Cynematik • Cyndi Greening

One of the great things about teaching is that one gets to open the door for students and then watch what they do with their learning. Check out a student who has learned to be an excellent photographer, videographer, digital editor, and filmmaker. Mike Montesa has a great blog that is crammed with great images.

The MCC Film Blog looks like it’s going to pick back up again. We’ve got another class starting so there should be a flurry of posting on that group blog.

Finally, on eBay, I recently purchased a full set of Sundance Film Festival Catalogs for the last 18 years. I’m planning on putting up a compendium of information about who started at Sundance. You might want to watch for that.

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“One reason I don’t drink is that I want to know when I am having a good time.”
    Nancy Astor (1879 - 1964)
    British Politician

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Since I was at the film festival, I’ve been crazy busy while Liz Levy has been finding all sorts of great info. Get thee to POV and read the rest of the posts she’s put up!

From Movie Yenta via Cinemaminima comes a nice aggregate listing of script sales “from sources all over the web”. Like Liz, I still find Done Deal at scriptsales.com hard to beat. Done Deal has been around forever, they’re current and they always seem to have extra tidbits of information about the sales they list. DD also has a plethora of helpful resources for the struggling screenwriter, like agent/manager and production company listings (a veritable poor man’s Hollywood Creative Directory) and examples of commonly used forms like releases, option agreements and coverage. Highly recommended!

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“An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard only one side of the case; God has written all the books.”
    Samuel Butler (1835 - 1902)
    English Author and Composer

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While riding the shuttles at Sundance, Alec and I met Jason Calacanis, a fellow who runs a blog called Blogging Sundance. His site did a nice job of gathering all of the information about the deals and sales of Sundance 2004.

Total Number of Deals: 14
Total Disclosed Deals: 5
Total Amount of Disclosed Deals: $16m
Average Amount of Disclosed Deals: $3.2m
Total Number of Rumored Deals: 5 (November, DIG, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, Control Room, and Seducing Doctor
Lewis).

Hollywood Reporter *
IndieWire.com **
Reuters ***

Fox Searchlight: 2 deals, $4.5m
Sony Classics: 2 deals, $2m
Newmarket Films: 3 Deals (if they land Super Size Me)
Focus Features: 1 deal, $4m
Miramax: 1 deal, $2.5m
Warner Independent: 1 deal, $2m
Blockbuster’s DEJ Productions: 1 deal
Fine Line: 1 Deal
First Look: 1 deal
HBO: 1 Deal
IFC Films: 1 Deal
Lions Gate: 1 deal

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We made it back and it’s time to get back to work. I moved a copy of the Alastik blog onto my server space so I’ll have it in the archive. If you want to see our daily blogs, you can read them here on the Alastik Blog link. It contains a complete list of the Sundance 2004 winners.

One of our favorite films was the Documentary Audience Award Winner Born Into Brothels. It’s the story of nine children born to prostitutes in Calcutta who were given cameras to document their lives and learn a marketable skill. The photograph above was taken by Suchitra. Amnesty International made a calendar of their photos.

Another favorite was Matt Mahurin’s I Like Killing Flies about New York restauranteur/philosopher Kenny Shopsin and his family. Mahurin has directed numerous music videos for performers such as U2, Metallica and Tracy Chapman. His wife, Lisa Desimini, is a children’s book author and illustrator. Great people and a great film.

It was a great trip. The panels were awesome. The digital center was great. And, of course, the films were terrific. The winning film was shot with a PD150 and edited on the desktop using Final Cut Pro. It was called Down to the Bone. Nearly all of the documentaries and many of the shorts were shot and edited in miniDV format. And, the winner of the cinematography award was for November, a film starring Courtney Cox and James LeGros, that was also shot with a PD150.

We went to several Sony seminars and presentations. They now have the PD170 (a nicely improved PD150) and an amazing projector with a brilliant 100% bulb that projects progressive scan beautifully and runs almost silently. That was sweet, too.

I also met the fellow who wrote the program for Waking Life. He was a shy fellow who had a short in the festival AND had also helped Jorgen Leth and Lars von Trier with a portion of The Five Obstructions. I was really excited to see TFO while Alec was more excited for Dogville, another Lars von Trier film starring Nicole Kidman. Both were amazing.

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After much trouble with Radio Userland, slow portables and slower modems, I’ve been forced to blog at alastik.blogspot.com. Upon my return, I’ll update in this space and add more images. Sorry for the inconvenience!

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This seemed like a really good idea when I started. I wanted a complete linked list of all the Sundance films and shorts that I didn’t have to download in a PDF or go find individually. So I made one. I know why there probably isn’t one. It took quite a while!

I finally finished the list of links for the 2004 Sundance Shorts (the features were done last week). Most of the shorts and films were in the Internet Movie Database (IMDB). Only a few could not be found. The true value of IMDB Pro is the additional information you get on websites, promotional materials and production companies. Anyway, if you’re looking for the complete Sundance film lists with links they are below and will remain on the link list to the left for a long time:

Sundance Film Links

• 2004 Sundance Film Links

• 2004 Sundance Shorts Links

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“We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.”
    Anais Nin (1903 - 1977)
    U.S. Author

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I’m not there yet but the fesitval has begun and tracking the action online is easy. One of the best sources is IndieWire. Another very independent film blog is Green Cine Daily. And, there even groups like Yahoo Sundancing. My favorite trade source is The Hollywood Reporter (although lots of folks are rabid Variety readers). Entertainment Weekly often has a strong presence at the festival so their coverage is generally pretty good, too.

Fine Art Books at New York Public Library

There’s an incredible Fine Art Book exhibition at the New York Public Library. Called Ninety from the Nineties, it features some of NYPL’s rare books. (Some are quite odd looking and certainly stretch some folk’s definition of visual books. The Julie Chen book I’ve wanted for years is on display!

I’m getting lots of Sundance related hits to the site. Surprisingly, Madame Chiang Kai-shek and the
Inca Khipu (or Quipu) pull tons of ongoing interest. How surprising is that? It sure surprises me!

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“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”
    Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860)
    German Philosopher

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I bought a 2001 Sundance Parka on eBay and it is waiting for me in Park City. (Yes, I pasted my face over Bob’s face.) I checked the forecast at ParkCity.Com and it looks like it will be nice to have something warm! High temperatures seem to be in the mid-20s this week, moving into the low-30s next week (with a chance of snow … always an interesting challenge to wait for movies in the snow … if only I were a skier)!

Initially, I was horribly disappointed when I discovered the Directors on Digital Panel was on Sunday the 18th, three days prior to my arrival. Then I realized Monday was MLK Day (school closed), so I decided to go up early for the panel. The panels are ALWAYS great.

That decision led me to sign up for another terrific panel discussion by Commissioning Editors and several Hands-On Workshops at the Digital Center. At the Writer’s Lodge, John Sayles is going to give a presentation on Tuesday. I have LOVED, LOVED, LOVED John Sayles films forever. So that should be amazing, too.

The only bad thing is that all of the lodging was gone or astronomical by the time I made the decision so we have to drive back down to Salt Lake City the first two nights to stay in an airport hotel. Guess it will make me appreciate the other so much more.

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“In spite of the cost of living, it’s still popular.”
    Laurence J. Peter (1919 - 1988)
    U.S. Educator and Writer

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Another semester begins at Mesa Community College. Our annual convocation was today. The speaker discussed learning and brain research. Next week, we spend the week getting students enrolled and classes finalized. Then, the 16-week sprint to graduation.

This semester, we’re adding Digital Filmmaking and Digital Editing courses at Mesa Community College. By next fall, we hope to have Associate Degrees in both the areas. All the years at Sundance really feel like they’re paying off, now. As an educator, I’ve always been so far ahead of the curve in the area of digital filmmaking. I’ve been wanting to teach it since the early 90’s but no one was interested.

This trip, I’ll be going to presentations by Sony on the HDCam, DV Cam and IMX Videocams. I’m also going to catch the Panavision presentation on post production. Every year I learn so much and this year I get to bring it back to campus in a very real way!

It’s hard to believe this all started way back in 1981 when I attended the University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire (for the second time, dropped out as a freshman in 1976) and discovered how much I loved Media Arts and Telecommunications. For decades I’ve been all about telling independent, non-traditional stories. I love filmmaking, television production and expressing a personal point of view about meaningful topics. Finally, the education market is catching up. Students now come in asking about digital editing and filmmaking careers. Many filmgoers want something other than the “traditional Hollywood fare.” Guess I was just a little ahead of the curve.

As they say in the Valley, “Whatever.” I’m just glad I’m finally getting to do what I love and share it with students. It almost makes it worth all of the grief of trying to create curriculum and (more importantly) get it approved. It is so much harder than I ever understood.

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These are the films we selected using our daytimer pass. There are a few premieres, panels and discussions we also hope to attend. I’ll post these later. Unfortunately, the SERVER is down so it hasn’t been possible to order tickets yet today.

Wednesday

Born into Brothels; Documentary, Holiday III
DIG!; Documentary, Holiday IV
Shorts IV (Revelations); Shorts Program, Prospector
The Best Thief in the World; Dramatic, Library

Thursday

Shorts II (Deviants); Shorts Program, Yarrow
Napoleon Dynamite; Dramatic, Eccles
Shorts V (Looking for Love); Shorts Program, Prospector
Maria Full of Grace; Dramatic, Library

Friday

Control Room; Spectrum, Holiday III
November; Dramatic, Eccles
Dogville; Special, Eccles
The Woodsman; Dramatic, Library

Saturday

Shorts I (Hidden Foes); Shorts Program, Prospector
Five Obstructions; Special, Library

Sunday

Winner, Dramatic Directing; Eccles
Winner, Documentary; Eccles
Winner, Dramatic; Eccles

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