½ questions with: Lynn True & Nelson Walker
Lynn True, Nelson Walker, and Tsering Perlo’s documentary Summer Pasture premiered at this year’s Full Frame Film Festival, where it received a Full Frame Inspiration Award Honorable Mention. Summer Pasture takes place in the Kham region of Tibet, where nomads have lived off the land for 4,000 years — but many nomads today find themselves at a crossroads of tradition and modernity.
Among a hundred other documentaries and dozens of premieres, Summer Pasture jumped out at me because of the dedicated and principled filmmaking on display — not to mention the gorgeous cinematography, which was achieved without the support of a grip truck and an electrical department but rather by living in the field and grabbing shots opportunistically while putting to use solar-powered battery chargers. The film addresses timely global issues of rural self-subsistence living versus urban wage labor, and despite the faraway setting, Summer Pasture addresses universal themes through its depiction of the young couple at the heart of the film, Locho and Yama. Here’s the trailer; my interview with directors Lynn True and Nelson Walker follows. More »
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